A Surprise Trip

On January 25 I received a package in the mail telling me that my girls and I were going on a spontaneous trip 2 days later to San Antonio. My mom had been working on an Stake Activity Days activity for the 10-11 year old girls in her stake. I had been helping her compile some of the things they needed for their projects and she decided to surprise us by flying me down to help with the activity and Mikkele to participate, and Hallie was a free lap rider so she got to come along as well. Grant got to stay home with Jeremy and have some male bonding.

Mikkele didn't know what was going on until I checked her out of school that day. She had been having a little bit of a rough week at school, so I told her that we were going on a girls day out. On the way to Salt Lake, she kept trying to guess what we were going to do. When we finally stopped for lunch at our favorite bakery I showed her what my mom had sent in the mail....

This was Hallie's first time on an airplane. She kept calling it a car. She did pretty good on both flights. She got a little nervous on the first take off, but just held onto me tight and was just fine. We brought lots of books and toys to help keep her occupied. She was a good girl. And Mikkele had perma-grin the entire time from Salt Lake to San Antonio!

No one except my mom knew we were coming down. So we surprised my dad when we showed up for dinner at Alamo Cafe. And then surprised Aaron and Brittany after dinner.

We had great weather while we were there. It was about 75 degrees on average every day. It was perfect for riding bikes and scooters and trips to the park!
My dad was out doing a bunch of yard work on Saturday and he always wears a straw hat when he's outside working. Hallie found it after he was done wearing it and thought she needed to try it on. What a cute little girl!

Short sleeves and flip flops were a must. And since we would be in flip flops we had to get pedicures :) We all got mani's and pedi's. We really felt spoiled on this trip!We ate at all of our favorite restaurants, plus a few new favorites.Hallie enjoying a rib from Rudy's.
Mikkele having some creamed corn from Rudy's.

We had some good visits with Aaron, Brittany, and the kids. Mikkele got to have a sleepover with her cousins one night. We miss not being able to see those guys on a regular basis.

We were also there for the Roberts family monthly birthday lunch. It's always a treat to sit through one of those. I'm sure everyone wishes they could be a fly on the wall at one of those. ;)

And of course the Activity Days activity. It was a huge success! Everything went really good, and all the girls had a great time! The theme of the activity was "Your Happily Ever After". It was based on a talk given by President Uchtdorf. My mom was just called to be the Stake Primary President right before we got there, so she will have lots of opportunities to plan more of these fun days for the girls.




On the way to the airport to head back to Salt Lake, we stopped by one of our favorite landmark as kids, the big boots at North Star Mall. The girls and I got out and took some pics. Mikkele even climbed onto one of them. They are even bigger up close!

We had a great trip! Thanks mom for having us down to enjoy the weekend with you!