Tiny vacation

This weekend we went to Kansas City to visit our friends Matt and Andrea. They didn't want us to use their last names just in case there's some incriminating stuff in here. Here's a dark and blurry photo of them in which they're barely recognizable (also to avoid incrimination). Or it may be dark and blurry (like a lot of these photos) because the iPhone doesn't have a flash.


We had a ton of fun. Matt was "on call" all weekend, which apparently meant that he was responsible for answering pages (from home) and convincing the person on the other line that they did not, in fact, need a surgery consult. He's pretty good at his job. It's inspiring.

We ate a lot of very good food while there. For example, we had some delicious barbecue from LC's while watching the horrible Razorback football game.



We also went out one night and happened to stumble upon some weird Missouri cult ceremony where they all sit by a creek and light things on fire. The second photo below is my face while watching some girl dance with a hula hoop that was on fire.


We went out one day to the art museum also...Anna and I were on our way out the door when we were attacked by a giant iron spider. It was awkward.


We needed some time to recover from our spider injuries, so we just relaxed at their beautiful home for a while...


Then we met up with one of our other med school buddies Blake for dinner (he's the one on the left, ignore the creepy hockey mask/skull creature)...


Just in case you were wondering, yes, that is in fact a chili cheese-tater tot extravaganza plopped down in the middle of a Philly cheese steak pizza. I died a little. If you're on the verge of vomiting and need just a little something to tip you over the edge, you should click on that photo and zoom in.

And that was it...then we flew back home. Got back to SLC just in time for me to start another call shift and realize that my car battery was completely dead in the middle of a vast sea of cars in the airport parking lot. Then the pager went off. And just like that, vacation was over.

On a side note, we had our first big snow of the season today. Here's the view from a random walkway outside the eye center:

Kathy came to visit and won $50

Yes, it happened and it can happen to you. Kathy came to visit and won $50 at our monthly tripoley game night. So basically, visiting us is a good financial investment!



It was so great to get to show Kathy our home, our new city, and chat and chat and chat.

We started the trip by visiting a local farm that sold apples and pumpkins. We were picturing stretches of farmland where we could pick apples straight off the trees and pumpkins from the vine. Well, the "farm" was tucked between a neighborhood in suburbia USA. There were a few rows of mostly rotten apples and the pumpkins were already picked. Not quite the authentic farm trip that I had planned.



But all that didn't matter. We returned home and carved pumpkins, drank great wine, and cooked some killer mushroom soup.





The next day we hit the outlet malls up in Park City and then walked around the shops and galleries.



The weather was perfect so we took a walk through a park trail that started right downtown by the capital.



For Kathy's last night here, we went out to a fab dinner at Bambara! It was delish. I am so glad Kathy made the long trek to Salt Lake City. It made this little girl happy!

دیدار خانواده

So according to the Google translate tool, the title of this blog should be, "Family Visit." If it says a bad word or something offensive instead, then I apologize. I have put my faith in Google and we know the people they hire have a crazy sense of humor.

Sami and Farzaneh (Grant's Cousin and Aunt) stopped by for a few days on their drive back to Little Rock. Sami just finished up a summer working at Yellowstone National Park and was headed home.

Grant spent Saturday morning at a head dissection course. Yes, while we were at home relaxing and eating breakfast tacos, Grant was cutting up a dead person's head. Makes me a little nauseous to think about it.

We did a little bowling. Grant kicked our butts every game. Don't let him trick you and take your money by betting on a left-handed game. He is ambidextrous in bowling.



The trip was short, but somehow a homemade Persian meal snuck its way in there. Guests who cook Persian food and leave leftovers are always welcome!