May 2009 Rewind

Ho-Lee-Cow this post has a buttload of pictures! It took forever! I'll try to fill in best as I can.

Las Vegas

On the night of April 30 we put the foster kids in respite, put Ellie in her car seat, and drove through the night to Las Vegas. We showed up at Tony & Kim's around 4 - 5 am. We had all of Thursday there chillin' and that night we decided to take the kids to the Bellagio. Unfortunately Ellie was already so tuckered out by the time we got there at 9 pm (darn construction) that she was NOT waking up. We couldn't have her miss this because we'd been telling her we were going to the princess castle where they have dancing water. She was SO EXCITED. And here she is sleeping through the Bellagio gardens inside.My brother Mike and his wife Vanessa were along for the ride as well as Tony & Kim & their 3 kids. They were kinda scared of the loud noises.
Once Ellie finally woke up, she LOVED it. I mean, she still looks sleepy here in this picture, but she loved it so much she wanted to stay and watch it again 15 minutes later. She really did think it was magic water dancing at the princess castle (she decided it was Jasmine's). It was really cool.
On Saturday we went to Towne Center which is on the south end of the strip. It's a massive shopping area in little main street shops with a really cool fountain and playground area in the middle. It was perfect for the kiddies on a hot, hot day.
I think this is a pool party Friday night @ Tony's house. I never thought someone in our family would have a pool -- but boy am I grateful!
It's funny because Maddy is Ellie's age and can swim like a little waterbug, above water - below water, etc. And Ellie was freaking out just being in the baby floatie boat. We decided to humor her instead of letting her cry it out and grow a pair. An hour of hysteria is not worth it when she only swims in a pool twice a year!
Jon blessed his 3rd baby, Alexa on Sunday - so my parents were in town for that, too.
I can't remember if this is on Saturday or Sunday but we had a blast while we were there. They live in Rhodes Ranch and it's just a short little walk to the big playgrounds . . . and this is them feeding the ducks on the golf course.

Pocatello
Well, we rushed home on Monday morning because I had a big surprise for Darik. Tuesday, May 5 was our 8 year anniversary and I pulled a few strings to get a good deal on this place: The Black Swan Inn. It's one of those theme suite hotels. After 8 years of marriage, and watching newlywed after newlywed go to this place over and over I decided it was high time I get my own turn! Well, my mom is good friends with the owners so they hook her up with a 50% off deal when a room is open for the night (usually during the week). So I got to tour all of the open rooms for the night and choose on my own to surprise Darik. I chose the Black Swan Garden Suite. It was awesome! After that it was time to get back to real life .

Next it was mother's day . . . which, don't even get me started. With D's meetings starting @ 6 am, church @ 830 am, and he doesn't get home until about 3 pm. You should have seen me around 2 pm, hiding in my room, with my pillow over my head . . . when the kids would come crying or tattling to me I would just holler, "I DON'T CARE. JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!!" Then I got up and made mother's day dinner and tried to figure out where to put my plant I'd received at church so it could die in peace. But I had to get up and make mother's day dinner. That day was stellar. I loved it, can you tell? (p.s. periodically throughout the year I struggle with tiny bouts of depression, this bout coincided with mother's day, so it was extra awesome. I'm not normally such a hag.)

Then came . . . weeding! And more and more and more weeding! We have tiered rock retaining walls all along the border of our corner lot. So we have two levels that are anywhere from 3 - 12 feet in width and each stretching for over 100 feet around the corner and down the street. That's right -- way over 600 square feet of flower beds. I can guarantee you I spent 40-80 hours in the month of May weeding, planting, transplanting, and watering.

We are trying to fill it in with perennials so each year it's not akin to waterboarding every May. Which is also stellar because May is finally the month that Darik can take vacation and work less than 50 hours a week. And we spend every spare minute doing yard work. Sweet. Oh, did I mention Darik also started summer school this month -- an MBA finance class in Idaho Falls twice a week. He left from work to carpool up there and got home around 10 pm. That's right, so I saw him less this month than the month before! :-) I forgot to say we also added and moved another square foot garden box and plated our seeds. This year we expanded yet simplified. I'm still getting the hang of this gardening thing, but we have strawberries, tomatoes, peas, beans, corn, and carrots planted. I used some land at my mom's house for pumpkins and zucchini.
Here is Ellie still refusing to smile for the camera. But I did get her to practice her dance moves for her upcoming dance recital.
Did I mention this whole time I've still been participating in early morning bargain hunting? I couldn't stop -- there were so many things free or almost free over these three months I HAD to go :-) I loved the barbecue sauce money maker, by the way.
And it also FINALLY warmed up enough to get the pool out, and to paint outside and eat outside. Which makes for a happy momma. The kids loved it!
Here is just a few pics of the silly poses we've seen our kids in when we go in to tuck them in before we go to sleep and after they've gone to sleep:
We have a new family tradition of friday night pizza and a movie night. This is one of those nights -- I think it was Bolt. After we eat we climg up on the couch and cuddle. It's awesome.
This is our memorial day weekend. We have an easement in between ours and our neighbor's property. Anyways, I swear they own it and they swear that we do . . . and it's been overgrown and untended for 2+ years and was in need of tender lovin care. Sorry I don't have a before picture . . . when you get out of the habit of blogging you forget to take before/after pictures! So as we begin to clear it out . . . we have an avalanche of earth the crumbles our retaining wall in two places. On the left side of this collage is the before pictures from before we patched it up with concrete and the right side is after we were done. It added about an extra 8 hours to our project. Which was also stellar. Now we just have to scrounge up enough money to find something to make another tier above the 4 foot rock wall, or else all that earth above it will come knocking our rock wall over again. Wish us luck.
Last but not least was family time. My brother Jon & his family came into town over memorial day weekend. Then my mom had a bday on the 29th and the next day the 30th James, Rachel, and baby Kendra were sealed in the Idaho Falls temple. By friday night we had the WHOLE fam-damily in town. EVERY sibling, spouse, and grandchild. We took some family snapshots but my copy of the disk was corrupted so I could upload them. I'll figure it out ASAP. Then after the sealing tony & kim stayed with us for the whole rest of the next week, which was awesome and not awesome (if you have ever had 6 kids under the age of 7 stuck in my house during a rainy week you'll know what I'm talking about :0).
So, that's about it. I'll add more if I can think of any later!