It's all good . . .

A Vegas Getaway

Last year, when Kevin and I were at our race in Corpus Christi, we spun a wheel at a booth the night before the race, and we won a trip to Vegas. And so, on my birthday, we hopped on a flight to Vegas for a fun little getaway. They only paid for us to fly Spirit airlines, but it was just fine, because it was such a short trip, we only packed a backpack each and it was just fine.  We went straight from lunch after playing golf in the morning, to the airport to catch our flight.

The flight was only about three hours, and when we arrived, my dear friend, Brandi, picked us up from the airport.  It was so fantastic to see her!!


The three of us went to dinner at Gordon Ramsay's Burger restaurant, and that was one amazing melt in your mouth burger, but the conversation was even better.

The best part of the meal, however, was the sticky toffee pudding that we got as my birthday dessert to share.  It was to die for good!  I mean, Brandi, who really doesn't like dessert, ate her whole portion, savoring every bite.  Seriously, it was AMAZING!!

After dinner, Brandi dropped us off at our hotel, The Luxor. After getting checked in, we may have had a bit of an adventure trying to find the elevator to take to get to our room. We were supposed to take the red elevator, but tried the burgundy elevator, not realizing it was wrong, and our key card would not make it go, and when we accidentally made it to the right floor, there wasn't a room number to match - ha ha!!  Turned out we were in a tower on the complete opposite side of the property.  Good times!

The next morning, because our bodies were on Texas time, we were up and wide awake at 4:30 am.  Since we were up, we researched good donut shops in Vegas, but since we were carless, we decided on Pinkbox Donuts, which was just a short 3ish miles from our hotel, instead of 15+ miles across town. We got ready for the day, and by 6 am, we were walking down the cold, but very empty strip.  

It was pretty cool to have it mostly to ourselves, except for a few runners and some random homeless people.  To make our way along the street, there were a lot of streets where we had to walk to pedestrian bridges.  One of the times, we could not find the stairway for the life of us, and so we tried the elevator, only to have it open with a homeless person asleep inside.  Needless to say, we searched again until we found the stairs - ha ha!

After an hour of walking, we did eventually make it to the donuts!! It was a popup inside what looked to be a really great deli, and I wanted all the bagels too, but we stuck to the donuts.  They all looked all so amazing, it was hard to pick, but Kevin's favorite was their maple bar.  He didn't let me taste it, and so I can't chime in.  My favorite was the strawberry shortcake one with fresh strawberries.

To get back to our hotel, we thought we would take the tram, which was supposed to be a short walk from the donuts.  It was the station by the Convention Center, but because of construction and very large fences everywhere, we could not get in!!  We had to walk an entire mile out of our way just to get to the station.  However, because of it, we were the most popular people ever as we walked around with our donut box, and got to tell people as we went where to get them.  Good times! The tram was pretty cool, and reminded me of the monorail at Disney. And as we went past the golf course at the Wynn, it was cool to be able to see down into it.  Also, there was a random coyote in the space where they keep all their equipment.  Crazy!

Once we got off at the station, we still had to make our way through the entire MGM Grand Resort, and so I took a picture with the golden lion so I could show Arthur. 

We then crossed the street and had to walk by/through a few more resorts to get back to our hotel. The Luxor really is pretty cool looking, and even though it is old and needs some maintenance, I love all the Egyptian architecture.

We went back to our room and took the first of many naps throughout the day, and I also got to read a lot of my book while we chilled in our room. At 11 am we had an appointment at the Flyover Vegas, where we got to ride on a cool thing - very much like Soarin' at Epcot Center.  They had a few different ones to choose from, and decided on the American West.  It was very fun, and lasted about 20 minutes, which was awesome.  Such a fun activity, and I am so glad Kevin found it.

Across the street from the Flyover Vegas, was the amazing Eataly.  I had always wanted to go to one of them in New York City, and so when I saw one in Vegas, we had to go there for lunch.  It was very pricey, and we weren't super hungry because of all the donuts, and so we shared some pasta - Cacio E Pepe, to be exact.  It was delicious!  And after the pasta, we shared a gelato.  There were so many other amazing looking things to eat there, I would have been happy eating there for multiple meals.  Yum!

We spent the afternoon napping and reading off and on.  We actually never turned on the TV, which was pretty funny. We had contemplated going to the hot tub, but the one at our hotel was still closed for the season, and we would have had to go to the resort next door.  No thanks.  Especially because it was still pretty darn cold outside. I did take a bath in the deep tub in our room, which was nice, since the big tub in our master bath has no hot water running to it - ha ha!

Eventually, it was time for us to finally go down to the casino to use the leftover change that Kevin saved from our garage sale back in Pennsylvania.  He decided that we would play a game - see who won the most money, but play until it was gone.  Years and years ago, I had played the nickel slots just because I was old enough to do so (back when you could still put coins in a slot machine), but had never actually gambled.  Well, Kevin and I discovered that I am a VERY grumpy gambler.  I was angry at the stupid nonsensical machines that made no sense at all about what won and what didn't.  I may have told the machines that they sucked, as I tried a few different ones, hoping to find one that actually made sense to me. (It's a good thing I wasn't playing at a table, or I may have yelled at the dealer and gotten thrown out. Seriously.)  And I was angry when Kevin played too. I was especially angry that I was playing by the penny, and even if I still had money in there, if it wasn't enough for the minimum bet, I couldn't use it, which caused me to cash out a quarter, as I was not just giving that money to the evil machine.  Kevin was giddily happy as he made fun of my surliness.  I am pretty sure I even made a Miss Piggy growl. I mean, I had never planned on gambling, but this just showed me, it is definitely NOT my thing.  I hated it.  

After the horrible experience with the video game things that they say are slot machines, we went back to our room for a bit before Kevin's brother, Scott, and his wife, Shannon, picked us up for dinner.  We went to the yummiest pizzeria near where they live, and the food was great, but the company was even better.  We had such a great time catching up, especially because we don't get to see them very often.  After dinner, we went to their house to hang out and talk some more before they took us back to the hotel.  Their dogs, Cooper and Finn, were very, very friendly. Finn kept trying to lick my face, which I managed to dodge, and Cooper kept wanting to smell the back of my neck.  Pretty funny, but my favorite part was when both dogs had made themselves at home on Kevin's lap.  I think the beard drew them to him - ha ha!

Wednesday morning, we were up bright and early, yet again, but this time we actually had a purpose in getting up, as we needed to pack up and head to the airport. Luckily, our plane was time (after my last trip, I may have been a little paranoid until I saw the plane) and we had a great flight back to San Antonio, especially because for $11 each, we were able to get seats in the exit row, and we were the only two people in our row.  So much legroom, even though the seats still felt made of wood.  Good times!  And so, it was back to reality.  We had such a fun time, and are so grateful to Lily for holding down the fort while we were gone.

Celebrating Forty-Five Years!

My birthday was on Monday, and as it was coming up, people would ask me how old I was turning, and I would usually answer with "more than halfway to dead." Ha ha! Some of my friends didn't think that was very funny, but it's all good.  One of them said that instead we should say that we are "seasoned" - nice.  Regardless of what you call it, I turned forty five, and I am very fine with that ;).  Even if Kevin is still only forty-four.

Since Kevin and I were leaving out of town on my birthday, we celebrated with the kids on Sunday.  I made myself a cake, even though that goes against my natural inclinations.  I mean, people shouldn't have to make their own cake.  That said, I wanted a really yummy cake, and so I made myself the Cake by Courtney Red Velvet bundt cake (delicious, but easier than a layer cake).  It was a good call, as it was delicious!

I also got spoiled with fun presents from Kevin and the kids.

And on Saturday, I went out to breakfast with a bunch of my friends, which was so much fun!  Originally, we were going to go paddle boarding afterwards, but the weather dipped down to 50 degrees, so instead we all talked for two hours as we ate.  Good times!

On my actual birthday, Kevin and I got up early, made sure the kids were good and ready for school, etc, and then we headed to a golf course on the south side of the city for a tournament.  While we waited for it to start, they gave us balls to use on the driving range, and Kevin set up his golf tracker thingy to track my shots and speed.  Pretty fun.  Then he used it to track his shots as he warmed up.

The golfing was very fun, even though I did not play my best, we had a great time.  We were partnered with a super nice couple, which made it even more fun.  And Kevin not only got second place in his flight, but he also won the raffle and made a putt to win $100.  

So awesome, and a great way to celebrate my birthday.  We finished up with enough time to have a fun lunch, and then headed to the airport for the next part of my birthday adventure - a trip to Las Vegas.

March Sneaking In

The first week of March (end of February) just happened to be Read Across America week, which meant there were dress up days all week, and since I was teaching on Crazy Hair Day, I had to join in on the fun with Arthur. With my new shorter hair, it was a little tricky, but I managed to put some mini Princess Leia buns in my hair - good times.  The kids I was teaching told me that my hair was "cute and not crazy" - ha ha!  I also came in on Dr. Suess Day and read a book to Arthur's class, which is one of my favorite things to do.

On Wednesday, Arthur and I decided to walk to school (and then I got in another mile and a half after dropping him off). On our walk, we found a lonely bluebonnet growing out of the sidewalk. It was my first spotting of the season, and when Arthur saw how purple they are, he decided that they are his new favorite flower.  Funny guy.

A not so great adventure has been happening at our house recently - the adventure of trying to find my kids' ADHD meds in stock.  There is a nationwide shortage and it is the worst!! This may just look like a computer screen and a scratch piece of paper to you, but I call it stress. The nationwide shortage of ADHD medication has caused me a tremendous amount of stress, and means that with three children on prescription meds, for the past few months I have to do the crazy dance of calling many, many pharmacies to see if they have their medication in stock, and then try to get the doctor to get the prescription sent over before someone else gets the meds. It is so ridiculously stressful, and unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the shortage is going to end anytime soon 😬😭.

The other day, I got to play behind my camera and take pictures of a home for sale for my friend, Karen, who is a realtor.  She snuck this picture of me while I was working, and I love it.  Why is it that my favorite pictures of myself involve me being behind the camera??  Ha ha!

Speaking of taking pictures, I finally got this picture I took of the San Antonio Temple last year put on canvas, and I love it!!  I especially love how it shows the stained glass windows so well.  I took down my giant picture of the Philadelphia Temple and put this one up, and then gave the picture to my friend, Heather, who will be living near Philly when they move this summer.

We finished off the week with date night. (I think the kids count down the minutes until we leave on our dates, which is pretty hilarious.) Kevin found this fun BBQ place called Windmill Icehouse, where we ate yummy food, enjoyed the gorgeous weather, and listened to live music.  It was a pretty awesome date :).  March is definitely starting off right.

 

Finishing February

I know that February is shorter month and all, but wow, it seemed to disappear.  The weather has been so nice - beautiful spring weather, and I have loved going on walks through the neighborhood when I have time. One morning, I noticed that the Texas Mountain Laurels are all in bloom - so pretty, and they smell like grape candy. I also found this spiderweb that looked so cool covered in the dew from the fog.

Not that Kevin needs nice weather to be out hitting golf balls, but the other day he was out there working on his swing, while the boys played in the pool. They loved getting to blow off steam after school.

Speaking of golfing in the backyard, Saturday night, we had Kevin's coworker Luke, and his fiancé over for dinner, after which, he gave him a golf lesson. The two of us ladies watched (and froze a bit - the temps had dipped down into the 50's, which is too cold for me) and were highly entertained, mostly because Luke is so tall that the clubs looked way too small for him.  Good times! They were such a sweet couple, and it made Kevin and I feel super old, since they are only in their early twenties - ha ha!

Last week, we had a special baby shower for my friend, and coteacher, Delaney, as our Primary Girls Activity.  I was in charge of the red velvet cake, but since Collins, one of the girls, "hates cake, but likes cupcakes," I made cupcakes.  They turned out so cute! I had some leftover scraps of cake and frosting and so I tried them together, and they were so stinking good!! Oh my goodness!  I made Kevin take a bite, and we both decided that this level of deliciousness was wasted on 8 year old girls - ha ha!

The baby shower turned out super cute!  The girls planned it, and for many of them, it was their first time at a baby shower.

The games were their favorite part. We played a cut the yarn to see how big her baby bump is, and Mary got it exactly right!! Wow!  The rest of us way overestimated - Delaney is tiny!  Their favorite game was one that we came up with during our planning session - Pin the Pacifier on the Baby. Once they realized that no babies would be harmed, they were on board. And Lily was amazing enough to draw me a baby and make circle pacifiers to use. The very first girl just happened to get it exactly on the mouth, so I had to take a picture.  Good times!

Meanwhile, back at the church, Arthur and the rest of the Activity Boys were testing out their Pinewood Derby cars.  Arthur said that his was super fast and won every race he was in.  It may not have been our first rodeo when it came to making cars - ha ha!  After many years with Derek making cars, Kevin knows all thee tricks to make them fast.

Something else that happened recently, was the announcement on Live with Kelly and Ryan that Ryan is leaving the show. So sad!  I love the two of them on there, and although he had never planned on staying long term, after six years, I hoped he would.  Luckily, and truly the one consolation is that Mark Consuelos, Kelly's husband, is taking his place.  

On Saturday, Lily and I finished up the month with a special service project with the stake Relief Society.  We went and built beds with an organization called "Sleep in Heavenly Peace," where they make simple beds and take them all over the city to homes so that children have a bed to sleep in.  They bring the whole thing - mattress and bedding included.  Lily and I spent over and hour using an electric sander, and by the time we were done, neither of us could use our right hands - oops. 

Because our hands were now useless to do anything else, we left a little early and stopped by the nursery.  I picked up a few plants, mainly tomatoes and herbs, but a couple other things as well.  As we took turns trying to carry the rose bush, that was when we realized just how messed up our right hands were, as we had no grip strength.  Pretty funny.  When I got home and planted everything, I noticed that my baby Mountain Laurel was also blooming.  So pretty!!

I finished off the day with a date with Kevin to the yummiest Irish pub, and then stopped down the street at the grand opening of a Fizz drinks, which just happens to be owned by a family in our ward.  The drinks were even free, which was pretty cool.  And a great way to finish off our February.

Amazing Arthur

Our Arthur is growing up faster than we can believe.  It is crazy to think that he is now older than Lily was when he was born and she was carrying him around and changing his diapers.  He has been pretty busy lately with lots of fun things.  One of those things was going to "Donuts with Dad" with Kevin at school one morning.  I just happened to be subbing one day, and so I snuck down to get a picture :).

The other day, he pulled out all of his Star Wars toys and set them up as a giant battle, and then he had his older brother coma and play with it with him.  It was the cutest.

He also used all his birthday money to buy an extra special Beyblade, and he was so excited when it arrived in the mail.

He has also started up his swim lessons again, and is doing just awesome!  He is like a little fish.

But some of Arthur's biggest news is that he has been involved in a special UIL competition (University Interscholastic League in Texas that exists to provide educational extracurricular academic, athletic, and music contests).  He has been practicing with his Maps Charts and Graphs team for the past month, and today was the school competition, and he won first place!!  It was so exciting, and now he gets to move on to the Reagan Cluster competition (all the elementary schools that feed into the High School).  Oh, and I promise his hair was fixed when he went to school, but it was fixed by him - ha ha!

And Friday was the icing on the cake of what was an awesome week for Arthur - he performed at his school talent show and he was fantastic!!

He performed "The Rainbow Connection" - both singing and playing the piano.  It was so amazing, and his bow at the end was pretty fabulous.  It made me so happy to watch him, and here is a video of the performance.

The show itself was so much fun, and I loved getting to see so many of the students that I teach perform.  Arthur ws still my favorite though ;).

Happy Love Day!

I really love Valentine's Day - I love making Valentines with my kids, giving them special chocolate, going on a special date with my husband, but mostly  it because is a time to make to show people around you extra love.

Kevin and I started off the Valentine celebration early with a delicious prime rib dinner at BJ's Brewhouse.  We dressed up, which is always fun, and the food was delicious.  There were even pizzookies to-go as part of our meal, which we saved to eat later in the evening when we watched the cute new romcom, "Your Place or Mine" with Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher. It was such a fun night together.

On actual Valentine's Day, in between a bunch of appointments, I went to Arthur's class and red them the fun book, "Roses are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink" by Diane deGroat.  It was so much fun.  He also brought the cutest homemade Valentines to give out to his classmates.  It was similar to one that I made with Lily and Derek a long time ago, and I loved it. After my appointments were all done, I met up some of my girl friends for a Galentines lunch, which was very fun. I wish I had thought to snag a picture.

Later on, I made our traditional Valentine's Day dinner of heart shaped pancakes.  Some of them were better looking than others - ha ha!

I also gave the kids their special Valentine chocolates, which is their favorite thing.  This year, instead of one giant chocolate heart, we gave Arthur a bag of dark chocolate hearts, instead of one big heart, which he loved.  Good times!  It turned out to be a very nice Valentine's Day for us all.

Making our Way Through the Middle of February

February is trudging along - sometimes quickly, and sometimes slowly. While I was out of town, Derek helped on the crew of the high school musical, Beauty and the Beast, as an usher.  Lily snapped a picture for me because she was there on a special date with Arthur.  She had bought tickets for the two of them to see it, and they had a blast.

On Tuesday night, it was a special school STEAM night at Arthur's school, and the two of us went and had a blast.  Arthur's favorite part was getting to look at through some really cool giant telescopes (even though it was cloudy so we couldn't see anything.  We also found out about some solar eclipses coming up in the next year.

Our next order of business was to make our way through the different stations around the cafeteria.  At each place, they gave us certain supplies, and then we would have to create something and do a challenge.  One of them was to create a submarine to hold our gummy worm.My favorite thing was creating a parachute for the gummy worm, and his parachute worked so well.
Our very last challenge was the hardest - it was making a bridge of Oreos strong enough to hold a cup of rocks.  Good times.
Saturday was a good, but busy day.  I got to go have a mini spa day I had bought a deal for at a local massage therapy school.  It was fabulous.  While I was gone, Kevin took the boys to a special golf event for disabled veterans.  They fed them golf and then played in a scramble, and they had so much fun.  They even used Arthur's shot once, which he thought was the best ever.
Sunday was the Super Bowl, and after we had dinner, the boys all got comfy in the living room to watch it.  Arthur didn't last long, but Derek saw most of it before he had to head to bed.  Sadly for them, there weren't any special treats.  It had been such an exhausting week, between playing catch up after being gone all week, teaching school, and then training a new girl for Premier Woodworking, I barely had energy to make dinner - ha ha!

A Girl's Trip in Vegas

Months ago, when my friend, Brandi, moved from San Antonio to Las Vegas, a few of us started talking about having a girl's trip to visit her.  Well, we started planning, and although a few of the ladies ended up having to pull out, my friend Erica and I both left on Friday (on separate flights) to head to Las Vegas.  I flew on Horizon, which is definitely a lesser airline as to comfort and other things, and so I was so amazingly blessed to have my entire row to myself, especially because the flight was very, very full.  I was so tired, and even if I had to maneuver around the armrests, I managed to lie across the seats and take a nice long nap :).

And I am glad I got the rest, because not only is Nevada two hours behind my time zone, but from the time I landed, we hit the ground running.  Brandi picked up the two of us, and after a quick stop at a Walgreens for some snacks, we headed straight for the Las Vegas Temple.  I have wanted to go there since I was a young girl growing up in Spark, Nevada, and the Vegas Temple was built. Even though it was very far away and not our temple (which was the Oakland Temple), it was the first temple built in Nevada, and so it always had a special place in my heart.  Visiting the temple is always wonderful, and it was even more special with friends.  We even did some of my family names - three sisters born in the 1800's in England, which was so awesome.

As we were leaving the temple, I couldn't get over how barren the mountains were.  They reminded me so much of the area around Mount Sinai.

After the temple, we went in search of something yummy for dinner, and settled on fajitas at Juan's Flaming Fajitas.  It was so good, and pretty funny, because they really did light them on fire at our table.  I wish I had snapped a picture of it. 

After dinner, we drove to our hotel, the Eliante resort, and got settled. It was a beautiful resort, and the only bummer was that the hot tub was closed for the season. Pretty lame, but oh well.

On Saturday morning, my internal clock wok me up at 5am Nevada time - good times.  Luckily, I had a really fabulous ebook I was reading, and so I had something to entertain myself with while I waited for Brandi and Erica to wake up.  Ha ha!  After they were up and ready, we had a late breakfast at Chick-fil-A, mostly so that we could visit Brandi's son Jeff, who was a good friend of Derek's. 

After breakfast, we picked up some bagels for later, and then headed out to the Valley of Fire State Park.  There were two things that I really wanted to do on this trip, one was go to the temple, and the other was to go on a cool hike in the desert, and I definitely got my wish.

The Valley of Fire was spectacular, and the weather was just perfect.  We were comfortable in our sweatshirts, and even had to take them off at one point, because it had warmed up.

We did two of the hikes, one of which started by this really cool place where you could see the road winding through the canyon, but to get the good view, you had to climb up this rock with a very steep cliff/drop off on the sides.  We braved it through, which was totally worth it, but to take the picture, we had to sit down so that we didn't knock each other off the edge. Ha ha!

The rock formations were fantastic and beautiful.
 We hiked and climbed around on the rocks, giving us more spectacular views.
What was amazing to me was all the color variation in the rocks and the sand, part of which lent itself to making the rocks look like they had been painted.
My favorite hike was a loop that took us through a canyon that reminded me a bit of the one in Petra.  On the ground, not just in this canyon, but in other places around the trail, were the prettiest blue rocks.  I mean, they were so vibrantly blue, that I had to take a small one home for Arthur for his rock collection. (Strangely, however, when we left the park at the end of the day and I took it out of my pocket, it was a dull, dark gray.  We were baffled by this, and thought that perhaps it had to be near the red rocks to bring out the vibrant blue color, or that it was a magic rock that was only blue inside the Valley of Fire - ha ha! I still gave Arthur the rock though, and then told him of the magical properties.)
After our final hike, we stopped to have a snack at the picnic grounds and finally saw some wildlife.  There were the most adorable chipmunks, and in our attempt to get a picture of them, Brandi may have been throwing her cheep Walgreens popcorn to them.  Good times!
It was funny, because I had been thinking that there had been a sever lack of wildlife in the park, and then we saw this big horned sheep on the side of the road.  Just standing there!!  I mean, it was so close and looked so cool with the background of the rocks that it almost seemed staged, even though it wasn't.

Our last stop on our way out of the park, was to see the Petroglyphs, which were seriously the coolest.  We may have inadvertently entertained some other tourists as we were trying to come up with the meaning of them, including a story about a dragon chasing the people, and possibly Bigfoot.  Ha ha!  It was pretty funny.

After a stop to shower and change at our hotel, we went to dinner at the yummiest place to get soup dumplings at Xiao Long Dumplings in China Town. Oh my goodness, the food was good!  The green beans were spectacular, soup dumplings were divine, but the winner was the pork buns - so tasty!

After dinner, we went to see the movie "80 for Brady" at the theater in our hotel.  It was super fun and cute, and then we came back to the room and talked and laughed until we crashed.

The next morning, my body would not let me sleep on Nevada time, and so I was wide awake at 4:45am - lame.  I took advantage of the opportunity to study my scriptures, shower and get ready, and find the nearest church to our hotel that met at 9am, since Brandi's ward met right when Erica had to be at the airport. Church was nice, but sadly, that was when my exhaustion hit me, and I kept falling asleep.  After church, we got crepes for late breakfast/early lunch, and then dropped Erica off at the airport.

I still had a few hours to kill, and so Brandi and I went and explored the Bellagio gardens, which were decorated for the Chinese New Year.  They were super cool, although very crowded.  It was cool to see though.
We also stopped at this beautiful restaurant, Sadelle's, and I bought a slice of chocolate babka from their bakery cart for me to eat on the plane.

We still had so much time, that we walked around and explored the different casinos, and rode around on the train that went between them.  While we were at it, we searched and found a hidden pizzeria that Brandi had read about.  It was down an unmarked hallway, and boom, there you were.  They didn't even have a menu.  So fun!

All too soon, it was time for me to go to the airport, but sadly, this was where the story took a turn.  And not for the better.  My flight got delayed an hour, then another hour, and eventually another forty-five minutes. So lame!  I was so tired.
I was also very grateful for my chocolate babka.  And that I snagged a spot next to a charging station, so that I could do my Come Follow Me study, including watching "Don't Miss This" while I waited.  

After that, I read my book, went for a long walk back and forth in the terminal, and when I thought I was about to go insane from exhaustion and boredom, our plane finally arrived!! I almost couldn't believe I was finally on my way home and leaving the lights of Vegas behind.  I didn't land until after midnight, which meant I didn't get to bed until after 1 am, which meant my 5 am alarm felt extra early.  It was a fabulous trip though, and I am so glad I went.

Freezing February Beginnings

On Monday, a winter storm rolled into Texas, slow moving and giant, that caused ice storms throughout the state for two days.  Because of this, school was closed for two days, work was canceled for Lily, and people were told to limit travel, and so Lily's service assignments were canceled as well.

Because of that, the whole family was home together for two days, which was actually really fun.  It also meant that I was around to listen to and watch Derek practice guitar, which is always a favorite thing for me.  And it meant that he got to spend extra time jamming.  Good times.

On Wednesday morning, all three kids decided they needed to exercise, but since it was way to icy and cold outside to do anything out there, so they all did "Just Sweat" together, which was super cute to watch.

Also, during my workout, my Wilma heavy resistance band created a heart, which is always cool.  So, I totally took a picture and sent it to the lady who does all the workouts in the Wilma app that I use, and she reposted it on Instagram, which was so much fun!

The freeze did finally end, but not before it did some damage.  My poor baby Live Oak was so weighed down by being encased in ice, it had bent all the way to the ground and then froze that way!!  I tried to pull the ice off and get ti to stand back up, but no luck.  I did manage to lift it a little, and then rested it on Kevin's sawhorse.  And luckily, today, now that the ice is melted, it is back to standing up and didn't die.  Granted, it is a bit crooked, but I think that restocking it will make it right as rain.  The ice sure was pretty, but wow, am I glad it is gone.

Moments of January

January slipped by like a blink of the eye, but it finished off with moments of fun and goodness. Like making homemade pizzas, where we each got to design our own, and Arthur made his look like a Beyblade using pineapple and pepperoni - good times!

We also went to the Middleton's home to do a virtual tour of the Laie Hawaii Temple, which just happened to be led by the daughter of our bishop, who is serving her mission there.  It was so much fun and really cool to see the area - so beautiful!! 

Arthur also spent a good portion of his free time this week building the toy robots he was given for his birthday.  There were a few moments of frustration and tears, but he managed to preserver and get all three of them made, which was awesome.

One particularly beautiful day, Kevin and the boys got all set up with a really fun golf game using his simulator and backyard driving range.  They loved it, and it Mae me so happy to see them all happy and having fun together.

And then there was the night when Derek was interviewing for a job at Chick-fil-A (which sadly he didn't get). I had taken him to the interview, but it was running late, and so I sat there and stress ate French fries while I waited for him to finish.  And funnily enough, I ended up being able to hear the whole interview, and he did a pretty great job.

Another fun adventure this week, was that we had solar panels installed on our house.  We finally figured out a way for it to make sense, and since our bill won't go up, we decided to take the plunge. 

I also had the last minute opportunity to sub for Arthur's class again.  It happened to be Friday, which meant it was also "Fun Friday," and Arthur brought his Beyblade stadium to play with.  I always love getting a peak into his world and the stories he tells and doesn't tell me.

Speaking of his class, they just got class pets - two mice.  They are tiny and cute, and he is beyond excited about them.  And the idea that he might get to take them home over a weekend.
On Saturday night, for date night, we went to a Nacho Libre themed birthday party, and since costumes were encouraged, Kevin and I dressed up.  We ended up being only two of a few who wore costumes, but I'm glad we did it, even if I was very ready to take the habit off of my head by the end of the night.
There were lots of friends there, good food to eat, silly games to play, and things to laugh about.

On Sunday, while Derek was at our Bishop's home to watch the Youth Broadcast, I got this picture texted to me by Derek's best friend, Paul, telling me that Derek needs a dog.  Ha ha!  Nice try, Paul.  It is not going to happen though.  It was a fun way to finish out the moments of this month, though.