Utah Trip

We took a trip as a family to Utah over the weekend. What a fun time! First stop: the Finlinsons. I had a sister missionary friend from Brazil whom I haven't seen since I was actually a missionary IN Brazil, and I found out she married an Americano and was living in Sandy. So on our way down to Provo, we stopped at her house and met her family. Our kids instantly felt comfortable around each other and played and played. Thelma made coxinhas, brigadeiros, suco de maracuja', and pudim for us! Talk about heaven. In English, that is coxinhas, little chicken thingies with dough then deep fried in olive oil. Heaven! It was exactly like my memory. So crunchy on the outside and warm on the inside. I think I am going to make some today. Secondly, brigadeiros (or little warriors) are these fudgy chewy little balls of chocolate, about as expected at birthday parties as birthday cake. Definitely a Brazilian traditional favorite. Then the suco de maracuja' or passionfruit juice. No mixture of pineapple and strawberry garbage. Just pure Brazillian passionfruit juice. Que delicia. Pudim is like flan, and super delicious when Brazilian makes it, so so when Kirsten makes it. But even more delicious than all the food, was reacquainting myself with Thelma and her beautiful family. They are so interesting. He furnishes temples for his living. So you can imagine that their home was very tastefully decorated. And it was. The children were lovely, the time spent was one of the highlights of the trip for everybody, and we'll definitely go back. Next stop was visiting the Bickels, some friends of ours that go back to college days, and even further for Dave and Roy Bickel, who were friends in Indiana. We stayed at their lovely home in Orem and woke up to blueberry pancakes. Next, we took a hike up to Bridal Veil falls, a super little easy hike even for the four year olds, and played at the bottom of the falls in the water. The kids hiked up the rocks of the falls a little bit and we had such a great time in the nature. After the hike, our hungry bellies found ourselves at Golden Corral. We were loading up our plates, and I teased Scott to be careful of his food choices (he just got braces) because his Dentist would FIND him. Well how about this? HIS DENTIST AND ORTHODONTIST WERE BOTH THERE IN THE RESTAURANT! How funny is that? We chatted with them to find out they were brothers and they wer.e there for the BYU game. We thought that was funny. After lunch Dave and Roy went to the game (we only went to the tail gating games and the kids all won BYU towels They love them!) and we walked back to the van to go check into the hotel. As Dave was at the game we went swimming and then off to bed. Sunday church was lovely and aside from our ward, they were the sweetest ward I'd ever been to. And I've been to a lot of sweet natured wards. They were exceptionally accepting, and cared for us like we were so valuable to them. It was awesome. After a barbecue at the Bickels, it was then time to come home. Driving on the highway was no big deal, smooth sailing, until the blowout. We were nervous, but were protected from the oncoming traffic. It was dark and all, but prayer definitely kept us safe and then eventually on our way. It was an awesome trip. I loved all of it.