Joe's, Parade of Homes, & Troping With Jess, Andrew, and Vanessa!

So, Vanessa was in town to shoot a wedding, and Jessie and I got to steal her for all of Friday!  Jessie had some great ideas for what to do, and first on the list was a visit to Joe's Cafe.  That place is quickly becoming legendary in Orem, and a tradition for any member or friend of the Isenbarger family.  Vanessa's omelet was as big as her head.  I'm not kidding!  She couldn't finish it, so I took it home, and my roommate made two meals.  Out of the leftovers!

After breakfast we had a little break, and then headed out to the Utah Valley Parade of Homes.  It was my first time going, and I was just flabbergasted!  We only went to about 6 houses, but each of them were just amazing to go through.  We came to a consensus that the big things this year are sliding doors on tracks, slides going from one floor to the next, and teal accents.  This is the living room of Jessie's favorite house.  It was just beautiful!  Oh, and the house had a 'locker room' where the kids could change into their swimming suits before going out to the pool.  It had a shower, a towel and suit drying machine, and a bathroom.  It was crazy!

Here is a link to some photos of one of the fantastic homes!

http://hiyapapaya.com/blog/archives/3388

This was actually my favorite house:

 It was just so classic, and really nice.  My only complaint was that I felt the hallways were going here, there, and everywhere!  It was a little confusing.  But, it had a prep kitchen, a slide from the top floor to the basement, and lots of gorgeous woodwork.

http://hometrendsutah.blogspot.com/2012/07/utah-valley-parade-of-homes-2012-great.html

My favorite 'extra'?  DEFINITELY this:

Yup.  That is a floor completely made out of pennies.  No, really!

Coolest thing ever!

Well, there is something else that comes in a really close second . . . in the first house we went to, they had a door in their pantry that connected to their garage.  So when you come home with groceries, you open the door, shove the bags of groceries in, and then go inside to the pantry to organize.  Isn't that fabulous?!

The Parade of Homes took all afternoon, but we had time to grab a quick dinner, and then Jessie and Andrew took us down to Mona to do some troping.  I sat out, but Vanessa and Jessie both went off the ropes.  They did so well!  I would have been really nervous, but Vanessa got right up there and mastered that trope!

We also saw some kids who were fishing for crawdads.  They tied a bit of hot dog on a string, then let it drop to the bottom of the pond.  The crawdads would just grab on to the bait and not let go.  It was so neat!  There was a little kid (probably around 4) who was there with his sisters, and he was just having a blast telling us what to do and how to get the crawdads.  He was the cutest!  We also found a little next of sleeping field mice, and the little guy decided that they all should be called 'Pepper' because they were all gray.  Each and every one of them was named 'Pepper'.

What a fantastic day!  Definitely worth skipping out on work . . . :)