The Rest...

What a blog slacker I have been these past few months! I promised Utah pictures almost a month ago and am just now delivering. I apologize to my small group of faithful readers:)

For those of you who have never traveled the west, I highly recommend it. Every time we visit I am impressed with how unique it is in comparison to the east. Here are some images of what we encountered this trip:

Park City, UT

Restaurant where J.R. enjoyed a bison burger (apparently they are very good!?)

J.R.'s mom Susan took us to the Park City Mountain Resort where we tried out the Alpine Slide, an incredibly scary-looking zip line (that turned out to be pretty tame), and a self-propelled roller coaster that almost made me lose my lunch (I will admit it was fun though)!

Although we arrived at the Olympic Village around closing time, we still had a chance to see some of the ski jumps, as well as a group doing the public bobsled run.

Park City by night...

We had dinner at an amazing little Italian restaurant at the edge of town.

Vegetarian Lasagna

After visiting with the Kotters (previous post) the next day, we made our way to J.R.'s Aunt's house for a visit. It was a beautiful day so we took a drive up to the peak.

Willard Peak, UT

 We found some hang gliders at the top.

You may just have to be a little insane to attempt this--God bless him!

 The following morning we drove up to J.R.'s Aunt's cabin. I love this gorgeous place!

Island Park, ID

Norman loves it more! He was so happy to see J.R. again too!

Up at 6am the following day for our trip into the Beartooths

Drive through Montana (by the continental divide)

Yellowstone

After driving one route that leads you through the length of the park,
we reached the main highway to our destination.

The Beartooth Mountains

Cute sign at the Top of the World store

The fish were small, but they were practically jumping onto the lures!

My incredible technique and form:)

Beartooth Highway

Can you see the "tooth" in the upper right-hand side of the picture?

We ended our day with a drive back through Yellowstone at sunset. Beeeauuutiful!!!

Norman obliged us with a small photoshoot before we left the cabin to head home...

All in all it was a great trip visiting with J.R.'s family and revisiting another part of this beautiful country!

Utah visit continued..

Never one to turn down an opportunity for a small photo session, I jumped at the chance to take pictures of the Kotter family. As you may remember, I met Selina during grad school when she was hired for a job at the MTSU business office. She and her husband, Jayson, introduced J.R. and I in 2005, and the rest is history. About a year after that we were visiting them in the hospital, meeting cute Caiden. So much has changed since we all lived in Tennessee, including a second addition to their family, youngest son, Paxton. Right away, he had me wrapped around his finger:). He is such a happy baby with one of the most infectious laughs! I spent the day with Selina and her two boys while J.R. and Jayson went on a mountain biking trip. Later that evening we drove to a park to attempt some family photos.

J.R. and I stopped by a candy shop in Park City before visiting the Kotters, and brought a treat for the boys. I am sure Selina was thrilled with us for the mess that ensued:).

As you can see in most of the pictures, by the time we made it to the park we were losing light.  I am hoping the Kotters will visit us in Texas this winter so we can try for round two, and I can redeem myself as a better photographer:). We really enjoyed hanging out with you guys and wish we lived closer!

Stay tuned for the rest of our visit to Utah...