The Patton Family: Traveling......

In August we took a last minute and unexpected trip to Jackson, WY.

Patrick's dad suddenly got very sick and it was very scary how close we came to loosing him. He almost died from Spinal Meningitis and Sepsis (blood infection). It's quite impressive that his dad is still alive. He was literally minutes away from death when he was found by his neighbor and taken by ambulance to the hospital. To look back at the events and how they all played out, you can't help but see the Lord's hand in it all. Guiding, protecting, and comforting our family and the Doctor's and therapist that were helping his Dad over the weeks he was in the hospital and the weeks since he has been home. Many many prayers were said in my Father in Law's behalf and thankfully they were answered and he is recovering and doing pretty well.

So we decided we needed to go up and be with our family up in Jackson for a few days and give Grandpa Patton a big hug. So we all packed into the van and headed north!

(By the way, this was our first trip in the van, and dang! It was much nicer then cramming all of us into our little car.)

We tried to make this little trip as fun as possible, considering the circumstances. And also we weren't sure how long Patrick's back would hold up on that long of a drive so we made lots of stops. The first stop was in Payson to visit Uncle Tom and Aunt Leah. As soon as we got there, Uncle Tom took the boys out to feed the chickens and help put them away for the night. The boys loved it!

They helped get the eggs from the chickens and then got to hold some of the baby chicks. Landon didn't want to hold one, but he loved looking at and chasing them!

Conner wasn't too sure about having it on his shoulder and neither was the chick, it didn't want to stay on his shoulder.

Conner, who has no fear, loved holding, touching, and chasing the chickens. He wanted to name this one "Pecker" and I tried to tell him that probably wasn't the greatest name for him, but he wouldn't listen, so this poor chicken has a crude slang term for a name. Nice. I guess you can only laugh at the innocence of a little kid!

Brayden wasn't too hip to the idea of touching the chicks and possiblly having them poop in his hand, so he didn't hold them for too long, but he did like seeing them and feeling how soft their feathers were.

And as for Colonel Sanders on the chicken coup, well I guess you would just need to understand Uncle Tom's sense of humor. But I personally find it pretty funny so I had to take a picture of the chicken with the Colonel! I love me some KFC!

Then we were off to see Provo. We went to BYU and the boys loved it! We showed them where their dad spent most of his days while attending BYU (in the Tanner Building) and we went to the bookstore to buy all the boys BYU shirts, and one of their favorite things we saw there was the stadium.

By the way, the boys were not big fans of getting their pictures taken on this day, so just ignore the weird faces they are pulling.

We walked around BYU a bit and it was fun for Patrick and I to go back and remember the spots where Brayden (as a new baby) and I would go meet him for dinner on the lawn outside the library when he would be on campus all day studying for finals and bring him dinner. Or seeing the new buildings that are now complete that were just barely under construction when we were last there. We drove past the old apartment that Patrick used to live in while we were dating and got lost several times driving around Provo. It's been a while since we were last up there!

Conner found these huge leaves and pretended they were antlers. It was kind of funny!

So naturally Landon had to do it too.

He thought he was pretty funny. I guess he was since I laughed and took his picture.

We also stopped by the Provo Temple and passed by the MTC and waved at my nephew who is somewhere among the thousands of missionaries there.

Before we left Utah and headed up to Wyoming, we stopped for lunch at one of our favorite Utah places.... Apollo Burger. (or Crown Burger, but those are all up in SLC)

It was delicious and the boys loved it!

We didn't have time on this first day to go to the BYU Creamery, so he hit that on the way home. It was just as delicious as I remember it and all the boys thought so too!

And yes, Landon is wearing the same shirt as the week before, but he went through all his clothes and all his extra clothes while on vacation, so the last few days it was just a matter of finding which clothes were LESS dirty and that was what he would wear.