Happy Mother's Day! ...to me :o)

Brad and I started our weekend a little early and headed to Utah on Thursday to catch the NCAA Men's Volleyball Semifinals. BYU was hosting this year, it's a shame they didn't qualify for the tournament, but we were still looking forward to watching some great volleyball. We left the kids with their Auntie Tiff for the weekend (Thanks Tiff!) and arrived in Salt Lake around 2pm. Thinking the games started at 4, we headed straight to Provo rather than stopping in Park City first (Bret & Jo's House, aka: our hotel) to unload. Bret and Jolene were going to join us for the Final Tournament on Saturday night but couldn't make Thursdays games. Once we arrived in Provo and checked the tickets we realized we were a bit early, the first game didn't start until 7pm. I'm glad we made the mistake though because it gave us the opportunity to do so many things that we haven't been able to do since we moved away. Things I have missed dearly and it brought back so many great memories.

Like splitting a steak and chicken fajita at Los Hermanos Mexican Restaurant and sharing a cherry empanada for dessert. I really wanted a Diablo Verde specialty drink as well but I figured I probably wouldn't be able to handle the drink, dinner AND and empanada so I passed. Brad used to work for Los Hermanos and while we were dating he worked back at the bar mixing drinks and my favorite that he would make for me often was the Diablo Verde. Maybe next visit. We have been searching every restaurant in Idaho though for a decent empanada and so far nothing has come close to the ones at Los, so it was a must on the menu for us.

After we stuffed our tummies with memories we headed back to campus to walk some of it off. Whenever we've returned to BYU it has been to watch Cougar Football and so we haven't spent any time back on campus.
We started off by checking out the "pre-game Luau" BYU was hosting for all of the volleyball fans where we picked up lays and little miniature volleyballs for the kids. They had lots of stuff there that the kids would have enjoyed and they also had a basket full of volleyballs on the court for people to goof around with. So Brad and I did a little peppering with the BYU volleyball team. Well, I guess it would be more accurate to say that we peppered adjacent to them, but still very cool.

Before long we were wandering campus (checking out all of the remodeling that has been done in the past 9 years) and found ourselves at the bookstore where I was able to find a few activity and learning books for the kids. I was also able to stock up on a favorite of mine when I was attending school there. I think almost every time I bought something at the book store I also bought a little bag of Sour Cherry Balls to go along with it.
I HEART SOUR CHERRY BALLS!

Finally, 7 o'clock came around and it was time for some volleyball. We found our seats next to Ryan Millar who played for BYU when we were attending there. Brad was score keeper so we attended every home game that season. Ok, so Millar was actually a few rows up and a few seats over from us, but I'm pretty sure there was a connection because we all cheered at the same time. Millar played in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and is now playing on our national team.


The first game went long so the second game didn't even start until 9:50pm. The beginning of a "go to bed late and sleep in late" routine that lasted all weekend long. From shopping the Park City Outlet Mall to Teppanyaki for dinner, watching Miss Saigon at the Pioneer Theater, Visiting Grandma Robin and Uncle Louie at their chalet in Midway and catching the 5 game final match between USC and UC Irvine we had a wonderful weekend. Then to top it all off, Brad drove all night to get me home to my kids for Mother's Day. His parents volunteered to come home early from the cabin, take them off of Tiffany's hands and put them to bed at our home so we could be together today. Tiffany's kids ended up having their Father and Son campout this weekend and she was still willing to not only watch our kids, but take Alex to her soccer game and help them make me a beautiful Mother's Day card and provide them with roses to give to me. I feel so blessed to have family around who are so willing to go the extra mile. Thank you everyone for a making this Mother's Day weekend truly special!