Monday, June 21, 2010

Visit From My Mum

My best birthday gift... was a visit from my mum.

It was touch and go for weeks if she would be well enough to come up. A few months ago, my mom was suffering from a lot of health challenges, which required yet another hospital stay. But somehow, she got the strength to not only get better, but get well enough to still come see us.

This photo was taken last year...
but it's my favorite photo of me & my mum.

We picked her up at the SLC airport and took her out to Red Robins for lunch. Everyone really enjoyed it. We then made the trek up the mountain to Providence, which is an hour & a half drive from the Salt Lake City.

Without much of a rest, we attended a goodbye party for our friend Josh May, who's National Guard unit is being called to go to Iraq for a year. Mum "knows" Josh May from my previous blog post about our fieldtrip to the National Guard Armory, so she was honored to come along to his bon voyage.

We tried to just do lots of quiet stuff all week. I didn't want to send my mom home all worn out. So we limited our activities to things like: shopping at DI, working on our family history, pots of tea, and chit chatting. One night, mum treated us for dinner at Golden Corral (our favorite buffet) which was big thumbs up night for all of us!

As usual, mum found it a little chilly here, so we kept her snug with lots of blankets. Which of course, meant that she became a weiner dog magnet.

Coco, Max, & mum.

One of the nicest things about mum's visit, is that she got to spend time with the boys. Whenever we go down to Phoenix, it always seems like we are running at such a frantic pace, so it seems that "quality visits" don't happen.

David, Joshua, & mum, playing "Kings in the Corner".

For Shabbat, we had some extra visitors. Devon's sister Jenica, and her husband Ben, were in Ogden visiting his family... so they drove up for dinner. It was fun visiting with them. They are expecting their first child, due in December, so there was lots of baby talk.

On the day that mum was due to depart, we decided to take a day trip to Park City. While that entailed a lot of driving, it was fun to show her around the town. She especially liked shopping on Main St. In the late afternoon, we headed down to the airport and she boarded the plane back to Phoenix. We're all hoping that her health stays good enough for her to come back up to UT in the Fall to spend the High Holidays with us.

Monday, June 7, 2010

50th Birthday - Park City Escape

Celebrated the big 50 in style this month on a get away weekend with my sister Janet.

Picked Janet up at the Salt Lake airport and the two of us drove to Park City for a few days. We stayed at the Westgate Resort & Spa (in the Canyons) and felt like pampered princesses.


The room, or should I say suite, we had was just awesome. It had a fully stocked kitchen (fridge, stove, dishwasher), huge dining area, living room with a fireplace & entertainment system.

Janet setting up shop for work.

And the bedroom? Oh that was to die for! We had a gigantic king sized bed (with more pillows than bed) and huge jacuzzi bathtub. Awesome!!!


JACUZZI + CHAMPAGNE = RELAXATION

Highlights of our week included: shopping on Main St., hiking, touring spas, Farmers Market, visiting the wine store, hot tubs/steam/sauna/jacuzzi, cooking, listening to musicals, and watching movies (even if they all were duds).

On my birthday, we went to a fabulous bar for lunch at the Sky Lodge called "Le Bar Boheme". We had the best French Onion Soup I've ever French Onion Soup made with Bourbon, Onion Soup, and baked with Provolone and Gruyère Cheese. With that, we had an incredible bottle of wine (that I wrote down the name of .... and promptly lost).

All in all, it was a wonderful get away. I think that spending such a milestone birthday at a resort and spa... is much more preferable to parties where people buy you "OVER THE HILL" presents and decorate your birthday cake with tombstones.

When I got home, Devon and the kids hosted a small celebration at home. Devon even bought me a Strawberry Whipped Cream cake... he's finally learning that I don't like chocolate.