Wicked

 For Christmas, Alyssa got tickets to go see "Wicked" at the Eccles theater. She has wanted to see "Wicked" since she was 7 so it was a much anticipated outing. I told her that if we got there early enough, then we could go to The Cheesecake Factory before the show. They don't take reservations later than 5, so we got there as soon as we could(around 5:15) and had a 30 minute wait time. The weather was kind of nice that night, so we were able to wait outside.

The wait time also gave us a chance to scope out our favorite Cheesecake(which was super helpful when our food took FOREVER to arrive at our table and we had to order our cheesecake, a carry out box, and the check all at once in order to get out of the restaurant on time). I was a little sad that I didn't get to sit and enjoy my s'mores cheesecake a little more because we were so rushed.

We made it to our seats about 5 minutes before show time. It would have been sooner if we hadn't had to take our leftover food up to the 5th floor of the parking garage and then have to wait in lines to get into the theater and up the 4 stories to where our seats were. (Oh, and we both had to make a bathroom stop on the way in, as well, since the cheesecake factory restroom was out of toilet paper).

We were on the front row of the highest balcony. The view was great, but getting to our seats was a little scary since we had to climb over so many people and the railing only came up about 3 ft. I kept having visions of one of us falling over the railing because someone bumped us too hard. We weren't supposed to take pictures in the theater, but Alyssa snuck a couple. This one is the stage from our seats. It's a little blurry, but there was a big map of the land of Oz hanging down before the show started.

We brought our binoculars, and Alyssa thought it was amazing to be able to see the facial expressions of the actors. At intermission, Alyssa checked out the merchandise. She brought her own money so that she could get a souvenir. She really wanted a sweatshirt, but it was $70, so she chose a shirt, instead.

We also stopped at the theater photo booth and they took this picture for us on my phone. I would have set our stuff off to the side if I had known they would do a full body shot, but oh well.

The show was well done, and most importantly, Alyssa had so much fun. We were able to get out of the theater pretty quickly, but got stuck for like 30 minutes in the parking garage.  We got home shortly after 11 and went straight to bed, since Alyssa had school the next day. It was nice to have a fun night out with just the 2 of us.

Family Fun Day

As incentive to help our family be better at studying the "Come Follow Me" manual this year, we came up with some rewards. We didn't think there was any way that we would be able to accomplish daily scripture study with our kids. All attempts in the past had failed. So we told them that after a week, we would reward them with a family outing to get a treat. And if we could do it every day for a month, we promised them a fun family outing. We accomplished the week pretty easily and were amazed when we had studied the manual and scriptures every day for a month. After some thought, Danny and I decided that it would be fun to try something new. I suggested snow tubing up in Midway. I have wanted to take the kids there for a few years now and felt like they were at the perfect ages to try it out this year. Doesn't it look fun?

We picked a Friday when the younger kids were off of school. We had planned to pick Alyssa up from school at lunch time, go out to eat together and then head up the canyon for a 2-4 pm reservation. Unfortunately, 2 days after we reserved the time we wanted, we got an email from the tubing place telling us that their lift had broken and they hoped to fix it as soon as possible, but that it wouldn't be fixed by that Friday reservation. We were so sad. Postponing the outing wasn't really an option with Danny's bone marrow donation approaching and then spring weather to shortly follow. So we came up with a list of other fun things we could do. We decided that Provo Beach Resort would be equally as fun for all of us. We even told the girls that they could try out the flowrider.

I wanted to post the videos of them doing this, but they were too big. You can boogie board or Surf on the strong flow of water. Ashley tried surfing one time, but fell right away and didn't want to try it again. They did have fun on those boogie boards, though. The boys had fun in the giant play place while the girls were doing this.

After the flow rider, we did a game of bowling. We all had fun with that, but 1 game was enough.

Next, we tried out the ropes course. Danny and I each took a boy with us and the girls were on their own. I thought, for sure, that Camden would be scared of the ropes course, but he actually did really well with it. We were probably on there for about 30 minutes before he was done. Tyler, surprised us all by climbing across the first stretch of rope and then refusing to move from the platform that he and Danny had gotten to. Danny could not get him to move for 40 minutes. Finally after all of the bribing and coaxing that he could think of, he picked Tyler up and carried him back across the ropes so that he could leave the course. Then I entertained the boys while Danny went back on with the girls to actually do some of the rope obstacles. I got these pictures of them from above.

 We also played croquet(there is a croquet course similar to miniature golf), but we didn't get any pictures of that. We finished off with arcade games and the carousel and then headed home. It wasn't quite what we expected the day to be originally, but we all had a lot of fun and stayed there way longer than we had expected.

Alyssa Loves Selfies

We have like a thousand selfies of Alyssa over the past 2 years. Sometimes she gets other people in her pictures. Here are some cute ones that she has taken in the last couple of months.

We went to get ice cream as a family and after the boys finished theirs, Alyssa let them play a game on her phone. They looked so cute cuddled up together that I couldn't resist a picture.

 We sure love these 4 kids.

Ashley's Birthday

 Ashley had a fun birthday a little over 2 months ago(I know, I'm way behind on this one). She wanted to go to an escape room for her birthday party. I was able to find a good deal on one that allowed her to invite 6 friends. She decided to invite 3 from school and 3 from our neighborhood. The kids had fun with the escape room, but Danny and I agreed afterwards that it wasn't as well done as the other escape rooms we have been in. With a little help, we were able to escape with about 30 seconds to spare. Here is the group after we got out(one of Ashley's school friends didn't make it to this portion of the party, but she joined us at our house afterwards).

 After the escape room we got pizzas and went back to our house to eat them and have cake. Alyssa and I had fun designing and making an escape room themed cake. Here is how it turned out.

I couldn't resist the bomb and dynamite candles when I saw them at the store. I was as surprised as Ashley when we lit them and they started sparking.

 After cake, Ashley opened her presents and then anyone who wanted to, played outside with Lula.

Ashley had a lot of fun and so did all of her friends.

Tyler's Beatrix Potter Tea Party

Tyler's kindergarten class celebrated finishing off reading Peter Rabbit by having a tea party. They got to leave the uniforms at home that day and dress in their Sunday best. About a week before the tea party, his teacher sent out a request for someone to make a Peter Rabbit themed cake. I needed some more service hours and thought this would be an easy and fun way to get them so I volunteered. I could have gone with an easier rabbit head cake, but I thought the garden scene cake looked so much fancier. This is how it turned out.

Here is the whole kindergarten class with the cake and tea cups in front of them. Tyler is kind of in the middle in the blue sports coat.

 A closer look at the table.

 Before they ate the cake and had tea, they got to play a couple of games.

 All ready for cake and warm apple juice "tea."

At the end, they got to line up with a boy escorting a girl to walk out to the front of the school. This is his favorite friend in the class, and also the girl that we carpool with. Her name is Hadley and it was so cute to see him escort her out to the front of the school.

Camden's Preschool Adventures

Camden's preschool class got to take a field trip to Macy's grocery store last month. Each of the kids got a shopping list and a crayon. It had things like bread, cheese, bacon, milk, cookies, etc. on it. As the grocer walked them through the store, she helped them find the different items on her shopping list. I didn't get a picture of it, but she even let them walk into the big refrigerated area behind the dairy products.

 After they found everything on the list and we had walked around the perimeter of the store, she gave each of them a prize (granola bar, fruit snacks, smarties, and a sticker).

Here are some of the things that Camden has done recently at preschool. He made a bird out of play dough.

 He made slime and got to play with it.

 He had a valentines day party and got some heart shaped glasses.

He is doing so well recognizing his letters and some of the sounds that they make. He can also recognize all the numbers from 1 to about 15 and add small sums(1+3, 2+2, etc. He even told us the other day that 10+10 equals 20). He's a smart kid.

Ashley's Patriotic Program

Because she is in 5th grade, Ashley got to participate in her school's big Patriotic Program this year. She loved being able to wear a lot of makeup and curl her hair.

She was given a narrator part in the scene about Christopher Columbus. She loved the fancy dress that she got to wear.

She also loved being on stage. After it was over, she was sad and wants us to look into signing her up at the local kids theater this summer.

 She did a good job with her part. All of the 5th graders did a good job. It was such a good program.

Alyssa's B-Ball Season

Alyssa had a good basketball season this year. There are 2 different basketball leagues that kids her age play in around here. One is a little more competitive. She started tryouts for that league, but after the first day she decided that all of the girls were better than her so we decided to switch over to the other league. We thought it would be better for her to be one of the better players on her team than to be one of the worse. When her team started off the season losing game after game after game, we thought we had made a mistake. However, once they won their first game, they went undefeated until the final tournament. She isn't the top scorer, but she is very good at defense. 

Here is her team and coach after their last regular season game. She didn't know any of these girls before the season started, but was able to make some good friends on the team after playing together.

Hopefully with our basketball court in she can get out there more this summer and improve her shooting and dribbling.