You Know These Guys!

It was Saturday, August 16 as Mike and I were lying on the grass at the Ogden Farmer's Market that we decided that we needed to go down to Las Vegas to see Mike and Jenny, who had recently been transferred there from a very REMOTE location in Chile. To make a short story even shorter, we left the very next day and drove down there together.
No kids. Just the two of us.

(I must take a moment of here and thank Mom and Dad for offering to take the kids and making this quick trip possible. We couldn't have gone without you.)

To avoid any confusion, from this point out, I will be referring to MY Mike as Mike #1 and Jen's Mike as Mike #2. I can think of a few other names to call Mike #2, but I will refrain. ;)

So anyway... Mike #2, being the uber cool Fly-Boy that he is in the USAF, took us peon Civilians onto the Air Force Base and right into the Thunderbird Museum. We sat through a short little film on the Thunderbirds (I think I slept. It wasn't boring, if I remember correctly. I was just tired...) and then he took us right into the hangar where all the jets are stored. I will just say that is was absolutely beautiful and that hangar was cleaner than any room in my house, or even all the rooms in my house put together on a clean day.

After the museum we went to the "petting zoo" as Mike #2 refers to this place. Basically, it is a yard where a bunch of enemy tanks, helicopters, heavy artillery are all laid out and where you can actually get into them and "play" on them. As we entered the "petting zoo" you could just feel the testosterone rumbling in Mike #1 and Mike#2. Here is Mike #1 in a Russian Helicopter. (Rumble, rumble!!!)

And what trip to Vegas would be complete without a trip to the Strip? We were only there for a couple of hours, just long enough to see the Bellagio gardens (HOLY WOWZERS!) and make a trip down to the M&M Store.

Can you say "HOLY HYDRANGEAS, BATMAN!"?
I had to check a few times to make sure that these plants were real and not some life-like imitation. Yep, they're real. And the one in my yard still has never bloomed. =(

My sweet friend, Jen. =) Jen is one of my "bosom friends" as Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables would say. (Not THOSE bosoms, Mike #1 and Mike #2!) I love Jen for many reasons and admire her for so many things. Mike #1 calls her "Mrs Goodwrench" because she can fix just about anything in a car or house that we other women (and Mike #2) can't even pronounce.

I wanted to post these pics of Mike #2 and Jen's kids so that those who knew them while they lived here can see how much they've grown.

Here is the lovely first born of the trio. She will probably kill me for posting this picture of her, but I think she looks beautiful. She is sporting her "back to school in Vegas" fashion, which resembles the fashions of Irene Cara in Flash Dance back in the 80s.

Actually she is just in her jammies getting ready to go to bed. Except she never really goes to bed. She and my fist born would stay up all night if allowed.

And here is lovely Kid#2, in a rare moment that she is actually playing the Wii instead of her brother. This one is as sweet as can be and would just sit and talk to us while we were visiting. She would also give me her pennies so that I could buy Skittles out of the family gumball machine and feed the yellow ones to Boo, the family dog.

Here is kid #3. He loves to play the Wii, and will beg non-stop for you to play with it with him, which really means just come up and watch him play. This one never stands still while playing. He's literally bouncing off the walls. I watched him "run" 2 miles one night playing Wii Fit. He could probably kick my butt at running. (Not to mention Mike #2's butt too).

All in all, it was a great trip and one that Mike#1 and I needed.
Here are a few more highlights that were not mentioned before:

*watching Brady Bunch reruns together. How is Jan ever going to earn up enough money to have that platter engraved?!
*Spicy Chicken, Baby!
*looking at and coveting Jen's fabric stash.
*Creamy chicken soup and bread bowls!
*watching Mike #1 kick Mike#2's butt at Wii archery.
*and last, but not least, using the men's restroom with Jen at the M&M Store on the Strip. The line for the women's was 12 people long where the line for the mens had... zero. Carpe Diem, right?

Thank you, Mike and Jen, for letting us come visit you on such short notice, for feeding us, for taking us everywhere, and especially for giving us not only the shirt of your back, but quite literally the bed out from under you.

"I get by with a little help from my friends."
~John Lennon

Lagoon Family Fun!

Hooray!! Mike bought a new camera (please don't ask about the sudden and untimely death of the previous one, which was also new...). The good news is that it came just in time for our big family Lagoon trip. (sans Jo and Chris and the kiddies, and their pet chipmunk).

I've had many people ask me if it was worth working in May to get the season passes, and the answer has been a resounding YES! We have had so much fun this summer being able to go whenever we wanted. Some days we were there for the whole day, and other days we stayed only a couple of hours. I will hate to see the season come to a close and not have Lagoon as an option on our "fun things to do" list.

Will I do it again next year? Absolutely!

Teaching by example! =)

After Rattlesnake Rapids

Liseanne, You are HAWT, Sister! =)

The only bad thing about having the Florida Nixons come is when we have to say bood-bye. Caleb is trying very hard not to cry in this picture.Those tears are only seconds away...Even little Emma was heartbroken to see them go.


Our Favorite Rides:
Mike: TBA. Not answering his texts.
Melinda: The Samurai
Morgan: Wicked
Madison: Wicked and The Samurai
Caleb: Wicked
Emma: The Merry-Go-Round
Cam: "Choo choo!"

"Life itself is the proper binge."
~Julia Child

Dreams DO come true!

A few months ago our sweet Emma threw a coin in a "wishing fountain" and wished for a kitty of her own. (We were at the zoo, and she had just seen all those "darling nice kitties!" Grown up translation: wild and ferocious felines.) Immediately after she threw in that penny, she asked me, "When is my wish going to come true?" I gave her the typical mom answer: "I don't know, Sweetie. We'll just have to see." (I said this, of course, with no intention AT ALL of playing any part in making her wish come true.) But Emma is one of those children who never forgets a wish or a promise to do something ("Mom, you PROMISED you would buy me a Barbie!!!") (???) and she kept asking days and even weeks later when her kitty was going to come. I was actually beginning to feel bad for her, since she would get so disappointed when I would have to tell her there was still no kitty. =(

It was about a month later that I had finished my morning run when a little orange kitty with bright blue eyes wandered into our yard and over to me. It stayed near me all morning as I worked a bit in the yard and hung around even after I had gone inside for a bit. I was back outside with the kitty when Emma woke up and wandered out to find me. She saw one look at the little kitty and her eyes grew three sizes. "It's my kitty I wished for!!!! It came!!!!" As a mother, what could I say to that? She had wished and prayed for this kitty, and who was I to tell her that we couldn't keep it or that wishes don't really come true. I couldn't do it. So I let her and her siblings play with it all morning as I worked in the yard. I realized when she named the kitty Flower that I should probably hop on my bike and go get some kitty food, and pronto. It was a done deal. This kitty was going to be hers. Wishes really do come true to my 4 year old.

It was about then, in the middle of all this bliss and merriment, that 2 little neighbor boys walked by, saw Emma holding her new kitty that she had wished for, and exclaimed, "Hey! There's my kitty that I have been looking for! It ran away last week!" Then he walked right up to Emma, snatched it right out of her arms and walked away and left her standing there.

(Long pause for dramatic effect...)

I probably don't need to tell you the weeping and wailing that followed this event. It actually broke my heart. All 5 of my kids were crying, and I had to do serious damage control with each one of them. I talked to both the little boy and his mom, just to make sure it really was their kitty. Sadly... It was. So now what was I to do? How was I supposed to tell Emma that her kitty really wasn't hers and that it wasn't the kitty she wished for? I couldn't do it.

So I did the only thing I could think of. I called my neighbor Jen who I knew had kittens, told her what had happened, and asked (begged) her for one of them. She didn't have a pumpkin colored one, like "the one I wished for" (said Emma) but she did have a little black one. So.... Here he is.

This is Kitty. The newest member of the family. We've had him about a month and he is such a sweet kitty. He loves to play in the yard, loves the kids, loves to pounce on balls that we throw, and loves to be cuddled and be held. (Emma was sad to learn that he was a "boy" so asked if we could pretend that it was a girl kitty.) We just call him "Kitty" since Emma changes his name every day. It has been Raspberry, Flower, Princess, Sandi, Lu Lu, and Sparkle and a bunch of others. She still says that the neighbor boy (whose name shall remain anonymous) "stole my kitty I wished for," but she loves this kitty just as much.

So the moral of the story for Emma is that wishes really do come true, and prayers are answered. And kitties haphazardly just wander into your yard because you made a wish.

The moral of the story for me: Stay away from the wishing fountain at the zoo. (On our second trip this summer she was upset with me for not letting her throw a penny and wish for a BUNNY this time...)

This is what Cam was doing as we took pictures with the kitty. It was what I had wished for all day!!!

"Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet."
~Colette