Karen's Visit!!

These past few posts are so out of order.  which bothers me.  because I like chronology.  (and alphabetization.)  

But I'm trying not to let my need to be organized, get in the way of getting things done.  Being organized is supposed to help, right.

Obviously, I only mention this because I am bothered.

Anyway, last weekend, I had the privilege of hosting my besty from college!!  Karen!!!  We were so meant to meet up.  I can't believe how much we have in common (nerdy, mathy, ballet-loving... we even both have curly hair!), and she was a great influence on me in so many ways (I doubt I would have thought to study abroad without her putting the thought into my mind, and we got to live in Hungary together!).  Anyway, she has made the move to CA and now resides in the Googleverse there, which means it's convenient enough for her to make a quick weekend getaway to visit ME in Utah, without needing time off work!  It was so fun to see her!! (and maybe I'll sneak away next time :D)

As seems to be the custom lately, I got ZERO pictures of our shenanigans, but she took plenty of phone pics (and so did my kids...) and she was kind enough to share.  Here are a couple of my favs:

Despite having no kids of her own, she is better with kids than I am.  (Which, I guess, isn't saying much.... perhaps it would be better not to compare and just say, she is great with kids!) So much so that on Sunday night when we were putting Peach to bed, she told Karen that they could share a bed that night if she wanted to.  When Karen told her that she had to go home that night, Peach said she wanted a hug before she left and gave her a little kiss too!!  It was the cutest ever!

We had to make rolls while Karen was here.  (So I could show her what I've been "studying" since leaving school.  'Cause we are both nerdy that way and love to study.)  This is Peach making hers into a "puppy".

We did go out to dinner at a cool place on Saturday night - The Black Sheep Cafe, but mostly, we just lazed around while Karen was here.  We probably spent more time in our PJs than was proper, but we're just that close. :)

Thanks for coming Karen!!!  Next time, we can chill in the peace and quiet, by your pool and take a ballet class! :)

Kansas City, MO

My dad started an LDS church history tour company (kind of on accident, actually.  it's an interesting story, if anyone cares...) and he is very concerned with making the tours very affordable because he is just so passionate about LDS church history and wants everyone to be able to learn more about it! :)  One of the ways his company keeps the tour's costs down is by only having volunteer tour guides- other people who are as passionate about church history as my dad.  

For those of you who know about  why Jay decided to become Mormon, it is heavily related to the history and Jay is very passionate and therefore knowledgable about it as well. My dad pounced and quickly asked if he would be willing to direct a tour, several summers ago, and now he usually does two every summer.  Though the guides are not compensated with money, they are compensated by being allowed to bring someone along at no cost.  Typically, guides bring their spouse or another family member, but Jay has never done this because we have always had little kids.  (young kids + long bus rides and no playgrounds = you-know-what)  However, since we've never "cashed in" in the past, we asked if we might just get plane tickets with the group and then just visit a friend of mine from college (kinda... she went to RISD, I went to Brown) who happens to live in MO, instead of tagging along on the tour.  It all worked out and now, prepare yourselves for a lot of pictures.

Every day was packed with kid-filled activities, and nap-time and bed-time were for us- mostly spent sewing, organizing things, and chatting (3 of my favorite things!)

 We miraculously were able to squeeze 3 carseats in the back seat of her element- thanks to a friend who loaned us a slimmer one than Peach's monster.

We went to a pretty cool children's museum.  I don't have many pictures because The Frog practically ran from room to room, so excited to see and touch everything.  Since Angela's boy is even younger than Peach, after awhile she took them to the 2-and-under room (which they had to themselves) and I mostly followed The Frog in his rampage.

 Tuesday we went to a playground and then cooled off in some fountains near a shopping center.  The Frog L-O-V-E-D this.

 Peach and M... not so much.  They were more content to watch and snack.

 When it was clear we couldn't keep the youngin's from wandering to the street any longer, we packed it up (earlier than expected) and finished off at the pool where everyone had more fun.

 They had a nice little field behind their house- great to get out some of The Frog's energy (and to play with their two cute dogs which I have almost NO pictures of :( )

 The Frog was really excited to find this caterpillar.  He asked me to take it's picture before he put it in a bucket with lots of grass.

 There was a super-awesome petting zoo on the Kansas side of Kansas City (and it was FREE) that I kinda even wanted to go back to without the kids later so I could explore the nature walk part of it more.  This place was sooo big!  And sooo well thought out.

 One of my favorite parts was probably that they let you buy little bottles to feed the baby goats.  Peach loved the goats from the outside of the fence, but once we went in, they kept trying to munch on her shirt, and she was not a fan.

The Frog, feeding kids

 I couldn't believe how aggressive those goats were to get the milk!  They would literally jump all over you in hoards!

Ang & M

 Peach much preferred feeding from outside the fence.

 You could feed the ducks as well.

Peach admiring the bunnies

 They had SUCH a variety of animals- all the typical farm ones and even some owls, a bald eagle, and some bob cats!

This turkey would talk back to you if you made noise at it :)

 They had this super peaceful nature walk that I tried to make the kids go on in the stroller.  I totally felt like I was in the middle of a forest somewhere- it was quiet enough to enjoy the birds.  And they had this really cool area where they had all these enormous, hanging wind-chimes.  It sounded soooo cool.  I wanted to come back and walk the whole path on a date with Jay.

 The kids had enough after about 5 minutes though, so I turned around.

 We swam a LOT, since Ang's neighborhood had a pool.  One of our night-time sewing projects was to make towel ponchos.  Super easy and they are awesome!  I can't tell you how tired I am of trying to walk out to the car with the kids' towels constantly falling off and having to help them fix it and having filthy towels by the time we get home.  These are genius and SO simple- Walmart towel + 10" slit for their heads, and line the slit with ribbon so it doesn't fray.  I made some when I got home for my kids too. :)

 We probably went to 4 or 5 different parks while we were there as well.

 I just had to take a picture of the giant hay-rolls (do those have a name?) in the park background...

 I think the highlight for Peach was hanging out with the dogs.  Every time she woke up the first thing she asked about was where the dogs were.  Here she is with Jack (at first she was intimidated by his size, but she got used to him by the end)

 And little Jill.

 Just before leaving, we realized we never got a shot of us together, so here we are in our un-showered glory...

Thanks, Ang!! We had so much fun!  You are so generous to let us crowd out your house for a whole week.  You really know how make us feel welcome :)

Happy Birthday Mel!

Though Melissa's birthday is actually tomorrow, we had a super-fun birthday celebration at Cucina Toscana in Salt Lake. The food was really good, and the atmosphere extremely shmancy. :)

I was having too much fun to remember to take photos of all the food, but I did snap some shots of the yummy complimentary bruchetta they brought while deciding what to order.

I also barely remembered to get a shot of our chocolate mousse cake we shared (not quick enough to avoid bites being taken out though.)

It was so great to have a fun evening out with just the adults- a rare thing for me lately. Hope the birthday girl had as much fun as I did!

Happy Birthday Mel!

Bean Museum

A friend of mine from church has a little boy a few months older than The Frog and we decided we needed to do more things together, now that our boys are old enough to actually explore and play. This week we went to the BYU Bean Life Sciences Museum. I had never been and it's FREE :)

I was surprised at how The Frog actually never tried to cross the roped off areas.

The "li" is definitely The Frog's favorite specimen. He loved looking at it from the balcony above and on the ground up close.

It's hard for little bodies to only look, so I was glad they had a couple of touching exhibits too :)
Admiring the "buppo"
They had quite a few bears too.
Though O and The Frog don't actually play together much (more in parallel), they seem to get along okay, so far.
This was a favorite look-out spot.
I think the boys had a fun time, and I was amazed at how many animals they had that I had never heard of before. For being basically a bunch of taxidermy exhibits and dioramas, it was surprisingly uncreepy.

Though it would be nice to have a "live zoo" nearby, I think this "dead zoo" will be a nice, free, close, alternative. :)

Thanksgiving Spread

Before I get onto talking about the delectables, I would like to brag about how awesome my amazingly amorific husband is. On Thanksgiving, he woke up earlier than I did (I woke up at 6:30) and not only emptied the dishwasher, BUT put in the huge pile of dishes left from "the-day-before" preparations and ran those dishes AND then emptied those so that I would have a cleared counter, every possible kitchen item at my disposal, and a completely empty dishwasher. YEAH. He's just that awesome. You're the best Jay!

Thanksgiving was not typical (though I seem to have lost a sense of "typical Thanksgiving" ever since I went away to college) but turned out much better than I thought it would. Since my parents are on a mission, all my local family did Thanksgiving with the in-laws, and so I was expecting to have a huge feast for just us- as in 2.5 of us. For me, that goes against all things Thanksgiving. Luckily, my long-lost friend from 7th grade and I have recently made efforts to hang out and discovered that we were both suffering from a lack of crowd for Thanksgiving dinner. We decided to merge and it was quite lovely!

I was pleasantly surprised about how non-stressful it was. Kathryn, was oh so kind to take on a side, rolls, AND dessert, even though she was working graveyard shift the night before (unbeknownst to me. I promise). So that just left me the turkey, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, and another dessert. (I don't care how many people are there. You need at least 1 dessert for every 2 people!) At the last second I decided we needed greenery, so I threw some frozen peas in the microwave. The end product?

My favorite item would have to be the rolls. Don't worry, I got the recipe. :)


I stupidly, forgot to take pictures of the people- a common flaw of mine. And I didn't manage to get a shot of Kathryn's pumpkin cheesecake. mmmmm. BUT here are my pecan pies. Why did I make two, you ask? Because I have trouble following butter instructions in recipes. I don't know what it is, but if they don't tell you how many sticks you need, I'll probably screw it up. I accidentally put in twice the amount of butter, so had to double the recipe to save my skin. This is a bit risky, as I had never made pecan pie before, but ours turned out ok. (We gave the other one to Kathryn and her hubby, Jared. How was it Kat?) I surely had fun decorating them though! :)



And of course, I must include the cutest part of the meal. Doesn't he look adorable in his train conductor overalls?