Girls Trip & Mom's Birthday

 Tom has a group of friends that he's been close to ever since high school. There are six of them (five guys and one girl) that have stuck together through the past 20+ years.  The cool thing is, when they all got married to us 'outsiders' we seemed to gel right into the pack and have also become great friends.  The guys have made it an annual tradition to go on a guys trip every summer.  So last month they loaded up the boat and headed to St. George for a five day weekend.

Here's Tom, Dustin, Dee & Jeremy (Josh took the photo).  And of course, being guys, this is the only photo I have of that trip. 

So us girls decided we needed a vaca too.  Of course, it wasn't as long, and we didn't have a boat, but we still made the most of it.  Unfortunately Nisha and Cindy couldn't make it, so there was just four of us.  But, never-the-less we had a BLAST!  And I was way past due for some good R&R.

We also went to St. George.  We left late afternoon last Thursday.  First we met up at In N Out Burger.  Here's Rebekah, Cheri, Angelyn and I enjoying our meal.  

 We were all tired, but managed to stay awake for the drive.  We arrived late at the vacation house Cheri's parents were so nice to lend to us, and we went to bed shortly after arrival.  

Tom talked me into leaving Sophie home with him, so I had to pump every night and morning.  She didn't seem to care much for bottles, despite the milk I'd left for her.  But she slept well and stayed nourished with baby food and whatnot.  Tom was Superman back home taking care of the kids, the house and all that came with it.

The next morning we slept in (Sooo nice!).  I slept great the whole trip.  We went grocery shopping for food then we went and got massages (some did pedicures too).  Afterwards we stopped at a little refreshment shack named Swig's (the guys loved this place on their trip).  It was no nice to just sit outside and enjoy our beverages and treats.

Afterwards we went back to the house and did puzzles and played Mexican Train (this game lasted the whole weekend). 

 For dinner we went to one of my favorite restaurants, Pancho & Lefty's.

 Afterward we headed back to the house, and went for a ride in the golf cart around the neighboring golf course.  It was closed by then so we had fun cruising around.  We also played some more games and watched a movie.

The next day we got up a little earlier and went on a beautiful hike near Snow Canyon.

 Then we went back and laid out at the pool.  I went back to the house early to take a nap, as this is one of my favorite pastimes.  After we got all cleaned up we headed off to the movies.  We saw "The Words" which was quite interesting.  Although I did need some explanation at the end (I was kind of known as 'the blonde' on this trip.  I don't know why ;).

 We then went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner.  It was weird sitting just one booth away from the place we sat the last time I was at that restaurant with my family.

 We stayed up late playing games again.

Sunday was here before we knew it.  We finished our last few rounds of Mexican Train, cleaned the house and headed for home.  It was dark on the way down, but on the way home we made a point to find my parents crash site.  I was appreciative of the girls allowing me to stop there.  Here I am by the rock that took my mom's life.

 My sister had painted a heart on it last time she was there.  I hadn't been since last October.  The landscape had changed a bit, but I was surprised with how much debris was still there from the car.  You can even see the passenger side mirror next to the rock.

 We enjoyed listening to Jim Gaffigan's comedy as well as some fun music as we drove home.  Rebekah even did my hair for me while we were riding in the car.

 We arrived home shortly after dinner time.  Sophie seemed to not know what to think of me.  She would just stare at me, but not smile.  That night, when I nursed her for the first time in three days she seemed to remember just what to do and ate twice as much as she normally did.  The weekend was perfect!  But I missed my family a little bit.

The next day (Monday, Spet. 17th) was my mom's birthday.  She would've been 59, so we had a little party for her.  First we ate pizza for dinner.

Then my dad had all the kids follow him up to the Country Store in a game of Follow the Leader.

 We all got ice cream, which Sophie loved.

 Then we went to the conference room to watch video clips of home movies with my mom in them.

 Then each of us wrote a little message to Mom/Grandma and we tied them to balloons.  Here's Lily's message...

 We then walked over to the cemetery and gathered around her grave to sing "Happy Birthday". 

 As we finished the song we let the balloons go into the sky.  Unfortunately they did not take off as well as we hoped and some got stuck in the trees or just sat there in mid-air (we blamed it on the helium shortage), but it was still a fun way to celebrate my mom's life.

 Sophie also turned nine months old the same day.  She can pull herself up to a stand now and is crawling like a pro.

She loves to look out the window and just yell at whatever's out there.

 Here's a gimps of her first two teeth too.  

She says 'mamma', but I think it means 'pick me up' more than 'mom'.  She also says dadda and nigh-nigh, but again, I think it's more jabbers than words with meaning.  She will wave if you say nigh-nigh to her though.  She's getting so big!