Valley Of Fire

Saturday was gorgeous! Truly perfect weather. We took advantage of it with a trip to Valley of Fire.

First we hiked the White Domes loop, which we have never done before. Pretty easy hike, and good for those with kids!



Amazingly (to me), it was sandy the entire way.






Sade was impressive. Although she complained about her legs being tired, she hiked the entire 1.25 miles without once being carried. Unprecedented!



She also proclaimed many times when we offered to help her, "I don't need help. I got this!" I'm thinking she is becoming tougher.



Jackson hanging off a post from an old movie set you find on the trail:



My favorite thing about hiking is never knowing what you are going to find around the next bend. I was delighted to find these rock walls, with the trail going through them:



Megan and Jackson making a man-made arch:



See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil......



Have no fun.




Eric is a blast:




After hiking the loop, we went to see the Seven Sisters:




Jackson got stuck under this rock:



Not really. But it totally looks like it. Right?

Our last stop was a quick hike to Elephant Rock:

 Sadie caught a ride on this one:

In my opinion, there is nothing much sexier than a backwards baseball cap. Overshare?



Once again we wore Miss Sade out.



I live a charmed existence.

Flipper Bowl 2012

Our ward holds an annual flipper bowl right before Super Bowl Sunday.  Last year Jackson and Eric competed together. But this year they competed separately, and both won their first match-up.

Soon after, it was time for round 2. I told Eric to take no prisoners, and to make sure he won! I wanted the glory, vicariously, through my husband. About 5 minutes later Eric came up to me and asked me if I was sure I wanted him to be ruthless. I answered, "Of course!" Then he told me his next opponent was my PRECIOUS LITTLE JACKSON! What?! That is just plain wrong. It was especially cruel for the mother (ME!) to have to watch it all go down. We will just say that Eric took it a bit easy on him, but did end up winning in the end.







Jackson took it well, and Eric moved on to round 3. However, a while later (there was quite a LONG wait in between rounds) Eric had to leave for his weekly soccer game. But instead of forfeiting, he let Jackson take his place. Jackson was thrilled to the bone! He didn't end the third round victorious, but ended the night happy. I mostly spent the night ignoring my other kids (who were playing with friends the entire time), and  hanging out with my girlfriends. Pretty perfect.

Sadie Said

A couple of conversations.

We were somewhat teasing Jackson about girls in his class. I asked him if he liked a certain girl. Sadie piped up: "Oh yeah. She's totally hot."

I swear I do not teach her these things. I'm blaming it on Megan and Jackson. As for where Megan and Jackson learned it, I will blame T.V.

(Although I will admit she has heard the, "I'm Sexy And I Know It", song in my presence. It is so darn catchy!")

Sadie: "Dad do you have a golden tooth? Open up your mouth."

Eric opens his mouth.

Sadie: "Oh good. You do. That means you can talk on the phone in the car."

Jackson: "Sadie do you want to play poker when we get home?"

Sadie: "Sure! I'm totally in."

Again, not my doing. Reference the aformetnioned older siblings, and T.V.

Krispy Kreme - Field Trip

Sadie's "friend" pre-school took a field trip to Krispy Kreme. Yum! They learned about how all of the doughnuts were made:

Were able to play with the doughnut dough. It is very non-sticky:




And then ate doughnuts! They gave all of the kids doughnuts and milk, and all of the moms doughnuts and soda! For free!!




Did you know that Krispy Kreme will give you one free doughnut for every "A" a child has on their report card. We cashed Megan and Jackson's in this week for a total of 11 FREE doughnuts!



Cha-ching!

Five For Friday

1. Sometimes crappy things happen. I had one such crappy thing happen to me on Wednesday. I was in the living room when I heard a tremendous crashing noise coming from the laundry room. I rushed in and discovered that a brand new, completely full container of liquid laundry detergent had mysteriously fallen off a high shelf, and caused disaster.

It covered the floor, walls, cords, everything. Everthing EXCEPT our computer, which you may remember is in our laundry room. Hallelujah! I won't scandalize you with the details, but the cleanup was unpleasant.

2. A few hours later I started a load of laundry, and then went to Chipotle with Eric. While there I received a distressing call from Megan who informed me she had just gone in the laundry room/office and discovered water covering every inch of the floor! We rushed home to discover a pipe behind the washing machine had cracked. What are the chances that I would have two (TWO!) laundry room disasters in the same day? This time the computer was not so lucky, and had water on it. BUT, we wiped if off and it seems to be working fine. Hallelujah again!

3. My new dishwasher arrived yesterday! As I tried to get a picture of it, I got these pictures instead:



But I did get one of the inside. Very pretty.



I went with black, for one because it was cheaper, but mostly because I don't feel like putting more money than I have to into my house, given the extreme housing crisis. It is a quandary.

4. It was my turn to teach pre-school this week! Pre-school affords me the opportunity to do crafty things I would probably NEVER do in my normal life. Lucky little Sade gets to have the type of mom Megan and Jackson did not get to have. The kind that makes things. Like play-dough.



And dyed pasta for necklaces:



5. Lastly I thought I would share a picture of what my living room looked like 5 minutes after the kids got home from school on Wednesday.



Hilarious. I might add that it was completely clean before they arrived, and 95% of the mess is Jacksons doing. Good thing he is so lovable.

Springs Preserve...Again

Quite a few months ago I purchased a year pass for super cheap to Springs Preserve, but had yet to redeem it! You may remember I did attempt to redeem it one time, but they were closed for a special event. Luckily we were successful this time. FYI: If any of you also bought the year pass, I think you only have like 15 or 20 more days to redeem it before it expires! Right now they have a space exhibit that is pretty nifty. Sade refusing a picture:

Feeling a meteorite. They also have a moon rock you can touch:



Walking on the moon:



The whole fam damily in infrared light:




We also rode this ride, which I would definitely NOT RECOMMEND, if you are in any way prone to motion sickness. The kids and I were stumbling after getting off of it:




Jackson and Sadie chillin' in an astronauts bunk:



We watched the flash flood exhibit (again), toured the gardens (again), played outside (again), and saw how far we could jump (again).





Jackson jumped the farthest out of all of us. Including Eric.