A Valentine's Treat

Our usual Valentine's Day tradition is to head to the desert for a long weekend in our yellow love. This year we decided to mix things up a bit after hearing that our wheeling partners in crime, The Chadricks, weren't able to make the trek to Moab. Another minor contributing factor was the fact that Lemon Joy currently does not have a transfer case connected to her drive train. Small detail, but problematic nonetheless! Upon contemplating our options and me feeling very socially deprived from winter, it was decided that if the Chadricks wouldn't meet us in Moab, we'd just go to them! After loading up kids, dogs, and most of the house, we were off to the "Big City".



Chad and Chelsea opened their house to our crazy family and did we ever have fun! They have 3 dogs, all under 10 pounds, so between the kids and dogs, it was a madhouse! Due to none of us having a ton of money, we spent most of our time just laying low and hanging out. Chris's big treat for the trip was a comp pass to Snowbird for a day of snowboarding! Thank you Mr. McSweeney!! So Chad and Chris spent Friday on the mountain and had an absolute hoot. Chels and I took the kids out to lunch and then we did a little shopping.



Here's Lyssie holding "Izzy"






Happy Valentine's Day!!

Look at that cute boy!! He just opened his "coupon" for his new Nintendo DS. :)


After hearing rave reviews about the Aquarium in Sandy, we headed to Rumbi for lunch and then decided to check it out for our Valentine's adventure. Imagine our surprise when the first exhibit we see was......

A TIGER SALAMANDER! And this one has all 4 legs, unlike our sweet Happy. Unbeknown to us, tiger salamanders are native to Utah as well. We were all so excited to see another one since to date, Happy is our only Salamander experience. Both kids thought it was pretty cool that the Utah ones come with four legs. ;)

Lyssie Lou loved petting the manta rays

Instead of going out for dinner that night, we headed up to Magna to the home of our very good friends, the Herzog's. Amy was so sweet and had little gifts for the kids and had the house all decorated. We brought some steaks from home and had a most excellent evening enjoying each other's company and some really good food. Ames is an amazing cook and her red velvet cupcakes make my knees go weak.

Brendon, Alyssa, and Caulen

The Bronco's and the Zoggy's :)

The cutest Caulen

Sunday was a very mellow day around the house. Brendon brought his XBox so there were plenty of video games and just enjoying being together.

Chad, Lyss, and Crawl having quite the conversation

Woot for the Wii!

Chad's latest project: a tube chassis for his buggy

Look at that sexy transfer case! Chad was able to buy a Stak just like ours, so now we're transfer case buddies. Awwww......

No trip to Salt Lake would be complete without calling all our crazy friends and getting together for a schwing-ding. The lovely McSweeney's hosted the party again and it was a hoot! We hung out, grilled some pizza, and laughed until our sides hurt.

Kami, Jason, and Jacey. Jason and Jacey got married in November and this was our first time meeting her.

The Chad and Chelsinator

Lyss, Shea, Brendon, and Nash

A little Apples to Apples fun.

Alayna and Shawn, Kami and Ben, Jason and Jacey, Chels and Chad, and then me!

Miss Sophie's excitement for the trip was having 3 new friends to play with and an entirely new yard to explore. The other highlight for her was meeting "Murphy". Murphy is Chelsea's parrot and lives in the living room on the desk. Sophie was convinced that they would only be the best of friends and spent quite a lot of time barking at Murphy to come out and play.

Just can't get any closer!

Watching Murphy from afar

Hmmmm...maybe a different angle will work!


And there is a brief synopsis of our weekend in the city! It was such a treat to get out of town for a bit and hang out with everyone. Both Chris and I feel so blessed to have met so many wonderful friends rock crawling, but the only down side is that they all live 8 hours away! Thankfully since we are self employed and home school, it isn't a big deal to make the trek. Plus, it's always a treat to go to the city and go shopping and get fresh Krispy Kremes!! :)