Trip to Utah in March

Day 1 & 2 - I stayed with my brother Kenneth and his family and the first day it snowed all morning, but cleared up enough for Kenneth, Dylan and me to go out in the afternoon. We went to P.F. Chang's for lunch (yummy!) and then went to see Race to Witch Mountain. The next day the kids had a half day of school, so we headed over to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point in the afternoon. I had tons of fun getting to see their family, since I had not seen Jennifer or the kids for four years.



Evening of Day 2, Day 3 and Morning of Day 4 - Eden came and picked me up after work and we headed over to Longhorn Steakhouse for dinner. When we got there the wait was 90 min.+, so we walked over to the mall and looked around for a while until it was time to eat. We ate some delicious steak and after we finished eating, we headed to the $2 movie theatre, only to realize it was 9:30pm and most of the movies had already started. We decided to watch a movie back at her house and then stayed up until almost 3am talking.
The next morning we did brunch at a restaurant called Mimi's Cafe. This is the best place I've ever been for breakfast! It was soooo good! We went back to Eden's house, where I took a nap before we took off for an Indian festival. We stopped off on our way out of town for some gelato and started on what we thought would be a half hour trip down to Spanish Fork. Little did we know what was in store! When we got off the exit we ended up in mounds of traffic. Cars were parked on both sides of the street over a mile before the temple. As we realized we would not be finding any parking before we reached the temple, we decided to continue to inch slowly through town in the hopes that if we passed the temple we might find something closer, so we had fun talking and people watching. We were right and ended up parking not too far from the temple. As we were walking towards the temple we saw a huge cloud of pink rise over the temple. We had come all this way and missed the throwing of the colors, a ceremony where people throw brightly colored powder all over each other and into the air. We continued on to the temple where we passed people covered from head to toe in bright colors. It was quite the sight! When we got there it was a crazy mass of brightly colored people (who we tried to avoid touching as we squeezed through the crowd). We toured the temple and followed the trail of people waiting in line for food to its end. After finding out from someone they had waited an hour in line for food, we decided to leave and go to an Indian restaurant after we left. Unfortunately the traffic to get out of town was almost as bad as coming in, so we decided to eat somewhere else so we would make it to the movies. We had so much fun hanging out together! Eden took the pics at the festival, so if I happen to get a hold of some, I will post them.
The next day we woke up to snow again and headed out in the cold and snow to church. After church we went to Naomi's house for a big family dinner, where we finally got to eat our Indian food. Naomi had made butter chicken and mango lassi's - yum! I had a great time with Eden and Kenneth and Naomi's families.

Day 5 & 6 - I spent the remainder of my trip with my sister, Naomi and her family. Monday morning we went to an English store, where I picked up some English treats I haven't had in a while: pork pies, salt and vinegar hula hoops, and Kinder eggs for the kids for Easter. In the afternoon I had my first IKEA experience. I bought a couple of small things I knew I could fit in my suitcase, but made a mental list of the many other things I would like to get when I make a trip to the IKEA that just opened in Charlotte, NC. Naomi and I went out and had a great dinner, just the two of us at a place with a bakery. After 10 min. of drooling over the many varieties of pastries, we decided on two we would take home and split, while watching Australia. I made it through the dessert, but not through the movie! The dessert was super yummy and the movie...I guess I will have to rent it and try watching it again. I think I made it through 45 min. of the 3 hour movie. The next day we went to the church distribution center to pick up some things, had a ginger scone at the English bakery and headed over to the airport to say goodbye.



I had so much fun getting to see my siblings and their families in Utah! It was such a great trip and I was so spoiled while I was there. I am so grateful for my wonderful husband, who offered to take a week off of work and stay home with the kids, so I could enjoy a trip minus the kids before baby #4 arrived.