Family Time

Phil, Livi and I just got back from Utah. I feel like I was just there. But I'm not complaining, I love going home and seeing everyone. This time we made the trip for Phil's brothers wedding. We flew into Las Vegas because the wedding was in St. George. Phil's grandma flew in a few hours after us so while we waited for her we walked around a little bit and saw some sights. Side note: I really don't get the appeal of Las Vegas. Anywhoo, after we picked up Phil's grandma we made the trek up to Loa to spend the weekend. I was a little concerned about how she would fare in Wayne County. Of course she LOVED it and her and my mom got along like BFFs. Then we headed up to my Dad's in Lindon where everyone got together for a pre-Thanksgiving while we were in town. I was bummed I only got to see my siblings for a few hours, but it was a blast while it lasted. The next day we took mom mom (Phil's grandma) to SLC to visit temple square and see the sights. We got a tour of the Conference center, saw an organ concert in the tabernacle and ate lunch in the Garden Restaurant at the Joseph Smith building (I think that's what it was called). We had an awesome and hilarious dinner with Cecilia and James that night. Then Wednesday morning we headed back down to St. George for the wedding on Thursday. The wedding was absolutely beautiful and I can't believe I didn't bring my camera. Ashley and Jason are a beautiful couple and I'm so excited to have another girl in the Arias family! We left right after the dinner to drive back to Vegas and we hopped on a 1am flight back to Houston. We got home at 6:30am and went straight to bed until noon. Phil had class that evening, hence the flying in the middle of the night. We are finally caught up on sleep, I think.

Yesterday was also Phil's birthday. He was feeling sick so instead of his requested coconut shrimp, I made chicken noodle soup. He still enjoyed his coconut lime cheesecake though. :-)

can you believe they charge $18.99 a pound for these m&ms?! The most ridiculous part? There were hundreds of people buying them!!!

dressing up at grandma's house. These are my grandmas old glasses and some antique costume jewelry.

a sweet valor jump suit from Phil's parents.

Thanksgiving with her favorite cousin Evie.

Conference Center

The tabernacle was even more amazing then I remembered. The organ concert was also phenomenal.

top of the Joseph Smith building

Halloween

Halloween lived up to all of my expectations. Livi loved her costume and was so excited to put it on. I couldn't believe that she actually left the hat on the whole time. We went "trunk or treating" at the church Saturday night and got loaded up with goodies. Then Sunday we hit up a street a few blocks away that a friend lives on. We knocked a couple of doors there and quickly decided to go somewhere else. There were a bazilion people who all thought they would park their cars and trick or treat that street as well and it was way too chaotic. So we found another street a few blocks away with equally impressive houses and hardly a soul trick or treating, we hit the jackpot. Just about every door we knocked on would give us fistfuls of candy because it was getting late and there were so few trick or treaters. Maybe everyone decided to pull a Utah and not trick or treat on Sunday, but I'm thinking there are just too many streets with massive houses to choose from and we got lucky enough to choose an empty one. Speaking of Utah...can I just say I literally felt like I was in the twilight zone Friday and Saturday? All of these facebook status' were saying, "can't wait to go trick or treating on Saturday!" or "getting our costumes on to go trick or treating!" Something along those lines, and I was seriously confused. I actually googled "when is Halloween 2010" because I thought I must have been mistaken. Halloween was Sunday right? I called my mom and she clarified for me that everyone was celebrating on Saturday. I'm still slightly baffled. How did everyone know to go trick or treating on Saturday? What if someone isn't LDS? Did they go on Sunday? I think it's great that it worked out that way, but I would LOVE it if someone could tell me how that was pulled off.

Anyway, we had a fabulous time and Livi even began to say "trick or treat" by the time we left! I can't wait for next year!

My camera died after the trunk or treat on Saturday so all of the pictures of our "stash" are on Phil's camera.