St. George, Las Vegas, and Zions

Spring break came at just the right moment this year. I've been itching to get outta here and spend some quality time with Jeremy and the kids without work, email, facebook, blogging, laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, etc. getting in the way. So we packed our bags, loaded up the truck and took a little drive down south.

A few highlights of this trip:

• It poured all the way down on Tuesday. Thank goodness for a tarp or we would have been wearing soggy clothes.
• Swimming in hail/rain mix and 43 degree weather is not my idea of fun...but the kids didn't mind. It was really cold the first two days we were there.
• Belle can smack her face on a crossbar of a playground, fall to her bum on the edge of 4 foot platform and land on her feet on the ground with minimal crying, a fat lip, a loose tooth (a baby one), a bruised tailbone and plenty of laughing. BTW, she was trying to run and jump off the playground so I wouldn't ride her scooter and didn't see the bar. See pic below; this is the exact bar she ran into.
• Vegas was fabulous! It was so much fun to show Belle and Tre everything there. We visited The Stratosphere, M&M's World (complete with $25 worth of M&M's), Margaritaville (where the kids saw a volcano erupt, sang along with Jimmy Buffet music and received balloon hats), The Flamingo, and The Bellagio fountains. Tired feet and over stimulation was the theme for this day trip.
• Zions was warm, very warm. Which was great except I think we got our feel for Zions back in October when we hiked Angels Landing, Emerald Pools, and the River Walk in one day. This trip we hiked Canyon Overlook, to the first Emerald Pool, The Grotto and Weeping Rock and the kids were done. Really, really DONE. So we went back to the hotel to swim, eat dinner, and watch Star Wars on T.V.
• Thanks to Jeremy and his great idea we ended our trip at Red Cliffs. This is such a fun place that not many people know about. The views are gorgeous and the sand is soft. You hike a little ways up river to pools that have formed. You can hang back and watch people jump in or you can scale the side of a rock until you are about 6 or 7 feet up and throw backflips into the (freezing cold!) water. That's what Jer and I did. I'm just sad we didn't bring the camera.
  

Pictures are below:

St. George

Vegas

Zions

Spring Break

I have a few things I'd like to post. But I'm a little short on time. So this is just a teaser so you'll come back and read all about it. Stay tuned...

Anabellisms & Treisms

April 3rd 2009

Tre: 9 yrs old
Belle: 6 yrs old

Belle-If I was the strongest woman in the world I'd be able to lift like 200 pounds...or the Twin Towers.

Tre-Well mom can lift probably 100 pounds and dad can lift um..like 110 pounds and a really strong person can probably lift 200 pounds.

Nice to know I can lift half as much as a "really strong person" and only 10 pounds less than Jer!


April 5 2009

Tre-Belle, what time is it?

Belle-(while looking at a clock with hands) It's Eighty Nine.

It was 8:45am with the hands pointing to the eight and the nine...hence the answer of 89. Jer and I had a good laugh at this particular 'Anabellism'.

B-a-l-l-a-y

Anabelle comes home from school yesterday and I ask her the standard question. This is how the conversations goes:

Me: How was school Belle?

Belle: Fine, well, okay, but for music time we did B-A-L-L-A-Y (sounding disgusted)

Me: Oh, fun! Did you like it?

Belle: MOM! You should know better than that! Me and the boys HATED it. Why did the music teacher make us do ballet? It was so stupid! I'm a tomboy and I don't like girl things, remember?

Me: Oh, yeah. You're right, I should know better. I'm sorry you had to do ballet today honey. Do you want to go to Target with me?

Belle: Can I buy a toy with my money?

Me: Sure, what do you want?

Belle: A Hot Wheels car!

Boy, do I love my girl...I mean tomboy. I love you Belly Bop!
(Please excuse the "morning hair". She doesn't normally look like that...well in the morning she does :)

AMEN!

I read an article on msn.com this morning about elementary kids and homework. I have to say I completely agree with it. Click here for the whole article, but my favorite part is in quotations below:

""Children come to school thinking the world is their oyster and that anything is possible," concludes Molnar-Szakacs, "and then every year we essentially limit their vision by teaching them how to narrow their thinking."

If homework can't be more universal in drawing on student strengths, the least our schools can do is allow a kid more time to be a kid. After all, the most respected thinkers in history are noted for their exploration of unconventional ideas.

Some of the hours now spent hogtied to a chair, trying to solve for x and y, would be better spent thinking outside of the box…or even simply outside of the house."

By Rich Maloof

Three of my favorite things: shopping, sales and food

I just started to get the hang of "couponing". My friends have been talking about it for a while now and anything that involves shopping, sales and food is something I want to get in on. So I've done some research and the picture above is my first stab at it. Here are the totals:

Original Price of Groceries: $87.71
Amount Spent: $35.28
Money Saved: $52.43

I'm sure I can get better deals as I get more organized and prepared, but I was pretty impressed with my first run. This is how I did it....I started collecting the coupon books from the Sunday paper and saving them whole (I don't cut out the coupons). Then I watched to tutorials on Savvy Shopper Deals.com and fiddled around on the site. They have an interactive "shopping wizard" which shows all sales for Target, Albertons, Smiths, Harmons, Maceys, Kmart, Reams, Rite Aid, Walgreens and Shopko. Then it pairs up coupons (from the paper) with sales and rates how good the deal is. If it is rated WOW! then it's a great deal.

Case in point: At Albertsons they have Betty Crocker cake mixes on sale 4 for $5. So $1.25 each. But if you buy 10 of them they will give you a $10 coupon off your next order at Albertsons. Which makes them $.25 each. So what I did is get the 10 cake mixes and buy them first. I got the $10 coupon from the register and applied it to the rest of my purchases. I ended up paying $12.50 for the 10 boxes of cake mix and $1.40 for the rest of my groceries (3 cans of soup, 2 packages of cheese slices, 2 Nabisco Go Paks and 4 loaves of Grandma Sycamore bread).

Not only is this practical but it's fun too. I love to get a deal and I love to buy food at a deal. I can't wait for my next time around!

Side Note: I went back the next day and bought $118 worth of groceries (mostly snack foods and cereals) for only $40!! I bought 39 items so they come out to be $1 a peice. Not bad!

St. George, Parade of Homes, Valentines Day...It's a long one!

Tre, Brook, and Belle

This post is a long one (sorry) about our trip to St. George for the Parade of Homes. We go annually with my whole family and it is a blast. This year we got to spend the weekend in Kara's parents house which turned out to be the best part of the weekend. The kids had their own rooms, we had a kitchen to make breakfast in, and Steph brought down Rock Band to play at night. Here are some pictures of our fun filled trip:

Belle exhausted after a Valentines Party at school, a 4 hour car trip, a late night dinner and then Rock Band in St. George

These pictures show her cute hair (and my uncanny creativity) on the Friday before Valentines Day.

Yep, this is a happy girl just after getting her hair done before school on Friday.

Hanging out at the house in St. George:

Hot Tub Fun:

Family Pics (yes, they are both at restaurants...we like to eat, okay?):

The Homes:

Snow in St. George? Yup, I guess so!


Awesome pool, slide, and love cave :)


This house was the favorite. Basketball court, putting green, peg wall (pictured above), 2 workout rooms, and a racket ball court all in the basement of this house. So cool!


Jeff and Kara

This is the slide my mom wants to build for her pool. I can't wait!


Playhouse structure: Belles favorite

This shows a really cool idea that we will have to steal. Under the built in trampoline was a sandbox with a tube leading down to it. It was really cool looking and a fun way to use that space.

Of course the homes are gorgeous and fun but the best thing about this trip is spending time with family doing something we all enjoy. I look forward to this every year!

Below is video of us playing Rock Band. Caution...listen at your own risk...