Tuesday, September 27, 2011

St. George. . . part 1

My friend Jeremy's mom got 4 tickets to see the play "Grease" up at the Tuacahn Theatre in St. George. His dad was going too so I got to be the fourth. I had heard great things about the place. It's a big outdoor theatre set up right against the cliffs in St. George.

People were right, the theatre was really neat. The play, unfortunately, didn't live quite up to expectations. They put on two plays a year however, the other one this year being "The Little Mermaid" which my friend Kellie has already talked me into meeting her there in a couple of weeks for, she is coming from northern Utah. Some friends I work with said that "The Little Mermaid" was an absolutely amazing play. So I guess I'll find out on Oct 10th!
Hopefully I take a few more pictures next time.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Yet another adventure

To end the summer, Molly, Bryan, Brooklyn, and I drove up to Utah to do some long overdo visits before they had to head back to Indiana. It was a very FULL car with all their stuff, but we eventually made it!
Once in Provo, we were able to grab some deliciousness at the one and only J Dawgs. Then I dropped Molly, Bryan, and Brooklyn off at their family's house while I did a little visiting first with my friend Brittney and her baby, and later with Randi where we had a nice little gab session, ate some coldstone, and got one not so great picture before I went back to Bryan's brother's house late in the night. It was a short, but good visit. :)

The next morning, Bryan headed off with his brother for their own little adventure, leaving Molly, Brooklyn, and I heading back south to Provo to another food favorite, Brick Oven. Yum! Jenae and her baby Audrey joined us, along with our good pals Kellie and Brittney.

Way too much time has passed since the five of us girls had been able to get together. There was so much to talk about and catch up on, and not nearly enough time to cover it all. :( It was a fantastic visit however, and it was so good to see them all. Molly and I had to say our goodbyes first because we had to scamper off to the airport to say our own official summer goodbyes. :(

After dropping Molly and Bryan off in the early evening, it was time to fill my car with gas, and my cupholder with some coke because I had a long drive back to Vegas with just me. But shortly after departing Salt Lake, I got a (somewhat) expected call from Molly saying that her and Brooklyn could not get on the only remaining flight out that night. So back to the airport I went.

Now I had two travel companions to make the trip south with me but unfortunately, it was nearing one of their bedtimes and she was not a happy little passenger. So Molly and I made the executive decision to push back our departure time a bit and stop back in Provo at our friend Brittney's house to get Brooklyn a little more ready for the trip. Since Brittney's baby Macey couldn't be at lunch earlier that afternoon, it was nice to have a small visit with them. Brittney had everything we needed to get Brooklyn ready for the drive. She got a little bit of dinner, a fun filled bath, changed into her cozy pjs, and had a warm bottle. After that, we loaded Brooklyn back in the car and she fell asleep immediately. It was perfect!
I can't say that the remainder of our trip was quite so perfect. We were heading out of Provo at about 7 pm and Molly and I decided that since it was so late already, there was no harm in leaving a TAD later. So we swung by the BYU Creamery to get our favorite Earnestly Chocolate icecream, and a few minutes later we OFFICIALLY were on the road.
We hit a terrible rain and win storm immediately, as in, we weren't even out of Provo yet. That definitely started us off slower than we were hoping because we were already setting out so late. Somewhere around midnight we drove into good ole Beaver, Ut. We tried to get something to eat from Wendys, but after sitting in the drive thru for a good 30 minutes, we thought we'd have better luck at the only other open joint, McDonalds, and we left. We didn't leave quietly though, The poor overworked drive thru boy got to hear a bit from Molly as we drove off. It was pretty funny. Pretty much the same scenario happened at McDonalds. I don't know what was going on that night, but nobody could seem to get us any "fast" food. We were in Beaver for nearly an hour before we got to hit the road again. Definitely was not worth the short little pit stop we were expecting!
The remainder of the drive was pretty uneventful. We ended up in Vegas somewhere around 2 in the morning (3 am Utah time). We were exhausted! The next night Bryan flew back with hopes of taking Molly and Brooklyn home, but once again, they were stuck here. We enjoyed the last of our time together though, and on Tuesday morning they were finally able to catch a flight home. It was bittersweet. . . we all knew that they couldn't stay here forever. . . though some days it felt like they would. :)

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

an apple for the teacher

Today a little biddy boy in my class came walking in with a pretty nice sized box. It looked heavy. In fact, it was heavy. He handed it to me explaining that it was a present from him and his mom.
pictures don't really do it justice. . . it's quite large

I open it up expecting to find some freshly picked apples? Afterall, it is an apple box. . . a very heavy apple box. . .

Nope, not apples!

Somehow word had gotten around that my favorite candies are reeses peanut butter cups.

I got everything under the sun in reeses cups. A shirt, stuffed animal, baking mix, cereal, white chocolate, dark chocolate, snack size, king size, mini size. . . etc etc etc.

It was quite the surprise. . . and completely made my day!

I have been so busy playing summer catch up on my blog though still not done that I have not even mentioned this school year yet. We are three weeks in and I really think I might have one of the best classes ever. No, not because they bring me some WAY nice presents, but because they really are a very sweet bunch of little 3rd graders. We have harder days than others boys will be boys but they are seriously some of the nicest kids you can come across.

I am really looking forward to this year . . . it is going to be great! and yummy too!

Monday, September 19, 2011

Yet another year goes by. . .

Well . . . the Kellys made it through yet another river trip adventure. This time we brought grandpa along and baby Brooklyn too. Think those were both the youngest and the oldest to ever come along on our trip. They brought a few new twists to the mix, but luckily for us we have gotten pretty good at the whole river trip experience and everything went pretty smoothly.
We played in the water by day. . . and played in the casino by night. Not too bad of a way to end a summer vacation.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Where did the time go?

This was the first summer in a long time that Molly and I would both be not working. So basically, we had been planning this summer since before Brooklyn was even born. When my school ended, I took off for Indiana for a little less than two weeks. Our days of hanging out, and pretty much doing nothing, started there. The party was then moved to California where we could spend time with the rest of the family. Molly and I spent the days with the kids and the backyard, and we spent the evenings with Bonnie or Mom and Dad, or both. Bryan flew in when he could.
And that was my summer vacation!
(besides a few trips here and there. . . we'll get to those eventually!)

did you say FREE?

Anyone who is anyone knows that 7-11 gives away free slurpees on July 11, the official 7-11 of each year. As kids I remember getting free small slurpees, but as we grew up, the cups they offered on free 7-11 day got smaller and smaller. This year as 7-11 approached, I decided to see just how many free slurpees the kiddos and I could get. The challenge was on!
We hit 10 7-11's in Escondido alone. Two of them were out of cups by the time we got there. We had to give up after the 10 though. Because we had no more 7-11s to hit? Absolutely not! It was because whimpo Cayden started claiming that this was the worst day of his life! No joke. He was tired of slurpees! I told him at each stop that he didn't have to come in, Aubs and I could do the challenge on our own. But he was still done with it. So overall, we each drank eight 7.11 oz slurpees (plus we cracked and got some of the cheap corndogs to munch on too. . . to appease the boy of course).
I'd say that overall, we didn't do too bad. Though next year, we may have to start a tad earlier to beat our record (and may possibly have to leave the weakest link at home!)

Saturday, September 3, 2011

the BIG finale!

We had one final stop to make in Riverside, Ca. It had been such a long trip and we were so close to home, I honestly almost did away with it. It wasn't one of the most exciting stops I thought and I didn't really want to end on a dud. Unfortunately though, our previous stop had been the paper cup. Not really a finale winner either, so ultimately we stopped for our final "California Must-see."

Yup- it's a chair! President Taft's chair actually. If you aren't very familiar with history, I'll remind you that President Taft was our fattest president. Meaning. . . he needed a really fat chair to sit in!

And there we have it. The BIG roadtrip was finally complete. It took us a bit over an hour to get home after that. Though we had many fun adventures, and saw many amazing and cool things. . . our stops were just the half of it! I mentioned very little of the actual road trip. . . the hours, upon hours, and days upon days that we sat in the car going from one stop to the other.

I had somewhat worried that it would be a crazy trip. Kids would get bored. . . and adults would get annoyed. But this trip proved quite otherwise. We planned so many car trip activities, that most of the time actually flew on by. We had computers with DVD players, we listened to a whole book on tape, played madlibs, battleship, and hangman. Aubs made bracelets and Cayd played his little game system. We ate snacks and had long discussions about what we needed to do to OUR houses, to get us on the map for people to come visit (don't ask!). And we ALL participated in the great License Plate frenzy game.
The picture shows the winner of that one.

The final car picture I took makes me laugh, because it was not only til we were 40 minutes away from home that Aubrey finally passed out in the car. Besides that, no car napping the entire way! Something I very much did NOT expect.

So here is to a great roadtrip. . . and for the year ahead to plan the next grans adventure!