Road Trip for Two! Week Two

After the first week we were back in Salt Lake City for a few days. On Monday Wally and I went downtown. First we toured The Cathedral of the Madeleine. When I was in college I attended LDS Business College which was located on South Temple. Whenever we walked downtown we always walked past this beautiful Cathedral. I had been in it before and I knew Wally would enjoy seeing it.

From there we went to City Creek for lunch and for some free passes to Red Butte Gardens. If you show your out of state drivers license at the customer service counter you get a booklet of discounts for the shopping center and you can ask for free admission tickets to some of the area attractions. That's a really good tip to know.

Then we went to Temple Square and Wally sat in the shade so I could take some photos of the beautiful flower beds. It was the perfect time of year to catch the tulips.

It was such beautiful weather and was great to be outdoors.

That evening Natalie and Scott took us to dinner at Chili Tepin. Wally ordered his own plate and the three of us split the molcajete dish which was quite amazing. Full of chicken, steak, shrimp, nopales, green sauce, onions and jalepeno's. We even had some leftover.

Seriously, as good as it looks!

We spent Sunday through Wednesday night at Natalie and Scott's house. On Tuesday morning Wally and I had breakfast at Blue Plate Diner. In the afternoon we drove to Loretta's house and then with her Mom went out to her daughter Jackie's home to visit and have a barbecue. It was fun to see everyone and meet the youngest little girl that we hadn't met before.

My notes for the trip ended with Tuesday! So now I'll be going on my memory. Wednesday afternoon Sue and Becky arrived in Salt Lake. We picked Natalie up at work and we all went to Red Butte Gardens and walked around. What a beautiful place. We parked Wally in a nice shaded area while we explored the various gardens. This is a place that would be fun to see in all seasons as the plants in bloom change.

Another beautiful sunny day in the city. After Red Butte we met picked up Scott and met Russell for dinner at Mimi's for dinner and a visit. Becky and Sue then drove to Springville.

Wally and I drove to Springville on Thursday morning. The next few days was our sister's weekend with my plus one of Wally. We cleaned, we ate, we watched movies, we went to a craft boutique, we had a super fun time together.

 Caramel covered marshmallows with chocolate and peppermint, why ask why? They were delicious.

Sunday we drove to Boise. Wally and I stopped in Heyburn, Idaho to visit my Dad's cousin, Frank and his family.

Sunday night was spent with Sue and Dennis and then we were home on Monday, May 8th.

We got home to nice mowed lawns thanks to great neighbors.
I have to say I love retirement. And I love my family and I'm happy we were able to go visit everyone.

Sister's Trip April 2015

 

Flowers at Temple Square

April 22nd, I flew into Salt Lake City. Natalie picked me up at the airport. We had lunch outside on the patio at The Oasis Café. Natalie then dropped me off near City Center where I walked around downtown, took pictures, visited Temple Square, bought a Subway sandwich for a disabled vet and enjoyed the sunshine.

 
From downtown I took the Trax train out to Sandy to visit with my friend Susan. Susan and I met in college. It was either 1975 or 1976. We also shared an apartment for a little while before I married my first husband.

It was a lot of fun visiting with her and Roy. We hadn't seen each other for a couple of years. We had some good laughs about growing up and caring for our older husbands, about doctor appointments and failing eye sight.
 
In the afternoon she took me over to Natalie's new house. They had just picked up the keys two days earlier. The moving van was in the drive way. We got a tour of the house and kept out of the way of the movers.

 
Then Natalie and I went to pick up my cousin Russell and the three of us went out to dinner at Mimi's. We had a nice visit. After taking Russell home Natalie and I headed to Nancy's house in Springville. Sue and Becky had driven down from Boise earlier in the day.
 


Emily marker-painted these great shoes for me. She's so talented.

At Nancy's, Emily gave Natalie a hair cut then Natalie headed back home to Salt Lake.

 

We spent Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday night at Nancy's house. Becky and I shared the lovely new queen size air mattress on the living room floor and Sue had the couch. We stayed up every night until about 1 a.m.

 

I don't remember which movies we watched which nights, but here are the movies I can remember; Larry Crowne (which we referred all weekend to as Russell Crowe), St. Vincent (loved this one), Guardians of the Galaxy, some random Lifetime movie with Kevin Sorbo and maybe one or two others. I'd have to ask Emily.

We did our usual spring cleaning, laundry, visiting, reading, took fun pictures, ate well and just had a really good time together. We stayed really busy but found time to sit and relax and visit. I think we have finally learned to pace ourselves, well almost.

We do have one brother in the family. He is second to the oldest.

 

 
 



We had a visit from an old friend we grew up with in Boise, Judy Hulet Fluckiger. That was so much fun catching up with her and hearing all about her family. I don't think I'd seen her in like 35 years! Russell stopped by with Sherrie, Kent and their daughter that just graduated from BYU.

We were able to get a box of cookies sent to Nathan in the MTC just days before he flew to Poland.

Sunday morning we drove in Sue's car to Natalie's house. They got the tour of the house then they headed home to Boise. Then my friend Loretta came over for a visit. She used to live here in Kent but moved back to Salt Lake a couple of years ago after she retired.

I spent the rest of the day with Natalie and Scott. What fun we had shopping and playing and eating. We had lunch at a burger place called The Habit Burger Grill. It was so good and there are rumors we're getting one in Kent.

Then we went to a sporting goods store called Scheels. Boy was that ever a fun experience. We walked in and there was a Ferris wheel in the center of the store. Or as I kept mistakenly calling it, a roller coaster. Tickets cost 1.00 and soon Natalie and I were in a seat. And then it rocked and we screamed, loudly. Then we had to wait as it moved slowly loading and unloading everyone.

Once the ride got going I remembered that I don't like Ferris wheels. Only every time I talked about it, it came out as roller coaster. That made us laugh, and loudly. So much that the little boy in the seat in front of us kept turning around to look at us. Scott was lucky enough to capture this photo of us.

 And then we captured this selfie as we were laughing.

 And then as the Ferris wheel ride was coming to an end and they were slowly letting the people out, we thought we could sit back and relax. We were wrong. Two cars before our turn to get out our car rocked again and we screamed, again. By the time it was our turn to get out the high school boy had been very entertained. As we stepped out I said, "you did that on purpose, didn't you?" He just smiled and handed us two tokens for another ride saying since he scared us we should get another ride. We almost didn't take the tokens. But I told Natalie I'd keep mine and write on it, "I rode the Ferris Wheel, I can do Anything!"

Here are some other fun pictures from the sporting goods store.

Natalie told me to pick them up! Then we saw how funny that looked.

 

From the sporting goods store we went to Ikea and Bed, Bath and Beyond looking for things for the new house. We went back to the house before heading out to dinner on the way to the airport. We had dinner in downtown Salt Lake at Maxwell's. It was really, really good. I had pasta and they had a really big pizza. Then I was dropped off at the airport for my flight home.

 

It was yet another perfect trip to Utah spending time with my daughter and son-in-law, my sisters, niece and nephew and visiting with friends and cousins. I did miss out on not seeing my son's family with the grand baby this trip. Which only means there will be a trip to Southern Utah in my near future.

 

Sister's Spring Break - Utah 2014

This might be part 1 of 2 if I get carried away. This is an annual tradition my sisters and I do every spring. Except for last year when I ended up going by myself due to schedule issues. One of my sisters lives in Springville, Utah. My other two sisters and one brother live in Idaho. I'm in Washington state. And somehow after having been born in Utah but raised in Washington, both of my children now reside in Utah.

Years ago we started making an annual spring trip where the four of us sisters would all gather in Springville.

This year I flew out on a Wednesday and Natalie picked me up at the airport at 10 am. It was lightly raining in Salt Lake. We had a delightful lunch at Gourmandise on 3rd East. I'm pretty sure it's in the same location as a very famous Italian restaurant that was there in the 1970s. They were famous for their multiple course dinners. It was a great date spot. For the life of me I can't remember the name of it though. Gourmandise has great food and a fantastic bakery.

Then Natalie dropped me off at City Creek, where I walked around and did some minor shopping. City Creek is very pretty with lots of stores. It was still raining and I walked from City Creek over to the Joseph Smith building, formerly the Hotel Utah. There was a woman playing on the piano on the main floor. I walked up the stairs to the mezzanine where a bride and groom where having photographs taken. I just sat for a few minutes and remembered the grand hotel back in the 1970s when I was in SCL going to college.

View of South Temple from City Creek

I then walked over to Temple Square. I forgot how beautiful the flowers are in the springtime. It was incredible. I took a lot of photos.

Then my cousin Russell picked me up and we met Susan and Becky in Bountiful at my aunt's place. My Dad was the oldest of 7 children. Three of his siblings are still living. They are 85, 90 and 95. On this trip I got to visit Aunt Margaret who is 90 and Aunt VeLois who is 85. Two more cousins came over for a visit. It was fun visiting and sharing family photos and stories.

Visiting with Aunt Margaret and her daughters Jill and Dana.

We left Bountiful and met Scott and Natalie for dinner at Thai Siam in Draper. There were 6 of us at dinner. We had a nice visit. From the restaurant I then drove with Sue and Becky to Springville to Nancy's home. We encountered more rain and possibly light snow flurries.

The next couple of days were spent, cleaning, visiting, eating, watching movies, visiting, sleeping on air mattresses on the floor and just having a wonderful time hanging out together.


View from Springville grocery store parking lot.

We watched lots of Hallmark channel movies, Austenland and Frozen. There was caramel corn, Girl Scout cookies and creamies.

On Saturday morning Natalie picked me up and we grabbed some breakfast at Del Taco with my nephew Scott and then we headed to St. George to spend time with Wayne and his family.