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Friday 20250801

Chris and his kids arrive.

In the evening we escape to TGIF. Just another hot sunny day here in Paradise.

Saturday 20250802

Start the day with a short walk with Joe, Howard and Wendy. A bit too long for Wendy as it aggravates her back.

In the evening to escape the rug rats Wendy and I go to Bartoli’s for dinner. Very Italian. OK food but wouldn’t go back again. Typical American service, we have to wait because OUR waitress is busy yet there’s 3 staff members doing sweet FA. Heaven forbid they should put the customer first, never mind us having to wait for OUR waitress. I keep thinking I’m a customer, it’s a syndrome I suffer with but fortunately it’s not dangerous or contagious.

Sunday 20250803

Lazy morning, then we’re off to Dim Sum with Sarah, Brett and a few others. All our friends were either volunteering at the Arts Festival or going to the Festival. A life coach joined us towards the end of course she was vegan, in touch with her body, Manifest her cats (whatever that means) and invited us to a two day seminar on getting in touch with our inner self and Mother Earth. You can all probably imagine my response – I was actually quite polite – but I think I’d rather lick piss off a nettle.

We have a lazy afternoon. The kids have gone bowling and the girls swimming. Then we pick up a take away and go over to Mikes for tea.

Thursday 20250807

Bike ride with Mike down to the coffee shop for a change.

Then in the evening Fiona and I take Jasper and Esther to the Coalville Rodeo. It a classic small town rodeo just great for the kids. Esther’s there in her cowboy boots and hat, it’s her first rodeo. She really enjoys it and Jasper enjoys it as always. He manages to scoff two hotdogs and even finds room for an awesome deep fried Oreo – they’re amazing.

Friday 20250808

Early morning hike with Mark. Then take the kids down to the tree house at the coffee shop.

In the evening we all group off to Mike’s for Carmels birthday party, ribs and tiramasso. Awesome evening the ribs were just great.

Saturday 20250809

Wow, it’s a tad cooler, only in the Mid 70’s. Off to the slip and slide at the library, kids have an awesome time. Get about 10 free books and a brand new bike helmet each, along with loads of swag for Wendy.

Then in the evening we head off to ski show to watch Olympic athletes come down a ski jump and do flip and twists into an aerated swimming pool. Must be the tenth time we’ve seen it but it always is awesome. It’s the first time the girls have seen it.

Sunday 20250810

Lazy morning. Fiona takes the girls to church.

Thursday 20250814

Take the kids down to the Children’s Discovery Museum in Salt Lake. They love it and have a great time. Then regrettably they want to go to Target (French rubbish store).

In the evening we have a takeaway from Panda Express. It was ok.

Friday 20250815

Early morning Pickleball session with Park City Pickleball club organised by Dennis. A great group of friendly relaxed players who play for fun and don’t take it too seriously. I join the club and will play with them again.

Then take Esther and Jasper to MacDonalds.

Kids go to the pool / jacuzzi.

Wendy volunteers at the Christian Center and then she is taken out to lunch at Fuego to say goodbye to Kevin who is leaving for a new job.

Saturday 20250816

Early morning hike with Joe and Mark.

Then it’s off down to Walmart with Wendy.

In the evening Mike comes round for Corned Beef Hash dinner.

Wednesday 20250820

Early morning bike ride. No one turned up so it was just me and mike.

In the afternoon we take the kids swimming at Kamas.

Thursday 20250821

Mike and I play pickle ball.

Take the kids up to Deer Valley for a paddle. What a night mare.

Farewell dinner with Mike and the kids. Kids get Burger King while the rest of us get a Mexican from from Albertos. It was awesome.

Then the kids sell the rest of their golfballs.

Friday 20250822

Last day for the kids and Fiona.

Mike and I do an early morning Bike ride.

After lunch Fiona and I take the kids to the Willow Creek Oark to try and burn off some energy. Meanwhile Fiona is getting stressed with the thought of flying.

Mike, Wendy and I take the kids to the airport, complete with more luggage than people. I take her into checkin and TSA. Then we go to Feldmans for dinner, before heading home.

The silence is deafening.

Saturday 20250823

A lazy quiet start to the day.

Time to sort the house and regain some sense of normality.

Toys are sorted into 3 piles, stay here; to Christian Centre; trash. Car boot is just choka with toys to go to the Christian Centre. Clean and restore normality. Then as a special treat I get to go shopping with Wendy – joy pushing a trolley around Smiths like a demented air steward.

In the evening after a quiet dinner of leftovers from Feldmans Deli we resume watching the goggle box. One of the many benefits of the kids being here is no TV for 4 weeks. Have to say I haven’t missed it. Think perhaps I should install a TV limiter of an hour a day. Who knows I might even get back to reading a book. Could also do with less Doom Scrolling, nearly as bad as the kids and their iPads.

Sunday 20250824

Start the day with a peaceful breakfast. The house is back to normal and the silence is still deafening. Haven’t started to miss the kids yet just wallowing in the silence and normality.

A lazy morning. Followed by a last minute shopping trip you can never have too much of a good thing.

After lunch Mike and I play Pickle Ball with the 2.5 group. It’s just fun and mostly no one takes it too serious. You get the odd dispute, but who cares it’s just a game, “forget it, cut the chat and play”.

In the evening M & C, J & D and Mike come round for dinner. It’s. Cheese and Onion pie, which none of them have ever tried. Of course there’s wine and alcohol. A great evening, great food, including Gorgonzola and Port; great company.

Well Virgin have yet again managed to demonstrate their incompetence and total lack of care for the customer.

Sent me an email telling me the flight time have changed. You’d think this would be an easy thing to deal with but let’s just explore their SNAFU:

Rather than simply telling you in the email the original itinerary times and the new ones, so you can fully see the impact. So instead you have to recall your original email to see original times and then they expect you to log into their crap App – it’s not rocket science

Click the link and they can’t even be bothered to pass your booking reference from the email to the App ready logged in – it’s not rocket science.

They can’t even cope with the Booking reference being in lower case and upshift it to capitals for you – again it’s not rocket science, just one line of code.

Then, you have to spend 28 minutes on the phone changing your 2nd flight to give you adequate time to deplane; pass through immigration; collect you luggage; cross the airport. The poor clueless lass who took our call told us that 95 minutes was enough time. She’d obviously never been through Atlanta. It took us 28 minutes to get the flight changed. She was hopeless, obviously not been trained properly – Training manager needs retraining. It was a complete screw up. We even told her what flight we needed to change to but it still took 28 minutes, mostly in silence hanging on and wondering whether the call had been dropped.

Well, Dickie let me yet again give you my opinion. Everything to do with Virgin Atlantic outside the plane is a complete cluster F..k. If it wasn’t for the amazing and awesome cabin crews I would never fly Virgin again and even now I think my next flight we’ll reluctantly be exploring alternatives.

It strikes me the director responsible for customer services is totally clueless and a disgrace to your organisation, and the IT director is not much better – your web site is a disaster. Why don’t you issue them both with a brown envelope and replace them with anyone from your awesome cabin crew who understand the concept of customer services.

Saturday 20250830

What a lovely start to the day, pop onto the balcony to check the temperature and there’s a young Deer out there just staring at me.

We’re off to the Swiss Days celebrations out at Midway. What a great parade. Lots of really friendly people who seem fascinated by Brits being there. Best parade so far this year. Awesome amount of candy and they even have candy cannons to fire the candy into the crowd – it’s just raining candy. Then we join the massive queue for a scone. Not just any scone but an Utah Scone sprinkled with honey, cinnamon and huckleberry jam – delicious. Take a stroll amongst the throng of stalls. The place is heaving. Sit and listen to a great children’s choir, followed by a yodeller, there’s even alpenhorn players strolling around and playing their horn. Apart from the lengthy queue for a park and ride bus back I have to say how amazed I was at how well organised it was.

A great day out. We’ll have to make sure we go again next year.

In the evening we’re off to B&M’s for dinner. Finally get to try loaded peppers from Costco, they’re pretty good.

It’s been a busy few evenings yet again. Thursday we had S&B, Mike and Sylvia round for dinner. Friday was a TGIF complete with two donkeys (ginormous canines of some sort) roaming around foraging for food. Then Sunday, after Pickle Ball, we have Carol and Angela for dinner.