PROVO
From the cabin Emily and I drove up to her in-law's home up Hobble Creek Canyon, a beautiful and perfect location only 20 minutes from Provo. Our idea to undertake this grand journey came from CJane. A blogger who romantically writes about Provo and all it's happenings. She is so good about making Provo seem magical that we decided to haul all our stuff and kids to conquer some of her "100 Best Provo Sights". Anyway, we got up to the Flakes late Monday and decided that Tuesday would be our "Provo Day". We planned our day late Monday night deciding that we would 1. visit BYU 2. Eat at Slab Pizza 3. Buy cupcakes at Sweet Tooth Fairy 4. Walk the Provo River Trail and eat the cupcakes at a park along the way. That is a very reasonable day right? We thought so. Oh I forgot to mention that somewhere in the mix we wanted to kind of "stalk" CJane and her sister NieNie, who live in Provo. I know creepy but oh well.
We started off our day with the "stalking". We drove around the "tree streets" in eastern Provo above BYU. Let me just say that those streets hold the most beautiful homes. Not big or glamourous but perfectly quaint. The yards are covered in willows, flowers, and tall oak trees. It took my breath away and made me believe in the "all-american" neighborhood, complete with kids using squirt guns and sliding on old yellow slip-in slides. In the words of Liz Lemmon from 30Rock, "I want to go to there!" Anyway, did we find these women's' homes? Maybe or maybe not. But I will say it was way worth the 30 minute drive and I would do it again. If anyone asks "no we were not the gray minivan driving around in circles stopping randomly and looking sketching."
Next was BYU campus. With it being education week it was really packed, but I kind of like it that way. We stopped at the bookstore and bought BYU football shirts and hats. We changed our baby's diapers on the grass and thought nothing of it, it's BYU. We took the boys to the library and showed them the mural that Emily watched a man paint while she studied their 6ish years ago. I miss BYU. I really do. It is the most beautiful and well kept campus I have ever seen. Scarlett, you are going there so lets learns those ABC's.
Then onto Slab pizza (the day was going perfect and we were right on schedule). We went to find the directions to the restaurant when we realized we left the directions to both the pizza and cupcakes stores up the canyon. No problem we will just call the Flakes and ask them to tell us the directions. But wait, my phone just died and Emily's was mysteriously missing. Oops. So we decided to drive around south of campus where we knew it was somewhere located. Then we started to remines about the good 'ol days. We drove past Brookview where Emily lived and Enclave where I lived (and started to date Nick). We talked about how Emily fell in love with Jordan and how lived in my car for 2 days in between fall and winter semesters. Once again it was worth the 30 minute drive. But we were getting hungry and the animals in the back seat were restless. We stopped at gas station to find direction. Like always I had to do it. Not in the phone, darn. What do you do at this point? Why you drive around until you randomly find the Provo Vistor Center. I had do it. I walked in the wrong door (health department and day jail) only to find some man being handcuffed and swearing right next to a collage of all the prophets drawn in pencil. Random and creepy at the same time. Back in the car. I saw the right entrance and bailed in the middle of the street. The ladies that worked in the visitor center saw me running around and laughed. Anyway they helped greatly and told us where the pizza place was. Oops, I forgot to ask about the cupcakes. Needless to say we found the pizza, ate a whole entire 20" pizza, and will go back for sure. The buffalo wing and thai chicken were the best... ever!
(please take a peek at Jensen's face)
Well, we were not done with our list so onto cupcakes. We had no idea where this was. So we decided to drive to where we thought it might be. Stupid I know. We were wrong like 4 times. Stopped at a gas station but it was also not in the phone book, again. Then I realized that the paper the visitor center gave us had their number. Payphone anyone? I did not even know how those bad boys worked. It took 4 tries only to get their answering machine. Long sigh. Emily and I both decided we needed to find some really trendy women and ask them where it was, we prayed. The church is true because across the street from the gas station, in an old weedy field, was a Shade clothing close out sale (how random can this day get). It just happens that you could not ask for a group of more trendy women in all of Utah. So we went, parked in the field and hauled our kids to check it out. All the good stuff was gone but after getting the group of women's attention we did get directions. We were WAY off but it was worth it to get the best cupcakes in the world. I could eat the vaNIElla cupcake everyday.
Not done yet. We still had to walk the Provo River Trail. I used to run this trail every day while at BYU. I trained for my first marathon on this trail. I have run it in the blazing sun, rain, and 5 inches of snow. I was even stupid enough to run it at night a bunch of times (dumb dumb). We pushed our strollers down the trail for a bit till we hit a park. The boys ran around and we ate our cupcakes. I was stuffed. A whole pizza and cupcakes.
We finished this perfect day off by having a barbeque at the Flakes house and riding horses. I could sum up this day as "two crazy ladies driving around Provo in a minivan asking complete strangers for directions. Oh and they had 4 kids with them". It was so much fun we already have next year's Provo day planned. First on the list: bring cell phones!
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