When mom and sisters come to town

We got home from Utah early Monday morning and by Wednesday afternoon my mom and sisters were in town. Another quick, but fun, turn around time. I was so excited to have them here, I love when they come to visit. That night I had mutual so I took the girls with me. We had a game night with popcorn and brownies. It was a lot of fun to watch my sisters interact with the girls I love so much in the YW program. After mutual I took them to one of my favorite spots in downtown Stamford for dessert. It is this cute little gelato place, with an Italian name I can't remember, but they loved it as much as I did.

Thursday I had to babysit. My mom and the girls came with me. They certainly helped keep the kids entertained for me and man do those kids love them. Since it was a nice day we packed lunched and took the kids over to cherry lawn park for a picnic. After I finished babysitting for the day we went to the mall. The girls love to go to H&M and Forever 21 when they can. So we did a little shopping before dinner. That night I had the girls watch Les Miserable. I bought the taping PBS did of the 25th anniversary concert a few years back. I absolutely love it and could watch it over and over again, but it is 2 1/2 hour so I was nervous the girls would loose interest. I was wrong. Everyone was hooked. In fact, that was the only music they listened to the rest of the trip. I'm so proud.

Friday was a beautiful day so we hit up one of the beaches in Stamford. It was pretty muggy and not a lot of breeze. I think I am broke because I do NOT love the beaches here. I know a lot of people send days there over the summer but I can't do it. I would rather be by a nice, clean pool with a water bottle and a floaty. Of course that may be because I refuse to get in the water, I have a very strict policy that if I can't see through the water, I won't get in. So with that said we were not there to long before we decided to go to the pool. Before we left the girls did collect enough shells  to make a fun design in the sand with.

 Saturday we drove into the city. Our first stop was the new 9/11 memorial. It was amazing and powerful. Although it has been almost 11 years since that day the memory of it all is still very fresh. It felt very sacred to be standing in front of those fountains with the names of the victims all around. They did an amazing job with the memorial and we really enjoyed our visit.

 The girls really wanted to see Phantom of the Opera so we spent quite a while going to the TKTS booth then to the theater ticket office to find the best priced tickets for that days matinee. Mike and I have seen Phantom twice so we decided to skip it and just hang around the area for a few hours. We went to shake shack for lunch, as always the wait was worth it and we left full and happy. Then we walked around time square (which I don't love doing, but it was looking stormy so we wanted to stay close to stores we could take cover in. After a while we sat down at a table and played ticket to ride on our iPhones. After the girls finished there show we took them to Shake Shack and of course they loved it. Then it was time for dessert. We went down to Union Sq. and put our name in at Max Brenner: Chocolate by the Bald Man. I was surprised that at 5pm the wait was already an hour long. To kill time we walked around Union Sq. and watched a street performer jump over 5 people, it was impressive. When we went back to be seated I over heard the hostess tell someone the wait was 3 hours.... crazy! I love the atmosphere at Max Brenner's, they have blocks of chocolate on display, chocolate being piped through the restaurant and fun decor. Mike and I ordered fondue and were not disappointed. My mom was the only one who left felling a little disappointed because she got a milkshake and although delicious was not a good as everyone else's amazing chocolate desserts.

After dessert we were tired and ready to head home, but not before we stopped to take some pictures at the Manhattan temple.This was surprisingly the first time they had seen this temple. Katie wanted to go but of course they were closed for cleaning the whole time she was here. That is the second time that has happened. I love being in the city, but I always love coming home to my little city of Stamford.

Favorites from the rest of Utah trip

 Wednesday after everyone got back from bear lake the Adults got together for dinner at Texas Roadhouse. After dinner most of the adults went to go see Wicked in downtown SLC. Since I have already seen wicked three times on Broadway I decided I didn't need to see it again. So Mike, being the great guy he is, went and babysat some of the nieces and nephews while I went and visited with an old friend from High School and College, Laurissa. It was great to catch up with her, it was hard to leave. Being with her reminded me of those late night/early morning sleepovers you have in high school giggling and laughing at nothing. I'm really glad I was about to visit with her and look forward to visiting with her the next time I find myself in Utah!

 

 Thursday we went to Cafe  Rio for lunch. It was heavenly as always. That evening was the big surprise 60th birthday party for Mike's dad. Everything went wonderfully with family, old friends, coworkers and neighbors coming to wish Sterling a happy birthday. Since all the nieces and nephews (except Jackson who was still in the hospital) were together we tried to get a few pictures of them. That was a challenge but we did the best that we could!

 

 

 Friday morning we started the day off with a session at the Bountiful temple. It is so nice to just drive 10 min down the road, find parking easily and just walk a few feet from the parking lot into the temple. A much different experience than the drive into Manhattan, the rushed 10 block walk from the parking garage to the temple that we usually do. It is nice to change the pace up a bit.
 

 Later that afternoon we went back up to Primary Children's to visit Jackson again. In almost a week he had been taken off a lot of the machines he had been on and had the breathing tube in his nose vs in his mouth. A lot of the swelling had gone down and he just looked great. You could tell a lot of prayers had been offered in his behalf because the rate he was healing was amazing even to the doctors.

 That night we had dinner at Zuppa's for the first time and it did not disappoint. Then we went and walked through a model home in West Farmington with Mikes sister and brother-in-law. It had me dying to move to Utah were it wouldn't be braking the bank to own a home. Sigh... one day! After a good game of 5 crowns we headed over to the movie theater to see The Dark Knight Rises. Before the show we stopped to watch the fountain show they have. It was pretty neat, the fountains danced to a Michael Buble song and the lights changed colors. It was pretty impressive and we heard the same guy who worked on the fountains at the Bellagio in Vegas did this show.

 Saturday was pretty low key. That night we had a little girls night out. We went out to dinner at Blue Lemon in the city creek shopping center then went to the conference center to see the Pioneer day concert. Afterwards we went to the cheesecake factory for dessert. It was fun being out with my sister, cousin, mother, aunt, grandma-in-laws. Lots of great women to look up too.

We left late Sunday evening. When we were walking to our gate in the SLC airport at 11:30pm most of the other gates were closed. As we passed a closed gate we saw a couple just hanging out there. Mike took a second look and said "I think that is Urban Myer" This is how the rest of our conversation went
Me: are you sure
Mike: Yes, I think so. What do you think
Me: I don't know, I can only picture him with his Gators stuff on.
Mike: Well I am pretty dang sure it is him
Me: Then I have to go over, will you get a picture?
Mike: I don't want to, I don't want to bother him
Me: Please, I can't take the picture myself, this is to good to pass up.
and I take off and Mike follows.

I went up to him and told him I was a bug OSU fan and asked if I could get my picture taken with him. He said "if your a big OSU fan than I need my picture with you." After we got a picture he talked to us for a while. He asked us a ton of questions about ourselves and was just really nice. We talked to us for about 5 min before left to catch out flight. I was pretty excited to get a picture with OSU's new coach and to top it off I was even wearing my Ohio State shirt. It was a great way to end the trip!

Bear Lake: Jenson Family reunion 2012

 I had never been to Bear Lake before so I was really excited to visit some place new. We got in very late Saturday night and we were awoken very early on Sunday morning. The nieces and nephews were excited to be reunited and got a jump start on the day. They were enjoying the big play room with basketball court, trampoline, jungle gym and putting green. They also had fun sliding down the slides that connected each level of the house and the small climbing walls. It was a kids dream house and in turn a parents dream since the kids were happy and occupied. We spend a lazy morning together catching up and eating a delicious dutch oven breakfast. We went to church that afternoon and it was packed!! I am guessing most of the people in attendance were visitors but oh my goodness! They even had all the classrooms open and people inside of them listening to the meeting. After church we all crammed into the theater room and watched home videos of Mike and his siblings as youngsters. It was a lot of fun to see him as a little guy and see some of the budding personality traits that are still very prevalent. He was an adorable little kid.

 

Monday we all headed to some caves in Idaho (they were about 20 minutes away.) There were some pretty friendly chipmunks in the parking lot when we arrived. In true Mike fashion he found some food and began feeding them, it was a huge hit with the kids, and the chipmunks. It provided a good 15 minutes of free entertainment. 

It was pretty cool to go inside the cave.It is pretty interesting to think about how these caves are formed and how beautiful they are on the inside. I do have to admit that I was a little nervous that the whole thing was going to collapses on us at any minute, I didn't like the feeling of being trapped. It was still a lot of fun and I would love to explore other caves in the future.

 

After the caves we got some famous Raspberry shakes. Not to shabby, but I am still a die hard strawberry shake kind of gal. My favorite part of the day was when the adults got a little restless and wanted to find something to do. We decided to play a game of good old fashion sardines (you know hide and seek but where one person hides and everyone else looks and when you find them you hide with them.) We had so much fun!  Since the house was so big there were lots of good places to hide, and let me tell you once you get 6 hot bodies crammed in a tiny closet, it gets hot, really, really hot!

 (Love seeing Mike with the little ones)

 (Seriously a beautiful view from our deck. The lake is gorgeous!)

 (A few of my nephews love giving back rubs- I wasn't going to argue with that. 

Then my little nieces loved playing with my hair.)

Tuesday was a lake day. I didn't grow up doing water sports like Mike did. I don't know how to water ski, or wakeboard. And more than that I don't swim in lakes, it makes me nervous and the water is usually colder than I would like. So this was my first real experience at a lake and it was quite lovely. I went out on the boat and watched Mike jet ski and wakeboard. Then Mike took me out on a jet ski and taught me how to drive it. That was a lot of fun, I look forward to doing that again sometime soon. The rest of the time we spend on the beach with the family. It was fun watching the kids play in the sand, they were a mess, but that't how you know it was a good day.

 (Mike teaching his Nephew how to pitch. It was really cute to watch.

 He is dying to have a son as into sports as Marcus is.)

 (Camille and I in our matching sun dresses from Costa Rica.)

 Someone certainly enjoyed the sand

 These two girls played mermaid princess all day, women after my own heart.

After our big day at the lake no one was up for cooking so we ordered pizza for everyone. After we got the kids down to bed we stayed up pretty late playing games. I love late night game time. My favorite thing is still watching Mike and Melanie together. You can't tell they are twins by looking at them but you can if you watch them together. They are pretty funny when they get together.

Wednesday morning we got the house picked up and headed back down to Farmington. It was sad to leave, we had a great time together. Family reunions are the best!