More on Our Trip to Utah

If you haven't picked up on it, we took a trip to Utah in November for Robert's baby sister's wedding. We made it short so Robert wouldn't have to take too much time off of work, and so we would have the weekend back home to recover from traveling with 5 kids on 3 different airplanes. It was weird to think that we had moved from Utah almost 9 months previously. Wasn't it just yesterday? or at least last month... Anyways we had 3 people on the must see list (I promise I wanted to see more, but with wedding festivities we had only 1 day left to see friends): Janeece (my massage therapist who is gifted beyond words in her field), the VerHoefs (Sarah is also a great massage therapist, coincidentally), and Samantha (my best friend) & her family.

About a month before we went I called Janeece to schedule an early Christmas present for me in the form of an hour and a half massage. It was wonderful. After that we went to Samantha's and hung out with them for a while and had lunch (from Steak Out which we really miss in Houston). Samantha and her husband lived next door to us in Provo for a while. I remember the first time we met I asked her husband to borrow their drop spreader for weed n' feed. We invited them over for a barbecue sometime shortly thereafter, and became fast friends. Samantha and I are kindred spirits. People would always ask if we're sisters when we would go anywhere together. We got pregnant at the same time twice in a row. Her daughter and Isa have been best friends from the womb, and were born exactly a month apart, then her son and Horatio were born about 2 months apart. We've always had fun with them. So here are some cute pictures. We didn't really do much I guess. We ate lunch, the kids played inside (with toys and watching TV since we haven't had TV in a couple of years now) and
outside (with bikes and just running around in the cold) while Samantha and I talked. Samantha's kids have way too many toys, so the kids thoroughly enjoyed themselves, while I immensely enjoyed just hanging out with my best friend from Utah. We'd planned to go over to the VerHoef's for dinner, but ended up going to the Pizza Factory with them, so nobody would have to cook. It was OK, but our waitress copped a 'tude pretty soon after we got there, so that made things a lot less nice in the customer service area. After dinner we went over to their house and the kids and men hung out for a while , while Sarah and I popped over to the church for a Relief Society cookie exchange so I could say Hi to some of the women from our last ward. It was nice to be able to see a few more people than I had planned. We only stayed for a bit more once Sarah and I got home (it was a school night for those kids who weren't homeschooled nor on vacation), but it was fun. After that we actually went back to Samantha's (her hubby had just gotten home when we were leaving for dinner) and were able to play games until much too late on a night before we had to get up early for our flight back home. The younger boys fell asleep, while the girls played to their hearts' content, and Angel and Oliver joined the adults for board games. It was so fun. Samantha is the number 1 thing/person I miss about Provo. I'm trying to convince her to move to Houston, but I think she'd go to California 1st. I can dream. Sadly I got zero pictures from Dinner and games, but I am confident Heavenly Father will have wonderful albums full of countless pictures for me to look at later. You'll have to wait until you die to see them if you really want to.


I love Samantha, and she loves me.

p.s. Samantha has a blog, too. Go over to it and tell her to post more! Please!