Whirl-wind Week

Wow, what a week its been. Where do I start.....

So Katie's sister heather is leaving on a mission. She was called to the Santa Maria, Brazil mission. But instead of going to the MTC here in Provo, she was sent to the MTC in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Its been a very emotional week filled with lots of family time spent together doing pretty much nothing. Just being together. I know that means a lot to Katie to be able to be there for Heather. Heather left on Tuesday morning.


But I'm getting ahead of myself. So to be able to spend as much time as we can with Heather before she left, two weeks ago, we all went up and spent the weekend in Park City with Katie's Family. We stayed practically right above the ticket sales booth at the foot of the lifts. It was a quite rainy, but we made the most of it. We rode the Mountain Coaster twice and just hung out around town. We had a blast and got to spend oodles of time with heather, and most importantly, Heather got to spend oodles of time with Caroline.

Then on Wednesday the 24th, we had a BBQ over at Uncle Max and Aunt Sue's house. They were leaving for a 2 week tour of Italy, so they would be missing Heathers farewell. They enjoyed seeing her, and she had so much fun over there....even if big ol Max looks scary, hes just a big softy on the inside. Hes great with kids too.






But the cutest thing was while we were over at Max and Sue's, Caroline was really interested in a little water fountain in their backyard. She really enjoyed splashing in it, and playing with the water. As Katie was holding her, I told Katie to let go of her. Katie was was like "what? are you mad?" I said just let go and see what happens. She held herself up so well like a big girl. We were all so proud.




Then she had her farewell in her ward and we had a goodbye party at their house. Lots of people showed up and we all had fun.

Then the morning of Tuesday, Katie Caroline and I went over to their house to have one more breakfast with Heather and the fam be fore she was off. It kind of reminded us of the months before our wedding. Every sunday, we'de gather at their house for either a sunday breakfast, or brunch and then discuss wedding plans. I really enjoyed it.

Then we were off to the airport. It was a very hard time for everyone. We found 4 other missionaries going to the Sao Paulo MTC, but none of them were going to the Santa Maria mission. There was one sister there that was going to the Sao Paulo East mission, and her younger brother was heading off to Australia 2 weeks later. Crazy!





On Wednesday, We celebrated what would have been Charlotte's 4th birthday. We had friends and family there. It was at Shannon's house and we had a little BBQ. Katie and were in charge of the meat. We decided to use Suzi's Kalbi BBQ recipet for chicken and flank steak. Katie was up late Tuesday night preparing it and we let it marinate overnight and all day Wednesday. Then I cooked it on their grill. Unfortunatley the recipet is a very inexact science (ie, some of this, a little of that, enough of this other ingredient to make it sweeter, and a dash of some more stuff). I think it turned out well, but it could have been a bit sweeter. I also think that I might have overcooked it all just a bit. The chicken wasn't as juicy as it could have been, and the flank steak was medium well to almost well done/chared. I know that thats how Katie likes her meat, but I preffere mine to still have some pink in it.

We are now up down in Cedar City enjoying the Shakespearean Festival. We are having a blast and never want it to end. Sadly, we'll have to come home on Sunday. Until then though, we'll enjoy celebrating our independence by seen some old English plays!