Paternity Leave + Randi Visit = ONE GOOD WEEK

Last week was a good one for lots of reasons (you'll see just how many). Scott took his second week of paid paternity leave from work. It was a good week to take. Zach is awake a little more, so Scott was able to help around here A LOT, let me sleep more and watched kids while I went shopping for a whole afternoon. It was so nice to have him here taking care of things. The highlights of paternity leave were:

* Visiting Scott's parents. Papa Fred sat and sang songs to little Zach and Rama made us a delicious meal.* We got some things done around the house. Scott cleaned bathrooms and even painted Zach's room. Yeah! It was a light pink beautiful baby girl's nursery and now it is a real live Red Sox boy's room. * The girls and Scott got to play in the snow. A cold snow storm came through for one day and they had a great time in it. I just supply the snow man goods and the hot chocolate afterward. Oh, and get hit by snowballs. (The snowman melted quick and it is now 70 degrees.)
*Friends, friends and more friends. Lucky for us that very same week we had a few friends visiting from far off places. Tommy was here for the week before heading off to Iraq in the army. Rick and Arielle and kids were here from PA. So, of course, Scott called EVERYONE and they all came over. It was a fun and very spontaneous party. This group of Scott's friends now has spouses and so many kids! We had 12 kids here under the age of 5. CRAZY!
* Then the blessed moment arrived. We have long awaited a visit from one Randi Johansen. She flew here to visit on Wednesday and stayed until Sunday. Five amazing days with one of our favorite people in this world. Seriously. We LOVE us some Randi. We took her Gardner Village for Halloween fun.*The only thing Randi asked to do while in Utah was to have her National Parks pass stamped at The Golden Spike. We made her dreams come true. We drove ourselves out into the middle of NO WHERE and visited the site where the east met the west. Very cool.This one's for you Dad.*When in Brigham City you must visit Maddox (from what we hear). We did and it was well worth the visit. Delicious rolls and an amazing fillet Mignon.
* Scott and Randi got to join us at a 5 year old birthday party too. Scott took the girls on all the rides until Ava got too scared and held tight to my leg while Brie rode the rides. I think Scott should always take time off work to attend birthday parties. He makes it a lot more fun.* On Halloween Randi and I ditched the husband and kids to go see "Thriller" at Kingsbury Hall. It is was so good! It's a dance performance of scary, spooky, halloweeny type dances and music. Awesome.* We introduced Randi to the great Iceberg shake. Hey, don't judge. They were buy one, get one free. So, of course, we got 4 to continue the quest of determining the very best Iceberg shake. Randi was used as an expert judge. Almond Joy is a close contender to my favorite, chocolate with peanut butter. *Randi came trick or treating with me and the girls. We laughed the whole way at one CRAZY, running through the streets, wild with excitement Brielle. She flew out of our door running in her red, ruby slippers and did not stop for the full two hours of trick or treating. Poor Ava couldn't keep up. Brie was slowed down by her bucket of candy so Randi became her bucket caddy. Randi had to carry that bucket around and then pass it off to Brie when she came to a door. Then Brie would hand it back to her saying, "Here ya go Bubba." Randi is a good woman for putting up with this.
*And, as a grand finale, Randi made us her coconut chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast the morning she was leaving. They were just as good as we remembered them being. And then we said good-bye to our Randi. So sad, but it sure was good while it lasted.Oh and they played a bunch of games too.