Splashing Good Time

Summer is right around the corner and to get the season kicked off right I gave in and let the girls go play at the Splash Pad.  I was going crazy trying to figure out how I was going to watch both of the girls and the baby at the same time and then it somehow worked out!  My friend and her little boys were there too!  It helped to have another set of mom eyes on our kids and for someone for them to play with to keep them together.

It was a major improvement this year for this one to even get near the water!  I think it helped that kids smaller than her were doing it and having fun.

This guy had a great time in the car seat!  Happy as can be and never complained about it.

I wish I had caught this a second earlier when she was looking at me, but right after this she turned and ran chasing that little guy around full speed!

This Summer is going to be a busy crazy bunch of fun memory making, Popsicle eating, and picture taking.  Ready or not, here it comes!

Planting Seeds

Eryn has learned about seeds and growing things at school and was really excited to plant her seeds in hopes that she will get some beautiful flowers!  It came with a guarantee from Mom that if it didn't grow in 3 weeks, we would go and BUY an all ready flowering plant and plant it in her special princess pot.

The container came with special dehydrated dirt that you just add water, stir, and stick the seeds in.  That's about MY gardening skill level, so fingers crossed it works!

Chicken Salad

I technically stole this from my Sister-In-Law Chelsie, but I make it slightly different and put it on crackers.  Either way, after making it to share at an event twice in the last 2 weeks and having it received very well, I figured it might be time to share!

Ingredients 

1 can of  canned chicken breast (fully cooked)

hand full (3/4 cup or about baseball sized) of slivered almonds

hand full of shredded mozzarella cheese

twice around the bowl with the Poppy Seed dressing

Crackers

Throw the ingredients together (NOT the crackers), stir, chill for a little while and then spoon full of it on top of a cracker.  Total fancy fake out.

The slivered almonds are sort of expensive if you buy the small bags in the baking isle of the grocery store, but the HUGE bag of them was only about $8 at Costco and that bag lasts me for an entire year.  The canned chicken as well can be expensive at the grocery store, but 6 cans for $10 at Costco is a pretty good deal.

Vegas and Kat's Visit

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'm going to keep it brief and let them do most of the talking for me.

Driving in the van down to Vegas was interesting.  We started off all right.

The going over some of the mountain passes we hit snow and people walking on the freeway.

 Yes, that semi truck is going the wrong way on the freeway and there were a bunch of slide offs.  So glad we were going South and NOT a part of that mess.  We lost count of how many accidents we saw.

Our room at the Motel 6 right off the strip was a good location, but a lot smaller than the pictures looked and the people said that it would be plenty big enough for 3 adults and 3 kids.  They lied.  Kathleen sent them a letter about how disappointed she was and they are going to give her a free night sometime.

Eryn was a little bummed that kids can't play the games in Vegas and it was too cold to swim in the outdoor pool.

 Ian sure loves sticking out that tongue!

On our way over to Hoover Dam we saw Thomas the Tank Engine.  My girls have never seen that show, so they seemed less than impressed.

Some Dam pictures.

Kat helped wrangle the kiddos.

Oh hey look I was there too!

This is the new freeway bridge that routes traffic away from the Hoover Dam.  Last time we were down there it was under construction.  Walking on the bridge was much better without all of the traffic and big trucks blocking the views every few seconds.

Eryn's vanity got the best of her and she got a blister because she refused to wear other shoes because these ones are prettier.  Needless to say, it was embarrassing.

Her tantrum continued and thankfully she's hiding in shame from the camera.

Brooke enjoyed her freedom as Eryn was punished and forced to ride in the stroller.

Mike and Ian at the dam.  That little guy is really the happiest baby that there is in this world!

A view of the dam from that new freeway bridge.  Yes, there is a path way and sanctioned walkway across it Mike wasn't standing in traffic to take this picture.

A bonus of having another grown up with us was that while the kids were freaking out in the van with me, Kathleen was able to walk up with Mike and take his picture.

We're big fans of Pawn Stars on the History Channel and visited a few of their friends' places on this trip along with theirs.  This is the Clark County Museum where their history guy who never gives anything a dollar amount works.

Counts Kustoms where Danny makes the sweetest looking hot rods and redoes classic and bikes for them.

Zombie Apocalypse store just caught out attention randomly.  Guess you need to be prepared for everything, right?

The girls LOVE "Despicable Me" and the whole time we heard the lines quoted from that movie that they, "stole the Statue of Liberty... the small one also  from Las Vegas," and "The Eiffel Tower, also from Las Vegas."

We took the kids to the huge M&M store and they LOVED us for about 20 minutes.

Although Kathleen wanted to go see half naked men dancing, I resisted and we just played slot machines and roamed aimlessly around talking and people watching.

The girls were really confused when they couldn't play with the slot machines.  All those flashing lights and the music and it wasn't for kids?

It was Vegas, so we let the kids drink!  Yes, they drank Mountain Dew.  Woo Hoo!

What happens in Vegas your Grandma finds out on your Mom's blog.

Quick visit to the Pawn Stars shop.

The Strip from the top of the Stratosphere.

Once home we did a lot of running around.  These were from when we were waiting to pick up Mike from work.  Although the girls were really naughty, Ian helped Kat see that not ALL kids are totally rotten!

So nice of her...  Eryn picked Mommy a flower.  Plucked it right out of the flower bed at Dad's work, bulb included.

We tried planting it at home, but that was unsuccessful.

Our picture from riding the Extreme on the side of the Stratosphere.  Yeah, it's all about knowing where the camera is.

I abandoned the kids with a friend and on the way to take Kat back to the airport we stopped at Temple Square for a little bit.

The whole place was blooming and the smell of flowers was like Heaven!  It was so peaceful to have the beautiful smells, the quiet, and a few moments with my best friend without a million distractions.

So, that about sums it up.  Last time we took the kids to Vegas I said never again.  This time, we took them again.  They were worse.  I REALLY mean it when I saw this time... WE WILL NEVER TAKE THE KIDS BACK TO VEGAS!