Preston, Part 2

On Sunday, we got to celebrate the reason for our trip, my baby sister Madi, who used to look like this...

...and now looks like this.  (Lucky, huh?)

Madi left for the MTC today to begin her 18 month LDS mission to Porto, Portugal.  We got to hear her farewell talk in church, and celebrate with family and friends afterwards.  (My new little nephew, Kael, was blessed in church, too, and we were so excited that we got to be there for that, too!)  

And since it's the last time we'll all be together for a while, we had a family picture taken.

And we also got to imagine what we'd look like if we all had my Dad's mustache.  (And if Tom and Lance had grossly distorted heads, and Bailey had my hair.)

On Monday, we went out to Glendale reservoir.

We played on Papa's new pontoon boats...

...and those crazy Ratchford kids did tricks off the end of the dock.

After dragging the kids from the water, some of us took off in the jeep and on the 4-wheelers for a ride into the mountains.

We took turns riding in the jeep with Papa,

and on the 4-wheelers.   Can you tell by my smile that I was in my element?  I love going on jeep rides with my dad!  I am constantly amazed at what that little vehicle can climb and I love visiting with my dad and hearing stories from when he was a kid.  I have so many happy memories of mountain jeep rides, since it's something we did a lot of as a family when I was a kid.  It was so fun to share it with my kids, too.

While the boys were napping one day, I ran to IFA to get my little cowboy a surprise.

I think he must love them, he hasn't taken them off since!

Cowboy Sam and Cowgirl Iris.

Violet and Declan.

On Tuesday, some of us Becksteads went down to the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house.  It was very beautiful.

Papa and Nana.