Suprise of a Lifetime!

K so 3 days after I got back from Chicago I knew I had an "interesting" weekend coming up. My friend Matt emailed me weeks before with a cryptic note about needing me to "reserve the weekend" I speak of and that was all the info I was gonna get and to NOT tell his wife Teri anything (It was a birthday surprise for her)
So, I anxiously awaited Friday where I was to arrive before 3pm with a bag packed for an overnight stay....who KNOWS where.....
Matt also invited 4 other of Teri's friends , her sister in law Megan, whom I knew, two gals from her ward Kristi and Becky - who is an old friend too, and one of them (Cheryl) was flown in from Chicago...Niiiiiice. Matt told us all in an email that he was inviting all her good friends that he KNEW would get along well and KNEW who would make it all about TERI. (Whelll, I was flattered I tell you Whut!) Matt also told us he'd be covering food and transportation too so no worries there... (Heaving big sigh of relief on MY part)
So there we all were, showing up one at a time in Teri's living room, none of us having any clue what was about to happen, (including Teri, who's mouth dropped more with each arrival!)
Then Matt told Teri she was going away for the night with us! And then told us we were ready and to come outside......

AH YEAH!!! A LIMO BABY!!!

Then he handed us a letter and a box and told us to read it on our trek and away we went!!
We were told some sweet things about Teri in that letter and Matt said some amazing things to her. too, told her this was just the beginning on how he was going to attempt to make up to her the hardships they've been through to get to this point in their lives. Teri was misty eyed, and all of us were a little "vaclempt" and then we had Teri open some gifts and we all got to get to know each other by telling our "How we met Teri story and how long we've known her" then Teri got to tell everyone what she appreciated about us. The group of girls I liked instantly and we all were laughing and having a GREAT time. I mean, how could you NOT???

Kristi, Teri, and Cheryl

Becky and Megan

So we deduced that we'd be shopping first at the Outlet malls in Park city!!

and then whooshed away to our hotel by said limo.

Shopping was FUN, well Teri enjoyed laughing at a few things we found. Then we headed to the hotel which was on Main St Park City. Very Posh and earthy and artsy and to DIE for......
This Concierge lady (below) came rushing out and greeted us with a "Helloooooo! Ladies!!!!"
She and the Bell hop (whom we were told NOT to tip, Matt had taken care of ALL of that!) whooshed us and our luggage to our room. She gave us a tour of our room, which was.....well....LOOK!!

Full Kitchen, 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, Living Room, Dining Area, Pool Table, Family Room, Fireplaces in EVERY room
Omigosh!

Where is this water coming from??? "Whaaaaa??"



Some of us collapsed on the wood floors wishing we could transplant them into our homes and giving them plenty of Loooove....

This was mine and Meg's room, yes, the TV just makes a grand entrance appearing out of the bureau. There's our gas stove, and the Powder room just through the sliding doors....


Check out this Kitchen, wine fridge in the double bar, huge counter tops of marble, Double ovens, FULL size fridge, DISHWASHER, there was a washer/dryer in the closet next to the ovens too....where are my ingredients??? I would have cooked had I known such a masterpiece of a kitchen awaited me. There was a dining table that seated 6 too!

We could've been perfectly happy just enjoying our new pad called "The SKY Lodge" but we were told by Matt to get ready for dinner and head up the street in 45 minutes....

I couldn't cook, so I played pool instead....all alone.....while the other girly girls got ready for dinner.

so the excitement built as we got our faces on and headed up Main Street to this great place called, um Something Something Main.

We were greeted there like royalty as well and taken to a great table where Jim Carrey our waiter was charming and fun. Matt texted me and told us to order like four courses or ELSE. So we said "OKAY!!!" And we ordered tons of stuff and shared and tried all sorts of fun things like a fish called "ONO" and melon soup, and venison, and to die for everything.... There was a James Taylor sound alike playing acoustic guitar and we made multiple requests for songs for Teri.

We had a GREAT time at dinner and Matt was SLY, he had menus with no prices on them given to us, he had Crème Brulee sent to Teri and Death by Chocolate cake with a candle on it....yum!

We were told we had tickets to a show up at the Egyptian theater and found out it was Dueling Piano's from the guys from "Keys on Main." If you know anything about that place you'll know how AWESOME these guys are. Dueling Piano's is a ton of fun and so fascinating to watch, we made more requests for Teri and had a BLAST. Here the guys are and here Teri is rockin’ out to Bon Jovi….

We headed back to our room and we got changed,
I just love this pic of Meggers and Ter bein' all "Gangsta" –We then ate junk food, talked,

some of the girls squished themselves like sardines in one of our private HOT TUBS.... I took pictures....I'm not much into marinating.

We watched some Wacko Jacko Special - oh yeah, this was the day he died. Great pic of a $6 burger at Carl's Jr huh?

And we climbed into our turn down serviced beddie bye's at about 2am. These beds were SO soft and comfy. Feather everything and soft cushy warm sheets and blankets. LOVED IT!

We were told brunch was at 10 so to sleep in! "Whoot! Whoot!" - was what we said like to everything all night! So we did sleep in and then we enjoyed getting ready in our amazing powder rooms with TV's and Waterfall showers and yummy smelling bath and body items.....I personally took a 1/2 hour shower using the dual heads for extra "WoW!"

It was a beautiful day, here's the view from my balcony that mornin.....

We decided to take a family portrait....I just love these girls.....

We went to brunch downstairs at a french place, we were seated outside and it was WONDERFUL!! Look at my delectable dish!!

We also were told that next we'd be heading over to a place across the street to get....guess!?!? Guess??!!??
Mani's and Pedi's!!!
Ahhhh Yeahhhhhh
That was amazing!! Fun!!

Check my pampered self out.....

Yeah, so after being amazingly pampered and unbelievably treated like royalty, all of us moms were just about floating at this point. We shopped a while after, admiring our new nails, and headed to Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for a few more yummies and to a bookstore for a good read.....then our limo whooshed us back home again to our hubbies, who were all secretly loathing Matt at this point KNOWING he'd set the bar way to high.

Believe me I will NEVER forget that weekend, I made some great new friends, I got to know Teri better, I got pampered and I can tell you this, I am STILL on cloud nine. It's all I can do to not scream, jump up and down like a child and hug Matt every time I see him :)

Thanks Matt, you're the best!! You did a GREAT thing for your wife that I know she won't forget either. If she's ever mad at you, all you have to do is say “Park City Girls Weekend?" and she'll be putty in your hands. :)

Love you, gals!! Happy Birthday Teri!!

Chicago Baby!!

So here's some pics from our Chi-town trip. It's been 4 years since we were back. We lived there for six years (total) and we LOVE it there. We have great friends there and even though the humidity was TERRIBLE, the nostalgia was more powerful. We were there a Thursday through Tuesday and were going and going every second! We stayed with Kevin's parents and it was so nice to spend time with them. The boys love being at Nama/Papa's house.

This was Cameron's first plane ride, Nathan got to see his old friends who are now HUGE, they hit it off just fine even though they were in 4th grade when they saw each other last, they're all going into ninth now. (Crazy!) I wish I got a pic of them, darn it! One of them (Matt) was as tall as me!

Cameron on the plane, looking around

I look forward to studying this pic every time I'm there....Kevin is SO cute! The Senior pic is how he looked when we met folks! I think Nathan looks more like Deborah and JaNae than Kevin, Cameron looks just like Nathan when he was little but looks more like me now.....hum...

I love walking the neighborhoods around Kevin's parent's house, the homes, the green, the smells of vegetation, the humidity even!

Thursday:We went to Culver's to eat (butter burgers, custard and crinkle fries!) we spent some time at CJ & Christopher's house and Kevin went to a LAN party at an old buddy's house.

CJ making us dinner

CJ made this...I had to show you, it has mango, raspberries, blueberries, nectarines, lemon rind, cherries, cut up so small and cute, it was tart, sweet, creamy and heavenly

Friday: We hit Portillo's, we went downtown to the Field Museum and met John at his work on Michigan Ave, we went out to dinner with Mike and Carol and to see John's place.

Kevin's happy! He's got to order his very favorite Chicago food....Portillo's Italian Beef

Field Museum

John's and Cameron at John's desk at work

Saturday we went to the Highland Games with CJ and Christopher, we went to Steak and Shake, then to John's for a fun party!

I'm so glad Kevin was there to do carry Cameron and not me

Craft Booth

Walking to the festival, we kept dousing them with our water bottles to kept them happy...

The boys were so cute sharing Toe's sword this way....Cameron has one at home that we bought at our Highland Festival in Utah, so he knew all about it.....The boys got along great, they were fun to watch.

Steak and Shake, we love it!

Sunday we had a great Father's day we went to church and saw so many friends there, I made dinner for Kevin and Dad (and Mom :) Happy Mothers day!) in Mom and Dad's beautiful newly remodeled kitchen. - (Insert pic I missed here.)

Monday we went to Brookfield Zoo and Carol came with us, then Kevin and I went out with John and CJ to "Heaven on Seven" for dinner - this is one of our favorite places.

Not too worried about the Dinosaurs here....

Hot on the Merry-Go-Round

Cameron doesn't look very little here....

We had a great time, thanks a TON to my mom who gave us the airplane tickets for our Birthdays!!

The Scottish Festival

The Scottish Festival was held at Thanksgiving Point this weekend. We love the Highland Games, the bagpipes that never shut up, the food, the kilts :), the fun!

But first we had some time to kill before the gates opened so we went over to the petting zoo. Cameron rode his first horse, it was quite exciting going round and round like that. Wow.:



Then he went to jail:



Between that, the Turkey's, Horses, Cows, Goats, Emperor Kuzco and the other animals, we had a great time. But now on to the main event:

I thought the guy in the baseball hat was cute.

My brother Dave plays the bagpipes, well, he's working towards it, you have to start with a smaller version before you move on to the pipes, and before you can usually afford them.

His instructor was at the fair (of course!)

We watched the Barrel Toss, the Atlas Stone lifts etc. They were tossing candy to the audience every once in awhile so Cameron was happy:

Oh, okay, it was the new wooden swords that kept Cameron happy.

I don't think I will EVER tell Nathan he has a certain amount of money to spend in any of the shops....He took FOREVER deciding what he wanted. Next time I'll decide for him. He ran into some friends from school there too, that was fun for him.


Here is Nathan's Choice.....

And of course the most important thing about the Festival is......

the TURKEY LEGS!! And the meat pies....and the corn on the cob....and the homemade ice cream.....the popcorn.....wait. Those last three are at most festivals.... Anyway, we had a great time!