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!

Dan and Andrea plus 1 and Cabining

My life long friend Dan, (well friend since high school anyway, and THAT is a funny story)

and his wife Andrea just had a baby! Her name is London Rose and here she is in all her fabulousness!

They were up at our cabin [part of Memorial Day weekend and here visiting from Phoenix and we had a great time! We were lucky enough to get them for one night (they had a very busy schedule with friends and family and baby showers and meet and greets, etc) and we tried to keep their time with us low stress and relaxing. You cant help but do that at the cabin though! I cooked a "bit" and we had Cinnamon Rolls with Cinnamon Almond Frosting. Homemade Mac and Cheese, Carmel Brownies, and Caramel Popcorn. Yum! I'll post those recipes on my recipe blog too. Most are there already.

Cameron with London, he LOVED her. He asked me, "Mommy, is this new baby for US?"

Kevin and London, she really was a great baby!

AWWwwww...... so cute! We can't wait for them to come back again! I miss Dan, he's so fun and so great to talk to. He's the best person to talk to about stuff that annoys me. HE GETS IT. I tell ya what, it's always a relief to talk to him. You know? I always feel better when I do. He appreciates my quirky, unorthodox personality that I hide from a lot of people. Oh, did I mention we are cousins? Yup, second cousins to be exact. Our grandparents were siblings so we had the same Great grandparents? Yeah. I think that's it. Anyway, he's obligated to deal with me because we're RELATED!

I was in awe of the vivid colors up at the cabin this week, it was AMAZING. Since my eye surgeries last year I am enjoying more and more of what this world has to show me. The drives up and back and all over these last two weeks were a testament to how blessed I am that my surgeries went better than planned. I was seeing so crystal clear, and better than I ever could have imagined. It was the first time with no contacts at the cabin, so dust didn't bother me. The wind didn't bother me, and I couldn't stop just looking at the scenery. I can even see to CLEAN better. (which we did a lot of this weekend at the cabin) Spring cleaning. ICK.

The leaves had all grown in since CJ was there just last week. The contrast between the bright green aspens against the dark shady pines was really breathtaking. I couldn't capture it very well by my camera, Like my friend CJ says, "Sometimes, it's just better in your head" You can kind of tell with the pics of Dan's family.above.

We love it up there, a home away from home, an escape to fresh air, lots of space, it's a blessing we will never forget.

View from above, in the fall, courtesy of our friend John's fabulous talent.



This is a pic from my drive home though I-84 approaching Mountain Green. This drive is the most breathtaking of all and I get to do this like twice a month or more in the summer. It's amazing, the Morgan Valley, Red Rock formations, Devil's Slide, Echo, Rockport Reservoirs, Coalville area, Weber Canyon, Wow!!

Cameron and Nate the Great

So, boys wrestle, I know of this phenomenon

Cameron will someday appreciate how tolerant his brother is,

Because I would be very irritated about now....

.......Nathan?

Um, are you okay?

Oh, well, if it ends in a hug, I think we've survived this round.

Until next time....

C.J.'s Visit

We had our good friend C.J. out here from Chicago this weekend. It was his first time to Utah and he loved it! "Yes!" It's nice to show people our beautiful mountains and valleys close to home. It's fun to see our place from other people's eyes that way. He enjoyed the scenery and commented often about how much he liked what he saw, and that he understood why we loved it here so much etc.

We got to show him our favorite places to drive. We went to Bountiful and drove up to the Temple to see the view of the Great Salt Lake. We drove down south to Thanksgiving Point's Gardens, then we drove through Provo Canyon to Kamas then to our cabin. We spent the night there, mom watched the boys for us, thanks mom! C.J. cooked us a fabulous dinner over the fire and we looked at the amazing stars (Beautiful! Amazing layers and layers of stars, we could see shooting stars and we tracked satellites too, I've never seen that before) We took him up to Smith and Morehouse Reservoir and we went on a little hike up there. We drove home on 8o/84 through Morgan and Weber Canyon.

That night we had dinner with my family and then went and played Rock Band with our good friends Matt and Teri which is always a blast!

I was hoping to take him on the Alpine slide or up to the Tram at Snowbird or drive the Alpine loop or Timpanogos Cave, but all of those things aren't open/accessible until after Memorial day. Darn snow.

Bridal Veil Falls

We've missed C.J., he's very generous and helpful. Fun to be around. He's interested in photography so he had a great time shooting different things he saw. He also replaced two belts on our car while he was here (Bless him!) and pretty much paid for gas and groceries/food too. (What a Sweetheart)

We had a great time! He says he'll be back so we didn't scare him away with our Sunday afternoon chaos. I cooked a bunch (which you all know I love to do) and he enjoyed that too.

Next time he'll bring his 5 year old, Christopher, we'll have a great time with the kids, tons of things for them to do here too! :)

Until then, we'll miss you C.J.!

Here's some of my attempts.....I need a better camera....Waaahhaaahhh!!

My new favorite flower! A hybrid daisy, Citrus daisy? Anyway, Pretty!!

This purple one is a tulip! Go figure they were that pretty when open!

This next one wont turn right side up nomatter what I try. Weird. It was my favorite too.

Way to Go Nathan!!

So remember an earlier post where I told you Nathan LOVES Woodshop and I showed you just a couple of his projects?? Well apparently his hard work has paid off....


Well, his school just had their "Teachers Choice Awards" and Nathan got the only one from his shop teacher, Mr. Johnson.


(Apparently it's pretty tough to deserve an award from Mr. Johnson, according to the school counseler who announced Nathan's name)


Here it is! And Here he is!

Nathan and the Award Handcrafted by Mr. Johnson

Presentation, Some of the Teachers are in the background

Here's the Detail, "In recognition of being the hardest worker and in doing a superb job"

Of course we were all there to cheer him on!
CONGRATS NATHAN!!

Our New Neice!

It's been cool to say I'm an aunt, though I wish I had more time to be a lot more "involved" in "aunting." We've had Neices and Nephews for over 5 years now. Now there are 9 grandkids in the Broadbent family. That's 8 added in the last 5 years including Cameron. Poor Nathan has 8 years, quite a gap, between him and is oldest cousin, Shayla.

Introducing Tianne!

I love her pudgy cheeks :)



Isn't she Beautiful?? Congrats Lynette and Brian!!



Cameron Adores her!