007

I feel like I'm getting to know the road from Arizona to Utah all too well since Bridget has moved there. I don't know another time in my life when I chose 11 hours on the road versus 1 hour on the plane, but it makes for memories! We left at midnight on Thursday right after the concert- me, Brad, John, and Phil (our cute home teacher).
We stayed in Park City at Bridget's house. You see, Bridget stumbles into a lot of incredible things in her life, for example, a really generous couple who have given her a mansion to live in indefinitely. It has a lot of sleeping space, a sweet kitchen (with Viking appliances!!), and a great banister which I managed to run into twice and give myself some remarkable bruises.
We drove up to watch conference, which means, actually, that I have to figure out how to watch conference again because it's always a little crazy with a lot of people in the same room.
On Friday, on the one and a half hours of sleep I snuck in on the car ride, Bridget and I went grocery shopping.
Two things:
1- Feeding 12 adults for a weekend, especially when Brad and I bring our fancy cookbook, is not so cheap.
2- The Smith's in Park City absolutely rocks.
Brad made his Brad Burger's the first night, which turned out incredible. (The recipe is on the dinner blog. It's from Rachel Ray, and it's become his specialty). Bridget made her guacamole, and we just had fun hanging out. I gave up about 9:30 on life, and headed to bed. Pretty much everyone else went outside and made S'mores at the sweet firepit outside. It was just an incredible night, an incredible house, and an incredible view. It felt so good to breathe the mountain air.
I talked to Amber Ray, who shared my room, for a few hours. I don't know her very well, but she was great to talk to and so fun. John came up and talked to us for a little bit, and then he was out, too. Brad, on the other hand, didn't sleep at all and had then been up for about 30 hours.
Saturday was fancy dinner / 007 night. Bridget had asked Brad and I to be in charge of a dinner. What did she expect? He and I are in dinner party withdrawals, and we had a huge fancy kitchen at our disposal. So we made Pot-roasted poussins agro dolce (basically sweet and sour baby chickens) and creamed butternut squash. Brad actually wasn't there for most of the making (he had to sneak in a trip to see one of his favorite mission companions in Logan), but it turned out incredible. I was kind of in love with the stove. And everything looked so pretty when we were done (But I was a dork and completely forgot to take a picture. Bridget's camera makes mine feel insecure and I don't take as many pictures when its around. Imagine four roasted chickens, red sauce, crispy pancetta on top, sprinkled with pinenuts. Ahh... autumn, I love you.) But in all the rush, we didn't get dinner done until after the guys had left for Priesthood session. And then we were REALLY busy.

See, Brad's birthday is on the 10th. I work, there's a big church activity, and we didn't know when we'd be able to celebrate. So we planned this surprise party. During Priesthood session, while the guys were gone to the conference center, Bridget and I picked up his birthday cake, the balloons, green and black olives, and got a picture of Brad at 8-years old in his suit blown up. The two of us and Amber Ray cleaned and decorated like crazy. We even found some martini glasses in storage and set to work scraping the stickers off. So what if they were for water and Mountain Dew? You can't have a James Bond party without martini glasses!! We turned on a James Bond movie, and then got dressed like Bond girls. Red lipstick. Black, white, and red sexy clothes.
Yep. It was a blast. The guys arrived in their suits looking like they knew all along. Not too many people came (it seems like those we knew who were visiting in Provo got sucked in there and weren't able to come), but it made for a fun and intimate little party. Everybody was so happy there was real food, which made me laugh, so we all ate chicken and squash before birthday cake. We cleaned up 4 whole "young chickens," and it was so delicious. We danced and talked into the wee hours and got to meet some great people. Happy 25th Brad-o!!