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Our friends came to town earlier this month.

Dallas may very well be my oldest friend. (As in, longest running, not in years.) Our mothers were friends when his older brother and I were in utero. They are the only people not related to me that I have known my whole life.

He is also married to one of my favorite people. Shannon is a good influence on me (she is much more patient than I am) and I am looking forward to spending more time with her after I move west.

Here is a link to his post with lots of pictures about their day in Des Moines.

They were added to my list just in time!

Local Comedy

Last night our friend invited us to watch him perform his stand up comedy routine. He had taken a community ed class on the art of Stand-Up (who knew there was such a class?) and this was the students' opportunity to showcase their talents. And can I just tell you . . .

It was one of the best dates we've had in a long time.

The performers ranged in age from the 14 year old who had invited us to the 80+ year old woman whose routine centered around a mitten she had knitted and put in her box of unfinished projects.

There were lots of jokes about Facebook (I deleted my account recently. It was liberating.) and there were many jokes about the movie "Cocoon" directed at all of the aforementioned 80+ year old's supporters in the audience.

For an hour and a half, my smile didn't leave my face.

I know, I just KNOW that if we were going to be living in this town a year from now, Robert would be enrolled in that class.

He would bring the house down, too.

Lovers of the Undead in Southern Utah

A few months ago, Robert returned at the end of another long, exhausting, frustrating day at work. His face and demeanor were bravely trying to keep an upbeat attitude about the general hopelessness he clearly felt. As we talked about his day, he used all the familiar words from the past months as he attempted to make light of his misery. I watched him talk for a moment and as I listened, my heart pounded in my chest and my hand reached across the table for his.

He looked at me with no smile, no light in his eye.

Do you know my husband? Robert, of all people, has a light in his eye. He is the man who cheerfully washed dishes at my restaurant so that he could spend time with me while I waited tables. He hummed songs as he scrubbed toilets so that his children could eat when he was in school. He enjoys work. And now, his job, the one he had trained and studied for over the course of our entire 13 almost 14 year marriage, had extinguished it.

He (we) had chosen unwisely, and until that moment a few months ago, I tried to ignore it.

When I finally vocalized what we both knew, "Robert, you hate your job," I watched a weight lift off his shoulders and the stress dissipate ever so slightly.

"I do, I really do," he sighed. Admitting you have a problem is half the battle.

"Find a new one," I told him.

And so he has.

Over the weekend, as I accompanied him on his latest trip, I saw the spring return to his step.

I witnessed the light reignite from within my beloved.

He is positively glowing at the prospect of moving to St. George.

Stella said tonight "I hope there are a lot of girls in St. George who like zombies."

I'm sorry if this is how you are finding out that we are moving. I don't have an excuse for that.

We caught coconut on fire . . .

. . . and I grabbed my camera. The week my mom came to stay, we made a batch of cupcakes and ignited the coconut that we were toasting for the topping. The day I post the recipe for my cupcakes, you should immediately log off of the internet and run away, because they are evil.

We happened upon a cake decorating contest at the local mall. The contestants were the finalists in a competition between all of the Hyvee cake decorators all over the midwest. The Wonka Bar was so cute!

I actually don't think this Pasta Cake looks very appetizing, but it reminded me of the time we made backwards dinner with our friends. We made pot roast and mashed potato hot fudge sundaes. It was delightful and I was happy to think of Nick and Michelle.

Robert walked by this suit and exclaimed, "Look, Liz! A suit for a genie!" I think he is hilarious.


Stella was able to have a special day with grandma. She skipped school and went to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch and also went to the spa for a mani/pedi. The next day, Jack and Creed were able to leave school early to see "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules" with grandma.

We enjoyed the above freezing temperatures and went for a walk or two.

Jack likes to use his own money at the gas station for treats. On this day, he bought everyone a snack. I wish he wouldn't spend his money so frivolously, but I'm also heartened by his generosity. He thinks nothing of purchasing treats for his younger siblings.

This was the longest visit I've had with my mom. I loved it!

Because a blog update is as good a use of 30 minutes as anything

On Tuesdays we have piano lessons and guitar lessons all over town. Not really, but I drop the middle children off at piano and then take Jack to guitar about a mile down the street. Today, Robert will pick up the pianists, which gives me a half hour in the parking lot with Georgie.

This is what we look like today.




For your viewing pleasure, I submit the following photo dump and summary of (fairly) recent activities.

A week after our epic Disney trip the kids had spring break. Roberto stayed here to toil away healing the sick and teaching medical students while I loaded our offspring into the family wagon for the twelve hour drive to see grandpa and Nana Sue.

Stella and George were immediately smitten with their Aunt Skyler, whom we met for the first time while we were down there. Judging by all the time she spent coloring and playing games and generally appreciating their senses of humor, the feeling seemed to be mutual.








We picnicked at the local city park and at the state park 45 minutes from their house.


Grandpa was dogpiled every day after work.


We watched movies, played outside, rediscovered Chik-fil-A, went for a hike, played Disney Scene It, reorganized the kitchen, stayed up way too late every night, and ate delicious food.

This is the end of this post, but I have many more pictures to dump . . . so stay tuned.

P.S. Are you jealous that my black tooth is turning black again?

Tales from the Road

This is us on our way to SLC from Anaheim. Robert's amazing older brother lent us his humongoid car so that we could drive together from Sara's place. Robert and Ryan are in the front. Creed loved his spot, he kept calling it his mancave.

This is what Creed looked like when we pulled into the McDonald's parking lot in Lehi. He was sound asleep underneath all his stuff.

The texting conversation that brought Dallas to Lehi from Bountiful went something like this:

Dallas: How is the trip going?

Me: Great!

Dallas: Will we see you?

Me: I don't know. We have to drive up to Sara's, drop a few people off, then drive down to Earl's to get our car and then back to Sara's. It will probably be pretty late by then.

Dallas: How can I help eliminate some of the backtracking?

Me: Really? Want to meet us in Lehi and take a few of us to Clearfield?

Dallas: I'll bring the van and meet you there!

Me: We are about two hours away. Bob says we could ride someone on the floor from Lehi if you change your mind.

Dallas: Heck no! I don't want to miss the party!

And with that last statement, I knew that somewhere up the family tree we must be related. We met at the Lehi Roller Mills exit, aka the Footloose exit and it was the Smith's to the rescue again. Dallas is Kate's brother and Doug's son. The Kate and Doug who met us at Disney.

Shout out: Dallas is also our accountant and he can do your taxes no matter where you live. You should use him. He always has to redo people's past taxes when they went to H&R Block or people who come to him who have been doing their own. Translated: He gets them MORE MONEY! His office is called Redwood Tax.

Sara, Jack and I went with Dallas. We stopped at his house and lucky for us Vinny and Shannon were still up. Shannon is my friend with whom I spent a long weekend in Chicago a few years ago. I am so lucky to know the Smiths and I'm beyond happy that Dallas and Robert are friends.

Side note: One time Doug helped me get my wedding ring out of the pawn shop when I had sold it to buy groceries during medical school.

Did you think I was kidding about the bread?

And here Sara models her amazing new knife.

Tip: don't buy junky knives. Good knives in the kitchen can make all the difference. All you need is one great Chef's knife and a paring knife. You can add a bread knife if you make/buy a lot of bread that needs to be sliced. Also, hone your knives every time you use them and have them professionally sharpened once a year. Bob thinks we also need steak knives.

Gandalf! Mountains!

I-80 Sunset

My mom came to see us last week, and I took a few pictures. The photo-dump marathon is still not over.

Question: Why are several of my photographs not showing up in my archives? I noticed as I went back to link to older posts that many of my iPhotos are missing. Any insight?

Magic Kingdom Fun

We packed our kids in the car and headed to California a week ago, via Salt Lake City.

Who doesn't want to escape the subzero temperatures of February and visit someplace warm and sunny?

In Salt Lake, we checked in on Robert's family and swapped cars with his brother. They have 13 children. That's not a typo: 13! Earl and Tifiny were kind enough to lend us their 11 passenger vehicle so that we could drive down to California in the same car as Sara and Ryan and Grant.

Then Ryan drove us all the way there because we had just driven 18 hours in one day.

We spent three days with Mickey and in those three days we . . .

. . . rode Space Mountain 5 or 6 times (but accidentally ditched my mom so she didn't get to ride it at all. I still feel bad about that.) . . .

. . . Astro Blasted Zurg and his minions several times . . .

. . . met up with Scott and Eddie and tried mint juleps (you can keep your nasty toothpaste water. yuck!) . . .

. . . rode the Matterhorn several times . . .

. . . spun around on the Tea Cups . . .

. . . goofed on all things Disney . . .

. . . met Mary Poppins and Burt (she and Winnie the Pooh are among my favorites) . . .

. . . celebrated Creed's birthday . . .

. . . met up with Kate & Doug (who drove up from San Diego after the BYU game) and my mom (how is this the only picture I have of you, mom? Maybe there are more on my camera, these are just from my phone) . . .

. . . and had an all around Magical Time.

The following is mostly for me, but feel free to peek. It's my lazy way of remembering the details:

1. Who are we kidding? The whole thing is for me (and my progeny).

2. George and I rode the Astro Orbiter together. In the middle of the ride he tilted his head back and told me "Mom, dis wocket wide is dumb."

3. February is the month to visit Mickey. We didn't wait longer than 25 minutes for a single ride. Not even the submarine. There is something to be said, however, about visiting during Christmas time and seeing the Haunted Mansion all decked out Tim Burton style.

4. It's a Small World is not as painful as I remember. I quite enjoyed it.

5. I downloaded an app while I was there that told me the wait times for all the rides in the park. I loved it.

6. The app also had all the Hidden Mickeys arranged in a checklist format. The kids had a great time hunting for them.

7. I became thoroughly annoyed by the stupid Hidden Mickey scavenger hunt. (The kids were clueless about my annoyance. Like all good moms, I kept it to myself and continued to help them enjoy themselves.)

8. World of Color in California Adventure is pretty cool. We were in the very front and we got drenched! Luckily we had ponchos. My favorite part of the show was the montage of the disney cartoon moms snuggling their disney cartoon babies.

9. This was our first multi-day visit. I loved it!

10. This was also the first time we bought any food in the park. (Aside from our usual purchase of Bacon Wrapped Asparagus at the Bengal Bar-b-que.) Of course, we still packed plenty of peanut butter sandwiches because food in the park is expensive and Jack is a bottomless pit.

11. Stella had no desire to meet princesses. Instead, she wanted to meet the classic characters: Mickey, Goofy, and Pluto.

12. George met Buzz Lightyear, but had no desire to interact with him or get close to him.

13. Creed celebrated his 10th birthday at the park and wore a button all day to proclaim it to the world. Everywhere he went, people were wishing him a happy birthday.

14. After every ride, Grant had a single word "fun!"

15. Pretty much every ride scared George.

16. Both George and Grant were tall enough to ride the Matterhorn.

17. By the time Stella was George's age, she had been to Disneyland 3 times!

18. Kate, Doug, and my mom took the kids back to the hotel early the last night because it was FREEZING.

18. Kate also came to the rescue with extra clothes from her car for everyone.

19. I wish I had taken better notes, it was such a fun time! Ryan, George, Grant, and Eddie were the first timers. Scott hadn't been since he was maybe 5 years old? It had been almost four years since the rest of us had been (except my mom and the smith's. My mom hadn't been since Scott was there last and the Smith's were there the week before.)

20. It was a surprise! We woke the kids at 3 in the morning on Monday night and after they got in the car we told them where we were headed.

We are a car-tripping family. The kids feel like the vacation starts as soon as we are in the car headed someplace, so even though we spent 5 days in the car for 3 days at Disney, they loved it. I, on the other hand, would love to pay down some of our student loans so that we can fly. The road trip itself deserves its own post. Don't worry Dallas, you're in it!

P.S. Disneyland really is a magic kingdom because as we were in line to ride Alice in Wonderland, Robert pointed to someone in line ahead of us and said "That's got to be Tyler's Twin." And sure enough it was! It is totally weird running into the Twin Brother of someone you know. He was just as friendly as the real Tyler. It really is a Small World After All.