Home for Thanksgiving!

We took a trip home to Utah for Thanksgiving a couple weeks ago.  It was the best of trips, and it was the worst of trips.  Haha, I tease, we just had a lot of issues on the trip with sickness and car problems, but overall it was really nice to head home and see everyone.

Porter, the poor chap, was sick for the long flight overseas with an awful sinus thing.  But other than that the flight was easy.  We did a layover in Minneapolis, and then onward to Salt Lake.  We were so cold when we arrived!  I guess we've gotten used to island weather.  We stayed in Hooper with my dad.  We have my old bedroom completely kitted out to be our crash pad.  We set up our bed, dressers, couches.  We even have our big TV with DVD player and Netflix and Hulu.  Which is a huge deal since the TV in England just wised up to the fact that we were bypassing the software and watching US TV and now it won't let us do that anymore (insert major frowny face!) so I had to get caught up on all my shows. 

We also had to hit up some of our favorite restaurants in our old hood.

Bonnie (my cute mother in law) went out to eat with us at Flat Bread in Sugar House.  I had been craving a BBQ Chicken pizza from there since we left.

I got my hair done!!!!  My fabulous stylist (Kip Higgins), had me color my regrowth, which means Porter has been coloring my regrowth.  I think he gets a few more gray hairs every time he does it, as it's a life and death matter for him.  However, Kip said Porter was doing a fantastic job!  So I got new highlights and a little bit of pampering.  Nothing feels better than having your hair freshly done.

We then got to head down and have a little Cafe Rio with these fab people.  I missed Cafe Rio's dressing so much!

 I just bought a selfie stick.  I know, it's totally a cheesy touristy thing to do.  But I did it and I love it!  Now when Porter and I travel we can take pictures with both of us in them.  Jon and Ben were helping me figure it all out.

And we can't get together with these two and not have a game night.  This game was a long time coming.  And again....more selfie stick pics!  We were playing 7 Wonders if you were Wonder-in. ;)

This little babe is so sweet.  I definitely monopolized him.  He fell asleep in my arms and even though my arm was falling asleep I was not putting him down.  I only get to snuggle him every few months, so I was making the most of my time.  My friends make the cutest babies!

We stayed over at Ali and Jon's place.  They have the cutest little guest room.  And Ali always gets me my favorite coconut water while I'm there.  But I felt so bad, I got an awful bout of food poisoning that night.  We are pretty sure it was from the Cafe Rio salad from earlier.  I was so angry, the day before Thanksgiving and I am completely incapacitated.  I just wanted to sleep on their bathroom floor.  What is it about bathroom floors that is so magical when you are sick?  Because they make you feel so much better, it's amazing.  Porter and Ali came and played Phase 10 with me on the floor to help me feel better.  It was very sweet.  

Porter got me home and I slept for the whole day.  Happily I woke up on Thanksgiving feeling much better!  Good enough to have some yummy mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie.

 We had dinner at Porter's Grandmother's house.  It was so much fun hanging out with all the family, especially seeing all the cousins!

The Pierce Clan plus our Dads :)

 

We played some Creationary with Kit and Rachel.

 I miss legos.  This is Kit's attempt at Seaweed.

We also played a new game, Pandemic.  It's this cooperative game where you are all racing against the clock to save the world from major disease outbreaks and epidemics.  It gets pretty scary.  

We spent some time in Bountiful with Porter's sister and her puppies.  Maggie and Shelby are adorable!

 So, we have my car in the states.  We were using it, but a sensor went bad.  So we started using my Dad's car.  However, when we were in Salt Lake the transmission went out on the 53rd freeway exit!  It was awful.  Kyle had to come save us. (The picture is Porter and Kyle assessing the situation)  He poured transmission fluid in and we drove for a bit.  Then it broke down again, so we poured more fluid in until we could limp it along to Kyle's house.  My Dad came down and was able to fix it (leaky hose).  But geez, car troubles are no fun.  I seriously was like, "Where's the tube?!"

 We went to our little coffee shop/cafe Sugar House Coffee.  I miss that place!

 For our final dinner home, my Dad cooked up wild salmon my Grandpa Fair had caught and given him.  I LOVE that stuff.  It was a second Thanksgiving.

 My Dad got out his banjo.

And finally, the day we left our flight was severely delayed, so much that we had to catch  completely different flights.  It was crazy stressful, but Porter has just gained Gold Medallion Status with Delta so that made it a whole lot easier.  I love the perks I get when I fly with him.  Delta loves their Medallion people.  They were able to reroute us through JFK and our flight got in only 10 minutes later to London than the first flight.  And the cherry on top was our seats had charging ports.  Porter was in Heaven.  He hates it when his electronics die on long flights.

We are now home in London.  I have jet lag and a cold I brought home as a souvenir.  It's nice to be home but we loved getting to spend some time in Utah with our people.  And a HUGE shoutout to our friends Nicki and Eric for taking such great care of our fuzzies.  If you need a pet sitter in London check out City Pet Sitters, they rock.