Road Trip to Utah

So, about a week before we left for Utah for my brother-in-law's wedding, we had our ultrasound done. We found out it was a boy, in case you all didn't hear by now. The tech was so good at getting good photos of the baby. There was one where he was laid out with his feet crossed and a hand behind his head. She even showed us a his bicep, it was really neat. Anyway, here is a picture of our little boy:


We are ALL so excited! The girls jumped up and down and cheered when they found out. We had balloons filled with "baby boy" confetti and we had them pop them. They were really excited. My mom was in the hospital at the time, so we made a little puzzle for her to do with the boy symbol on it and she was able to do that in the hospital (we didn't think the staff would be too pleased with the confetti in the balloons trick at the hospital).

Spencer's brother, Ricky, got married this last week, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. It's funny because I didn't meet Courtney, his new wife until we saw each other in the Sealing Room of the Temple. It was bizarre, but she is so cute and they are so cute together. We did talk though over the phone a lot. I can't wait to actually get to know my new sister-in-law! Of course I did the cake! It was really fun, despite the blizzard that came into Cache Valley before and during the reception. Anyway, I'm getting a head of myself here. We left for Utah the Friday before Thanksgiving. The girls did a really good job with the travel. They were pretty cute:

We took my mom with us and dropped her off in Salt Lake at my Aunt's house so that she could spend Thanksgiving with family. We didn't run into any weather on the way there or on the way back. We kept a really close look on the weather. Ricky and Courtney got married in the Salt Lake Temple so we decided to stay with Spencer's cousin, Rachel (she used to live here and we became good friends). They live in Farmington and we thought the girls would really have a good time playing with their cousins Sabrina and Oliver. They had SO much fun! So much in fact that the girls wouldn't calm down when it was time to go to bed so Sabrina ended up having to sleep with her parents the whole time we were there.


They have a fun little playroom that the girls spent most of their time in. Avary thought it was our new house and CJ decided that when we move, we need a house just like Rachel's. It was such a fun time staying with them. They even introduced me to a new game called Settlers of Catan. I'm strongly addicted to it now, thank you very much! I was able to finish the cake at the house, with the help of Rachel and Spencer. It was probably one of the easiest cakes I've done.

The ceremony was beautiful. The wind was blowing quite a bit and there was a blizzard warning for Cache Valley for around 3:00 that afternoon, so we had to leave the Temple a little early and get back to Rachel's so that we could make it through Sardine Canyon before the blizzard hit. We made it just in time!! I wish I could have taken pictures of what blew in, but our camera ran out of batteries. It was a COMPLETE white out. I don't think I have EVER seen a snow storm like it in my life. What was even more impressive was the amount of people that actually showed up to the reception in weather like that. The reception was at a beautiful new event center in Hyde Park, just North of Logan, called Castle Manor. It was breathtaking! We were able to get there around 2:30 so I was able to spend a lot of time making sure the cake was perfect.

Of course now that I look back on it there are some things I would do different, but it really turned out beautiful and most importantly Ricky and Courtney LOVED it! When I knew cakes were my passion, I knew that when Ricky got married I would do a surprise groom's cake for him, so I did:


Ricky LOVES John Deere. I knew I was going to make him a John Deere cake and so I did. It turned out so awesome! All the kids loved it and it was a great surprise for Ricky.

By the time the reception was about over, the snow had stopped and it was alright to drive. We stayed the rest of the week in Lewiston with Spencer's family spending Thanksgiving with them. Well, everyone but Ricky and Courtney, they were in Jamaica on their honeymoon.

It was a good trip. We even drove down to Salt Lake on the Friday after Thanksgiving and had lunch with my Dad. The girls had fun playing with his Playdough and CJ "asked" Spencer to make her a dragon out of the Legos (I say "asked" because it was more of a demand) so he did. It was good to see him.

We decided to leave a little early because of more storms blowing in so we left the next day for home. We made it in not great time because we stopped off in Cheyenne for dinner. We first had stopped at a Village Inn and it took 10 minutes for someone to actually acknowledge that we had stepped into the room. We had decided to take our business somewhere else when they FINALLY came to seat us. We still left. The girls were really wanting breakfast for dinner, so we found an IHOP about ten minutes away. We were sat right away and everything seemed fine until our waitress came back AFTER taking our order and asked where our menus were AFTER she had already taken them away. This was about 20 minutes after we had ordered. THEN she proceeded to take our order AGAIN and in the middle of writing our order, she dozed off a couple times and then snapped back awake acting like nothing had happened. Her handwriting reminded me of the movie "Awakenings" with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro, it would start fine and then trail off. You can imagine our hesitancy after the experience we had at the Village Inn. Spencer asked her if she was OK and she said yes. After she had left, he found the manager and told him what had happened. He said that he was sending her home, I guess she had a rough day, and that our ENTIRE meal was on the house. We felt really bad for her and made sure that she had a proper ride home, we didn't feel good about her driving home. We were even prepared to pay for her cab, but the manager informed us that her daughter was going to drive her home. He made sure our order was put into the computer and when we got our order it was right except a few additions. It was all good though, we left her a $10 tip because we figured she needed it. Later on Spencer told me that while I was in the restroom with Avary, the waitress had come up to the table and had apologized and explained that she has kidney problems. The only thing I can figure out is that the medication she takes makes her tired and forgetful. Needless to say, we are NOT going back to Cheyenne to eat again. That was enough for us! It was an all in all good trip though, but we are sure glad to be home!

Halloween Festivites

It was a fun week of Halloween festivities. It was the start of the girls fall break from school. They got a whole week, I like having it during Halloween. We started the week with our ward trunk-or-treat. It was really fun. We had a Chili cook off and I entered my unchili chili (loaded baked potato soup). That soup went faster than any of the chili's, it felt good that people liked it, but I didn't win. They only had prizes for ACTUAL chili, go figure. I was impressed because it was the first time I have EVER made it. Doubt I can make it that good again though. Anyway, it was a fun night. I even got my mom to dress up, took a lot of convincing but the girls helped quite a bit! Spencer was a bat-man (not THE batman but a bat-man):

He was pretty clever about it, he threw it together about 20 minutes before we left for the trunk-or-treat. He used a garbage bag for his wings. The girls were tooth-fairies. We used recital costumes from CJ's first year of ballet and her last year ballet recitals. It worked out well, we thought:

Avary said she was a "Princess ballerina tooth fairy", but we just said a tooth fairy. I dressed up too, I went incognito. We took pictures but I had a couple "accessories" in the pictures that I really didn't want to "show". I went to Walmart because all my pants that fit me were dirty and got some Halloween camouflage pants and wore a black shirt and one of my black chef hats from school. I got a lot of compliments on it. LOVE the pants, so comfy!!!

The Tuesday and Thursday before Halloween, the girls did their Halloween dances at ballet. They did such a great job! I took video, but I don't know how to post it to my blog yet. Hopefully Spencer can help me out one day.

The following Friday we went to Spencer's work to trick-or-treat there. There are 3 buildings to his work and we only went to 2......we had to empty the girls buckets TWO times and they filled them up a third. They always clean house there. Avary had changed her mind by then what she wanted to be for Halloween so she is a cat and CJ is still a Tooth Fairy:

On Saturday CJ had a birthday party to go to for one of the boys in her primary class. She got to eat "Mummy Dogs" while she was there. I thought it had spoiled my plan on having mummy dogs for dinner that night but she was all for having more. So, we had mini-mummy dogs for dinner that night with sweet potato fries. They were good too! I had sliced my thumb pretty good earlier that morning and I couldn't really roll the mummy dogs, so Spencer and the girls did it for me. At first Spencer was helping, but then they started to run out of dough and Spencer was doing that and the girls ended up making most of the dogs. I was so proud of them, they are really growing up and learning a lot!! That night they decorated a pumpkin with a kit that their Grandma and Grandpa Schumann sent them. The pumpkin turned out really cute:

The girls woke up on Sunday wanting special pancakes. They weren't the "special" I thought they would be, like pumpkins or something like that. Spencer was up and letting me sleep in and they went up to him and asked for "Hello Kitty" pancakes. When they ask, they get:


I am always so impressed when he does stuff like this for the girls, especially when it is stuff he has no idea about, but the girls had a puzzle of Hello Kitty so he could figure it out. Halloween on a Sunday is sure different here in Colorado than Utah. We were hopeful in having kids come to our door on Saturday, but none showed. They showed on Sunday though, but we had made a decision to not hand out candy on Sunday, so we put a "Sorry, no candy" sign on our door. We heard kids screaming almost all night though because of our next door neighbor, Eduardo. He ALWAYS does something awesome in his garage for Halloween that makes kids run screaming down the street. We were hoping to get rid of all the "gross" candy by handing it out to trick-or-treaters on Saturday, but our plan didn't work. Now we have two ginormous bowls full of candy. Hope everyone had a great Halloween!!!