The Mock Sleep-over

My family does not do sleep overs.  Period.

My boys have asked for sleep overs a few times and I have always replied telling them that we do not do sleep overs.

When they ask why?

I tell them the truth.

I DO NOT WANT THEM TOUCHING EACH OTHERS PENIS'. 

You might laugh.  You might think that is going over board as a parent.

Your opinion is valid, however, I chose to err on the side of over caution.

As a child who was allowed to have sleep overs, I can tell you from personal experience, not all sleep overs are innocent.  In fact, they are the exact opposite.

Not only that, sharing a bed is never comfortable.  Waking up in the morning at some one else's house is always awkward.  As a kid, you're hungry and you don't know what you're allowed to eat or drink.  You might even be nervous to use the bathroom at someone else's house at night. 

How about eliminate all the scary parts of a sleep over and just have the fun?

I know many parents who have done a mock sleep over.  I allowed my boys to invite their friends over from 6 PM to 10 PM.  This way, they could stay up late, eat all the junk food, play video games, and watch movies then everyone could go home and sleep comfortably in their beds.

It was a hit.

I didn't get a photo of Edward and his friend Titus, but know that they had a blast!

Blue and Gold

My boys love cub scouts.  This year is the last year the Latter Day Saint church will support cub scouts.  As such, we are trying to soak up every single moment with our amazing leaders.  This year, at the blue and gold banquet, the boys had to make their own dessert.  Edward chose dirt and worms and Nolen chose a mud pie.  It turned out great!

By the way, Edward looks more and more like Stephen every single day.  

Viva Las Vegas!

Spring break 2019 has come and gone.  It went by so quickly.  In years past, we have driven to Kingman so that my parents could watch our boys while we spent a few nights in Vegas.  This year, as you know, my parents live here in Albuquerque, so we flew to Las Vegas for the week.  We had so much fun.  We flew out Sunday after church and hit the ground running!

Kendra and Michael had a bit of a rough time getting to Las Vegas.  They missed their free flight that they earned last year in Las Vegas, so they booked another flight and missed that flight.  Then they booked a flight on Southwest and arrived 10 minutes after we landed.  We all went down to meet the limo driver and get their bags.  Kendra's bag took about 40 minutes to arrive at baggage claim.  We almost thought her bag was lost.  The Limo driver, upon hearing Michael and Kendra's story told them not to gamble because they were starting the week off with some bad luck.  We all sort of laughed about it and jumped in the limo to head to our hotel, The Bellagio.  

After our limo ride, we quickly dropped our bags at the hotel and headed to our reservations at Veganation.  It was delicious.  Probably one of the best restaurants we ate at during the week.  After our dinner we rode "Slotzilla!" It was a BLAST and a great way to start off our week of fun.

After our zipline we went back to the hotel and walked Kendra and Michael to their hotel.  They were staying a few hotels down that was easy to access via the tram.  After we dropped them off we were hungry again as we walked back so we stopped at "Secret Pizza" and had a delicious slice of deep dish cheese pizza! Then we went back to the hotel and crashed.  It was almost 3 AM!

Monday morning we planned a beautiful day at the cabana located at The Park MGM Grand.  It was one of the best cabana days ever.  The cabana was big and had video games!  It did not however; have a lot of food or a great pool.  But that was ok.  We slept by the pool and people watched.  After our amazing day we headed out to see KA by Cirque Sole then on to "Best Friends" a Korean BBQ joint that was TOO loud.

 

Tuesday, we woke up early and headed to the gym.  Then we spent the day shopping.  It was sort of a bust at the outlets mall.  I have been seriously trying to stay away from shopping and it was hard to validate spending money on anything. After shopping we went to see Blueman Group.  What a great show!  We had front row seats and Blair even got to be part of the show.  One of the men barfed marshmallows into "her" bag.  But it wasn't her bag, it was one that belonged to the show.  After blue man group, we ate at the Bellagio buffet.  Another disappointment.  The food was OK, but not remarkable so we went to "Secret Pizza" again!  YUM!!

We all dressed up and wore our wigs to Blueman group, but by the time we got back to our hotel room we were ready to take them off.

Wednesday was spa day!  We went to the gym early, then went straight to the spa.  It was so relaxing.  Craig and Stephen got an Ashiatsu massage.  They had massage therapists stand on them!  It was awesome.  Well Stephen said after his massage he felt like a pancake.  He got a 6'2" Yugoslavian and Craig got a tiny female therapist.  We all laughed and laughed as Stephen described his message of pure torture.  The spa at the Bellagio is gender seperated so we never saw they boys.  They left before us and went to get bugures.  Us girls stayed and relaxed then went shopping where I found some AMAZING pants.  YAY!  My one and only purchase for the week.  It was a great find.  We walked everywhere this last week.  I feel like I walked more in one week than I do in a month.  

After shopping, we met up with the guys and ate at Yellowtail.  It was a great sushi place on the water at the Bellagio.  The best part about eating at Yellowtail was the view.  

 

Thursday morning, we woke up, worked out, then headed to the airport to fly home.  It was a fantastic week with some of my absolute favorite people!

Until next year Las Vegas!

Thirteen Years with My Favorite Leprechaun

Thirteen years ago, I married my best friend.  

I have been so blessed with him by my side.  I am the "luckiest" girl around.  I have always loved St. Patrick's Day and choosing to marry the man of my dreams on March 17, 2006 was the best decision of my life.  

It was a rainy San Diego night when we drove over to the temple to take their last session of the evening.  It was just him and me.  Ok, our parents joined us, too!  I don't remember where we went to dinner afterward, but it was wonderful.  All of our photos were taken in the rain.  We seriously couldn't get any "luckier"!

These last 13 years have been a whirlwind. 

I love you, Stephen Barnes.

Refinish

Nolen and Edward have been sharing a room for the last three to four years. A few months ago, Nolen decided he wanted to sleep in his own room again.  I had been using his room as a "catch all" type room since the room was unused.  I gave away Nolen's dresser a few years ago as well.  So, I had to find a new dresser and fix up his room.  It is really a HUGE work in progress because it has sat unused for so many years.  He wants all the boat pictures taken down and he wants planet photos all over.  I am going to try to do that with a very budget friendly twist.  I might find HD photos of all the planets and put them around the room.

Last week, my parents and I went to get Nolen a dresser.  I found something I thought would work.  We looked at a few different dressers before deciding this was the right dress for his room.

It looked fine; however, it was dinged up and the top part of the dresser looked a little girlie.  So we took it off, sanded down the dresser and refinished it.  We are still waiting for the new knobs to come in the mail and it will be finished.  It took an entire week to get it done, but it is nearly complete!