Visitors on Vacation!

Jonathan's brother Jeremy recently got a new job as a dentist in Albuquerque, NM so they decided to use our house as a pit stop on their halfway-across-the-country-trip-- which suited us perfectly because we always love seeing them and any chance to get some extra cuddle time with baby Sophie before WE move is great.

They left from Moses Lake, WA the Thursday before, and travelled down through Utah until they reached us on Monday afternoon. We had dinner, the kids wore Jeremy out by making him wrestle and chase and jump on the tramp, Kylene and I caught up, and we got U-Swirl for dessert.

That night (or early the next morning I should say) poor Sophie started vomiting and not feeling very well. Because she is still so little, Jeremy and Kylene decided they'd better take her in to the ER and make sure she wasn't getting dehydrated-- so baby Sophie got the works with an IV and meds. Tuesday we decided to just stay put and let the three of them rest up before moving on to their new digs in New Mexico. We did get Cafe Rio for lunch though, which always makes a bad day seem better (I think). Wednesday morning we took Sophie and Kylene (Jeremy drove their car) to the airport and bid them farewell. We LOVED having them come visit and wish them lots of luck in their new home while they're getting settled in!!


Zachary was SO enamored with Sophie this time. Last time we saw them in February he basically ignored her unless Grandpa was holding her (in which case he'd get jealous), but this time he wanted to spend every minute right by her. He wanted to hold her, kiss her, hug her, play with her, make sure she was getting fed her "ba-ba's," and he would grab my hand to take me to go lay down by her so we could point out her hands, toes, eyes, ears, nose, etc. If I would pat her head, he'd pat her head, if I would rub her tummy, he would rub her tummy. He LOVED that little baby!

The Cardon cousins doing a little bonding. They sure wanted to take her out on the trampoline, but she's still a bit young for that.:)

Zachy holding Sophie and simultaneously getting maple syrup rubbed into her hair from the pancakes smeared on his shirt from breakfast. Sorry Kylene!

Frousins (friend+cousin)!

Then, we got an unexpected visit from Aunt Whitney on Friday morning. The weekend before she'd driven down to Disneyland with some of her college friends, and only stopped in for about 2 hours to say hello. Naturally I gave her a hard time about that, so Friday morning at about 8 a.m. I got a call saying she was in St. George and on her way!! Best. Surprise. Visit. EVER. Friday night Jon watched the kids so we could go to dinner at Mimi's Cafe and then do a little shopping.

Saturday morning she entertained the kids so I could clean my house and Jon could go hiking sans the slow-pokes at Red Rock.

We went on a very WINDY (and kind of chilly) picnic to the butterfly park by our house. They have a great Splash Pad, but unfortunately it was way too cold to get in the water.

Zachary tried to poke the caterpillar's eyes out about 100 times.

And scared us a couple of times by trying to climb to the top of this with no one watching him. Jon barely caught him here.

After our picnic we went home and showed Whitney "Avatar" (one she'd missed while on her mission) and made some yummy streusel cupcakes.

That night Whitney offered to babysit for Jon and I, so we headed down to the Strip to try "Holsteins" which is a burger bar in the Cosmopolitan. A huge part of why I was interested in that restaurant is because the menu was supposed to have a lot of wacky "chef's treats"-- like duck fat fries, a foie gras stuffed burger, "philly cheesesteak" spring rolls, etc (you can see the old menu here), but when we got there they'd cut the menu almost by half and were missing a bunch of the things I'd wanted to try! I was bummed, but we were there already, we had a babysitter.....

So we tried the "Gold Standard" which was with dry-aged beef, bacon, and aged goat cheese, and the "The Steakhouse Burger" which was peppercorn-encrusted, with BBQ sauce, tomato confit, and cheddar cheese. The burgers were great, if not a little overpriced (we both though Smash Burger was just as good), but it was fun to try something new. Thanks for the date night Whitney, and for coming to visit!! I just can't bear the thought of no more Whitney visits though, so we'd better pressure her into a few more before we go.:)