The end of Vacation

I know it's been a month since we got back from vacation, but I joined the library so I spend pretty much all of my free time reading now.

On our way back from Utah, we stopped in Provo for 4 days to see Casey and Sarah (Dustin's brother and wife) and some of our old college friends. I'm a horrible person and I didn't take any pictures, so you get what I stole from Holly's facebook account.

While we were in Provo we did a lot of eating and shopping: Cafe Paesan (eh -- I'll give it a 3 out of 5), Tai Pan Trading (must go back when I wouldn't have to kick my kids out to fit everything I wanted into the car), BYU bookstore (where we spent enough money to fund an entire full ride scholarship), Chef's Table (where LaVell Edwards ate at the table next to us), Guru's (my kids were on vacation overload by this point) and my favorite of all, The Chocolate. You all know how I feel about dessert, so this place was pretty much heaven. We got dessert there THREE nights in a row. Slightly embarrassing, but it's a good thing don't live there. I'm so in love with the Kitty Katrina cake. So much so I had my sister overnight me some. I seriously need an intervention.

We also saw Toy Story 3, watched Sarah teach her class at BYU, went mini-golfing (only approved for children 5 & up we've decided), met up with Dirk and Vanessa at their loft, and played games with Casey and Sarah late into the night every night. My favorite game: Liebe & Intrige. I'm pretty sure someone will make a Jane Austen version of this game a make a fortune.

We always have so much fun with Casey and Sarah and I'm sad they're moving all the way to Texas :( It's always been fun to spend some time with them when we're up in Utah. I guess they'll just have to come to Arizona more often.

Friday night our friends the Casabars got babysitters for all 8 of our kids who then had a sleep over and the next day we got ready for a big BBQ with some of our old friends from the Union Square days. We had the most amazing friends right after we got married and we're all still friends today. The Stohls and Casabars both live in Utah, but our trip happened to coincide with the Pauls trip out from California. I was so excited because we haven't seen them in probably 3 years.

The girls (Sam, me, Holly and Megan)
Our handsome husbands (Damon, Dustin, Sean and Matt)Seriously, these people are *the* best. We had such a great time in college and I'm so lucky that we're all still friends. The best part is that our kids all love each other too! Future BYU roommates!
All of our kids
When we all get together, there is someone for everyone. I'm already trying to figure out a way to get us all back together again soon.

Needless to say, we didn't want to leave, but we needed to start the long drive back to Arizona, so we left in kind of a rush. Turns out we left Ellie's shorts, Nate's shirt annnnnd. . . Luke's blanket. That was fun to discover when we pulled into our hotel in Page at 11 pm. Nate was sweet enough to give Luke his blanket, but Dustin ended up sleeping with him in a chair all night. And by all night, I mean until 5:45 when he woke everyone up. At least we got an early start to the day. I think everyone was so exhausted they all passed out again in the car. We made it all the way to Anthem before we had to stop to use the bathroom. I should also mention our air conditioning stopped working somewhere along the way as we drove into the 110 degree heat and Dustin had to leave on a business trip the next day. But at least we were home.