Whew! What a Weekend!

Last Thursday Todd and I took the girls to the Broadway Mary Poppins at the Capitol Theater. Sitting about 8 rows back, this was the closest we had ever been at a show and to me it made a difference! It easily moved to the top of my list of favorite plays. Bert was straight from playing Bert in NYC and the voices on every single actor was amazing! "Step in Time" was my favorite scene. There was as much magic as the movie. I wish I could see it again before it leaves SLC!

This weekend was our annual weekend girls' getaway to Midway and Swiss Days. We stayed at a friend's cabin front-door welcome late Friday afternoon by a nest of mice. Ack! Everyone, aside from animal-living Kilee, about flew through the roof. Okay not everyone--mostly me and Nicole. Everyone else stayed quite calm. We made Kilee catch the four baby mice, who looked like they had been poisoned and were on their way out of this life anyway. She got them in a paper cup and pulled an older brother prank by chasing bladder-filled Nicole around with them (see picture).

After putting our bags in the cabin and throwing away another bloated dead mouse, we headed to Park City where we rode the newer Alpine Slide at the Olympic Oval. It was a lot of fun, though I wish it would have gone faster! I even saw a deer standing near the track. After our adventure, we headed to Flying Sumo where we stuffed ourselves silly with sushi (so yummy!). After dinner, we went to Whole Foods (I love this store) where we shopped around for a long while and tried to find Nicole some late-night, low-carb protein (she settled on cheese sticks and we teased her about the possibility of mice being attracted to her open sleeping mouth). We even Googled mice-repellant and bought some peppermint oil. We stopped at The Store in town to pick up a flashlight and still more mice repellant.

The cabin was old, but beautiful and on some beautiful property. When we drove up, we noticed it was very, very dark. Since Mom had bought the half-working flashlight, we felt like we would be able to find our way in okay. Upon arrival, we noticed the sliding glass door curtain was wide open and a light inside was on (neither which we had remembered leaving that way). Kilee and I thought we heard something in the bushes, so we grabbed the flashlight, while others were gathering things from the car, and noticed that it was only some bugs. Immediately after we shined the flashlight toward the cabin, the light inside turned off. We made everyone jump back in the car and explained what happened. Pretty soon we were all convinced that someone was in the house and had turned the light out when he heard us arrive. I called the owners to see if they had a sensor light that may have been tripped by a mouse (they didn't) while Kilee called the police. Since we didn't know the address, we waited for a unit to meet us at a gas station and then he followed us out to the cabin.

Upon arrival, Kilee and I explained to Officer Ray further what had happened and after seeing how dark the property was, he seemed a little freaked out and called for backup. Two additional units came, one a K-9. We stayed in our car, literally shivering with fear, while the three men headed to the cabin. I'm not sure who it was who suggested we pray, but we needed the Lord's comfort. As Mom was praying, we heard a lot of yelling from the policemen and the dog barking like crazy. Our hearts stopped and Kilee unrolled the window (whilst Mom is still praying) and we heard him yell, "STAND DOWN, STAND DOWN!!!" followed by more crazy barking. This sealed it; surely they had found someone inside. But after we saw the officers calmly checking the outside property, we realized it must have been protocol upon entering a property.

After a few minutes, they came back and explained to the 5 wide-eyed, white-with-fear women that the property was clear, bags had been untouched and there was no sign of forced entry. Just as they were explaining this, Mom gave a fearful gasp (you know the one), and pointing back at the house said, "The light upstairs just came on! Why did the light come on?" I think at this point that the three men were thoroughly convinced we were all crazy. One chuckled and said, "Maybe it was ghosts?!" but then they all reluctantly offered to go back in and check a second time, since the first time apparently wasn't good enough. We started to feel a bit sheepish and headed to the cabin. The officers discovered that the upstairs light had only one old florescent bulb, which seemed to dim and brighten randomly, thus the on and off of lights. After they declined our offer for a slice Kilee's homemade peach pie, and after we apologized, the officers left. One even said this was a better call than the one they had come from (a drunk man beating up his wife) because it got them out of more paperwork.

Sigh. Way too much excitement for one night.

As the adrenaline levels came down, we ate peach pie, played games, watched for scurrying mice and laughed at ourselves. Ironically, Mom had brought a copy of an article for each of us entitled "Confessions of a Recovering Worrywart" so we read that together. Everyone else seemed to sleep on the five mattresses in the loft just fine (Lacey's snoring and Kilee's and Mom's talking in their sleep is proof) but I didn't. In the morning after Lacey had gone downstairs to the bathroom, she whispered to Mom, "I found another mouse." You should have seen how quickly the rest of the "sleeping" room shot up to the sitting position, quizzically listening for details. It was only after we were up for the morning that Kilee was able to shoo it out of an open door (thanks Ki! You're our hero!). We had scrambled eggs and green smoothies for breakfast. It was delicious.

We found a great little thrift store in Heber and spent some time there. Then we went to Swiss Days where we shopped. At lunchtime, I once again sat watching everyone else eat their brats and sauerkraut (eww). We really had a great time. One with many, many laughs and lasting memories. Thanks ladies!