Salt Lake City

I got a wonderful surprise from my hubby!  He got me a ticket to go see Emily in Salt Lake!  She has been living there since August while she interns for the church.  I have wanted to go up all year and see her and the environment she lives in - but just haven't had the chance.

Emily decided that she is going back to BYU to get her teaching degree in high school English.  She will be moving back to Provo in a couple of weeks.  So...I am really happy that I got this opportunity to visit her in her SLC environment.  It also worked really well because the boys were going on "Fathers and Sons" and I have always spent that time with my only daughter!

We had such a great time doing everything and nothing!  We saw movies and ate yummy food.  We drove to Provo and bought cinnamon bears and went to the Carl Bloch exhibit (AMAZING!!).  We wandered around IKEA, watched more movies, visited with friends, went to the library and enjoyed the weather.  But, THIS morning Emily and I got up and went to the "Music and the Spoken Word" at the Tabernacle. I had never been and I was really excited! It was such a great experience...I loved it!  Afterwards we walked around in the rain. It was just drizzling but it was beautiful.

I loved taking pictures of the beautiful grounds. I love the peaceful feeling I always feel when I am here.

This is Emily standing in front of the church office building where she works in the Welfare Department.  She has loved working and living here, but is ready to start the next phase of her life.  Thank you Emily for showing me such a wonderful time!  I LOVED spending mother/daughter time with you and chatting with your roommates.  :)

 In front of her cute little house

View from the top of the SLC library

Father & Sons 2011

Brad here, hijacking the blog.  Chrissie is up in Utah running around with Emily, so men do what men do best:  Get dirty, shoot things, and eat unhealthily.

Our camp was up on the Rim past Strawberry.

We ate buffalo wings for dinner. They were hotter than usual, but the boys had plenty of root beer to wash them down. We enjoyed hanging out and sharing a campfire with the Kemptons and the Crocketts. S'mores rule.

The next morning we had our traditional target practice with a bb gun.

After we packed up, we went to visit the Tonto Natural Bridge. My boys had never seen it, and we dragged the Aubrey, Lee and Lewis families with us.

It was a cool and beautiful underneath the bridge. It was a good hike.

For the record, Alex is still one of my sons. He had a volleyball tournament and Prom to go to, so he couldn't come with us. We missed him.

Around the World with Food

A couple of weeks ago, Brad and I had the opportunity to finally try Dominican food!  We were so excited to see what Taylor has been eating for the last year and a half.  We tried oxtail, pork and moro (mixed rice and beans) and we also had tostones and maduros (fried green and fried ripe plantains).  I was really nervous to try the oxtail, but it just tasted kind of like pot roast.  We both liked the tostones but didn't like the maduros much.  Taylor said that he has never even seen oxtail??? and was surprised that we didn't like the maduros cuz he likes it a lot.  He said that the tostones are served almost like french fries with every meal.  It was so fun to try some new stuff!

 Oxtail and Moro

Tostones and Maduros

While I am posting about food, I might as well include our experience with crickets!  Brad and I teach the 16 year old Sunday School class and we are teaching the New Testament this year.  We had a lesson that talked a lot about John the Baptist and so Brad got the clever idea to order some flavored crickets for those brave enough to try!  Unfortunately, we both got the flu (the worst I have ever had in my life) and had to get a substitute, so we weren't able to watch the kids do it.  Well, we had some extra boxes left over and Ryan had been begging for a month to try them.  In the meantime, I had sent a box over in Taylor's Valentine box for he and his companion to try.  Anyway, I finally let Ryan try them.  I think they were sour cream and onion?!  He wasn't scared at all and ate two of them.  They browbeat me into trying one and I thought I was gonna die.  I'm not the kind of girl who will necessarily try anything.  Needless to say, I was having cow and I look like such a dork in the picture!  At least I can say I did it now!