School Projects

 I feel like we have been hit with a lot of school projects lately. I don't mind if they are fun. This one was a clever idea. Each student in Zack's class was assigned a body part, then given a pink slip, saying they would be fired from the body if they couldn't prove their value. Zack had to make a poster and give a presentation to the class and the vice principal. This is the poster he made in class. In the end, the esophagus and stomach were let go.  

 Zack is on the school student council and had to make a bunch of motivational posters for the CRTs. He worked on them during and after school but still needed to make some at home. We had a fun morning finishing them up because he also had a book project due that week. See that bear on the green paper? He drew that free hand with a permanent marker in like five minutes. I wish I could do that. 

 All these school projects aren't without drama. Zack had to create a game for the book on Malcom X. He worked diligently on it all afternoon but decided that it was "terrible" before he went to bed.  He set his alarm for 5:00 am so he could do a different project. Matt helped him make a spinning wheel and I was up at 6:30 helping him finish the darned thing. We were scrambling and working on it in the car on the way to school but he got it finished.  He has sworn to never to this again. 

 Zack definitely has the most school projects. This is Ben's 3-D Animal Cell model. He didn't even procrastinate it, and got 100%! 

Top Chef Celebrity Stalking

Emily and I went to Tivoli to eat at a restaurant only to discover it was out of business. We are both Top Chef viewers so we decided to try the Poppy Den owned by one of the past finalists. Remember Angelo? We do! We walked in, looked to the right and saw him standing there. What!?! We had the best service we will probably ever have at any restaurant. They were wiping our table down mid meal, keeping our glasses full and smiling like crazy. I spent most of the meal trying to take a picture of him without him noticing. I am really bad at that. I thought we might catch him when we were leaving but he was gone. Missed opportunity! Then we saw him browsing in a clothing store across the street. Of course we went in and browsed too. We realized it would be too weird to approach him in the store so we waiting outside for him to leave. And when he did, I froze. But Emily jumped into action and called his name. The friend he was with was happy to take a picture for us. Angelo was very gracious and nice. He is also tall so I don't know why Emily and I are both hunching down. 

I should also note that the food was good. It was all the types of things you expect from a Top Chef chef like pork belly, watermelon salad, oyster, something in some type of reduction, truffles, etc. I felt like Padma although I am probably more like Gail.

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.