I Want Bacon!

Last summer, my best friend from high school, Lori Gerlach, came to Utah to visit. We've been doing an annual visit, swapping between Minnesota and Utah, since 2004. This year's visit will likely not happen (sniff, sniff) because we're saving money to pay for the baby's birth and a minivan to hold our growing family.

Last year's visit was super fun because Lori brought her daughter Grace with her. They were here over the 4th of July and I assured them that the balloon launch was something they wouldn't want to miss. Again, when the alarm went off at 5:30am and I went in to wake up Lori, we were both like, "This is a stupid idea." I made a very strategic error in promising Lily that we could have bacon and pancakes when we got home. Bacon is one of Lily's most favorite foods, she'll eat six or eight strips in a sitting.

The minute we arrived at the balloons, Lily started whining to leave, saying, "I want bacon!" over and over again.

Note how Lori and Grace are perfecting the courtesy smile while Lily stares longingly into the distance where they are serving pancakes and bacon for $5.00. I was too cheap to feed her there and told her she had to wait until we got home. In retrospect, I'm like, "why didn't I just buy the kid some bacon so she would shut up?"


I will NOT smile!

At least the flags provided some amusement.

OK, I take it back. There was a two minute period when she was interested in the balloons.

Lori calls this picture "the quintessential American Mom", toting around American flags and a sippy cup.

Love those little teeth and sparkly eyes!

Gracie's Nana died just a few months before their visit, so she latched onto Grammie right away. They were great pals! Nice bitter bacon face on Lily.

So cool.
Gram always loved going to see the balloon launch. Mom took her every year for probably the last ten years. I'm so glad I got this picture of her last year.

The most amusing part of the "I Want Bacon!" story is how it stands out in all of our memories. When Dan asked me this year if we should take Lily, I started laughing and recounted the story about the bacon. Then a few minutes later when he asked Lily if she would like to go, so told him all about last year, that all she did was whine for bacon the whole time (this was without hearing me tell the story.) Then on the morning of the 4th of July, Lori left me a message saying, "Grace and I are just sitting here remembering where we were a year ago. I'm going to do an impression, see if you can guess who it is. 'I want bacon...Baaaaacon." I laughed so hard and let Lily listen to the message and we had a good giggle together.

Good times, good times...