Some Fun Things with the Boys

In March, I got to go to a reading donut day in Camden's classroom. I felt bad because I got the time wrong and got there 15 minutes late. But we still had fun reading together and enjoying our donuts for those 15 minutes.

The boys' school had a fundraiser and the school as a whole earned enough money to get a family movie night. They showed "The Bad Guys." Ashley came too, and they all said their favorite part about it was the bottomless popcorn.

We rediscovered the Home Depot Building workshops. The first project was a little pinball machine. The boys loved it and asked to go again the following month.

Spring Break Part 2

We headed to Valley of Fire for one of our days in Vegas. We got kind of a late start because my teenagers wanted to sleep in. We also wanted to try out this donut shop that Alyssa saw on Instagram or tik tok that makes custom donuts. Because of our late start, we didn't get to the donut shop until an hour after they opened. The line was out the door. We waited 30-45 minutes in line and they almost sold out before we got to the front of the line. They were sold out of the French beignets which made us sad and the there was no creme brulee donut available, but we did get to try the churro donut and a Nutella stuffed donut so we were happy. When we finally got to Valley of Fire, the line of cars to get in was super long. We found this little cave off to the side of the road, so we stopped to explore for a bit. 

Ashley was a little big for it, but was determined to get inside. 

She said it was bigger inside than it appeared. 

On Christy's recommendation, we did the mouse tank trail. The red sand and rocks were beautiful. The trail was nice and short with plenty of rocks to climb on.

If you look closely in this picture, you can spot Alyssa and Camden up on top of one of the rocks.

After the mouse tank trail, we drove to the "fire wave" and "seven wonders of the world" trail head. We didn't have enough to do the whole trail, which we later learned was a loop to do both. We decided to hike down the wonders of the world trail a little ways and then turn around and head back. The colors in the rocks were amazing.

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After the fire wave, we drove over to elephant arch and took a quick picture from the road. Then we headed back to Vegas. The kids were super excited when I passed a car in the park that was going 15 mph. And they had a good laugh when the "Utah" car behind us followed our lead. Then when we came up on 2 more slow cars outside of the park, I was hesitant to pass both. And the same car behind me passed all 3 of us, so I followed him. We stuck with them until after we got back onto I-15.
 

Spring Break, Part 1

For Spring Break this year we took a trip to Las Vegas. Danny had a conference there, so we tagged along and enjoyed some of the tourist attractions. Plus our kids were super impressed with the size of the hotel we stayed in. It was the Westgate, located right off of the strip.

On the first full day there, I took the kids to the strip. We visited the M&M Store, the Hershey's Store and walked through some of the big hotels in the area. We were going to ride the big apple coaster, but it was closed that day because of high winds. Plus, Camden wasn't quite tall enough to ride.

These avengers duped us into paying for a picture with them. Next time we will pass. My kids don't even like the avengers.

We walked forever long to see the Bellagio fountain only to discover that it wasn't even on, also because of the wind. So disappointing. We caught a taxi back because my kids were done walking by that point. Have you noticed that none of the hotel's/casinos have places to sit down that aren't in a restaurant or in the casino?

We took this picture in the food court of our hotel. It was located near the sports bar, which was nice for Danny. We even caught some of the march madness finals there.

When we planned our vegas trip for spring break, we expected some nice warm weather. it was in the high 70's the day that we arrived, but then dropped to the 50's the next day. Our kids were willing to brave the cold pool, thinking they could warm up in the hot tub if it was too cold. They didn't get a chance because the pool didn't open for the next 2 days. On the third day, the day we were to check out, we tried the pool again. After an hour delay, we finally got in. And the boys lasted 5 minutes. Too cold, they said. Ashley enjoyed it for about 30 minutes and then we went up to the room. The hot tub, by the way, did not have water in it. So there was nowhere to warm up.            

Here is our hotel from the back side.

The one benefit of this hotel was that it had 4 tennis courts right next to the pool. So we got some tennis time in with Alyssa while we were staying there.
 

Alyssa's Prom

 Alyssa was really excited for prom this year. She went with one of her close friends from the boys tennis team. We had a good laugh when he delivered the invitation because it was like 10 pm and our ring doorbell kept giving us motion alerts, for like 10 minutes. When we opened the door, we understood. He had lined over 100 solo cups up on the porch. The poster said something like "Do not let me go SOLO to prom." Alyssa and the boys had a lot of fun playing with the cups afterwards.

She found a prom dress pretty easily this year, probably because we went dress shopping early. She decided on a red dress.

These are 2 of her best friends. 

Here is their whole group.

 She had a lot of fun. They had to do their day date the night before because most of the girls were running in a track meet the day of the dance. They went to dinner and a rec center type place where they played basketball and went in the hot tub. The dance was at the capitol building, so they got a fancy dinner on the way up to Salt Lake City and then had fun at the dance. Then they hung out at one of their houses after the dance.

Out of This World Family Ball

So it looks like I am behind again with posting. I am now on summer break with my kids, so I should have some time to catch up on the past few months. Back in January, Ashley's school had a family ball. It was a space theme this year. She wanted to go to hang out with her friends (they didn't really dance at all. Mostly just walked around and talked and ate the snacks). Ashley dressed up like Princess Leia and Tyler dressed up like a storm trooper.

The boys wanted to try out the space simulator. I didn't sign them up and with the length of the standby line I didn't think there was any chance of getting in. But they had me check the signup using the QR code and there happened to be 2 spots available in the next flight, so I signed them up and skipped the line. It was a very shortened version, but they thought it was fun.