The Super Incredible Adventures of Haley and Bennett--Chapter 4--The Utah Visit

This last weekend my mom and dad were invited to go to the play, "White Christmas" with my grandma and grandpa Hazard in Utah. And since me and Bennett are here on vacation, we decided to tag along to see a few of our favorite people. We were only there from Friday night to Sunday morning, but we managed to cram quite a few activities into that short time frame. Here is a quick run-down that is not very quick at all...

Friday Night:
We got to Utah and went straight to my Grandma and Grandpa's house. Bennett was very excited to see his Grandma and Grandpa Great again. Then we got back in the car and drove down the street to my Aunt Jill and Uncle Lee's house where we had a fabulous dinner.

While there, my cousin Madison invited me to go to a party at the Hilton that night with her and my other cousin, Krystalee. At first I wasn't very into the idea, but then she showed me the Facebook invitation she got. It said this super fancy party was going to be rockin' with a free coat-check, chocolate-dipped goodies, all the Coke products you could drink, and professional pictures taken with Santa. How could I say no to that?! So as soon as Bennett was down for the night I b-dazzled myself up and we were off!

Here we are about to head out to the party of the century. Obviously, I had not packed a formal dress to wear, so I ended up wearing one of my grandma's that she had gotten from her aunt years ago. It was probably 100 years old (for real) and it fit me perfectly. Talk about vintage. It was pretty cool.

When we got there, we found that that coat-check really was free (it always is), there were no chocolate dipped goodies (boo!), you had to pay for the Coke products (although if you were rich enough to afford them, you could indeed drink as much as you wanted), and Santa was a little more on the promiscuous side than I would have liked to imagine. All in all though, we had a great time dancing and making our own fun.

Madison and Krystalee. And yes, they match. I'm not sure it that was planned. It didn't matter anyway because everybody there was wearing pretty much whatever they wanted, from jeans and t-shirts to Gone With The Wind ballgowns. There was also no demographic whatsoever for this dance. We saw couples in their fifties wearing corsages, single weirdos living up to their title, college students trying to be cool, and teenagers on their first date. It was a very eclectic gathering.

Here I am getting down with my bad self. I have to admit, I had a hard time staying awake and alive throughout the whole night (since this party started at the time I usually go to bed, and ended only a few hours before Bennett was about to wake up) but I had a lot of fun...despite the lack of chocolate-dipped goodies.

Saturday:
The next morning I dragged myself out of bed and got me and Bennett ready in time to go to a ward Christmas breakfast at the church. It was worth it. The food was great.

Me and my grandma and grandpa Hazard. I only saw Bennett for about two seconds once we got to the church before he was whisked away by my cousin Anna Sophia and her little buddy the entire time. They were excellent babysitters, and since I was still trying to wake up from the night before, I really appreciated the lack of parenting expected on my part.

Near the end of the breakfast, they announced a special visitor would be making a stop to say hello to the good little boys and girls if we sang "Rodolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" really loud. At the end of the song, a very jolly Santa came bounding into the room, ho-ho-ho-ing away. And this was Bennett's face...

He just barely learned who Santa is by looking at pictures and decorations, but this was the first "real life" Santa Bennett had ever witnessed. To say he was in awe would be an understatement. However, looking at Santa and sitting on Santa's lap are two very different things, and once we made it to the front of the line the awesomeness of it all began to fade for Bennett.

Leave it to my grandma to make an already awkward situation even better.

Here's the picture we ended up getting from the photographer at the party. I think we'll frame it...

After the Christmas breakfast my mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, me, and Bennett all drove to Provo, Utah to see my other grandma, Grandma Hill.

We spent a fun afternoon with her, talking, watching Bennett play, and drinking milkshakes. Bennett's GG (great grandma) has been pretty sick lately, but she looked great while we were there and Bennett was fascinated by her walker. :)

From Grandma Hill's we drove just a little further into Provo and stopped to see the newest members of my "Utah family," Sarah and Josh (Matt's little sister and her new husband). They have been married a whole month now, and they are doing wonderful. Josh goes to school and runs track, and Sarah does a great job working and taking care of their little family.

Here they are in their cute little apartment. It is amazing to me the amount of raw decorative talent that flows through the veins of my sisters-in-law. I was standing in a different line when they were giving out that ability in Heaven...like, the Ability-To-Sleep-All-Day line...

The originals. :)

Sarah and Josh's apartment is in the basement of their building, and Bennett and my dad had a lot of fun making good use of their ground-level living room window.

Saturday night was the play for my mom and dad, so me and Bennett attached ourselves to a group of cousins who were going to Temple Square to see the lights. I think it was actually supposed to be a date night thing, but nobody cared that we tagged along. There isn't another person I would rather be on a date with besides my handsome Bennett-Boy anyway...well, maybe with his even more handsome daddy, but I take what I can get these days.

Going to see Temple Square all lit up is always amazing, no matter how many times you have been before. Bennett enjoyed seeing all the "yites" (lights), and did pretty well sitting in his stroller as we made our way through the mob of people.

It was a relatively warm night, so there were a lot of people with the same idea as us.

Because Bennett was with us (and because I drove) we had to be home by 8:30pm so he could go to bed and not be a monster the next day. Sleep is really, really important to Bennett. So we gave ourselves the "Fast and Furious Tour of Temple Square," hitting all the major sights within an hour.

Stop One: The Salt Lake City Temple. I love this temple and its history. It always give me goose-bumps too see it all lit up at night.

Stop Two: The Tabernacle. We stopped in here mostly to get warm for a little bit, but ended up staying longer when a person started playing the organ. Bennett, who had been let out of his stroller on temporary parole, was in the process of running up and down the pews of the Tabernacle when he first heard the music, and it stopped him dead in his tracks.

Music is a wonderful thing.

Stop Three: The Nativity Scenes. Bennett loved the pretend fires that were burning and the "Bebe Jay-se" (Baby Jesus). Really though, it was pretty cold so we didn't stay at these for too long.

The stable animals were also a big hit with him. He especially liked the cows and sheep, and made very convincing farm-animal noises whenever he saw them.

Stop Four: The Visitor's Center. This was our last stop of the night before going home. We had fun listening to some carolers (again, Bennett was entranced) and having Madison tell us about her time at BYU-Jerusalem while looking at a giant, light-up map of the city. It was very interesting, and a great way to end a very fun night.

Bennett and Anna Sophia listening to the carolers.

Sunday: Sunday we just went to church and then drove home, but I took this video of Bennett eating breakfast because he was literally eating with both hands. He would take a bite of his eggs with a fork in his right hand, and then a bite of applesauce with a spoon in his left hand. Bennett has never favored a hand while doing anything (eating, throwing, coloring) but this was just a little weird. I guess we have an ambidextrous little boy...at least for now.

So then we drove back to Idaho. All in all it was a great weekend.

The End.