Traveling as Two - Minneapolis

Remember when I told you my sweetie gave me a trip for Christmas? Well, the day is finally here!! We climbed on an airplane...

and after several hours...

...we found ourselves in the Twin Cities. It was evening and by the time we got out of the airport and picked up our rental car, it was mostly dark.

We only had a short distance to drive to our hotel, but I was excited to see the signs for the Mall of America although that is a stop planned for the end of our trip, not the beginning.

We were so tired!! We dragged our heavy bags to our room and just dropped everything so we could make it to the hotel cafe for a quick bite before they closed.

We are so excited for this new adventure! I will keep you posted.😁💕

Girl Scout Cookies 2021

I'm sorry that I have neglected you this past week. I have been running like crazy! My sweetie gave me a trip to see Lake Superior for Christmas and we leave tomorrow. I'm super excited about that and mostly packed, but first, I have something to do...

Drama Queen picked up over 2000 packages of Girl Scout cookies last Saturday and I have been frantically making deliveries all week. My sweetie says it's time to stop stressing and that people can wait until we get home, but most people really want their Thin Mints right now and I hate to make them wait. 

Thankfully, my stacks are almost gone and I can climb on that plane tomorrow without guilt.

But if you need your cookie fix, let me know!

So Excited for a Live Concert!

I have to admit that I am more redneck than refined. Remember our discussion about watching a baseball game vs watching a concert? You know my choice.

Except for yesterday... 

We saw Sport play with the Wind Symphony  in December, but it has been over a year since we have seen our middle-schoolers play in a live event.

This was a Monster Concert with the top bands at two middle schools as well as the top band at Bingham High School. Scout is the cute redhead here holding her bass clarinet as she exits the stage.

See that tall blond guy on the back row? That's Sport with his trumpet. Other than the fact that the auditorium was only half full and everyone was wearing masks, including some of the performers, for a minute, life seemed almost normal.

All these awesome young men and women who have prepared for months for this great day, played beautiful music together. Proud parents, grandparents, and conductors...

Such a good day.

Happy Birthday, February!

We used to celebrate birthdays for each person in our family, but as the birthdays began piling up on top of each other, we decided to start celebrating once a month.

First, we ate Hawaiian Haystacks. Then we all gathered around the TV for a game of Kahoots.

Drama Queen hooked us up with Teach and her family and then we all linked in to answer questions about our three birthdays.

After our top 3 winners were announced, we enjoyed cupcakes and ice cream sandwiches. We all had so much fun!!

Happy birthday!😁💕🎂🎁🍦

 

Landing on Mars

Have I told you before that my sweetie is a nerd? I mean this in the most adorable way...

So this morning, he woke me up to tell me that Krispy Kreme had made a special limited edition donut only available today, in honor of the Mars Landing. He has been keeping tabs on the landing and he definitely wanted me to order some... enough for all the kids and grandkids. This was a BIG deal!!

Princess dropped by with her little ones and my sweetie had the boys lauching rockets and dropping parachuters from the balcony.

After they took off, my sweetie and I watched the actual landing on my computer. The people at NASA were so excited!

Almost as excited as my kids were when they saw the donuts.

Chinese New Year 2021

Did you know it is the year of the Ox? Normally, that is not something I would know, but my girl scouts are working on an international patch and as Troop President, Scout wanted them to learn a little about China.

So we did some research...

We tried some new Asian food. Scout loved the dumplings, but since they were frozen. We couldn't really share with our scouts. Remember, we still can't even meet in person.😷

One of my fantastic co-leaders found these free dragon kits for us at the library. We made a trip to Asian City to buy glutinous rice and we discovered all kinds of Red Envelopes.

Our goal was to help our scouts have a little taste of the New Year celebration, so we cut red paper so they could write couplets, we acquired red envelopes and gave them donated gift cards to Menchies, and we gave them the ingredients to make sticky rice balls!

We were nervous about asking them to cook, but they did an awesome job. My little scouts are amazing. 

Happy Chinese New Year, everyone!🎉

Happy Valentine's Day updated...

I hope you had a relaxing and happy Sabbath Day. Happy Valentine's Day!

My sweetie made me a delicious steak 

dinner!

I bought him a map to chronicle our travels.

Baby Doll made valentines for her school friends, but she had to deliver them to the school on Feb 4th so they could quarantine for a week before the kids could have them.

Drama Queen made this fun game on Goosechase, and our team was called the Sweeties. I heart-attacked the kids' doors for 200 points and to see their smiles. 😊

It was a good day!💕

Days Go By...

It seems like my life is not nearly as exciting as it was prior to Covid-19. I find that several days slide by because I don't have much to say.

I spent a bunch of time embroidering numbers on these hats. Curly left with his team today for a baseball tournament. I sure love watching him play! But I have a previous commitment to a certain little basketball team. 

Yeah, we have a lot of fun!! This is where we take our team pictures.

So cute!! Even better without the masks.

Super Bowl Sunday

We had an interesting Super Bowl Sunday. My sweetie insisted it wasn't a party, but we ended up with some of the kids here anyway. Maybe it was our new special guest.

Or maybe it was because we prepared food anyway.

Or maybe it was because we had alternate activities for those who didn’t want to watch Tom Brady win another Super Bowl ring.

Drama Queen did a great job teaching Little Warrior how to tie a quilt for our sweet little Queso.

But I'm guessing they mostly dropped by to wish The Beast a very happy 34th birthday!

At least they all enjoyed his gift box...

Congrats!

Scouting For Food 2021

I am so proud of my scouts today! Curly was in charge of the food drive for our entire troop and he did a great job creating fliers and getting the guys excited. He, Taco, and Burrito door-delivered almost 200 bags and then this morning, they returned to every house to pick up donations.

Our friends and neighbors were so generous!

Our scouts joined hundreds of other scouts across the state to help fill up our food banks.

They did a great job!

It's a Boy!!

Actually, we already knew it was a boy. Our brand new little grandson, affectionately blog-named Queso, arrived at 8:17 AM to bless the home of Bossy and Gamer.

He was smaller than we were all thinking, 8lbs 2oz and 20" long. He does have an amazingly healthy set of lungs as you can see.

Even after a C-section, Mama and baby are doing great! Daddy and baby are doing even better...

Those hanging out at my house are fine too.

I can hardly wait to hold this little cutie!

Look at all that hair!

Blessings

The COVID-19 numbers in Utah are starting to drop which is a huge blessing for us. I can hardly wait for things to normalize. I'm just so tired of not being able to breathe through a mask.

But this post is about blessings. 

I am so grateful for the blessing of a large and amazing family. Some of that family was able to meet on Sunday at Princess's house so we could share in the baby blessing of our cute little Dutchess. 

The Frog gave her a beautiful and detailed father's blessing.

That is the same dress Princess was blessed in nearly 25 years ago. It and my sweet daughter are just as beautiful as ever.

Thank you, Princess and The Frog, for opening your home and your hearts to us last weekend. We love you all!💕