Perkins Shield Date / Cousin Weekend

David and I are so grateful for the good friends that we are surrounded by. The Perkins and Shields were two of the earliest friends that we made in our neighborhood and they have been such good friends to us over many years of great things and hard times. When our ward got split and the Shields were in the other boundaries we were so sad, but I think that set us up for being able to maintain our friendship after they moved to Spanish Fork. These are the kind of people that like you for who you are and who leave you feeling better after you spend time with them. That's a true gift. 

We've started just putting a quarterly get together on our calendar. Before we end our evening, everyone pulls out their phones and we pick a date three months away to make sure we see each other soon. Three months seems lke a long time between - but honestly, there isn't anyone else that we see more regularly and having it on our calendar makes sure it happens. I love this about these people. I feel like they prioritize spending time with us because they like us and we like them, too.  Usually our gatherings are just dinner at someone's house and then we chat while the kids play in the basement, but this month we deided to do a full date night together. We went to dinner at a new hamburger place Backdoor BRGR, then moved to the main level of the building to try our hand at hatchet throwing, which seems to be a replacement for taking your date bowling, ha. We had a good time, although I don't know that David and I would go back on our own. But we sure loved hanging out with these people. 

I wasn't feeling my very best, so we ended up coming home early and not doing dessert with the group. Jenna was watching our kids for "cousin weekend" and so we came home and put on the BBC Version of Pride and Prejudice and binge watched the entire thing. (I'm sure i've written about this elsewhere, but this year we picked books for each other to read and watch the movie. David read Pride and Prejudice and we have been working through all of the movie adaptations of that, which has been fun. I am reading the LOTR series. I've read the Hobbit and the first book, and we've watched the movie - but i'm still working my way through the second book.) One of my favorite things about this evening was that we spent a good four hours watching TV downstairs on the couch, which is very abnormal for us at this stage of our lives. We finished P&P and were heading up to bed, but then we got talking about the book series that I'm listening to right now "Lockwood and Co." - I had heard that there was a Netflix series about the books and I've been loving them so much that I thought I wanted to watch that series, too. Feeling irresponsible, we grabbed the laptop raced to the bed and found the series to start watching. It was a little scary, and felt spontaneous and a little irresonsible, and it was just so fun. I love living this life with David and I'm grateful for weekends like this when we get to step out of the daily routine, do some fun things, and connect with each other. 

St. George - Perkins & Shields

The Perkins invited us and the Shields to come for a little spring getaway to St. George and stay at Derek's parents "winter home". It was a beautiful home in a gorgeous neighborhood and we had such a great time! 

We got there with enough time to explore a natural red rock formation area called Pioneer Park. It was easily the kids favorite part of the whole weekend because we had a great weekend!  

Pioneer Park






The home was beautiful and fit our families perfectly. 



We went for a little hike on the mountain behind their neighborhood. 

Pinkbox donuts, yum! 

We visited the Thunder Junction Park + Splash Pad. 

We got to drive by both temples in St George which was so cool. 


And then back to Pioneer Park before going home because our kids loved it so much. 

We love spending time with these two families: Garret and Karli Shields & Derek and Amy Perkins. They are the kind of people that we can really be ourselves around, have great conversations with, and always leave feeling uplifted and appreciated. It was so generous for the Perkins to let us come for the weekend and we are grateful for their hospitality. We hope to be able to do this again! 

Doctor Who?

So, here's the deal. Sometimes David and I can be a little nerdy. For the most part we are a fairly normal family who, although they might be a little awkward at times, does fairly normal things. However, a while back my family started really getting into Doctor Who. We'd occasionally walk in while they were watching an episode and we determined it was the lamest show in the world. It was weird, super British, low budget, and (did I mention) really really weird.  We swore we would never watch it and resisted all attempts of my siblings to get us to join in. As time passed, it got to the point that I could barely understand what my siblings were talking about because everything was riddled with references to "The Doctor", jokes about "blinking", and sonic screwdrivers. I finally gave in and told David that I was just going to watch it so that I could understand what was going on and become part of my family again. I wasn't terribly happy about it and had a sort of martyr-attitude going into it. By the time I hit the second season, I was hooked! Five netflix-seasons later - I felt like a whole new world had opened up with friends and adventures I could never have dreamed of! I told David that he needed to watch it with me, and after some hesitation on his part - he agreed. What I realized, and have since told all others that I've recommended the show to, is that you have to commit to watch the entire first season and the first episode of the second season before making any judgements. By then - you are in. Of course David loved it and we quickly became (arguably) the biggest Doctor Who fans in the family. (I should also mention that my dad grew up watching the old black and white Doctor Who series and he's really the one that instilled the love into his children. He's pretty awesome.)

Our love of The Doctor and his big blue box has spread, and we decided that for the Season Seven Premier - we were going to have a Doctor Who party and invite all of the people around us who love The Doctor as much as we do. That is how our front door ended up looking like this:  

And our kitchen ended up being filled with treats like this: 

Lydia was beyond excited for "the party". She'd been a big helper getting everything ready and she knew two things: 1-her "friends" were coming over to play, and 2-she got to eat a marshmallow treat at "the party". She could barely stand it and spent much of the beginning of the party running around and giggling out of sheer happiness.  Poor girl was devastated when we took her upstairs and put her to bed. So, so, so sad. 

We hadn't really planned to do much more than watch the new season-opener, but our nephews, Josh and Daniel, had found this awesome instructional sheet on how to write in Gallifrey-ian. So we decided to give everyone the opportunity to learn to write their names using The Doctor's native language. It was pretty awesome and it turned out to be really fun.  

We got our food and everyone got ready to meet the new Doctor. 

Did I mention that the show is about a man who travels through space and time and occasionally almost-dies and regenerates into an entirely new person who is completely different, but exactly the same? As crazy as it sounds - it's full of wonderful people who travel around doing as much good as possible while saving the world/universe. What's not to love? Plus, we certainly loved sharing it with these awesome people: 

From left to right: Josh and Daniel started watching in the "Matt Smith" seasons and it took much convincing to make them go back and watch from the beginning (starting with Christopher Eccleston). They were one of the main reasons for the party- mostly because we told them that they couldn't come unless they went back and started over. Matthew, my brother, has been a huge Who fan for years. Garret and Karli Shields got sucked in when we convinced them to start watching, and although Garret is more of a fan than Karli is - she was still a great sport. Melissa taught me that you can still be cool and love Doctor Who - and is slowly convincing Blake of the same thing. 

If you want to come to our next Doctor Who party - you can start watching on Netflix. Remember though, the whole first season and the first episode of the second season. Commit to it before you start. Also, don't ever tell me that you like Matt Smith more than David Tennant. Not that I'm worried that you would - no one makes a better Doctor than David Tennant. (Also, I should mention that they've introduced a few new characters that we don't love. We kept hoping that it was just a short-term thing, but they were in the newest episode and if they don't phase out soon our love for Doctor Who will be seriously diminished - or at least limited to certain seasons.) 

Happy time-traveling, friends. Allons-y!