Happy 6th Birthday Baby Kevin

After Emmy finished graduating we drove to Malad to celebrate Baby Kevin's 6th Birthday.

I made Emmy wear her cap and gown for the picture, which she reluctantly agreed to, because I wanted to remember his 6th birthday as the year his big sister graduated from college.

Graduating is exhausting...

We all love this baby so much!
I wonder what 6 year old Kevin Jr would look like.
My guess is he'd look like Kloe and Lilly.
I'd also guess, at 6, he would not like being called Baby Kevin.
He's such a big part of our family.
Our little anchor in heaven.
This morning I listened to Elder Rasband's talk Special Lessons.  The talk was first given in the April 2012 General Conference.  Elder Rasband was talking to me and my family.  I still remember what it felt like to have one of God's ministers speak directly to us.  God was aware of us and knew what we were going through.
We'll be doing more celebrating today with homemade pizza and ice cream.



The Dude Ranch was hoppin'.
We had to wait over an hour for our food and a few of us began to get a little hangry.

They serve all kinds of fries--curly, steak, waffle, tots, english chips.
We all like what we like and almost never branch out but this trip we tried the waffle fries and they are by far THE BEST of all their fries.  Rachel branched out and tried a chili bread bowl.  She loved that too.

Thanks to Kloe for getting a job so she could buy a new phone with a fancy camera.  I let her take most of the pictures.

We set up camp...or should I say parked in the driveway of the Moon Ranch for the night.

We tried to capture the beauty of the sunset over the Malad valley.
I love it here so much.

We gathered around the little table and played a game together before we all passed out.  I don't know what it's called but all you need is a pen and paper.  Rachel said it was kind of like Boggle.  We laughed and laughed.  Especially at Lilly who was a little young to play so her answers were so funny.

Kev and I woke up early Sunday morning to be on the road by 5:30 am so we could make it back for our Stake Conference meetings, cuz as you know, the Beck's don't go on vacation from God :).  I went against all my seat belt nazi beliefs and let the girls stay asleep in their beds.

I told you, graduation is exhausting.

Monday morning I dropped Em off at the Ogden airport.
We agreed not to be sad about it since I'll be in Mesa in a couple of weeks and then she'll be back in June for her birthday.
Who knew having adult kids would be so fun.

At the end of the trip it was unanimous.  Everyone LOVED the RV experience--other than it wasn't long enough.  We definitely want to do it again.  I've gotten lots of questions about the costs and such.
It ended up being about $135. a night to rent (that included the RV, miles and a few hours on the generator) but that was because it was considered the off season.  Later this month the prices really start climbing.  We got about 6 miles to the gallon so gas was just over double what it costs to drive the family truckster but I knew that would be the case so I budgeted for it.
We loved being able to hang out in the RV between graduation ceremonies and while the big kids were in the temple.  Being able to park and sleep was slick.  There was more storage than I thought there'd be.  Kevin would've liked to have slide outs because it was a little snug but overall it was great.  The only thing we wished we'd done was check the odometer before we left.  We were charged for 100 more miles than we actually went because the beginning miles were recorded wrong.
I didn't check any other RV rentals so maybe there are better deals out there but we were pretty happy with Cruise America.