Return to Salt Lake City

Maisie and I flew into Salt Lake City on Thursday and just like our visits in 2006 & 2007, we're having a great time. Waiting for us at Tiffany's house were Julie & Tess and Lisa & Tate. It was so fun to meet Tate & Solomon for the first time and oh my gosh, to see how big both Eliza & Tess have grown. Lisa & Tate had a family get-together to attend but the rest of us hung at Tiffany's and had a great time chatting and catching up as well as watching the girls play in the pool and run around together like best friends. Maisie, Eliza and Tess just had so much fun together, playing and whooping it up like they knew each other forever and were best friends. We then headed out for dinner at Cafe Rio and the Pork Barbacoa salad was as wonderful as I remembered and I'm sure to enjoy another one before heading back to Atlanta.

Before leaving Atlanta, Wednesday night Maisie was just too excited to sleep. After a struggle she finally went to bed at 8PM but then awoke at 10PM and stayed awake until 12:45am, thus depriving me of all but a short sleep because we had to wake up Thursday at 2:30am EST for our obscenely early flight. After almost no sleep, about eight hours of travel including two planes, a layover in Dallas, getting the rental car, hanging and playing with friends, dinner out and a two hour time zone change, by 8:30PM local time (10:30PM to our bodies) Maisie was begging to go to sleep and I was oh too happy to oblige, within minutes we were out for the night.

I was totally bummed that Julie's plans had changed due to unforeseen circumstances so instead of being able to see her for a few days, our trips now only overlapped by about a day so we tried to get in as much time together as possible. Friday morning before Julie's flight Tiffany and I along with the kids met up with Lisa & Julie and the girls at Liberty Park so that the girls could play. It was a gorgeous day and the park was beautiful so it was a fun time. Even with all the sprinklers, water features, climbing equipment, swings & slides the girls had the most fun of all playing on some large rocks. It was sad to say goodbye to Julie & Tess after a much to short visit but hopefully we'll see them again soon...I'm thinking a trip to out to see them along with a visit to Mall of America may be in our future.

All the little kidlets were just so very tired so nap time was next on the agenda and a must as we had big plans for the evening. Laurel had invited us along with numerous local adoptive people over for a BBQ so Friday night we headed over there. Laurel's home and yard are gorgeous and it was a perfect place for a fun evening. The older children played volleyball & basketball and chased each other around with cups of ice while the younger ones happily played in the stream, on the playground equipment and the trampoline.

We really enjoyed the evening and a huge thank you to Laurel and her family for hosting everyone. I especially loved that I was able to see our friends Kim Brown & Susie along with their families as well as meeting so many new people as well. All in all there must have been close to 40 people all hanging out, eating and having a great evening. We were all having such a good time we didn't get back to Tiffany's place and into bed until just after midnight and the kids did really well so lots of fun, fun, fun! More piccies and fun times to come!

Maisie & Grace dipping their toes in the stream.
Scott, me, Maisie & Susie.
Solomon, Eliza, Tate, Pearl, Kai, Emily, Grace, Maisie, Maylin, Anya, Xanthe.