Fun New Things Downtown

For Zack's pre-birthday celebration, we decided to check out some of the new places that opened on the Las Vegas strip. First: Bobby's Burger Palace, a burger place owned by Bobby Flay. 

This stop was mostly for Matt & I.  All of our burgers were really yummy. Matt and Noah ordered crunchy burgers with potato chips on them.  Unfortunately, my burger tasted good but was not cooked as requested (doesn't well mean no pink?)  and the onion rings were super greasy and soggy. I've watched enough Food Network to expect more from Bobby Flay. But the restaurant is very cool. 

This is the High Roller, the largest Ferris wheel in the world! It wasn't open yet so we didn't ride it, but it looks really cool. 

The LINQ is a new dining, shopping, entertainment area by the High Roller. It's my favorite place on the strip. We took Zack, who is the vice-president of chocolate, to the newly opened Ghirardelli store. 

His brothers chose ice cream, but Zack picked a huge chocolate chip cookie that was surprisingly good for looking so dry. 

In the middle of the Linq is a water fountain that is an excellent spot to people watch (which never disappoints in Vegas) while indulging in yummy treats. 

five....ten....FIFTEEN

We were all up with Noah before he left for seminary. 

This kid loves electronics (maybe a little too much) and just wanted cash so he could buy something new. 

 

 Noah's need to have the newest tech device put him into debt to us. Hence, this present:

 He has never been one for birthday cake, so instead I made Nana's super delicious brownies.  

That next weekend Noah had a birthday party with a bunch of friends. I didn't embarrass him by taking pictures, but hanging out with friends is one of his favorite things to do. 

Even though Noah is a major tease, we are happy that he is a part of our family. This fifteen year old loves the tv show The Office but will still get sucked into an episode of  Avatar:The Last Air-bender. He is a Call of Duty pro, which will come in handy during a zombie apocalypse. He is a fan of YouTube and uses it to research the latest tech devices, find a recipe or a random, sometimes ill-advised, science experiment or to learn how to play a song on the guitar.  Speaking of guitar, he worked hard to learn Razor by Foo Fighters and is a big fan of the Beatles. Noah's room is always messy. If Noah puts his mind to something, he will accomplish it-he showed that this year by the major change in his grades from 1st to 2nd quarter. He just has to want to do it!  I love that most days he calls me when he is walking home from the bus stop.  I love watching an episode of Love it or List it with him while he snacks on Takis and cottage cheese. I doubt I will ever get tired of watching him play soccer. He's a good kid. I've loved him for fifteen years and look forward to loving him for at least fifteen more.

Fun Was Had By All

We had a rare soccer free Saturday evening and decided that we should do something fun with the boys. Matt's firm handled a vehicle accident for the purple Jabbowakee and he was able to get us discount tickets for a show. 

 I have noticed that as the boys get older they are less and less willing to want to leave friends to go hang out as a family. But we didn't have a lot of grumbling for this outing. The Jabbawokeez put on a highly entertaining show and we all loved it. The boys keep asking when they can go again. 

Hooray!!

Two Boys Two Boxes

Look what can be made with a couple of gigantic boxes, duct tape, packing tape & markers. 

This studio box has plenty of room,

there is electricity to enable some modern technology

and, with the taped up smoke detector, it is completely up to code. 

 These two brave adventurers even spent an entire night hobo style. 

Zack was surprised that I was so supportive of this box project. My reputation as a hater of messes and garbage is well deserved, but I have always loved a good, solid, big box--the possibilities! I even allowed this baby to block my access to the backyard for weeks. But only for a few weeks. Eventually, all good things come to an end and this one ended when the window came apart and I started to worry that it might attract rodents. It is always rodents. 

Toilet Tips

Tip #1: Don't watch scary vine videos while sitting on the toilet. This could happen. It's highly unlikely, but it could happen. It happened to us. 

 And it was a mess!! 

Tip #2: Marry someone who is handy. 

This Car Actually Won A Race

Every year, when Pinewood Derby time rolls around, we experience the same things. It's fun? Maybe. It's stressful? Yeah.  We Matt totally procrastinates. Definitely.  The cars look cool. Totally. The cars never win. Yep. 

But not this year. We have discovered the secret to a fast car. Who knew? We certainly didn't as we took Zack's car in for weigh in just hoping it was close to weight. When he raced the first time, I was midway through the "it's just fun to race speech" when he won. I couldn't believe it! We have NEVER in all our years of derbies won a single race. And when he won his second race, we were shocked. Did we dare to hope that we might place this year? The Pinewood Derby took on a whole new excitement for us. What was this feeling? The thrill of victory? Amazing. And short lived. He lost his next race. And that's when he got ripped off because they forgot about the double elimination part of the rules and raced the remaining three cars for the trophies. We are good sports and were happy with 4th place. For us, that is amazing. And next year, Matt knows just what to do to tweak a car to be the winner. And he'll be doing it the night before, no doubt. 

Adventures in New Furniture

We had endured our broken spring couch for long enough and finally decided to break down and buy a new one.  Luckily we bought our faulty couch at Costco and they were willing to return it. Whaaat? I love Costco. I won't buy another couch there, but I love Costco. We rented a little trailer for our hauling purposes. Sure Matt & I were capable of doing the work ourselves, but why not let our kids experience a little work too? Good parenting, no, great parenting. Noah wasn't feeling the load/unload couch project. He begged. He whined. He complained. He protested. He told us we were lame. But we persisted. It would be good for him. And it should have been good for him, except that this happened. 

Right off the bat. They didn't even get the couch out of the trailer. Noah & I went to the Quick Care.  We were concerned about a broken finger, but it was only the fingernail, which the doctor pulled off. Fun! It was a little gross and painful. 

He knew he shouldn't have come. It never would have happened if we would have let him stay home safely playing video games. We are bad parents. Whatever.