FHE: Road trip

We drove down to Manti for FHE tonight.  It was fun driving through the Sanpete Valley.  I haven't been down that way in a while.  Kate and Erin were pretty good sports about following me around the temple while I shot photos.  We grabbed a pizza from Lotsa Motsa for dinner, but it wasn't as good as the Richfield location.  Treats consisted of Haribo gummi frogs and Doritos.

a little husband bragging

since weston won't do it here, i decided to take the reins.  he posted this to his photo blog last night and i wanted to share with my friends.

since he is too modest, and i obviously am not, here is the list of pages where he has photos:
20, 21, 33, 52, 53, 55, 58, 71, 100, and like he mentioned, the back cover.

thanks for letting me brag for a bit!

firsts

I bought these tiny little saddle shoes off Ebay the other day.  They are our newest baby girl's first pair of shoes.  I won the auction for a mere $2.50, and with shipping the came to $4.95.  Score.

girl's retreat 2010: estes park

to help celebrate cynthia's birthday this year, we all decided to treat ourselves to a weekend getaway, sans kids.

for me, it all started on a wednesday night when i said goodbye to kate and weston and drove to monroe to stay at my parents' house so my mom and i could travel to colorado together the next day.  around 5:00am, i woke up with this hot, burning pain inside my upper left ribcage.  i tried to ignore it, tried to sleep through it, tried to drink a lot of water to get rid of it - nothing worked.  after a couple of hours and some research online, i decided since, a) i was already away from my doctor and hospital and b) we were only going to be travelling further away and out of state in the next several hours, that i should just bite the bullet and go to the ER in richfield.  i'm glad i did.  they told me, after 2 1/2 hours, a urine sample, a round of baby monitoring, and a renal ultrasound, that i had a 1/4" diameter kidney stone already making its way through my ureters and that was causing the pain and i would have to suffer the passing.  ouch.  i asked for some tylenol in the hospital and they gave me a loritab and then a prescription for more, and they sent me on my way.  when my mom and i got home, i asked my dad for a blessing and then i took a shower and my mom and i were on our way.

i think i must be one of the luckiest people ever because that is where the kidney stone story ends.  i never felt another thing - thank goodness because we spent 8 hours of the day driving...

we made the rounds (quickly) and saw all of the men and the kids thursday night before we got to johanna's for the night.  friday morning, we got our move on.  we had to do a little bit of shopping for goodies and a swimsuit for me before we showed up at cynthia's door.  sarah had prepped her a tiny bit by telling her the 2 of them were going to spend the day together and to be ready at a certain time.  at the last minute, she told cynthia to pack a bag and bring anything she'd want for pampering herself.  then we all descended!

just before leaving

i think she was pretty surprised :)

we quickly headed out and had lunch at olive garden before we took off for estes park.  cynthia still didn't know where we were going, so we all had fun torturing her with that.  once she found out we were going to estes park, she was like estes park?  all of this surprising and we're going to estes park?  alex had taken her here for one of their early anniversaries and she was pregnant and very sick the entire time.  hopefully she has changed her mind a bit about estes park :)

sarah and jen had picked out our accomodations and were brilliant enough to book a room that included 2 bathrooms.  oh and of course, slept 8 and had seating for all of us, etc... but the 2 bathrooms came in the most handy, i must say :)

 here are some shots of the place

we spent friday through monday here and enjoyed relaxing (which included a lot of talking and laughing) watching chick flicks, and of course eating.

 

hanging out (in various stages of being ready) over the weekend

   

johanna and cynthia

eating included trying new restaurants (trying to steer clear of burger king and taco bell).  we had to read reviews and ask for recommendations while we were there.  sometimes we were successful, like nepal's cafe, and other times not so much, like hunter's chophouse... poor cynthia had a rough experience there that all began with getting a buffalo steak...

 

nepal's cafe

  

we played games, well we played one game ... but my team kicked the other team's butt.  we played taboo and i ran one round giving 9 winning (count 'em - NINE) clues!!!   hey, it's my blog, i can include details like that if i want to :)

 

 

we did some shopping as well, but it was cold and we were all too busy browsing and buying to take pictures.

so apparently we are doing this every year ... we'll see what happens next summer when i have a baby (who wants to watch someone else's 9 month old for 4 days?  not me)  but i had a fabulous time with all the ladies!  the only bummer was that johanna was sick and we all just hoped she would have a more relaxing/recovering time with us than taking care of her kids :)

oh and cynthia, we'll always have estes park!

Kate and Mama Kitty

the drums are back!

weston had his drums set up in our old apartment for about the first 2 years we were there. after he hadn't played once due to the noise they would cause in an apartment building, he decided it was time they come down and make room for something else. now that we actually have some more room, they are back on display. and this morning, they were back in play. he's still got it (naturally).

here is kate's first drum lesson ... don't worry, the drumsticks already have their own hiding spot :)

Kate's weekend with Daddy