Utah Trip, part 2: Friends

Monday: Dinner & Games with Friends

Monday was kinda chill; I spent much of the first half of the day catching up on sleep, Mc spent a lot of it reading the latest Wheel of Time book, and Baby Girl played with her cousins. Mc's oldest brother took a half-day off of work and he and his wife came over and brought their kids. Our girl had fun; her cousins played with her, and here they are checking out a scrapbook.

Her cousins are playing with her while my mother-in-law and I worked on a little scrapbook for Baby Girl; she likes the toys and playing with kids.


Mc's sister came over as well and she played Munchkin with some of the guys. Before we left for dinner she finally got to hold Baby Girl without her crying. Actually, here it kinda looks like she's about to cry. I think part of what helped her not cry was the necklace Aunt B was wearing.


Dinner was at the Rodizio Grill in American Fork. Blitzen and Blondie dropped off their kids with Blondie's sister for the night and we all went to dinner along with two of our other friends (I'll call them Mr. and Mrs. P) and their little boy. Our kids met for the first time and they got along well. He was really excited.

We just had to be sure Baby girl kept her fingers away from their son's mouth; he's got a full set of teeth and sometimes he chomps down too hard. He's such a cute kid; a clone of his dad for sure.

There was a lot of food there that I didn't think I should try and that just didn't sound appetizing (because I'm pregnant, not because it wasn't good), but I loved, loved the ham and one of the salad bar's pasta dishes. Everyone loved the meat, the salad bar was okay, but our server wasn't good. We were there for over an hour and she came to our table about 3 times, including when she brought us our check. Even as customers were leaving the restaurant and we were one of two tables left, she still didn't come over to see how we were doing. They give each table a little wooden hourglass-shaped thing that you put on its side when you're ready for dessert, and she didn't look for it at all; we had to ask her for our dessert. Ah well; it was nice visiting with friends, and the food was worth it.

Both Mr. and Mrs. P had to work in the morning so they couldn't come over to play games, so it was us and Blitzen and Blondie. Baby Girl was so comfortable with Blitzen, it was incredible. He's got some kind of magic touch with kids.


We played Small World and I won by one coin! We then played Boggle for a couple of hours. Mc won of course, he always wins at Boggle and most other word games; but Boggle is one of those games I like playing even though I know my hubby will win. It's fun to see what words I can find that no one else does. Around 3 AM or so Blondie was getting too tired to focus so we called it a night. The next morning I slept a lot and so did Baby Girl, so Mc and Blitzen and Blondie just talked for a few hours. Good times.

Tuesday: Professional Pictures

Our sister-in-law is in a short dance video about a real-life couple and the wife's battle with Alzheimer's disease. They had a very short window in which to raise the money and to produce the video. She posted a few times on her Facebook status that they needed help with donations to make it happen. I showed the posts to Mc and we took a look at the website and the project description and how much they needed. They had 20% of the money they needed and only 2 days to raise the rest; it didn't look like it was going to happen. I asked Mc if we had some extra money we could put toward their project and he said we did. Mc then suggested that we could pay for the other 80% to make sure it could happen for them. We both have a love for dance, and our sister-in-law is family and she's making a career out of dance, which I think is awesome! She was to be the main female dancer in this video, and I could tell this meant a lot to her. So I thought about it and said sure. Their project was now funded and the filming was able to take place this past week. So now Mc and I are "executive producers" of a small film; kinda neat. :)

One of the "perks" for donating a certain amount was we get some professional pictures taken of our family by the director who also majored in film. I was excited because I knew these would turn out well. We went over to Rock Canyon in Provo for the pictures, which was a beautiful location. Baby Girl was great for the most part, and except for the breeze blowing our hair around I think the pictures turned out well. The photographer was professional and patient and had some good ideas for backgrounds and poses and such, and the few pictures he showed me from the digital camera looked really nice.

After the pictures we went over to Mr. and Mrs. P's house so Mc could play games with Blitzen and Mr. P. It was fun; I chatted with Mrs. P, and Baby Girl and their son played with some balloon animals that Mrs. P made for them. I didn't get any good pictures because the kids were too squirmy, but Blitzen held Baby Girl a lot and of course she was fine with it.

Wednesday: We Depart

I was still very tired; didn't fully catch up on my sleep when I was in Utah, but we got ready to leave around noon. Baby Girl FINALLY warmed up to Nana (Mc's mother), and Nana was happy.

Jade is being a good dog. I was eating in the kitchen and Jade was doing her begging thing, so Papy (Mc's step-father) told her to come to him and I pointed to Papy and told Jade firmly "Go" and she went. Good dog; she's giving the humans their space when they demand it.

The trip back to Arizona was uneventful, but the drive was incredible. We drove through the desert, through some amazing forests, and along the bottom edge of some cliffs. If you love a scenic drive, take the US-89A from Arizona to Utah. I believe that's the road you take to get to the Grand Canyon anyway, so it's a worthwhile drive.

Well, that was our trip to Utah. Quite enjoyable. It was good to see family and friends, and I'm glad Baby girl finally got to meet Mc's side of the family... even though it'll take her some time to get used to most of them. ;-)