Fun weekend with Paul, Erin, Joe and Teresa!

Jacob's youngest brother Paul has joined the Navy! We are so proud of him and are going to miss him! Just when we move back to Utah, he leaves! :( But we're excited for him! This weekend the family is having a get together at mom & dad's house but since Jacob works and we only have 1 vehicle right now we won't be able to go. Since we won't be there we decided to have Paul and his wife Erin over for dinner and games on Saturday. We invited Joe and his wife Teresa as well. It was an absolute blast!

They arrived Saturday while we were finishing the prep work for dinner. We did Steak, potatoes, grilled asparagus, and of course, the family favorite:

STUFFED MUSHROOMS!! (on the grill, Jacob's favorite way to make them, nice and smokey flavored! Yummy!!)
When I first joined the family 8 years ago I wouldn't even try these. I hated mushrooms. Jacob convinced me to at least try them and oh boy are they yummy!!! Incidentally, I now love mushrooms and asparagus, and I can handle tomatoes. I didn't like any of them before marrying Jacob but I love them now, well, I don't love tomatoes, but I will eat them now and I wouldn't before so that's saying something right? (I digress)
In April at Joe and Teresa's wedding I was chatting with Erin and talking about cakes. I told her about the monkey cake that I made for my friends son's birthday. She said she wanted a monkey cake so I told her I would make one. Now that we are back in Utah I was able to. I didn't get a picture of the finished cake but here it it being decorated:

I think Erin was thrilled when she saw I hadn't forgotten her monkey cake. :D
After dinner we took them on a tour of our house since Teresa had never seen it, and Paul, Erin and Joe hadn't seen it since the day we moved in. We played the card game BANG! till late in the night and laughed, talked and had a great time. By the time we realized how late it was it was almost 1a.m.

Seeing as how it was really late we invited them to stay the night and go to church with us in the morning. So we found some clothes for everyone (a skirt that I don't fit anymore for Erin and a dress Jacob bought me in Afghanistan that is waaaay too small for me- read a size 5- for Teresa and Jacobs clothes for Joe and Paul). After more talking until around 3 we all finally went to sleep. Joe and Teresa in our family room (since our couch is about the only thing that was long enough for Joe to sleep on, he's really tall, and Paul and Erin in Tammy's room). We woke up in the morning to a yummy breakfast of muffins, pancakes and bacon that Jacob made us and then went to church. We got back to our house, changed and played with the dog. Sirius loves Paul!

Tammy worked Saturday night at the Haunted House (Nightmare Mansion, she works there with her dad Nick and then stays at his house afterwards since they don't get done until late on the weekends) so she didn't get to see Paul Saturday. Paul is her favorite Uncle and she was upset she wouldn't get to see him. So we thought we'd call her after church to see if she wanted to wake up and come home to see Paul before he had to leave. We couldn't reach her (she was still sleeping) so we decided to play BANG! some more until we could reach her.

The first year we got married we started a tradition to buy a game for the family every year for Christmas. This game is so fun, I think this will be this years game.

We finally got a hold of Tammy and so I went to get her and brought her home (although I took her back to her dad's later because her favorite cousin on her dad's side was here visiting from Vegas) Tammy hates the camera and hates having her picture taken. But Paul was determined to try to get her picture. This is the closest we came:

Until it was time to say goodbye, then we got some pictures with Paul.

Paul and Erin

Jacob and his brothers (Paul was excited to be taller for once haha)

Being silly

Being even sillier (I don't know what's more silly, them all doing the "can can" or Jacob for wearing shorts when it was about 40 degrees!)

Paul was showing some leg!

Picture of Tammy with her favorite Uncle Paul (like I said, it was COLD!!!)

We all got a picture with Paul!

We will miss you Paul!! Stay safe!! We'll take care of Erin while you're gone! (Paul is going to training and then Erin will join him whereever they are stationed)