thank you utah!

thursday morning, chris and robert hopped on an airplane to go to salt lake city for a few days for some brother bonding time (aka running away from their wives and young children time). many people have asked why they chose to hang out in salt lake city. cause there was a half marathon there on saturday, and these crazy boys wanted to run while on vacation. i don't understand it. but that's just me.

so they left and they did all the things that i do not like to do. namely go to the movies and watch crazy, scary, bloody, movies. they did this. every day. thursday. friday. saturday. sunday. and then they came home on monday. before they left, chris lookde up the top 30 things to do in salt lake city. i think #9 was: "check out the library!" oh dear. i knew chris was going to be just fine on his man trip.

so, the funniest thing that happened was, in the midst of the abundant boredom, the boys went shopping. chris went to barnes and noble and bought books for the kids. two early reading books for lily (she doesn't know how to read yet) and a batman book for topher. they were so very very happy with their gifts. i too was very pleased with the great gifts chris chose for our kids. after chris gave the kids their books, he handed me a lovely little gift bag and inside was a beautiful shirt. so sweet! i love it. but more than i love the shirt, i love the story that goes with the shirt:

-chris walked into this store at the mall on a sunday in salt lake city. the place was deserted. the girl who was working there was trying to help chris cause he was the only human being she had seen that day so far. she asked if chris was looking for a shirt, or an outift, or something else. chris said "outfit" with confidence, though he was unaware that he was in a pretty expensive store (i was surprised when i saw the bag!) so the girl lit up like christmas (commission much?) and started showing chris some outifts. the shirts were all about $20, but the bottoms were all about $70. i don't normally pay $20 for tops, but i NEVER pay $70 for bottoms. chris made a pretend phone call to robert, started muttering something about how many pants and shorts i already owned, and then told the girl that he would just get me a shirt.

i don't know why. i just pictured the whole thing and it was hilarious. my beautiful, yet cheap, husband. (that's not a jab at chris. i am cheaper than him.)

so, chris came back on monday, happy to see the desert sun (it was cold in salt lake),and his family. there is no time for boredom in our house! the kids were all over him, and were so happy to have someone to play tag with (i don't know why, they never ask me to play tag with them at the park, and i guess i never really offer...) and then when we came back from the park, chris announcedthat he was going to teach our kids how to read, so he got one of the books that he bought for lily and started to teach her how to read. "lily, what letter is this? what sound does it make? what's the next letter? what sound does that make?" and so on and so forth. he tried really hard! it was a beautiful sight to see!

so, thanks to salt lake city having nothing to do except go to the library and run, my hubby has come back a healthier man who is obsessed with reading. this is the kind of man trip i am happy to support.