February's Utah Trip

Utah Trip Feb. 25-28
Here's a picture dump of our short trip up to St. George/Cedar City. I didn't write down all we did and where we went so hopefully I can remember well enough. We made this trip up to Utah for no reason other than just to visit. Our time was spent hanging out with family and eating at restaurants. We left later in the day after my piano lessons, Wednesday the 24th. We got there late (around 9pm I think), but the kids were of course all wound up so we all didn't get to bed till pretty late.


The next day we spent some time at the all-abilities park and even got to ride the train. Then we went out for lunch at DeeDee's restaurant. And if that weren't enough, we went to Handel's Homemade Ice Cream for well...ice cream obviously. I shared a peanut butter chocolate cone with Erik. I don't remember what we did the rest of that day:

Fun on the train!

The kids had a fun time playing at the cool park.

A fun meal for the kids!

I ordered their most popular item-the omelet. It was good. The sweet potatoes though...those are a NO from me. Yuck. I think I don't like sweet potatoes anymore. The salsa was really good and so was the muffin.

Cute Ian loves chocolate icecream!

Enjoying our ice cream!

The next day (the 26th-Friday) I had a massage appointment at Zion Massage College with my mom. She didn't show up until after I was called back so I didn't even see her at all until the massages were all finished. My girl was ok. Both the massage and her personality. Just ok. But it was still nice and I always feel so relaxed afterwards! For lunch we met up with Erik at Red Fort Indian Cuisine. It was beyond delicious and I enjoyed every bite. 

Later that evening, we headed up to Cedar City to spend the night. Coincidently, Tootsie and Mark had planned to spend the night there too! I had no idea. I didn't bother texting Tootsie that we'd be there because our visit was such a short duration of time, but it work out perfectly. It was fun to visit for the evening. Better yet, they had planned to go to The Painted Pony in St. George for dinner, and we said we would join them because Erik and I have been wanted to try it out anyway. Unfortunately, I didn't get a single picture of our visit in Cedar City. Whoops. What else did we do? I rummaged through stuff and helped myself to some items including some very old and heavy binoculars. I don't think we had an official dinner. At least not that I can remember. The kids enjoyed playing around on the bunkbed and harassing the cats. 

I took this picture on the way to Cedar City from St. George. It was a cool lookin' moon. But you'll have to take my word for it since this picture didn't quite capture it.

The next day, the 27th (Saturday). It is so hard to remember what exactly happened without the aid of pictures! In the morning, Mark and Tootsie left to go hike somewhere in St. George. The kids played, Erik read and did stuff on his laptop, my dad either went with Mark and Tootsie on their hike or went into work, and I went through my mom's earrings with her and helped organize and sort them. I took a small baggie of earrings for myself that she didn't want anymore. We backed up and headed back to St. George. I don't remember what we did or how much time passed between our arrival in St. George and meeting Tootsie and Mark and Erik's parent's house. We had made reservations for the evening around 6:30 if I am remembering correctly. It was fun! We ordered three appetizers and we all shared them: Duck confiet with potatoes and a fried egg, Phyllo baked brie with berry compote and roasted garlic, and bacon-wrapped almond stuffed dates with stilton blue cheese. They were all really yummy. For my entree I ordered the lamb. I don't know what the side was called, but it was something weird having to do with sweet potatoes (thus cementing my new-found dislike of sweet potatoes, at least used in savory dishes) and they tasted absolutely disgusting reheated. Erik ordered the Hangar steak with some red wine sauce. I've officially decided that I do NOT like red wine sauce. Yuck. But, his truffle potato chips were pretty decent, if not a little greasy. Tootsie ordered the ribeye with stilton fritters. I wasn't interested in trying the ribeye but I thought the fritters were unique at least. I'm not sure what Mark ordered but he wasn't much open to sharing. We also ordered two desserts: the creme brulee and the coconut key lime pie. They were both good. I really like creme brulee I've decided! Next time we go to The Painted Pony, we will probably skip the entrees and just order appetizers, small meals, and sides. I like having a variety of food to try.  Overall an enjoyable dinner experience! I think that was the first time we went out to dinner with Mark and Tootsie, just ourselves with no kids.

The appetizers

My lamb meal. Good, but not the best I've tried.

Mark and Tootsie! 

Erik and someone with a really shiny forehead!

We all shared the coconut lime pie and the creme brulee

The next day was Sunday (the 28th) and we had to pack up and leave. Erik had work and the kids and school and I had piano lessons the next day. We left sometime around noon.

Before we left, I took this picture of Ian playing the Game of Life all by himself and talking to himself. So cute. He really likes games.

I love this video of Ian being a character in the car. Yep, this is how he entertains himself on long car rides. I'm not sure what I like more: his dance moves or his face when he finally notices that I'm recording him! 

 

Valentine's Day Celebration 2021

Here is my 2021 Valentines day post! We had a very fun Valentine's Day (and the days leading up to it). 

Feb. 12

Valentine's Day landed on a Sunday so for school Friday I fixed her hair in a heart.

The good-for-nothing school district decided that Valentine's Day cards cause Covid, so I decided to put on a fun Valentine's Day party where the kids could exchange cards and play with each other without the muzzle. Actually, before I even knew the kids weren't allowed to have a card exchange at school, I had been tossing the idea of a Valentine's day piano party for my piano students around in my mind, but I couldn't figure out what to do with my older teenage students, and then I also wanted to include some siblings. So the idea to just invite friends came to me when the district decided to not allow a Valentines card exchange. Which is silly because Elisa trades filthy silly toys with her classmates everyday! Anyway, I invited a lot of kids and most of them came! All but one family. I believe about 19 kids were there, of course including my own. It was a fun party! My friend Monica was able to stay and help out with the party since there were so many kids. For most of the party, the kids were split into two groups--boys and girls. The first thing I had them do was decorate their Valentine's Day boxes, which were envelopes that I created out of poster board, staples, yarn, and washi tape with my own two hands. I made the envelopes well in advance, as to not stress myself out. After decorating their envelopes, we the kids played games such as: musical chairs, hot potato, a cookie walk, bingo, and trampoline time. The kids went crazy for the candy, punch and cookies (I had them eat outside). After the games we had the Valentine card exchange. I needed more chairs to hang the envelopes on! Then most the kids went home. For the few stragglers that stayed, we played with the parachute in the backyard and the kids seemed to really enjoy it. Too bad my parachute is falling apart. 

The invitation I made on my phone and sent via text.

Elisa and her BFF Kassidy decorating their envelopes

The kids decorating their envelopes to hold their Valentines 

The boys playing musical chairs

The girls playing hot potato

The girls doing the cake (cookie) walk. Monica helped out with this came...On my phone there was music. She would stop the music and call out a random number (I think I had up to #9) and whichever girl was standing on that number is "out" and got a cookie. The only problem with this game is the papers kept moving around on the grass and I couldn't figure out a good way to get them to stay. I tried hair pins but that ripped.

The girls on the trampoline

Erik helped out with the boys, here are the boys playing bingo.

The Valentine's Day card exchange

My annual heart sugar cookies I made the night before.

The kids' cute Valentine's envelopes

Cute girl in her V-day outfit

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For Valentine's Day dinner, Erik made some yummy hamburgers. Elisa ran off to her friends house instead of eating with us so she missed out on dinner. In fact she also missed out on the V-day chocolates I bought because Erik was so mad at her that he just put her right to bed. Ian went to bed before I could give him his chocolates, so only Gabe got his V-day chocolates that night.

Yum!

Gabe is happy with his V-day chocolates!

Random February happenings

Here are pictures of some of the fun stuff we did in the month of February:

Feb. 1

We took Elisa's friend Kristi out to dinner with us, but first we stopped at the carwash to vacuum out our filthy van. The kids actually enjoyed helping clean out the van. 

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Feb 3

A grumpy Ian. He was probably asking for his Nintendo switch before his work was done and wasn't getting the answer he wanted!

Grumpy Elisa because she didn't want her picture taken!

Feb 3

I don't know what exactly Ian was doing or what to even say about what is going on here, but this picture cracks me up!

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Feb 5

I made jalapeño poppers in the oven. Winco's has jalapenos for super cheap. They turned out ok. I prefer the jalapeno popper casserole I make with chicken better than these.

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Feb. 7

I bought my self a mandolin slicer from Amazon (it was on sale) and made au gratin potatoes with it, while Erik smoked some ribs. Yum!

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Feb. 9

I started making these mesh masks. If I'm going to be forced to wear something so stupid, at least I'll be able to breathe better than the rest of these obedient chumps. I colored them with fabric paint so the mesh wasn't so obvious.

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Feb. 13

Erik took Gabe in to get new glasses. Gabe has lost or broken all of his pair up until this point.

Erik also promised Gabe that if Gabe would get contacts, he would buy Gabe a poison dart frog. Gabe agreed.

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Feb. 15

I made and orange cake using the oranges from our orange tree. It was yummy!

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Feb. 16

Poor Ian fell off his chair at school and bonked his head on the hard floor. The nurse called me (I have a mini-heart attack every time that happens) to come get him right in the middle of my run. It bled quite a bit so he had to come home. I gave him a bath and he just hung out at home the rest of the day.

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Feb. 19

A picture of some frog legs that I found at Winco. For only $3.61, I kinda regret not buying and trying them! I would like to try frog legs just once in my life.

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Feb.  20

I picked the rest of the oranges of off our orange tree and not only did I juice them (they are better for juicing than eating), but I cut up all of the (non-rotted) peels to make candied orange peels. They are easy to make but take a long time! I don't know why I haven't done this in the years past. The process to make candied orange peels consists of boiling the peels for 5 min, dumping the water and replacing with new water-repeat 3 times. Then boiling the peels for a full hour with sugar a solution. Then letting them either dry in the oven (I chose oven for these) or let dry overnight. I rolled half of the peels in sugar the other half I dipped in chocolate (chocolate chips melted over a double boiler with some coconut oil). Yum! They turned out better than I thought, I will definitely be making these from now on. The next month I also tried lemon peel candy--those turned out just as good!

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Feb. 20

Ian being cute!

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Feb. 21

Elisa was asked to make a video for the primary spotlight for church. We should have skipped because she didn't want to do it but I forced her and she wasn't happy about it, which unfortunately showed up in the video.

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Feb. 21

I fished out my deep fryer for a recipe and since it was out already I decided to make use of it and make donuts with the kids. I found a yeast donut recipe online that claimed to be a copycat of Krispy Kreme's. The donuts turned out great, but they definitely weren't Krispy Kremes. The kids had fun making and frosting and sprinkling but mostly eating the donuts!

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