GRAND OPENING!

One of the reasons it's been a bit slow on the blog is because my awesome husband is expanding his business!
They have been happy with their current location but with all the growth and expansion of the city, they decided to move to new areas. A great opportunity opened up for a location only five minutes from our home. Great news for our Summerlin and Southwest (i.e. Mountains Edge) friends. They have been seeing people there for a few weeks now with success (and very happy parents who can travel less!).
New locations come with new needs: letterhead, banners, various advertising jobs, business cards, etc. so that's all kept me quite busy (on top of RS stuff. Whew.)
Great things are afoot. I'm so proud of all the hard work S. is putting into every detail and thought. Of course I am biased...but he is the best. :) And he's got a great flair for interior design. Just check out the current Meadows location now and you'll see for yourself. With his eye and his talent for his work, he truly does give you (or your child) the perfect smile.
Now go and have a great weekend!

Locals! Hurry!

I was looking for more ideas of things to do with the kids for the summer (i.e. they are driving me to drink) and found this puppet show listed at our local libraries. I don't know.... puppets? Could be good, could be bad... but with a little more research I found the official group website. They are visiting from Northern CA for this week only. It took a little effort to drive downtown yesterday afternoon but it was SO worth it. They put on a marionette puppet show that was wonderful! A combined story of The Three Little Pigs, Tortoise and the Hare and The Ugly Duckling all to beautiful orchestrated music. The kids were entranced for the full 30 or so minutes and then they came out with more puppets and acts and had a Q&A for the kids. They explained how they work, the props, everything. Fascinating. A must see. I highly recommend trying to fit it in this week if you can go. Here is a link to the LVCCD activity page and check out the Fratello Marionettes official site here.

Last Weekend

We spent last weekend visiting our great pals the Hills (from the St. Louis Days). We decided to only spend one day at Dland and the rest enjoying them. I don't have pictures of that because we were wonderfully lazy: world cup games, swimming, Ikea browsing, watching movies and cutting vinyl (Jackie & I enjoyed that anyway...). As for Disneyland, our annual passes run out in October so I think it's fair to say we've been getting some decent use out of them. It's been an opportunity to try new rides and see things we probably wouldn't take time to do normally. Take the Mark Twain canoes for example. We did them. We won't do them again. But the Aladdin show was great fun and the kids loved it. Anyway, here are a few snaps from the day.
As we boarded the water rafting ride, Scott busted out a waterproof jacket, cocky grin and all. Even the family behind us in line commented on how he had one for himself but not his family. He didn't care. And he still got wet.
And lastly we enjoyed Subway in the shaded world of Bugs Life land. I so love how they transformed that area to make you feel small. The super tall bamboo, weird large-leafed trees and big clover umbrellas. Fun design cleverness all around. And Heimlich making burping sounds. You don't get that at home, folks....
When we returned to town on Saturday, we joined another group of our old St. Louis friends who have all moved back West. Some are in Logan, some in St. George, some even in Vegas but we've never had a reunion until now. I was so glad we got to catch up with everyone. We loved it! Steph, if you're reading this, I want a copy of our group photos. :)
**psst! What's that I see? Elliet making a peace sign again? Bah!

The Last of Catching Up

1) Mid-May was Scott's Birthday. We decorated the kitchen full of balloons and streamers, ate good food, played and shared presents. He said he wanted to go see the Tour of CA for his Bday so our little trip 'counted' for that (though I tucked in a few extra presents as well). This picture of us was taken from that trip. I just love my best friend. We also shared our 14th anniversary a couple of weeks ago. When I think of all the things we have worked through, places we've been, people we've known...everything we've experienced together, I am overwhelmed with gratitude that this man has been by my side. I love to be with him, laugh and cry with him, learn and grow with him...I love you S.E. Happy Birthday/Anniversary!

2) Scott works with Mike, a dear friend and partner who lives about 20 minutes away. Despite this small distance, we rarely get together like we used to now that kids are getting older and schedules crazier. But we finally worked out a night to visit and go swim at their house with some other friends, Tyler & Casey. Their pool is way cooler than ours complete with a big waterslide and waterfall cave (with depths great for diving as Luke happily demonstrated).
This was what the twins looked like on the way over. Luke wore his goggles the entire time. So funny. (Scott took the pic, don't worry)

3) Elliet lost her other front tooth. Woot!

Try, You Must

I know Yoda doesn't believe in trying but whatever.
Have you seen these great Star Wars cookie cutters now at Williams Sonoma?
The day I received the email for these I went and bought them. For my son, you ask? Um... sure... yeah, totally. NOPE. For me. Honestly I just want to make a bunch of Storm Troopers. So cool! And while I was there I found this pancake pen thing (more on that below). It is the WS way... you always leave with more than you planned on. Curse them!
So I hurry home and realize I don't have a dependable sugar cookie recipe that holds details in press cookies like this. Details I mock because really you end up covering it with frosting. I guess it's like the Pirate code and they just act as guidelines anyway...
So I use the one in the box and here is what my anticipated Star Wars cookies looked like.
FAIL. What kind of galactic mess is this? What Jedi wrote that recipe? They are horrible! Oh. Oops. I doubled the butter by accident. Defeated, I will have to try them again another day. In the meantime, anyone have a good recipe for this kind of thing?

Now onto the next item...
The Pancake Pen. You know those times when you try to make a fun pancake shape for your kids only to stand there explaining what your blob is supposed to be? "It's a T-Rex! You can't see that?"
For only ten bucks you can fill it with batter for cupcakes, pancakes, etc. and write/draw to your hearts content. Well, I simply had to have it! And, as expected, fruit-of-my-labor pics. It was great fun to play with. I made IDENTIFIABLE stars, hearts, shapes, etc (er, no prehistorics). The last challenge was our names. Plated beautifully here you can read from bottom to top, 'Sadie, Luke, Mmrm and Erviet'.
Go forth and try.

T Oh C

As tradition goes, we made an effort to see part of the Tour of California. A stage of the race was only a couple of hours from our house so we spent the day with our friends to view the action. We found a great spot at the top of the last King of the Mountain challenge. The helicopters and hang gliders were our indication the riders were finally approaching. Well, that and iphones. :)
{BTW- how cool would it be to view a cycling race hang gliding?!?}
This first photo shows you the turn and road where they came into view.
The peloton had broken into three groups. This was the first group. I missed Schleck right behind whats-his-Rabobank. Erg!
I know it's silly to wait for hours for only a few moments of racers whizzing by but we love it!
And c'mon- look at our food loot. Who wouldn't want to nibble on that cornucopia of goodness awaiting the action? Though I was quite suspicious about our cherries... all mutated into twins and triplets. "Organic". Whatever. If that is what now grows in our natural world then we are in trouble, peeps.
And the last of our adventure was heading home. Thanks to our trusty phone navigation we avoided all the traffic and took a quiet little highway back to the I-15. After two miles, and a huge "Road Closed" sign, this is what it turned into. Flopping back and forth on a dusty single lane dirt road with abyss next to the tires.... Good times. It was pretty after all.
Quite the mutated cherry on top of a day of fun!

All Things....

... in wisdom and in order....
I know. It's been a long time and frankly, it's been fun ignoring my blog. But I do need to catch up so perhaps the publishing desire will return.
Since I left off in May...
Here are some snaps of the twins at Field day. That PE teacher they have is just so fun and he plans great activities. He planned new games for their age so it was a riot. I especially liked this mushroom thing they would do with the parachute. They would lift it up and run in the middle and then sit down to create that bulbous hump. What are they talking about in there? No one will ever know...

The twins also had a little old west Kinder graduation program that was great. We have just LOVED Mrs. Ohnstad and are so sad to have it end. Look at those swell tassled "wristlets" the kids made? They were quite the hams in the front row singing with vigor and passion. And all on video. More fabulous blackmail material when they want the car keys.