June 2010

June is always a busy month full of celebrations for our family.  As usual, we kicked off this June by celebrating J-rod's birthday a day before his birthday, on Memorial Day.  We had a couple families over for some swimming, pizza, and cheesecake.  Later that night our kids showered J-rod with presents--a new Wii remote with a "motion plus sensor" and a couple new games for them to play with Dad.  On the day of his birthday we took him to Costco to pick up a new trail bike his parents picked out and sent a check for; then we ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant he picked out (that I've not liked the couple times we've tried it...I think he'll keep going there until we find something I like!).  After finishing up errands we came home to host the cub scout activity in our pool--working on the swimming belt loop and pin.  We hosted this activity last year for our pack and as it's been successful and fun, it looks like we will continue to do so for many more summers to come. : )

Happy B-day J-rod!

The weeks following J-rod's birthday we kept busy with end of the year projects and related activities for M as he didn't get out of school until June 10th.  The last week of school J-rod went with the Young Men on a camp out and missed M's awards ceremony and first swim meet both held on the last day of school--what a busy day!!  M had a good year at the new charter school and we are so happy for him!

M's 3rd Grade awards ceremony--way to go M!!

While the kids and I scurried around that last week of school, J-rod had fun on the camp out--nearly getting motion sick being rolled around inside a giant hamster-like ball, night hiking 'til all hours of the early morning (thanks to some CRAZY--I mean "gun-ho" for hiking--stake leaders!!!), later in the week hiking the Grand Canyon, and at some point in time bruising, or possibly breaking, a rib in a team building exercise where they had to help each other over a big wall--like I said, FUN!

J-rod gets strapped into the big ball.

J-rod rolling around in the big ball.

Once M was out of school, we kept busy with lots of swimming: lessons for Li'l J (he is a little fish!), practices and meets for M (he got quite a good tan and improved his strokes and times each week), and having friends over for fun in our pool.  Part-way through June we hosted a farewell party for a family in our former ward that is moving away from the area.  When we've hosted "big" swim parties in summers past (for play group), the most we've had was close to 35 people (adults and kids included) so we were a bit surprised when we realized we had double that number gathered here to say goodbye to our friends--yikes!!!  Fortunately J-rod was home to help, I planned it so that it was a pot-luck lunch (with very minimal cooking on my part), everyone who came helped keep an eye on all the kiddos in the pool, helped out with the clean--up, AND without a lifeguard present (which I will have on hand from now on!) NO ONE got hurt--whew!!  It all turned out well and we were happy to have been able to do this for our friends that were moving, as well as all who were able to come say goodbye.

Li'l J loved his swim lessons!

Go M, Go!

In addition to the pool party, on J-rod's day off we took the kids to see Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's Funundrum Tour.  We didn't even know the circus was in town until our friends who were moving, offered to sell us their tickets since they would be leaving town the day before the performance for which they had tickets.  Our friends actually had two sets of tickets that they sold so we ended up sitting behind another family in our ward, which was fun.  The last time we took the kids to the circus was back in NY when Li'l J was about C-sta's age, so it was good to go again now that the boys are a bit older and will remember the experience better.  The Funundrum Tour was what it's name suggests--a lot of fun!  Among our favorites was the 18 month old male elephant brought out onto the stage at the very end of the show.  He was SO cute and little (well, little for an elephant)!  He came out holding his mama's tail, strolled around the stage for all to see, and then the show was over.

Circus Fun!

With summer in full swing, we celebrated Father's Day by taking J-rod out to dinner the night before.  We knew that Sunday would be a busy day for him with many responsibilities at church so we kept Sunday pretty low-key for him.  During sacrament meeting after the boys sang with the Primary kids, apparently C-sta felt like she needed to specially acknowledge her Dad too because she scrambled under the pew in front of us and before I could catch her she was up on Daddy's lap!  She sat very well for the remainder of the meeting, charming all who could see her up there--making my way to Nursery after sacrament meeting she and I received many compliments on how cute a move that was!  Once J-rod was able to break away from church, we served him a yummy lunch of his favorite chicken salad sandwiches and fruit, showered him with presents, let him sleep for a good while on his comfy recliner, and then called his dad to wish him a Happy Father's Day.  All in all it was a good day.

Enjoying our time with Dad!

Our final celebration for the month of June took place the last weekend when we celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary--yay!  Since our anniversary is a week after the anniversary of our good friends the H's, a while back K suggested we swap kids on our anniversary weekends so each couple could have a little get-away--a GREAT idea as it turned out!  So the weekend before our anniversary we had the H kids from Friday afternoon through Saturday afternoon, and then during our anniversary weekend they did the same for us--so cool!!  After dropping off our kids Friday afternoon we headed to a pretty fancy resort in town for an overnight stay--the same resort the President and his family stayed last summer when they came to town.  The resort is big and beautiful!!  Fortunately we got a smokin' good deal on our room through Expedia.com.  It was fun to stay there, swim in their gorgeous pools (yes, there were many...nine to be exact!!), slide down their 165 foot water slide (well, fun for J-rod as I DON'T do water slides!!!), and see how "the other half" lives.  Wow, such opulence!  If I had the means, I would go back for much longer than one night...and take our kids too. : ) Our room had a balcony that backed right up to the mountain where we watched some die-hard CRAZY golfers (yes, golfers and not hikers) make their way up with their carts and clubs (apparently part of the resort golf course is on that backside of the mountain) in triple digit temperatures--like I said, CRAZY!!

After checking-in and relaxing at the resort for a bit, J-rod took me out to dinner at a very fancy restaurant--Ruth's Chris Steakhouse.  We had a very nice window-side table that the staff had sprinkled with little red confetti hearts in honor of our anniversary (later we noticed there were several other couples celebrating their anniversaries there too)--so fun!  Our waitress recommended a very tasty "harvest salad" of mixed greens, roasted corn, dried cherries, crispy bacon, tomatoes, Cajun pecans, and bleu cheese, topped with a lemon-herb dressing.  I normally would have stayed away from this salad because of the bleu cheese as I am NOT a fan of bleu cheese!!  This bleu cheese however had a very mild and delicate taste to it, and instead of being hard and crumbly it was a very soft, and smooth crumbly...I'm thinking it was actually Gorgonzola.  Anyhow, it was a great start to a fantastic meal.  Our steaks were SO tasty as was the sweet potato casserole that J-rod and I split as our vegetable (if we had topped it with vanilla ice cream we could have had it for dessert is was such a good treat!!!).  After dinner, in honor of our anniversary, our waitress brought us a complimentary dessert plate that had "Happy Anniversary!" written on the plate in chocolate.  J-rod had the delicate creme brule topped with lots of berries and I enjoyed the chocolate mousse that was made in an edible chocolate bowl!  When we were all done, a staff member came by with a camera and took a picture of us (which they've emailed to us)...a very nice touch as we had forgotten our camera at home.

Anniversary Dinner at Ruth's Chris.

Once we picked up our kiddos from the H's house, both families headed out together to see Toy Story 3 in 3D--fun, fun, fun!  Since C-sta was teething, she wasn't a very happy camper by that point in the day (even though she had a good nap at the H's beforehand) so she and I (and at one point J-rod too) spent a lot of the movie outside the theater--bummer!  We missed a good chunk in the middle but did get to see the happy ending.  I knew I wouldn't want to wait until it came out on DVD to see what I missed, so later in the summer J-rod took me on a date to see it again. : )  After the movie we went to dinner with the H's to a favorite restaurant (for both families)--Texas Roadhouse, mmm!!  On the drive home, the H's mini-van broke down right on the freeway--yikes!!  Good thing they were able to coast all the way over near the off ramp, and even better, we were right behind them!  After piling all the kids into our car, K and I took them all to the H's house while D and J-rod waited for the tow-truck. Once D and J-rod returned home we cut into and split the four cupcakes J-rod and I had bought earlier in the day from Sprinkles Cupcakes (the fancy cupcake shop that originated in Beverly Hills).  Maybe it was because we didn't eat them when they were fresh, or maybe it's because they really aren't all they are hyped to be, but all four of us didn't think much of the cupcakes. Oh well, it was an exciting day anyhow!