Utah Part 3: Birthday's

Saturday we went down to Jamie's house in Payson and then went on a little hike.  It was beautiful and I was so happy to be in the mountains again.  I LOVE everything that has to do with the mountains, the smell, the colors, the water, the briskness, the quietness, and ya you get the point.

Our short hike was very muddy but that didn't stop us from having fun.  After that we headed to a park where we watched the ducks while eating our snacks, and played on the playground.  We didn't last long at the park because we were all starving.

 So we headed back to Jamie and Adam's house where Adam already had a fire going so we could roast our hot dogs.

 Jamie, Kiki and I headed to the store to get Tiffany a birthday cake!  We planned on celebrating Lyla and Myles' birthday the next day so of course Tiff needed her day to be celebrated as well :)  Cadence helped us pick out the cake and boy was it a good one!  Even Lyla and Myles throughly enjoyed it!

That night Tiff with a little help from me finished making the kids' birthday cake.  We were up until 3:30 am making this beauty.

 I loved staying up that late with Tiffany.  We made sure to laugh lots, dance to the music, have good talks and just plain enjoy each others company, oh all while making a cake :)  I consider it a blessing to have been able to stay up that late with her!

Sunday night was party night.  It was so fun to have people show up for the babes, because boy are they loved :) (sorry I don't have everyone pictured)

 My favorite part of Lyla opening her presents was the great big squeal she let out when she opened one up.  My favorite part of Myles opening his presents was how intent he was on playing with his favorite.

 Such cute kids and they both got a lot of fun presents.  We then let them eat their cake.  These poor kids were already tired, but that didn't stop them from having a little fun.  They may not have gone as crazy over the cake this night but it was still fun watching them enjoy a little sugar.

We love you Tiffany, Lyla & Myles and I'm so glad that we got to celebrate all of your birthday's :)

Utah Part 2: Surprises

When I found out that I would be going to Utah for a week I decided to keep it a secret from all of the Birks'.  I wanted to surprise them instead.

Thursday morning I made sure to get up nice and early um can you say 5:30 am, ouch.  I had to make sure that I was there before Carissa left for school.  Chase and I had talked about how I was going to do it, however when I got to the house I still couldn't decide.  I finally decided that calling Kathy's cell would be the best because I couldn't tell if they really were awake or not and since I was "2 hours ahead" I figured she wouldn't catch on.  I called and she was surprised that I was up so early.  I then walked up to her door and rang the door bell.  It was 6:30 and she was baffled that somebody would be ringing her door bell that early.  Until she realized it was me.  Her jaw dropped and she couldn't believe that I was at her door.  I was going to head down stairs to surprise Carissa but she heard us talking and came up to figure out who was at their house.  Her jaw did the same thing :)  Poor girl had to leave for school not long after I got there.  Good thing I caught her.  Ric was still asleep and eventually was woken up and told to get dressed because there was a surprise waiting for him.  I hid behind a wall as Kathy showed him his surprise.  Haha she had nothing.  I then jumped out since I was the real surprise. He was surprised and gave me a hug.
Now onto the siblings.  We (Kathy & I) headed over to Cierra and Riley's first since she would be leaving for work soon.  I rang their door bell and when Riley answered he just stared at me, haha.  He then processed it and started asking why I was there.  Cierra heard us talking and came over and gave me a big hug.  The hug lasted longer than a normal one so I knew she was crying.  It's hard being gone!  Unfortunately she too had to leave soon after I got there.  We stayed and chatted with Riley for a little bit and I got in as many snuggles as I could from Lucy.

It was then off to Chip and Elycia's.  Elycia opened the door to find Kathy standing there, which was a bit surprising.  Who shows up at your door in the morning with no previous call to make sure your "ready" for the day?  Oh wait that's me!  I jumped out and Elycia was surprised and happy to see me.  She hollered down to Chip to come up stairs.  So I again hid behind a wall.  Well I picked the wrong wall because Chip headed straight for his bedroom to put a shirt on.  I was standing by his bedroom so he saw me said hi as he kept on going, haha.  We hung out there for a bit chatting, holding the babes, playing hid & seek with Taylor and getting in some time with them.

Afterwards Carissa got to skip her last two classes so us three went to Cafe Rio for lunch before I headed back to my parents house.

I also had another surprise visit which was to Gram Birks.  She went through a rough patch and ended up in the hospital with a broken pelvis.  I figured that since I was in town a surprise visit to her would be great as well.  So on Friday evening-ish Kathy and I headed up to Saint Marks Hospital.   We had a lovely visit and to top it all off ended up seeing all of my aunts, minus one on the Birks side :)  It was short but delightful visit!

I love the element of surprises so I loved getting to surprise everyone that I did :)

Trip to Utah Part 1: Flying

This is long over due, but better late than never right :)

I'm breaking this up into parts because there are too many things to cover so I'm not going to do a super super long post.  Instead I'll do lots of "small" posts.  Ha knowing me they wont be small.

Alright so this fun impromptu trip to Utah all started with a phone call the week before.  My mom called me to see what I was doing the next week specifically on Wednesday (I instantly got suspicious).  Since I don't have a job I'm really free and can do whatever I want.  So since I didn't have anything planned she asked if I wanted to come to Utah for Lyla and Myles' birthday.  My only confusion was that Lyla is not in Utah.  Problem solved!  Thank you Brandon for the buddy passes, so that us girls could have some fun!  Now the only thing that would have made the trip better is if Chase & Rob could have come along.  I sure did miss my hubby and felt bad leaving him home alone for a week.  But boy am I one lucky girl that he said I should go and supported me.

This was at the Detroit airport. I had to take a picture because it was so cool!

Ok so now that you know how and why this all happened, it's onto the details.  Tiffany the girls and I all left on Wed. 9/25, which just so happened to be Lyla's birthday.  Tiff left from Tampa and flew to Atlanta and then to Memphis which is where I met up with them & then we all flew to Salt Lake.

This was my first time flying all by myself and only my second time flying on a buddy pass so I felt a little discombobulated.  Luckily I made all of my flights so life was good :)  My first flight from Detroit to Memphis I got to sit in the seats right behind 1st class, which in my opinion were better than 1st class.  I was able to stretch out my legs all the way and I still couldn't reach the seat in front of me :)
 Since it was a small plane they pink tagged my luggage.  Which was a pain waiting for because I wasn't allowed to leave the ramp until I had my bag in hand.  Normally this wouldn't have been a pain, but I saw Tiff and the girls walk by and I so badly wanted to just run up and give them a hug.  So as soon as I got my bag and all of our tickets I found them and gave them a hug :)  Lyla and Cadence were a little apprehensive at first but Cadence quickly got excited and was hanging on my legs and having me swing her.  Boy do I love that girl :)  Lyla warmed up to me quickly as well which made me one happy aunt and a happy sister!

Flying with them was fun and they did so good!  One time I took Cadence to the bathroom and if you have ever used a bathroom on a plane you know how small they are.  Anyway it was quite the challenge to go potty.  I'm surprised nobody could hear me coaxing her to go potty, us laughing because the flushing of the toilet made us both jump and then a little bit of crying because she didn't like how I was holding her up to wash her hands.  Haha on top of all of that apparently when I pulled her pants up I didn't get her panties too so the rest of the plane ride her undies were not on her bottom.  I'm surprised she didn't say anything because I'm sure that wasn't comfy, haha.
It was a long day of flying especially for Tiff and the girls and we were starving when we got to Utah, so thankfully mom had thought ahead and had dinner waiting for us when we got to the house.

Welcome to Utah!  The first snow.  I was trying to get a picture while we were driving down the freeway to send to Chase. 

I'm also going to cover flying home.

Goodbye Sunrise

So I think that Cadence and Lyla did an AWESOME job with flying both times that I was with them.  Especially considering on the way home they both weren't feeling 100% and they just had a fun filled week.

Yes I enjoy taking blurry pictures. Oh well, this was too cute not to include.
Getting on the plane :)
Again we all flew to Memphis and departed our separate ways from there.  Since we both had time before our next flights we made sure to run around to get rid of some energy.  It was so fun running around the airport listening to Cadence squeal along with Lyla which consequently lead to a whole lot of laughing from all of us.   Good thing the airport was pretty dang dead.  If we made anyone annoyed they should just be glad that this all went down in the airport instead of on the plane :)  It eventually came time for me to load my plane so we all headed over to my gate and waited until the lady at the gate finally decided that she would help me and give me my ticket.  Don't worry that's how it is being on standby.  The bright side about being the very last person to load the plane was that I had more time with the girls and Tiff.  Cadence was so cute waiting by my side!  I sure did love getting to spend all of this flying and airport time with them :)  Lucky me!

When I landed in Detroit I had a text from Tiff saying that Cadence was so sad to see me go that she cried for 10 minutes after I left :(  It breaks my heart, but makes me happy at the same time because I know that even though we don't see each other often, we can still feel the same kind of love!  I love you Kiki girl and I can't wait to see you for Christmas!

It was lovely coming home to the man that I love!  I sure did miss him and was so happy to see him at the airport :)