Wed, part 2

So, after lunch - where we all ate too much - we took a fun group photo - Gary has it & he'll be posting it on his blog (link to that on the right side of this blog). Then the group sort of divided between those that wanted more retail therapy and those that wanted to go back to the hotel & enjoy the precious few moments of peace and quiet that we can only get when we have a hotel room to ourselves! I'm sure that the shoppers had an amazing time and I can only imagine that invading a mall with the likes of Jess, Liv, Kari, etc., would have been a hoot and a half! They did come back with quite a few goodies and showed them off to us all - cute!

Since we didn't eat lunch until almost 2pm, we bumped dinner up at Los Hermanos to 8pm. We met in the Timpanogos room at 7:45 and proceeded en masse down the sidewalk to this adorable little Tex-Mex restaurant right on Center Street...the restaurant never knew what hit them.

Imagine roughly 20 or so Sprague Festers - all excited to see each other and enjoying just sharing each others' company....loudly....all at once....and these two sweet little boys who drew the short straws and had to wait on our table - yes, they put us all at one huge long table in a back room - guess they knew we'd be trouble! You have to feel sorry for the two guys - first, there was Kari with her "half Diet Coke, half Cherry Coke with lots of limes" to drink and then everyone's orders...it was amazing that we got fed at all - much less that it was what we ordered (or at least close) and pretty OK food. Some of it wasn't hot but I have enough chef friends to know that serving 20 different dishes at the same time & having them all be hot is next to impossible. But can I tell you - I have found the next best thing to nirvana: Bavarian Cream stuffed churros. Oh my...imagine a churros - you know, those fried dough sticks covered in cinnamon & sugar? Now imagine it hot, just out of the fryer, and stuffed with delicious vanilla cream....just wow.

The two waiters were so sweet - of course, we were all talking - loudly - all at the same time - laughing...and these two guys had to try and take our drink orders, our food orders, then bring condiments, then dessert & then divvy up 20 some-odd bills (yes, they actually let us do separate checks!!) and each time they had to interrupt somebody (OK, everybody) who was talking...they looked completely overwhelmed...hope they recover soon.

After dinner, we waddled back to the hotel where Jess said that she had a little "somethin' somethin' " for us all....what?! Doesn't she know that her gift to us is that she gave up precious time with her family (after they had all been sick for a week) to come be with us for a few days before DSE? And sweet Liv - this amazing woman who is so nice and so funny and one of the absolutely most genuine persons I have ever met - who came even earlier from halfway around the world to be with Jess - good thing since Liv ended up playing nurse to the Sprague family as they were all sick...and then had a major hand in the goodies that were handed out...but I digress...

So - Jess gets up and starts giving this amazing speech about how grateful she is for our coming to Sprague Fest & how much it means to her to have all of us be on JS.com & the forums, etc. and made us all cry. It still blows my mind to see how humble Jess is - when she has every reason to be the Diva....she almost seems surprised at the success of JS.com. Some days I just want to tell her: "Jessica - this is what happen when you give freely of yourself and your God-given talents....God returns it to you ten-fold!" She also gave some hints of some digi goodness to come in the future - stay tuned!! Then, she handed out these cute gift bags with fun little chipboard albums, chipboard embellies, these yummy chocolate lollipops - that she and Liv made themselves - where did they find the time? But - the coolest part is this amazing frame with this very cool quote: "Friendship is a sheltering tree" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge......yes, Jessica & Liv, you are so right - and thank you for being a living, breathing example of that to us and for the gift of your friendship.