Livin' for the Weekend

Hello, and welcome to our weekend!  We had a little bit of an extended weekend, as Nicole came to visit starting Friday.  She came out to help Monica make planter boxes to overhaul the garden in the backyard.

They used an ancient technique to prepare the wood.  It involves a propane tank, a blow torch, and burning the week.  I'm sure there was more going on here, but that's all that's obvious from the video.

On Saturday I took Grayson to Parker's birthday party.  It was under the sea themed, but then they also had a nerf gun war.  Connor was obviously there, but Isaac also came and we had a pretty great nerf war.  I think kids only cried three times in the cross fire.  Grayson even got a chance to try out the gatling gun.  It's pretty sweet.

There was a fishing pond, and I was able to double hook these absolute beauties.  I'm just lucky my line didn't break reeling them in.

While renovating the garden, Monica dug up a whole heap of strawberries and we put them out for free if anyone wanted them.  There was so much demand we ran out.

Winry was doing a spa in our bathroom and had put some water in the bathtub.  I don't know if Jelly ever worries about what might be in the tub, but it looks like she jumped straight in.  I did hear the panicking cat clamber sounds but she came running out before I could investigate.

I wrapped her up a in towel and helped her dry off for a bit.

Brooke had a dance intensive.  Monica picked her up and got to see the dance she learned as well.

Meanwhile, I was asked to move a sprinkler for the garden beds.  In process, I found out that we have a parallel pipe to our sprinkler line that DID have water in it, even with the sprinklers off.  I expertly punctured it with the pick axe, and got to make an emergency run to Lowes to buy some pipe and glue to fix it.  I was able to get the water back on before we went to bed that night, but I did have to replace this pipe twice as the first time one of the sides didn't glue properly...

Sunday was more relaxed after my water line fiasco the day before.  Grayson, Narly and I all played a rousing game of Sorry.  Grayson managed to pull of the victory in part thanks to Narly deciding one of his pieces needed to go around the board twice, and I sill managed to lose to both of them...

Grayson found a great game, which was burying Nicole in blankets on the couch.  That one was a keeper in his book.

Nicole flew back home Sunday afternoon, and things are essentially back to normal now.  We need to fill the garden beds, and put in some trellises too, but all in all a successful weekend project, thanks Nicole!
 

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines day!  Technically this isn't Valentines day, nor oven the correct week!  I'm stealing this picture from the future on Monday evening!  Monica and I went out Monday night for a Valentine's date to a nice restaurant and Paris Baguette for some dessert.  On Saturday we also had a V-day date which included watching the BYU basketball game and eating tot-chos (tater tot nachos) for dinner.  After the kids were in bed I brought out the big guns and read my choose your own adventure story to Monica, where her choices influenced what we did on our date.  The start was of course the BYU basketball game, and then we ended up going down the path of playing a board game and having a dessert.  So all in all, not that crazy of a night in, but the possibilities were there!  And I think Monica thought the story I put together was pretty fun too.

Grayson wanted to give the roller skates a try.  His sisters were kind enough to share theirs with him, and he had a good time.  He wanted a hand and some help getting to the car, and had a little trouble getting around on his own, but it was his first time, so it makes sense.  Monica and I stepped inside for something and when we came out like 30 seconds later he'd fallen backwards on his bum and was crying. He was done with roller skating for the day, but man did he look good while doing it.

Grayson had a Valentine's pizza party at school, and this is probably the first picture I've put in where you can see his whole class!

Grayson was working really hard on valentines day preparations all week long.  That heart isn't gonna scratch art into itself!

Monica had the chance to go check on how the temple construction is going.  Looking pretty good I think!  Hopefully it's still on track to be done sometime within the next year.

Winry had a party in class, and Monica signed up to help at it.  It's not often that we get a picture from inside Winry's classroom, so I just had to include this.  That's a pretty fine rainbow rain she's got there.

For Valentine's, Monica put together a charcuterie board, a favorite for celebrations at our house.  They're very nice because it's one of the only meals where no one complains at all about what they're going to eat.

We've been doing secret valentines this past week, where everyone drew the name of someone in the family and has been doing something nice for them each day.  On Saturday it was time for the big reveal and gift swap.  We ended up going to stores in the morning to look for gifts, and Winry was able to find this narwhal for Grayson, which he truly loves.  Monica was cleaning out the freezer, and Grayson really wanted to put his narwhal in to chill for a bit, but they compromised and instead Narly cooled off on our big ice pack.

He was so comfortable he couldn't move.  That said, that doesn't mean Narly wanted to be alone, and so Grayson made sure to stay close by and play with him.  Monica was even willing to join in for a game or two of sleeping queens.  Party in the hall!  Good thing no one walks there.

That's a wrap for our week.  It was a pretty involved week with secret valentines galore, however much of that goes uncaptured.  OH, and I have tomorrow off work, but Grayson and Winry both still have school!  So I guess I get a true day off or something.  I'm sure Monica will know just what I should do!
 

Just Hanging Out

Looking through the pictures for this week I'd say there's no real big highlight moment that occurred.  We did host preschool at our house, and I guess we ran an experiment on the strength of a folding table.  The good news is that it can support the weight of 4 5 year-olds, phew!

They also had fun doing this thing with bowls!  Look, I don't always know what's happening in pictures, but there weren't many that caught my eye, so preschool got 2 this week. (They were thawing dinosaurs from ice blocks that they were frozen in!)

While on a walk through the neighborhood, Monica and Brooke stumbled upon a heart shaped cactus!  It's getting pretty close to Valentine's day, so that's quite appropriate.

I don't know where this car was, but they're doing an excellent job bedazzling it.  It looks like it's still a work in progress, and for some reason the thing that comes to mind when I see it is "a pack a day," except, you know, not cigarettes, but instead sticker gem stones.

I had to replace the light above the stairs this week.  It actually wasn't too bad, but it is pretty high up there.  Oh! There were no pictures of it, and I was gone, so I forgot to mention it when I wrote last weeks post, but we got our house painted inside while I was gone.  What reminded me of it was that they painted all the ceilings, and Monica said this is how they set up their ladder here too, and that they were on super tall ladders to paint around our living room!

On Friday, Brooke had a dress rehearsal type thing for her duet she's been working on this year.  She's dancing it with Olivia, one of her best dance friends.  They did an incredible job and I'm sure they'll wow the judges.

Monica found pineberries at the store.  They look like strawberries, but they're supposed to be white or light pink when you eat them, so we had to try them.  If case you forgot, Grayson used to hunt for strawberries in our garden, and would gobble all of them he could find, no matter how white they were.  He also ate the two that grew together.

Grayson got out his pinball table and was having a really great go of it, though, the song Brooke is dancing her duet to was definitely still stuck in his head from the night before.

We had some people over for the Super-Snack-Bowl, and I helped with the cooking.  Monica made her much beloved enchilada puffs that we have every year (I think we need to start having more super bowls each year so we can eat them more often...), and I made soft pretzels.  I made some pizza, and some plain.  However, I decided to be crafty and add more flour while the mixer was still running, and the dough hook caught the measuring cup... Oops, so much for my efficiency gains...

The super bowl watching was fun.  We had the Packers and the Weeks over.  Everyone headed out sometime in the 3rd quarter since we needed to get kids to bed. Honestly, once everyone left, we didn't even turn the game back on.  Oh my, I just looked up the score, and it looks like both defenses took the rest of the year off after the 3rd quarter, and we missed all the good plays... sigh.
 

Chicago for a Week

Hello from windy Chicago!  I'm actually not there anymore, but I did travel out for work this week.  We had an all in the office week, and the timing couldn't have been better with the big freeze happening around the south and icing up all the roads.  It was definitely colder in Chicago though, but I still have enough winter clothing I was able to get by just fine.  AND on my way to the train to the airport to head home, it was SNOWING!  This is the first snow storm I've been in since we moved to Texas I do believe.  We did have to drive in the snow to the airport once in UT, but I wasn't actually out in the snow at all.

Our salt experiment was a huge success last weekend.  I found this lovely face waiting on the sidewalk when I went out to the car to go to the airport.  The kids, especially Winry, were pretty worried about me driving in the snow all the way down to the airport, so they all came out to watch me drive off.  I had to do my very best to not slide or make it look dangerous, but watching the video I really wish I'd just floored it once I was in the street to spin out the wheels.  Maybe next time.

The roads just got better and better through the drive. I gave myself 2 hours to get to the airport (it's usually ~45 minutes without traffic) and it only took me a little over an hour, so I had a bit of time to stretch my legs before my flight.  In fact, my flight was delayed so I had a solid 5-6 hours to kill.  I walked end to end in the airport several times, and I stopped to get a picture on Grayson's favorite pink hand chair that I sent back to everyone at home.

Speaking of everyone back at home, they were all huddled together for warmth!  Not really, but school got cancelled for much of the week due to the ice, and I managed to lock Monica's keys in the van on my way out the door, and the inside of the house was being painted! So they were all stuck at home in one room until they could find a locksmith to brave the icy roads and open the car!  It looks like they're all still in good spirits though, so that's a good sign.

Since everyone from Austin and New York was heading to Chicago, we made a whole week of it.  On Tuesday evening the team went out axe throwing.  It was my first time, and it's quite a lot of fun.  Getting an axe to stick into the wood took a few throws, but aiming... yeah right.  After a little while they also had knives you could throw too, and I spent the second half of our time there working on that.  If I were to give someone tips from my experience, they'd be to first, find a consistent way to do the throw, and then second, change how close/far you are until it's the right number of rotations to stick.

Back in Austin everyone was eventually able to get into the car, and off to the park they went.  This is the park we lovingly have nick-named "Dirty Ditch."  I believe it's really called Devine Lake, and it started to freeze over!  That's pretty impressive for Texas.

Brooke, ever the opportunist, took my spot in bed while I was gone.  Jelly was delighted though, she didn't even have to find a new location to sleep at night.

Back in Chicago on Wednesday night, we had an event with people outside of our team, and on Thursday we had a team dinner.  I typically didn't get back to my hotel room until 8-9 at night, and so each day was a pretty full day.  On Friday I headed back home, and the dinosaur in the airport was wearing a hockey jersey!

The snow continued to fall the whole morning, and it caused my flight to be delayed with the de-icing and all that they have to do.  Once we were all on, there were delays again because of de-icing, and the planes water pipes freezing when they de-iced the plane, and finally because the line of planes waiting to take off was backed up to right behind us, so we couldn't back away from the gate!  We did eventually take off though, and thank goodness because things were not looking good on the runway as we went down, and in the middle of the flight they told us that flights out of O'Hare had started getting cancelled!  So I made it out just in time.

It was nice to be back with my family, and I was really excited to see everyone again!  The week in the office was really draining, and I'm not 100% sure why.  It felt like I never had a moment to myself all week, and when I'd get back to my hotel room I was always so tired and just fell right asleep every night.  Usually traveling gives me a bit more energy.

On Saturday I got to take Grayson to a birthday party for one of the kids he goes to preschool with.  Elsa came to her party, and the kids got to sing along with songs and color and all sorts of fun things.  Grayson wasn't star struck by Elsa, which I guess isn't too surprising, but he did have a good time, and everyone was super nice.  Also, there was totally a dad crew. I think most of the kids were brought by their dads, so I wasn't alone in a corner either!

That afternoon,Grayson and I were working on his Lego donut truck, and decided to just build our own creations.  It was so much fun!  I made a little space ship, and he made a cool new donut car.  He has been REALLY into Legos lately, and it's one of the few things he can just disappear and do for hours at a time.

On Saturday night we got invited to Cocoa-oke (hot chocolate and karaoke) at the Week's house.  It was a lot of fun, but it's a little too bad I'm not as confident in my singing as everyone else was.  It was fun watching everyone, and there were some really great performances up there by both kids and adults.  I did make my karaoke debut singing Angel by Shaggy, and if you don't know, I can talk just like Shaggy, and he pretty much just talks in the song, so that's why it was the natural choice.

On Sunday I found out that fake mustaches are about the exact same size as it takes to wrap around a plastic fog, and that a fuzzy frog looks really funny.  This amazing creation was put together by Grayson, and I absolutely love it!

Also, Monica saw an idea where someone took all the books they owned but hadn't read yet, and wrapped them all in paper with a number on them, and would pick one at random to read next.  So we went through our board game collection and wrapped a bunch in paper.  Some of these we've never played, some only I've played, and some it's been 10+ years since we played.  I'm pretty excited to draw some numbers and see what we've got, but I also know that whenever we draw BattleTech, well... let's just say I was going to post a link to the rules, but there were so many rules sheets on the website I couldn't even figure out which one was for the game I have!  But hey, I'm excited to finally get to play them all.

And that's a wrap on this week.  It's good to be back home again, and I missed everyone terribly so much!  Oh, I ended up calling home every morning.  Winry and I would talk while she was riding in the car to school, and then I'd call the other kids after I had breakfast.  It was nice to get to chat with everyone every day, and I'm glad we were able to figure out a way to make it work with me not getting back to the hotel until after bedtime.  Anyway, we're all looking forward to a more relaxed, normal week ahead.