I Should Be Ashamed of Myself

Considering my lineage, you would think I could come up with a better cowboy outfit for Zack to wear to the Western themed Blue and Gold dinner. 

None of my boys has ever owned a pair of cowboy boots or cowboy hat. It's shocking. We are definitely city slickers.

Let Them Hear Cake

A while back I watched part of an interview with the lead singer of Cake. Man was he pretentious! For a guy who writes songs about stickshifts and bucket seats, he seemed to take himself pretty seriously. But I do like the music and I really really wanted to see a concert at the Brooklyn Bowl at the LINQ so we went. 

 Thanks to Matt's need to get there early (too early if you ask me) we had the best spot we have ever had for a concert. We were right in front of the stage, like put your hand on the stage, in front of the stage. Often there is a walkway type space between the crowd and the stage, but not at the Brooklyn Bowl. It was pretty exciting. And I was genuinely excited to see them this close.Then they announced there would be no photography or videoing allowed. What is this 1999? For some reason that announcement combined with the previous interview and them coming out almost an hour late totally bugged me and put me out of the mood to hear Cake. 

The sounded good and  played most of my favorite songs, no Stickshifts and Safteybelts though it was requested, chanted even. The lead singer reminds me of Mr. Keaton from Family Ties. I had a fun time with my Matt but I will probably skip the next Cake show. I just don't think they are as amazing as the lead singer thinks they are.

Double Digits!

If Noah turning 15 wasn't enough to make me feel old, Zack's tenth birthday certainly was. 

My baby is ten years old! A decade! And he's getting so big!

 Zack is into sports cars and Corvettes are his favorite. He likes to "search up" facts about all types of things, but when the announcement of a new Corvette was made, Zack spent hours researching it. I can't pass a Corvette without wanting to take a picture of it for him. 

 Zack is also very artistic. I love looking through his homework because even his Math pages have fancy design doodles on them. I find random papers with his drawings all over the house. 

 Zack loves chocolate. He and Henry are vice president and president (and the only members) of a chocolate club. 

My favorite ten year old is addicted to Animal Jam. When he isn't playing that, he is building hotels and houses and waterslides and anything else he can on Minecraft. Zack loves school. This year he has monthly reading projects. They are always pretty spectacular.  Part of the project is to do a presentation, which he loves to over do. He was shy at the beginning of the year but now he likes to put on a big show for everyone. Zack is my organizer. He is the only one who truly understands what it feels like to spend time cleaning and organizing only to have someone else mess it up. Zack makes interesting word choices. Last night he told me his music teacher had to "scold someone."  Conversations with him tend to go like that. I love it! This little guy brings so much happiness to our house. We love our little Chancho (the nickname he sometimes loves but mostly hates).

St. Patrick's Day- yeah yeah yeah

I think the whole treat bringing/naughty leprechaun became a thing when my boys were too old. Thank heavens! Expectations are minimal for St. Patrick's Day. We wear green and I might just squirt some green food coloring into the pancake batter. No one, besides Matt, will eat corned beef so I feel like we are good.  

The McGarrys are from Ireland, so we could legitimately wear the Kiss Me I am Irish pins. Every year I think I should hold a family home evening to discuss our Irish ancestors. One of these years I might actually do it.  

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!!