The Last Half of May

I've been kind of a slacker with this... not too bad... but enough to where I don't feel like doing a bunch of different posts. Kinda lazy today. So after our trip and all the kids dr appointments we had Scott's bday. We didn't do much. Just some cake and ice cream. My parents wanted to bring a gift by and I had already planned on making him a cake. The day before Charlotte and I "secretly" made him a card. She wrote it out for him. She did a pretty dang good job! Of course I had to tell her how to spell the words but she did most the letters herself. So I told her it was a surprise and so were the cookies we made him too. I left the cards with the cookies on the seat of the car for him. I got him a really cheap mp3 player but it was unfortunately made really cheap and I've had it stashed since Feb so I didn't try to do stuff until recently. I got it from Nomorerack. That was my first mistake. Never again. Then I didn't open it and try it out soon enough. Second mistake. And after days of wasting my time converting all my itunes stuff to mp3s and figuring out how to download it on I came to find out it doesn't work. It didn't even come with instructions. And when I emailed them asking for a brand name or something to try and find instructions they gave me a link for android tablets. What? Yeah... lame!

So sadly I couldn't have his gift there too. But we tried to make it as special as we could since he had to work. I had asked him what kind of cake he wanted. I offered to make any kind of cake in any kind of combination he wanted (I was even willing to go out all homemade too!). Then what did he ask for? Funfetti with the rainbow chip frosting. Really? Okay crazy  boy. So that was what I made. But I had leftover custard in the freezer from Charlotte's cake so I threw that in to give it a little something more. Oh and I had green gel leftover from Charlotte's cake so we used that to pipe on it too.

He loves when I call him Scooter Bug :)   He ended up with $50 to Amazon from my parent's so with some of the other stuff he got himself we found a better mp3 player that was cheaper but had a really good rating. It was much easier to figure this one out. I think it's only 4 gb but there is also a spot for a microSD card which the other mp3 player came with and it holds 8gb so at least that worked out. He uses it when he mows and stuff. I just thought it'd be something nice for him to have.

Friday the 17th I went to see Chloe at the school to have her do my hair. I wanted to go blonder. So she did a weave for me. Then the 18th on Saturday we finally (5 days after) got the chance to celebrate our anniversary. We were hoping to do an early lunch and tour the mummies exhibit at The Leonardo and get my rings cleaned but didn't pan out quite how I was hoping. Chloe was the only one who could watch the kids for us and she had to work until 1 or so. We did some yard work and things around the house. We ended up not leaving until like 4. The plan was to clean the rings then park at a trax station down in Murray and just ride trax around downtown to Gateway and The Leonardo. But we were pressed for time so my rings didn't get cleaned (it's been like 2 years!). We rushed out to Gateway and had a heck of a time finding free parking. It was packed over there. We had dinner at Tucanos which was really good but dang I wish we could have saved some money and had lunch there. So we spent more than we were expecting to. The food was pretty dang awesome though. I even tried some pork sausage and a little fish. Not too bad but I like to stick with beef and chicken. After dinner we hurried to The Leonardo to see the mummy exhibit. It was really amazing but for the price they charge you it's not that big. But to see something that they're dating back 6500 years is pretty incredible. The technology we have now can tell us so much more about these people and it was really fascinating. But just so dang expensive. We kind of hurried our way through. It was crowded and kind of warm and some people are just really dumb and have no etiquette whatsoever. Like the guy standing over one of the cases with a hand on each side hogging all the space and talking over it to someone else about some plans they were making for some party. I mean really? Do you have any respect for the dead person you are hovering over and the people around you who spent a lot of money to see this exhibit? This guy was amazing. So was the lady shoving her daughter forward in almost every space. It reminds me of why I dislike traveling exhibits. Dumb people who don't get it and are so self absorbed. How do you live each day? I forgot to take pictures while we were out and about but snagged this one but the sun was too bright so obviously this is edited. But I thought it looked kind of cool anyway.

So we hurried home to rescue Chloe. She had already had a long day at work and Charlotte was being a punk. My parents ended up coming over to help. It wasn't as awesome and stress free as anniversaries in the past but with both kids being older its kind of what I expected. With any luck Scott and I will someday get another date night someday. Hopefully before next year! After that I had to do my last minute prep on my lesson for Sunday. I don't remember much else during the week. I know it was crazy since Scott would have Memorial Day off so they'd be getting stuff done before hand. I know my mutual activity that week was not so great. With graduation that week and school ending the turnout wasn't great and I just had a rough night. I was really looking forward to the weekend with Scott.

I got super lucky too because they were in at 3am Friday so they were done in the morning around like 10 or 11 I think. We worked around the yard a bit and just enjoyed being together as a family. It was the most family time we had in a while. Memorial Day itself my dad came over to help us fix our sprinkler system. We had two valves go out this year. So dumb. We replaced one last year and the other the year before. We tried a different brand this time hoping for the best. But now its working again so my grass isn't so sad. We had a lot of baby chick time too. I took pictures.

Some of these were taken this past Saturday when we were over at my parent's for dinner. These chickens are hilarious. I love to watch them. The ducks are so grown up now too. They also don't take crap from Charlotte. They stand up to her and don't like when she starts bugging them. It's kind of funny to watch. They need a permanent home though. Thank goodness things have finally worked out and my parent's are getting their house! Yahoo! It's 5 acres in Erda. It has a barn and a chicken coop. There is a pond and lots of trees. They have a deck on back and a hot tub (looks like its in bad shape though) and a firepit. It will be a nice little farm when they can fix it up. They have closed on it and the people needed 12 days from closing to get out. I could go on for hours with the issues my parents have had getting this loan and getting the house. The current residents are the craziest I have ever heard of. They have a bankruptcy and haven't made their house payment in a year and were confused in closing why they were getting money back. Are you kidding me? The poor realtor has had to deal with a lot but he had gone above and beyond to help my parents. It will also be nice because he lives right down the street and will be in their ward so he's just been an awesome help. I'll post pictures once they get the keys and we can get over. I anticipate mid to late June to be the craziest time for us trying to help them clean and paint and everything. I hope I survive! :)

After memorial day Scott ended up being busier than he thought with work. He put in some long hours. Pretty much the usual for me and the kids. Our callings are still the same. Keeping us busy. I'm over the flag and sweatshirts for girls camp so I need to get cracking on that with my committee. Camp is next month! I'm not going because Scott can't take the time off but I'm sure the girls will have fun!

I am having a hard time remembering stuff so I'll just throw in the last pictures I took and hopefully remember.

Oh yes! So our outdoor day all started when I got a check in the mail from a Countrywide lawsuit I was part of. My share was mailed to me. Like $175 after taxes. I had really been wanting to help our yard and try some pallet thing so I used the money to fund it. First the pallets. Scott has a bunch at work so he got me a couple big ones. We borrowed his parent's truck to take them home and then Scott wanted to try dunking off the truck. Amazingly he used to be able to dunk on a 10 ft hoop. Not bad for a 5'9" guy. But he's lost his hops. But we had fun taking these pictures. With my pallet gardening idea though I lined it with cardboard and used potting soil and transplanted some of my starters. They were getting rather big. Not sure if they'll survive the transplant but if not I can still get seeds in there to help. So with the money we bought some grass seed to help our yard, a new hose for the backyard so I can water my pallet garden, more potting soil, and some plants to put around the mailbox. I have been wanting to fix that area up so we're hoping it will fill in nicely over time and give a little life to that front area. We spent most of the day in the yard then headed to my parents for dinner where I recorded this little gem. Jackson love the song Old MacDonald and loves to sing the Ee-i-ee-i-o part minus saying the o part. He's cute. Love this dude.



Here's some random kid pics...

We also had some crazy rain a couple days. This was one of the thunderstorms. They brought some crazy hail. It stayed on the roofs for a while because it was kind of cooler that day.

I also have this video of Jackson when he tried on his sandals for the first time.




Oh and I almost forgot! Memorial weekend we celebrated Scott's grandma's 80th bday. Family came out from AZ and ID and it was really great to see everyone. I wish my kids weren't so crazy half the time so I could actually chat with people without worrying about my kids destroying stuff. Pictures were not a happy time which I anticipated. Charlotte is a pill and Jackson doesn't want to sit still. Guess we might be a while before we do them again. But I'm totally using Scott's cousin because she is amazing and I loved our last ones so much. Hopefully again in the near future. I just wish we had more time to visit with people. I definitely don't get a lot of adult conversation during the day so I treasure what I get! :) It was a fun party though and hopefully we don't go as long before we all get together again. Okay so I think that sums it up... close enough!