Spring Break

This Spring Break (April 3-7), my parents flew up from SoCal and spent the week hanging out and doing fun things with the kids every day. We got to go see Boss Baby at the Megaplex and we actually really enjoyed it. I have to admit I laughed a lot. Dave, apparently, fell asleep though. The next day we actually ended up moving Jett to his own room, which meant Dave had to move his office into our bedroom. Poor guy. So we spent most of the day doing that, and then my parents showed up and brought a bunch of bats, balls and a baseball tee, and played with the boys in the front yard.

The next day we met my parents and Abby and her family at Malawi's pizza in the Riverwoods for lunch. Afterwards, walked next door to the Provo Beach Resort where my parents spent an obscene amount of money for the kids to do the ropes course and play gateway gambling games (aka the arcade). They had a lot of fun.

 The next day, we met at the Thanksgiving Point gardens where we first had lunch at the Trellis Cafe (thank you to my good friend Kay who introduced me to this amazing eatery!), and then attended the first day of The Tulip Festival. Believe it or not, we have never attended the Tulip Festival despite having lived here the past 5 years. The flowers were so pretty and I finally got to see the new Light of the World statues. Everything was beautiful but the kids were ready to go about half way through. Flowers are just not as exciting as an arcade I guess. I had fun though. "Much too good for children."

Jett trying his best not to smile.

My parents stopped by the house on their way to the airport on Saturday to say goodbye to the boys. They sure did a lot while they were here! And as much fun as Spring Break was, I was definitely excited for the boys to go back to school on Monday.

Dave's 32nd Birthday

We stretched Dave's birthday over quite a few days this year, which was really fun. On the 27th, Dave took the day off because of the weather, so we all drove to the Riverwoods and used the Tucano's birthday coupon. The boys loved eating until they were sick, and Miles' favorite part was using the tongs to get the meat. He didn't actually eat the meat, but he loved the tongs!

On the 28th, Dave's actual birthday, the boys and I made him a German chocolate cake and gave him sunglasses and a gift card to Joann's to buy vinyl for his boat seats.

Then on Friday the 3rd, we picked the kids up from school with Lucy in the car, drove to the Ybarra's and dropped off Lucy (Miles was pretty upset to leave his doggy), and then took the kids to Abby & Casey's to spend the night. They ate pizza, walked to 7-11 for dessert, and watched a movie. In the morning, Abby made them banana pancakes and scrambled eggs. Jett told me that I need to start putting salt and pepper in the eggs because "it brings out the flavor."

After dropping the kids off at Abby's, Dave and I drove just across the city to The Holiday Inn Express and checked in. Honestly, I had reserved at that hotel because it was the least expensive decent hotel, and I was really surprised at how nice it was when we entered. Our room was on the 1st floor, so we had a vaulted ceiling; we loved having a king size bed and a fridge and microwave as well.

After check-in, we drove to downtown Provo where we ate at Black Sheep Cafe and I cannot tell you how amazing it was. It was like, Sundance Foundry Grill good. And, as it turns out, just as expensive. But we figured, it was our "vacation" so we were okay spending that much on ourselves, and my parents had given Dave some money for his birthday, so that definitely helped with our little getaway.

Dave got the Green Chile Pork Navajo Taco and I got an off-menu entree which was a filet mignon on top of a bed of braised red cabbage, with a side of asparagus with a spicy carrot sauce, and parmesan mashed potatoes. It look amazing and tasted like heaven. We also got cactus pear lemonade, which was delicious, and for dessert, we got a chile creme brûlée that was just a little spicy and incredible, and a chocolate strawberry mousse which was pretty good but nothing special.

After dinner we went back to the hotel until check-out the next morning. We slept in so we missed the free breakfast, but it was just nice to not deal with kids first thing in the morning. We actually hadn't been away from the kids in 5 years, and had never been away from Miles, so it was a much needed getaway and it let us recharge our batteries in a sense.

Then on the 5th of March, the Ybarras had us over to celebrate Dave's birthday with a taco salad dinner and pumpkin pie for dessert. They gave Dave some $ for his birthday, so he was pretty excited about that. I think he had a pretty good birthday.

Cruise's Robot: Zim

Last month, Cruise built his first working robot and named him Zim. He had gotten a book from the library about building your own robot, so he told me the stuff he needed me to buy and built a robot! He got some help from dad to hook up a remote so he could turn it on and off.

He is now working on his second robot and wants to get sensors for it, so we'll see how that one goes.

Miles and The Fish

Dave took Miles out to do a little fishing. They caught a fish and Miles insisted they keep it. Dave forgot to prepare Miles for the next step, which was to bleed out the fish, which caused Miles to cry unconsolably and to beg Daddy to "fix it".

So I took Miles the next day to PetsMart where we bought a Beta fish that he named Fish. And all is right in the world once more.

Valentines Schmalintines

On Valentines morning, I came downstairs to make just a regular breakfast, when Cruise said, "Mom, aren't you going to make us heart pancakes?" He literally was tearing up. I told him I tried last year but that the batter stuck to the cookie cutters. Of course I couldn't not try when I'm staring into the face of a heartbroken child, who was dreaming of heart shaped pancakes for Valentines breakfast. Luckily, I quickly got the idea to put the batter in a piping bag, so I whipped up some Valentines pancakes for the boys. Miles slept through it, but still refused to eat them when he woke up. He wanted circle pancakes. You can't win 'em all.

The boys had each bought a small box of chocolates for the ladies in their lives, but Jett last minute decided Camry hadn't been too nice to him over the past year, so he shared the box with his brothers. Ha ha! Cruise gave his to Claire. Of course. 

The night before, Dave sent me on a scavenger hunt for a dozen roses, even though we had agreed to not getting each other anything for Valentine's day. So I was just slightly irritated that he bought me flowers because I literally got him just a box of Hot Tamales. Wife of the year right here, I tell you what. But I loved the roses. And the scavenger hunt.

I helped out at both the boys class parties. I had the kids in Jett's class each decorate wooden heart magnets. I always try to have the kids do something I know their parents won't throw away. I figured a magnet is always good for fridges. Cruise's room mom planned a chocolate dipping party and it was insane. A lot of fruit and treats and a lot of chocolate in many colors. The room mom is kind of amazing but she's one of those people who makes me super nervous. She talks really fast, moves really fast, and most of the time I can't process what she is saying quick enough to respond. So it's always an anxiety-ridden experience helping with parties in that class this year. 

For the boys, I got Cruise and Jett each a special Valentine's Hershey's candy bar and Miles got a V-Day Minion marshmallow on a stick thing. 

On the 15th, Dave's parents were kind enough to come watch Miles while we went out to Tsunami for lunch. We had an amazing lunch and enjoyed not dealing with crowds. 

And that was Valentines! 

Science Fair

A couple weeks ago, the boys participated in the school science fair...again. I tried talking them out of it, but they just had to do it.

Cruise had a little trouble at first trying to come up with a project because "Do birds understand English?" and "Is time travel possible?" are just not science fair do-able. Finally, we settled on "Which color are birds most attracted to?" So for his, we (I) painted six hanging baskets, each a different color, and filled them with bird seed. Each of them were hung on the treehouse in the back yard. Unfortunately, the yellow one broke and all of them weighed more at the end due to the rain and snow. But he somehow managed to still get a 1st place ribbon. His findings showed that the red one was the most popular, but since we put them back outside, the yellow one seems to be doing the best.

Jett's, I thought, was 1st place worthy but came home with a 3rd place, which is still really cool. Dave came up with his project question, which was, "Which has more bacteria? A dog's or a human's mouth?" For his, I had to order prepared petri dishes on Amazon. The first batch showed up and after two or three days of sitting in the package waiting to be used, they were growing bacteria. So, we had to return those and quickly ship the next set from a different seller that turned out great. He swabbed his, Cruise's, Miles', and Lucy's mouths, and eventually found that Lucy's definitely had more bacteria.

I realized just how expensive doing two science fair projects is. I didn't really add that up last year. So I told the boys they should do the Storytelling festival next year instead.