Weekend Away Day 1

Rachel and Nate were getting their kitchen remodeled so they rented a cabin (really more like a lodge) in Squim and invited us to come along. We had sunshine the first day we headed up to Hurricane Ridge and they kids loved it. I found these plastic snowboards at Target for $6.00 and Cannon and Carson loved them. They were really good right from the start and the hill was pretty steep. Lyla loved sledding and eating a picnic in the snow. Miya was all over the place and loved sledding, building tunnels, jumping in the snow and the sunshine on her skin. I even got a little sunburn on my cheeks that day. It made me miss winters in Idaho and the bright sunshine off the snow.

Concert

Phil and I went up to Seattle last Wednesday for the Joshua Radin concert. It was fantastic and we had such a great time walking around the city and then running in the rain back to the car after the concert. Phil made a comment in the elevator at Pike Place Market about how you know your city folk when you miss the smell of public urination in an elevator.
The opening acts were Laura Jensen and Cary Brothers. They were both fantastic. We loved it and when you are standing around listening to music it has to be good to make you forget you have been standing for hours. Joshua Radin was great and his new cd should be good when it comes out. He got down in the crowd for a song and both Phil and I were surprised at how short he was...no really way shorter than I am. Going to these concerts always make me happy to live in a place that so many great musicians come to play at. I always love a good date night with Phil.

Girls (plus dad) Weekend

We had a great weekend in Texas with my parents. Ashlee and I left the crazy February snow storm in Seattle to head down and to Houston where is was in the upper 60s low 70s. All of our husbands watched the kids for the weekend and let us go to hang out. Miya was super excited that I would be singing in church in Texas. My mom and dad were speaking in their Ward down there and my mom volunteered us girls for a musical number. Stephanie informed us that we would not be crying during the song so we tried to get it all out during the practice. It was a song that we have sung a ton of times as young girls in church so it was fun.

It is always fantastic to have a weekend with my family and we loved eating good food, shopping, running together, laughing, talking, Steph brought a book filled with bad family pictures of people (this is a real published book, not just bad family pictures of people we know)so we loved passing that around.

I came home to the kids super excited to tell me all about the fun things they did with Phil. He took Lyla on a daddy-date on Friday while the other kids were at school. She LOVES Red Robin so he took her for lunch. Then he took all the kids to see Tangled and spent a day at the Family Fun Center. He also worked on the cabin so when I got home I was happy to learn that you can now use the bathroom down there.

Valentine

Last night after FHE the kids wanted to play daddy-the-monster so I grabbed the camera. My kids LOVE their dad and come running when they hear the door open at the end of the day and it means daddy is "home" from work. Daddy-the-monster normally ends in tears because it often gets rough, but they continue to want it each night.

So my valentine is the best monster, the best dad, the best husband. He took me to the dinner/dance at the church on Saturday night and we danced until I was too sweaty (and we all know how much I sweat) then we walked around outside until we were ready to head back in to boogie. They had some really great line dancing music and the neighbors we invited out with us loved dancing too. Phil was getting his groove on and made a lot of people laugh. It was a super fun night, like all the nights that I get to spend with Phil. He is always one to entertain and have a good time. Plus I just really love dancing. Not enough to want to hit a club but enough that I make him take me to the Stake dance every year.

language

We were at the park the other day before taking the kids to piano and some 5th graders were hanging out and one of them kept using really bad language. I went over and talked to the kids about it and they all apologized and changed their language. I thought about how most kids are trying super hard to be cool and try to use words they hear older kids saying and are actually pretty respectful when you ask them to stop.
Most of these words they were using were totally lost on my kids, which makes me super grateful. To my kids the "f" word is f.a.r.t, the "s" word is s.t.u.p.i.d, the "h" word is h.a.t.e, and we even have an "i" word which is i.d.i.o.t. Cannon never says the word, but loves spelling them to me when other people say them.