Funkins

We carve pumpkins every year and it goes like this:
Matt or Kliss cuts a hole out in the top.
Matt or Kliss remove the insides (Ben gags & leaves the room).
The kids carve for a few minutes then complain because it's too hard.
Matt or Kliss  finishes the pumpkins.
Kliss cleans up.

I was tempted to avoid it all together this year. But Zack really wanted to. He's only 6, I don't want to ruin his childhood.  So I found a better solution: Funkins. Fun to say, more fun to carve. Bet you can't tell the difference.

We had a family home evening with the cousins, ate chili and then got creative. Talk about instant gratification: No waiting for the clean out, no vomiting noises, no complaining. For the most part, the kids did all the carving themselves. Funkins are a little saw dusty, but I will take that over nasty pumpkin guts any day. Any day. Plus, they are all packed away for next year. You can't do that with a real pumpkin. Well, you could but I wouldn't recommend it.

Funkins are, in fact, fun. And, no, this is not a paid advertisement for Funkins.

Another year older and wiser too..

I am exactly 27 days older than Matt. Birthdays aren't a big deal to me so I don't require a lot of fanfare and celebration. 

Zack decorated this blazing inferno cake (36 candles is a lot).

Matt, no surprise, likes to party on his birthday. His plan is to treat me good on my birthday so that in 27 days I'll do the same. I almost always disappoint.  In the past, I've put all my effort into cakes.  He's had some good ones: Lord of the Rings, Batman, a guitar. This year, I changed strategy and the boys and I surprised him by decorating his office and giving him a case of his new favorite drink:

I'm pretty sure the drinks sealed the deal earning me the better birthday well-wisher title. And since he is low-carbing it, I didn't even have to bother with a cool cake.

Idaho Visitors-Round Two

While I was growing up Spud Harvest vacation meant getting out of school so I could go work for my dad on the farm. He doesn't grow potatoes but he always had some kind of work for me to do. When I was lucky, there was straw to bale. But usually I wasn't lucky. Instead I got to haul manure. Cow poop. Isn't that glamorous?

Not me or the farm, but this is pretty close to what I used to operate.

It was horrifyingly embarrassing for me at the time but Dad didn't care about my reputation. At least I was far, far away from anyone who would recognize me and the tractor had a cab, so it wasn't like I was out there shoveling the stuff. I spent my Spud Harvest driving from the corral to the field listening to the rocking tunes on Z-103. Why am I revealing this little known bit of my teenage drama? Because this year, instead of working, Dad actually took a vacation. Shocking to all who know him, but true.

We did a little site seeing downtown.

In the Bellagio Garden- I wasn't aware that they change it for the seasons.

Eiffel Tower-Vegas version

Because Grandma is a major Diet Coke supporter we had to take her to the Coke Factory. Of course the kids had to make Grandma & Grandpa taste the nastiest drink in the history of mankind. I keep thinking that I remember it worse than it is. I don't. It is so gross. Come visit and I'll prove it.

While the kids were in school, we took a trip to the Hoover Dam.

This is the newly built dam bypass bridge. It makes me nervous just looking at it. It's cool and all, but there is no way I would dare cross it.

We took the "dam tour" as opposed to the power plant tour so we got to walk around in a few of the tunnels. It is really an amazing structure. This photo was taken while we were in one of the tunnels. Mom stuck her hand out the vent thing and turned the camera up to get the shot. That is the top of the dam. 

There are a lot of aspects of the dam that amazed me, but I was most impressed by the fact that it's made out of concrete and it's held up.  Have you seen the concrete on the driveway at our HH house? Within a year it was falling apart.  It's a good thing those concrete workers didn't build the dam.  It's also fun to go to the dam because you can say all sorts of funny dam jokes. The kids really loved our dam discussions. They were thrilled we ate dam fries and went on a dam tour. Ha ha.

The last place we went before my parents went home was the Las Vegas Temple. We haven't walked around the grounds before. It is a beautiful and peaceful place.

We had a fun and crazy two weeks of family. I loved every minute of it.

A baptism

After we said good bye to Scott & Lacey we took a quick trip to California. We were happy that we could be at Abby's baptism. She is an adorable little girl and I think she maybe said two words to me the whole time we were there. I don't blame her a bit, there were aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends & cousins everywhere.

Watch out ladies!

What better way to follow a baptism than an afternoon on the beach. My boys had a blast. I thought the water was cold but it didn't slow them down a bit. The last time we were at the beach, Ben wanted nothing to do with the ocean. This time was a different story. He loved boogie boarding.

 And didn't let his wayward swimsuit slow him down:

Noah was addicted to the ocean too. He was so tired but he didn't want to stop.

Zack liked building sand castles and playing with the nasty sea weed.

It was a quick trip, but we have lots of great memories. We wouldn't have missed it. 

Idaho Visitors- Round One

Thank you Alligient air for having cheap flights out of Idaho Falls. Scott, Lacey & little Macy were the first to take advantage.  Our options were kind of limited because of the one year old, so we took it pretty easy. I had some cute pictures of the kids with Macy playing at the park but Noah deleted them so I don't have any pictures of her to post. She is a little cutie. The boys got a kick out of being around a little baby girl.

My absolute favorite part of their visit was going to see Band of Horses at the Joint.

It was the best concert I've been to in awhile. I've given it a lot of thought ,way more thought than I should have, and I've concluded that it was because:

1. The music was amazing live.
2. There were lots of  technical difficulties. The lead singer was having all sorts of problems with his pedal, but he was pretty relaxed about them and it made the show more memorable. At one point his microphone slipped down. He ended up singing on his knees.
3. It wasn't super crowded & we were right up front.
4. I didn't have a short, drunk, Asian guy rubbing up against me (you know who you are, Foo Fighter's fan).
5. I was with some of my favorite people (Emily included though not pictured):

 And finally, the bassist. The picture does not do justice to his awesomeness. He reminded me of Kip and half of the time he looked like he was asleep. It was weirdly entertaining. 

Scott wanted to do two things while he was here: eat at the Rio buffet and see the neon cowboy sign. I was sure that the neon cowboy sign was in Reno, not Vegas. There is a really big cowboy sign in Reno that exists in my imagination. And Vegas Vic, does in fact still exist in Las Vegas. It's part of the Fremont Experience. Which we experienced late one night.

While en route to Fremont street, we stopped at Gold and Silver Pawn. Guess what, it wasn't open. The Pawn Shop with a big neon sign saying open 24 hours was closed. That's our second Pawn Stars fail.

That was the only bad part of their visit. I am so glad they decided to visit.

Ben's 9th Birthday

This is Ben on the morning of his birthday, a day he has been anticipating and talking about for months.

Zack and Ben had plans for a video game themed birthday cake. I was given a sketch and some instructions about how to make a PlayStation 2 controller and other really "easy" components for the cake.  Preferring something truly easy, I offered up a yellow circle with a triangle cut out Pac Man cake and was shot down.  Instead, they suggested the 3-D version of Pac-Man in cake form. Clearly they have no knowledge of my cake skills.  Then this idea hit me, I found an example online, shaped a few Starbursts and viola:

We alternate friend and family parties for the kids. Before we moved, and I was trying to sweeten the deal, I reminded Ben that this year was a family party year, which is typically just the five of us. His eyes brightened and he excitedly said, "so Max can come!"  I like to think that maybe Max was here, with the cousins, while they were busy making pizzas and being silly. 

Papa & Nana were also in town for his birthday. Nana painted this picture of Ben playing basketball. She got all the details like his jersey number and the colors of his favorite shorts.

A few of things about Ben:

• He has a great memory for trivia, especially tv characters and actor's names. We like to test him and can rarely stump him. The kid knew the name of the producer of Big Time Rush. 
• He likes to talk in accents and does a decent British one.
• His new favorite movie is Prince of Persia & cartoon is Avatar: the Last Airbender. He loves the Percy Jackson and Magic Thief books.
• He still doesn't eat any fruits or veggies, but has developed a love for hot sauce.
• He likes his hair long and Bieberish.
• He listens the best to scriptures and books I read at night. He remembers the most too.

Labor Day

It was kinda weird to go back to Utah for Labor Day. We had some work to do on our house and figured it would be fun to see our friends. A major change for the boys in Vegas is not having kids their ages in the neighborhood to play with. While Matt & I worked on the house , they lived it up with their friends.  I don't know if Noah partied to hearty or what, but he got sick. It hit him while we were swimming at the hotel pool. Thank goodness for metal garbage cans by elevators because he wasn't going to make it to a toilet. Gross, but better there than on the floor or worse, in the elevator!

I was worried that we were going to spend the next few days in a everyone is throwing up sick cycle.  But all Noah needed was a good night sleep. We went to our old ward on Sunday and had planned to go to AF Canyon for a picnic that afternoon. Instead of fighting the Labor Day crowds we went to the park. I miss my neighbors & friends, but not the wind.

 

 

This is Lance leading the kids in a Haka. He was the only one who knew what he was doing. 

I asked Matt to take a picture of the WWW ladies and this is what I ended up with. I am the least photogenic person I know, so I needed him to bring his A (or even B+) game. Get our attention, for crying out loud! We would have said cheese. Seriously.

 

The only thing Matt wanted to do in Utah (besides hang a shelf, fix toilets and hang plastic on a ceiling) was get pizza at the Pie. I should have punished him for his horrible photography attempt, but I like the Pie too. We met up with Ken & Ian and took the kids' for their first time at the downtown basement location.

It wasn't that late, but Zack was so wasted he fell asleep. The lighting is dim, but the music was so loud I don't know how he did it.

It hasn't been that long since we moved so I was surprised by how much I felt like a visitor in Utah and how much Vegas feels like home.