School Carnival

 On April 5th, I took the kids to the Carnival at Ian's school.  It was only $5/kid, which included all the rides and free cotton candy! It was a lot of standing around for me, but the kids sure had a good time, especially since it wasn't there school and they didn't know any of the kids there. Ian inisited on dressing as his favorite YouTube star, Blippi, so he kinda looked like a clown, which was ok since he's only 4.  The kids enjoyed riding some (very tame) kiddie rides, playing on the playground, playing the games with prizes, and rock climbing (at least Elisa did).  Here are the pictures:

Elisa learned the hard way to not take off shoes: she had burrs allll over her socks!

The kids on their cotton candy.  Gabe wasn't happy, for some reason or another.  I guess if you're a kid holding cotton candy and aren't happy, you're non other than S-P-O-I-L-E-D lol!

The kids, Ian in particular, loved the bouncy slide!

A silly picture of Elisa on the swing.

Ian loved playing this game, and he got a toy airplane at the end!

Enjoying the carnival

Ian won himself a pair of "Blippi" glasses!

Elisa loved the rock climbing. We waited a long time in line! She got all the way to the top! Gabe tried it too, but he only made it part way up before he gave up and prostrated himself upon the earth, never to climb again *insert eyeroll*

Ian found his bff, Weston, from preschool! Yay!

What a fun evening! Erik was working, of course.  

Side note (err..footnote?) I didn't take the kids this year to their own school's carnival since we had been to this one.  They whined about not going, but I was even more determined not to take them when I saw that the tickets were $20/kid.

Bosendorfer Piano Exhibit

While on our trip to San Diego, I got an email inviting me to come play $1,000,000 worth of Borsendorfer pianos. The pianos, for some reason or another, were (are?) a traveling exhibit that had luckily stopped in the Phoenix area. I don't know how they (Riverton Pianos) got my email, but I'm glad they found it, because I wasn't going to pass up that opportunity! I called to make an appointment for April 1st, while Ian was at preschool. It took about 25 minutes to get to Riverton Pianos since it was all the way down in Scottsdale, so I didn't have as much time as I would have liked.  At any rate, I could have spent the entire day trying out the beautiful pianos! I didn't have much of anything prepared, so mostly I was just plunking around, but I do wish I would have brought some music books to play out of. There was only one lady around to hear anyway. I had the best time trying out all of these pianos! It really was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to not only see these pianos, but to actually play them till my hearts content!  And it was FREE! I loved playing on all these amazing pianos! It really was a great experience for me.  Anyone else would have probably been bored out of their minds, which is why I'm glad I went alone, lol.   

This was the most expensive piano there, because of its trendy design and contouring I guess.  It played just about the same as the others as far as I could tell. I guess its more of a statement piano, as opposed to actually having superior playing capabilities. It was priced to sell at $248,000!

Four of the 6 Bosendorfer pianos in the exhibit

The "Dragonfly".  The top is real inlaid wood! It was priced at $214,000.

This was my favorite Bosendorfer piano--The sound was so amazing and the tuning was so perfect, that the piano almost sounded electronic!

Erik and Gabe's Birthday

Here are the pictures from Erik and Gabe's family birthday party--held on their actual birthday. It was a great party! We had Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner (I think), and then opened presents and then had cake:

I ordered Gabe a subscription for Tinker Boxes at KiwiCo.  He loves them! They are kinda pricy and he doesn't take very good care of them, so I don't think we'll subscribe for that long.

Gabe's adorable profile, and a random broom in the backgound.

Erik got a nice gift...new speakers for surround sound! Really, it was a gift for all of us to enjoy.

I lied to Gabe and told him that I didn't buy him the Harry Potter Lego Train.  Therefore, he was really surprised and excited to find out that I actually did buy it for him!

Singing happy birthday to Gabe.  Erik and Gabe are so funny! I made them a chocolate cake with sprinkles.

Happy 10th Birthday, Gabe!

March 30, 2019

For Gabe's birthday party, we allowed him to invite 3 friends to spend the afternoon at Castles 'n Coasters. He invited Sam, Lukas, and Jayden. They are all in his grade, but Sam is the only one who lives in our neighborhood. Erik took them for about 3 hours. The boys had unlimited access to the rides. We were going to let them play in the arcade for a while, but they had so much fun on the rides that they only got to spend 30 minutes or so in the arcade.

Four boys waiting in line to ride the bumper boats.

The Desert Storm roller coaster goes right over the bumper boats. It caught the boys' attention every time it went by.

This was about the only time that all 4 boys were riding close to each other.

They rode the Freefall next. Sam was a little nervous and waited with Erik. None of the boys wanted to ride the similar (but much higher, 120 foot) Skydiver.

A moment of panic followed by enjoyment.

After that, they rode in the swinging boat. Sam didn't want to ride the Sea Dragon. Lucas and Jayden didn't want to swing very high, so they sat in the very middle. I think Gabe wanted a bigger thrill and sat just behind the other 2 boys.

It was harder to get a picture of all the boys on the bumper cars.

Then they got in line for the Magic Carpet.

The ride starts out slowly.

Then it gets faster.

Finally, it goes backwards.

Gabe rode with Sam on the Patriot roller coaster.

Lastly, the boys spent some time in the arcade. Gabe was off playing a few classic arcade games from Atari and Super Nintendo. The other boys gravitated to games of basketball and air hockey. They pooled all their 200+ tickets together and split them evenly. Then they each picked out their individual prizes. Every boy said he wanted to play in the arcade longer, but we had already stayed much longer than planned.

All the boys had a good time and can't wait to go to Castle's n Coasters again.

When Erik and the boys came back, I had cupcakes with blue frosting waiting for them.

Ian loved the cupcakes, no matter what his face says!