This morning we left our Utah hotel room at 5:40 am to drive 9 hours back to sunny California. The temperature at 5:40 was 0 degrees…. And in 9 hours we were back to the sunny 87 degree weather that California can usually boast for January—but man did we have a fun trip! A lot of it was centered around meeting different people for meals, which was a lot of fun as we got to catch up with everyone as well as eat some of our favorites!
Me and Peanut
On Friday I arrived in Salt Lake and Russ picked me up to take me to go and meet GJ and Amelia’s new little girl… “Peanut” (Peanut is her blog name) Stowell. She was so adorable cooing and looking around while we held her and chatted away with Amelia. Amelia always has the best stories and it was so fun to hear all about her latest news!!! I loved watching “Peanut” wrinkle her forehead…. It was so cute!
We then headed down to Provo to meet newly expecting parents—Tyler and Desiree. We did a “BEST OF PROVO” night and went crazy on our meals. We started out with sharing an appetizer—amazing Sweet Potato Fries at Guru’s on Center Street. We then headed over to Smokehouse BBQ & Pizza around the corner on University Avenue and ordered a pizza and wings to share. We decided that they had changed their dough recipe since that last time we had gone, but man was it good. We then hung out with them in the lounge in our old Schooled Magazine building as we let the main course settle. Of course the Tyler & Russ had their own comedy hour while Desiree and I laughed and caught up ourselves. To end the special night we headed over to Coney’s where Russ got his infamous Cyclone—I think he adds like 5 or 6 toppings into it to make it the “Russ Madness” version of the dessert—while the rest of us had regular Cyclones and sundaes.
Me and Kaia
Saturday was just as full of friends and family. We headed out in the morning to meet Chris and Lynsey at Magleby’s Fresh for their special all you can eat pancakes and French toast. Russ and I were so full from the previous nights excursion we could only eat half of our plates, but man was their breakfast yummy! We got to meet Kaia Williamson, born one day after “Peanut.” I held her for a long time and was enchanted by all of her cute facial expressions! I love how good babies smell and how soft their skin is! Chris was so proud of Kaia’s chunky legs that he made a special effort to show us how big they were—which were so cute!
We then ran over to Circuit City (where we briefly saw Jeff Barlow), and University Mall where I went crazy with buying SHADE t-shirts and tank tops (I love how modest and comfort fitting they are—if you are looking for some awesome undershirts, you totally have to check them out www.shadeclothing.com, my favorite are the cap sleeve basic layering shirts) who was having a sidewalk sale and had shirts at $8.99 each! I also went to Express’ 70% off sale and used the gift card Scott gave me for Christmas and got some amazing deals—thanks again Scott!
Next we rushed over to meet Kristen and Riley, and Jeff and Becca for lunch at Café Rio where we chatted the lunch hour away. Kristen and Riley had just come from snowboarding at Sundance and Jeff and Becca from running errands so it was fun to catch up on all of their news.
Then we headed over to Gold Smith Jewelers where we had some trade from the magazine to use. I went crazy--- I was like a kid in a candy shop. I don’t know what I’m going to do when we don’t have the magazine any more and I don’t get my yearly jewelry fix…. Hum, Russ better start budgeting! :) Anyway, I picked out this amazing ring—it’s a Hearts On Fire Adoration Five-Stone Band (http://www.heartsonfire.com/us/en-us/diamond-collection/view-details.php?type=1&style_name=DrmSc5B&item_id=3170&item_name=Adoration+Five-Stone+Band&type_id=1&type_name=Rings&subtype_id=2&subtype_name=Wedding%20Bands) that is absolutely beautiful. All Hearts On Fire diamonds are perfectly cut where they go through this really long preparation…. The website has a ton of information on it. Russ and I celebrated our five-year anniversary this year, so the I wanted to get something sentimental to go along with the celebration and this was the perfect find. I had to order it in my size so I should get it in the next few weeks! I’m so excited!
Jeff and Becca’s was next on our list and we were dying to see their new home, so we headed over and got the tour. It’s huge and so gorgeous! Congratulations guys!!! We then headed over to Costco for the boys to look at TV’s while Becca and I chatted away on the Costco couches. Some people finally had to come up to us to ask us if we wouldn’t mind moving because they wanted to try out the couch! I guess we were there for a little too long! ☺
The traditional meet up at Macaroni Grill was next on the days’ itinerary and GJ, Amelia, Peanut, Tyler, Desiree, Chris, Lynsey and Kaia all came for some good food and fun conversation. It was the first time in years that Russ didn’t order his normal Penne Rustica, and tried a Chicken Parmesan Salad… so it was a dinner of new records and proportions for us! It was also a first time for the other couples to meet each others new editions….which was fun!
Chris and Lynsey then graciously offered for all of us to come over and hang out at their house, where an insane game of Catch Phrase occurred. Some of the favorites of the night were when Amelia tried to explain rapper LL Cool Jay by saying “He’s a rapper…. And he’s black…. And he wears hats all of the time…” Unfortunately we didn’t get that one. And then I had a hard time explaining Chuck Norris… and I said “His first name rhymes with ‘puck.’” Yeah that one got people laughing hysterically. Another one I had was I was trying to explain the KGB, but Amelia thought the Russian Mafia/CIA was the KKK.... pretty funny stuff. We had so much fun with the game that we played it for almost three hours! It seemed like the night ended too quickly and we were off to the hotel again.
Russ drove the whole way home which was awesome because it meant that I could sleep a portion of it… and we chatted the rest of the time. The trip was so much fun and I’m so glad that I was able to go up and meet the new babes and hang out with such amazing people! On our way home Russ and I were talking about how our perfect world would be if everyone moved down and lived in California with us—because we miss everyone so much!!! We can’t wait for our next trip out there.
4 comments:
So fun to see you guys, ahh I miss you two.
Ha, I must defend my KKK guess - you said there were three initials and said it started with K and I threw out KKK - um yeah still stupid of me to use that guess. I have issues.
It was so great to see you guys! Thanks for coming over to see us, it was so fun to hang out.
Hahah that was so much fun! It's so nice to get together with everyone once in a while, it's going to be sad if Tyler and Des. move :(. We'll have to make them take a flight down to Provo when you guys are here so we can all get together. We were so excited for you to meet Kaia...by the way she's still teething, and will probably continue teething on and off for the next couple of months until a tooth comes in...no fun.
Anyhow we love you guys and miss not having you closer. Also we need to start planning the cruise for next summer!!! We need to plan enough in advance so the 4 couples can all go and leave the kids with grandparents!!
Anyhow sorry for the letter!! love you guys - give Baxter a hug for us!
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