Ironic Again

So Ryan and I completed our "Day of Service" last week for our Disneyland tickets. We were going to volunteer at an elementary school, but we had to cancel that in order to close on our house. So our backup plan was to go to the Gilcrease Nature Sanctuary and talk to their birds. I'm not kidding. It was a very easy (albeit cold) way to spend our service time. Despite needing earplugs and being worried about sharp claws and beaks, we spent a lovely 4 hours conversing with parrots, trying to teach them new words, holding baby desert turtles, etc. For not being bird people, we grew pretty attached to these endangered parrots. Especially the one who asked me, "What's the matter?" when I was shivering from cold.

However, if you live locally you will have heard on the news that this lovely sanctuary was hit with a fire and over 200 of the birds and a dog died! Before our service day, I admit, we probably would have been more upset about the one dog (again, we're not bird people). But now that we "know" these birds, we have found ourselves wondering: Was it Max? PJ? Vegas? Reno? Baby? The turtles? The raven?

At some point we are planning to head back and find out what we can do to help. It's true that we only care about this place because we were planning on using them for something free. But now we're not even sure they would have had the time to send in our service hours (or maybe they burned!) so who knows if we'll get our free Disneyland tickets. So the way I see it, the sanctuary gets 4+ hours of our time, and Disneyland gets our money after all. (cause we still have to go this year). So in our particular case the Disney year of service lies:

Disneyland: 1 Us: 0

Ironic

If you know us, you have come to find out that we don't do things like everyone else. This post is no exception. It's ironic that we just painted and redid our bedroom. Because now we have to do it again--in our new house.


No joke--we are moving. By April 1. Into this house. Across town. If you are gasping right now, don't worry. We only made the final decision a few days ago. It's a long story. But we are excited about it. And slightly terrified.

The next three weeks are going to be a blur. So if anyone wants to babysit, clean, pack, paint, repair, call companies, or hold us up when we're about to fall over from exhaustion--feel free to come on by!

And as soon as we get our new house company ready (so in another 6 years) we'll have you over!
front

master bath

kitchen

main living room

master bedroom

office

Extreme Makeover: Bedroom Edition

After 6 years of living in this house and staring at blank, white walls-I finally decided to do something about it. Thanks to help from a friend (thanks!) and to Ryan's generous relatives who donated some furniture to us (thanks sooo much!) we have gone from

This:

To This:




and from This:To This:





I love my new room and I love that it was practically free to do!

The kids didn't want to be left out-this was their contribution:


Don't worry-it all came right out. But they're still not allowed in my new room!

Last But Not Least

I won't bore you with the antics of our almost terrible two toddlers, but I will force several pictures upon you:














As you can see, we have our share of fun and mischief around here. Included in that is a very important milestone I discovered today: our very first mural on the wall. I'm sure it will not be the last.

A Focus on Ryan

I have married myself a pretty remarkable guy. Only Ryan would be able to have hobbies and talents that actually make him money.

An opportunity to tutor high school kids on the SAT gave him the chance to take the test again himself. And of course he passed with flying colors. And now he is able to pass along his knowledge to the next generation. Zack Morris will be left in the dust after those kids take the test.

Also, he was asked to do a magic show at a junior high. He was nervous, but I knew he had nothing to worry about. I know the background of just about all his tricks, and yet I am always so enthralled. So enthralled, in fact I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I wanted to.

And as if this wasn't enough, he even is exceptional at growing older. Check out this professional candle blowing (with the best apprentices around).Is there anyone out there that can tell the candles make 2 and 9? Don't worry-I won't be offended.

So not that he doesn't have anything better to do, but I have dreams that he will write a book that will become a best seller. Anyone agree?

Bring on the Rain (and more friends)

So apparently our friends and family follow the same migration pattern and decided to head south to Vegas at the same time. The Seversons and Mohlmans didn't escape winter drudgery however, because it poured rain just about the whole weekend.

But we ventured on with our plans to go to the BYU/UNLV game. We dropped off the babies, packed lunch, and spent a miserable drive in traffic, and walk to the stadium only to realize that Ryan's plan of getting last minute tickets to a sold out game was going to be expensive. Very expensive. But it is his New Year's Resolution to fail at stuff, so at least we had a silver lining. After some deliberation, we sloshed back to the car and finished out the game on the big screen at the MGM grand amid horse races and football highlights. Ryan was the only one happy with the game's outcome, and the rest of us were glad we were not in the stands to witness such a defeat.

Since Ry did such a good job of fulfilling his resolution, I decided to join him by playing my very first (and last) penny slot machine. Don't judge me, judge Heather-she made me do it. One pull and 24 cents later, I walked away happy. Okay, I pulled a few more times and never won again. Royce took over and at least helped me break even. So at least I have retired a winner.

Ryan continued his trend of failing as we attempted to show Royce a good time by shooting in the desert. But lots of fences and Do not enter signs later, we were unable to find a good spot. Darkness and rain clouds loomed upon us, and after about an hour of driving, we pulled off the road well in sight of cars and the boys aimed and fired in the pouring rain and cold for only about 3o seconds.

Lest you think we have gone completely sinful and lawless, we spent the rest of the evening in a fairly normal PF Changs and Pinball Museum way. And to top it off we went for a stroll at the temple. So at least our children have the impression we're righteous. Thanks for a fun weekend guys. It's definitely one I'll not soon forget!

More Friends

Either people like us, or Las Vegas is just a convenient place to stop through, but we are lucky to have visitors quite often (and we love it, so keep coming).
This time it was my former roommate Becky and her family. They stayed at the Golden Nugget after a high recommendation, and we were able to go swimming there with them. Well, the moms didn't go swimming, but I look like it anyway.