WHAT?!?!?!?! An UPDATE???????

Well, it's only been a year or so since our last blog posting. My only excuse is that I feel like I've missed SO much that trying to catch up just felt overwhelming. So I'm NOT going to try to catch up. I'm going to start with a relatively current update, and if I get super-motivated, maybe I'll go back and add in some of the stuff that we've missed. But for now, we'll just pretend that the last year was faithfully blogged and you all know exactly everything going on in our lives up to, say, May.

So, for the past year or so, Sarah has been asking (read: BEGGING) to go to the beach. Why? Well, being the consummate collector, she really wanted seashells. And she wanted them straight from the source, not some lame craft store. Well, in December, we TRIED to go to the beach during our DC/Maryland trip, but due to insanely cold tempratures and even colder winds, our beach excursion was a bit of a failure (my eyeballs received a nice sandblasting, however).

So, in an effort to placate Sarah, we decided an end-of-the-school-year trip to the beach was in order. After much debate about the pros and cons of the zillion or so beaches that really are less than an 8 hour drive from here, we opted for Destin, Florida, on the Gulf of Mexico. We even got lucky this time: No freezing temps, No hurricane force winds, and even no nasty oil tar balls. Here's a glimpse of the fun:

This is the view from our hotel balcony out onto the gulf. Beautiful!

Sarah the Beach Bunny

Shawn and the kids at various stages of sand burial.


Ethan wasn't completely convinced he wanted to be in the water... In his defense, some of those waves got pretty darn big.



Sarah, on the other hand, LOVED being in the water.... So long as daddy was holding her securely.



Ethan escaping the waves...



Photographic proof that I WAS actually present for this vacation



While we were there, we took a dolphin sightseeing cruise. It was pretty fun, and we saw quite a few dolphins, but none close enough to get a good picture of (mostly because the dolphins were the same color as the water under cloud cover, and I couldn't tell which was which through my camera lens) Here's Shawn and the kids on the boat BEFORE we got out onto open water-- which is why they're still kind of smiling.



The entire coastline of Destin is filled with these HUGE condo/hotel monstrosities. They're kind of cool looking, but you have to wonder what this area looked like before tourism took over.



Part of our boat tour included an opportunity for the kids to "drive" the boat. Ethan looked pretty good in that captains hat.


Sarah wasn't sure she wanted to go up to drive the boat (it was rocking pretty hard). By the time she decided to go, she was the last one up there. The captain was really great to her and let her drive for a long time until she was comfortable. He even let her drive under the huge bridge (the highway). Thanks to his patience, she ultimately decided the big, scary, rocking boat was fun after all.



One of the restaurants we visited had a resident clown, Giggles. She was a lot of fun and made really cool balloon creatures for the kids. The restaurant also had a resident pirate, but we didn't get pictures with him.

So that was Destin. We had a great time getting away with just our little family, relaxing on the beach and doing pretty much whatever we felt like whenever we felt like. We definitely plan to do it again. Oh, and for the record, Sarah got LOADS of seashells.

During this past summer we had a Whitaker Family reunion which started with pictures in Provo after which we all headed down to Moab. I split the summer postings into two postings so that the Whitaker's who have already seen these pictures 100 times, can skip to the next posting for the other part of our summer.

This is a picture of the whole Whitaker Family.

This is in the Fiery Furnace in Moab. Becca leading the way. (Edit by Becca: No, Shawn, that tiny person in the front is SAM, not me :) )

Sarah just loves wearing jewelry-- especially when it glows.

This is in the window arches. That is my sister-in-law behind me. I think she is trying to fly.

While we were in Moab, we went river rafting which was a lot of fun.
Ethan just enjoying the ride.

Sarah has no idea what lies ahead.

Brenden and I were on one of the duckies the whole time.

Would you believe, Sarah actually fell asleep during part of the rafting ride!

Ethan enjoyed wearing his had backwards. That is his cousin Abbey on the left and his Aunt Marie on the right.

The kids and I enjoying the view.

Got to eat between hikes!

I think Ethan's favorite part of the Arches was the sand.

This is part of the guided tour of the fiery furnace. Sorry, the pictures aren't exactly in order.

Sarah & Ethan cooling themselves off. That is Abbey on the left.

Ethan did a good job hiking, although he spent half the time on my shoulders.

Rick, Justin, Brendon, and I went climbing after everybody else went back to the lodge.

There we are pointing to the peak where the above picture was taken.

Ethan was proud of the smiley face that his uncle Mike drew on his tummy.

Sam and Sarah were best buds.

The kids loved the sand dune arches.

So we played the Iron chef game. We split into four teams. Each team had a short time to create three dishes with any food in the lodge, but all the dishes had to feature the secret ingredient-- Jelly Bellies! Becca and Dave were the judges. They did a very good job in judging the food.

Here's Becca and Dave running the game Don't Forget the Lyrics

Sarah just happened to be on the winning team. Here she is enjoying her portion of the prize.

Nothing like nap time!

On the way back from Moab, some of us stopped at Goblin valley to climb around and play hide and seek.

Becca and (Aunt) Sarah (and little Sarah in the background)