Party Animals

I keep saying to myself that things are going to calm down eventually and we will live this boring, normal life... then life happens and there are just way too many reasons to party!!! We have been partying for the past 5 days in a row.

Wednesday-Ken finally solved a very huge problem for a customer at work and made his product a ton faster and more stable. He has been bogged down on this problem for weeks and has barely been sleeping 4 hours a night, I don't even know if you can count that as sleep since he was tossing and turning all night. So it was huge deal for him and us. With him working from home it affects me a little bit more when he is so stressed out. I happened to be making Chicken Cordon Bleu (his favorite) for dinner. Okay, so I was going to make it because I felt so very badly for him anyways. The boys even joined in and cooked, they felt really bad for their dad too. Of course when we found out Ken was finished (at least at the moment we thought he was, a few days later he had to do some more, but the majority was done) we totally had to celebrate and had a nice dinner, watched the Spider Wick Chronicles together, and ate warm fresh cookies from the oven.

Thursday- Since Nathan's friends were out of town for his birthday, not to mention he had his baptism the day right after, we postponed his friend birthday party. Then I looked at the calendar and realized that school starts in 5 days and when in the world are we going to throw his party??? Uh-Oh! I can't go back on my word, we've got to throw a party. So giving his friends all of 1 days notice (and they all came, can you believe it!) we had his party at Gatti Land. Gatti Land has a pizza and salad buffet, and then they have a big arcade with tons of games. It was so much fun, and not very much stress. Plus I also lucked out because I was looking up the time it opened on the morning of the party and saw that they did Birthday Specials. I called and they said they would give me the birthday package price but no private rooms were available. That wasn't a big deal to us since the kids love to eat in the movie room and watch the movie while eating. But when I got there he charged me for the cheaper package, and when I told him I actually wanted to buy the more expensive, the guy gave me the upgrade for free. Totally Awesome!Anyway, Nathan and his friends had a blast. First they did the arcade, then we ate lunch and did cupcakes and presents, then they did Bumper Cars and turned in all their tickets. Nathan loved it! And seriously I think the universe must love me to have had everything turn out so well at the very last moment.

Friday- We hosted the Pinewood Derby Kick-off. The boys came over and played air hockey for awhile. Then we had Hamburgers and Hotdogs for dinner. and they played some more. After that they watched Down and Derby, which the boys loved. And I also gave them 3 huge tubs of popcorn, 3 bowls of Peanut M&M's, 3 bowls of plain M&M's and 3 glasses of Red Vines. When I brought out my tray of candy the boys totally swarmed it. It was hilarious. Rose happened to think she was one of the boys and we barely saw her in the 3 1/2 hours the cub scouts were here. She was right in the middle of them. Unfortunately only about 10 of the boys came out. I think due to our ward changes plus a few schools had Meet the Teacher Night. But our house was full of noisy, rowdy boys laughing and playing around so I was still happy. And the best part was that even though we moved into a different ward, our old ward is inviting all of the Cub Scouts in our new ward to do the Pinewood Derby with them in a month. That totally made Nathan's Day. He has been waiting for the past 3 years (the whole time Ken was the Committee Chair) to be part of the "official" race but the new ward we moved into had already had theirs for this year.


Saturday- We celebrated the boys completing their Summer Reading Program. This year they read for 40 minutes each day. Actually they read for more like 2 hours each day at least. But the requirement was 40 minutes and we were really happy to see their love of reading grow. You can see our earlier post on why we didn't go to the amusement park. We went to Mimi's Cafe for breakfast. It was so yummy! The boys totally loved it and were so bouncy through the whole breakfast. If you can call Nathan's chocolate chip pancakes breakfast. It tasted more like eating a cookie dough candy bar. Which made him all that much happier about it.


Then we went to The Main Event. We played Laser Tag and our team won! Not because I was on it though, I was 22nd out of 24 players and we were playing against a bunch of 6-8 year old girls. Sad, I know! Ken however scored big time and was #2, same with Darin he was #4. Nathan didn't do quite as well. However he would like to remind me that part of that was because he would hear me scream so he would come and save me. Same with Darin, they are my big protectors.

After Laser Tag we played the arcade games. Darin and Ken went off together since Darin likes to play the driving games. And me and Nathan like to play the games that you get tickets from. Me and Nathan played around a bit, then I played Deal or No Deal. It's one of our favorites. You can win up to 400 tickets. So I get down to the last round. There are only two cases left, mine and the 1 lone case left. It just so happens that the only amounts left on the board are 1 ticket and 400 tickets. The Bank offers me 200 tickets. I look at Nathan, he's screaming "Deal, Deal, Deal!". This couple watching us play is screaming "Deal, Deal". I say, "You think I should deal?". Then I hit the No Deal Button and scream "No Deal!". Yes, it literally was this dramatic, I'm not exagerrating.

Then I'm planning on switching my case because I left my favorite number up there thinking at the end I will switch. But the game automatically just opens your case so when I realized that, I scream "No, let me switch my case." Of course the game doesn't respond and opens the case I chose. It was worth 400 tickets. So I'm screaming like crazy, and Nathan is screaming like crazy and we are jumping up and down and hugging and kissing. It was totally unbelievable! I won 400 tickets!!! Nathan and I were so excited we run over to find Ken and Darin and they are in the middle of battling each other in some Army tank game. They totally don't get it when we tell them what just happened. And after they finish the game Darin is just as happy for me as he is that he beat his Dad at the game. Seriously, where is the enthusiasm! Anyway, me and Nathan combined had like 1200 tickets so we had a major fun shopping spree. Darin and Ken combined had like 150 tickets.

After the Main Event we went and saw Star Wars: The Clone War. I can't say much about the movie since I napped through about half of it. But I really loved the popcorn before the movie started. The boys loved the movie. And they really love the movie snack packs. They are nice and come in a little box almost like happy meal with the drink inside, it is way better then those trays.

Then the boys decided they wanted Chinese food instead of pizza for dinner. We played Risk while we ate for 2 1/2 hours. The restaurant was completely empty the whole entire time. All my local friends you have to eat there it is called the Bo Asian Bistro at La Frontera. It is our favorite but it is always empty and I would hate for it to close. The soups aren't the best, but everything else is super fresh and not greasy. Way better then any other Chinese we have has around here. Nathan as usual, took over Asia. Darin went for North America, but then he did a double take and took South America (my fav) from me. Ken did have Australia, but Nathan creamed him on that too. We were coming to a draw and pretty much had to call it so we could come home to the girls, and by that time you totally don't care about reinforcing and just try to conquer as many as possible. It was a really good day. And I am so thankful my parents watched the girls so we could spend some time with the boys before school started.

Sunday-Today was the first day of our new ward. By the way- people ask me all the time how my boys are so good at church. It's because we totally bribe them. If they behave and are good in Sacrament, and can tell Ken what the speakers talked about (and they never know which one he is going to ask about) they can have ice cream after church. But since today was our 1st Sunday with our new ward and in our new (old, we used to go there) building...so I decided it was definitely a very special Sunday so we needed special ice cream. Plus church now starts at 12:30pm, so that's worth celebrating by it's self, no more having to go bed early on Saturdays. Before church we made up a homemade chocolate ice cream mixture, it is so rich and creamy. Then when we got home we froze it in the machine while Ken did his interviews with the boys that he always does before school starts. But we didn't get to the ice cream part until 9 pm because we had dinner with Lola and Papa, then Ken had to go a priesthood meeting. So even though we should be putting the kids to bed early to get the week started off right before school starts. We didn't. Instead we made up special Sundaes with our yummy homemade ice cream! The boys put brownies, M&M's, hot fudge, and cookies on theirs. Rose and Ginger got plain. Ken and I had it with brownies and German Chocolate Cake Frosting. No harm in pushing out our celebrating for another day right??? School doesn't start until Tuesday and apparantly neither does our diet:-)

By the way- we got new callings too. Ken is the Sunday School President, and I am the 2nd Counselor in the Primary Presidency. Rose is going to have to start liking Nursery ASAP. Isn't she cute, I put rollers in her hair. Many thanks to Reianna, I never thought about getting some until I talked to you. She loved it for about 10 minutes, then she had to have them out in like 2 seconds. But she loves her curled hair.