Time for Tea!

Well, here I am blogging from the ol' Boise homefront having just spent the weekend in Utah. I drove with the kids (am I brave or what?!?) Thursday morning from Las Vegas to Salem, UT where my mom was staying at her sister's house after having dropped Taylor off at BYU to start his freshman year.

Isn't he a handsome little devil? He's officially a Budge Hall boy with lots of hard credits this semester to get his feet wet with... Good Luck Tay!

Anyway, we spent Friday morning with my good friend Emily Judd and her 2 boys (we've been friends literally since 2nd grade-- I can remember the teacher introducing her to the class at the beginning of the year-- then roommates at college, etc.) at their new house in Riverton, UT. Then we met my mom and aunts at the new IKEA in Draper, met Taylor for dinner at Zupa's in Provo, and headed back to Salem to spend the night. Saturday before leaving for Boise, my Aunt Patty hosted a tea party for all the little girls in the family.

Anything like this is obviously right up Lucy's alley, so she was SO excited all morning as the aunts were preparing food in the kitchen and setting the tables with the pretty china dishes and decorations.

Here's the spread! We had gourmet ham and cheese sandwiches, cucumber tea sandwiches with a balsamic cream cheese spread, fruit tartletts, Russian tea cakes, lemon cake, brownie bites, and lots of fruits and veggies to round things off. And of course, some herbal tea. Yum!

Here are the aunts who put it all together (my mom's sisters): Aunt Patty (hostess), Aunt Pam, Aunt Kay, my mom. After we ate they shared some stories about our ancestors (great grandmas and grandpas) so the little girls got a taste of family history which was great.

The little girls! Lucy LOVED being including in this big group of cousins/princess-enthusiasts, and when it was finally time to leave for Boise, she cried, "But I want to play with my sisters!" I think she'd heard my mom refer to her sisters so much that weekend, she assumed these girls were hers.:)

Some of my long lost cousins that I haven't seen since before dental school! Right to left: Tricia Thomas, me, Kelly Mickelsen, Allison Woidka.

Thanks to Taylor who babysat Zach for me, I was able to enjoy some one on one time with Lucy at the tea party. It's defnitely SO great to be close enough to family to be involved in family get togethers again! So now we're in Boise hanging out until Labor Day, with lots of things in store-- hopefully even some canning and freezer jam, bonfires with Grandpa Tom Tom, and swimming. We'll keep you posted!

The Dog Days of Summer

Well, the rest of summer is flying by. It's hard to believe August is almost over and Labor Day is just around the corner! I feel like it was just barely Labor Day last year back in Philly! And now here we are in Vegas, having unseasonably hot weather this month so we are trying to stay cool!


Poor Zachy got his little mullet chopped. It was just getting long enough to pull into a ponytail too, which would have been perfect for a little Padowan costume at Halloween, with Jon as his Jedi Master. Oh well, I'm sure he's cooler now and he looks so handsome! Thanks to Grandma C for cutting it.

We got to check out the Natural History museum downtown while Jon's parents were here, and it was actually a pretty cool little museum. They had an exhibit called "Bizzarre Animals" with some pretty crazy recreations of prehistoric animals. This was a crazy dinosaur-bird-thing we weren't sure how to pronounce his name.

They also had a Marine Wildlife exhibit with live eels (shudder), manarays and stingrays, turtles, fish, baby sharks, and stuffed whales. We couldn't help but sing "Baby Beluga" under this guy!

Admiring the REAL shark JAWS!! Yikes! I'd hate to see who they belonged to.

We also got to see some animatronic dinosaurs that made sounds and moved. Lucy was TERRIFIED! I had to keep explaining to her that their "feet were glued to the ground" so they couldn't move. She didn't believe me that they weren't real.

Zachy wasn't scared....as long as Grandpa held him!

They also had a fun Children's room where they could get some hands-on science exposure. Lucy got to stick her head inside a real aquarium and see what it felt like to be Nemo! Lucy's favorite exhibit though was hands-down the recreation of King Tut's tomb. She was fascinated by the mummies and canoptic jars, and all the creepy things in the tomb. All night and all day she asks me questions about mummies, and she's sort of at an age where I'm not sure how much I should tell her in the name of science before it starts to freak her out because it never seems to! Sometimes I worry she's a little morbid, but then again maybe she'll just be a doctor someday...

We are also staying cool by heading to some of the fun Splash Parks all over Vegas. This is the Dinosaur Discovery Park in Aliante right by our house. There are several splash pads and covered play grounds with lots of shade so it makes it just bearable enough for me to sit out there while they play.


Having fun at the park! We are leaving for Provo, UT where my brother Taylor is starting school at BYU on Thursday, and then we'll drive the rest of the way to Boise to spend the week with my parents and come home Labor Day. We're excited for the last few weeks of summer!

Serendipity and the Shark Reef

I may have mentioned this in an earlier post, but Jon's mom came to town to visit on August 4th for a few days, spent a week in St. George visiting her mom, and is now back with Jon's dad visiting for another couple of days before they leave on the 19th. We've been able to do a lot of fun things with them around, including checking out Serendipity III down at Caesar's Palace.

I have heard SO much about the Frozen Hot Chocolate (and I too have seen the movie), but it was just one of those places we never got around to visiting in NYC. So I was ecstatic when I heard there was another one here in Las Vegas!

I've heard there's always a terrible wait at the original in NYC no matter when you go, so I was relieved that we only had a 30 minute wait here. We did have to wait outside in the 110 degree heat, but there were misters...and entertainment!! There was a drug bust/prostitution take-down going on right on the Strip in front of everyone. By the time we got buzzed to go in there were like 6 more police cars. Sweet! I guess what happens in Vegas....

We decided to try the Loaded Potato Skins for our appetizer, which were great, and then the pies de resistance, the Frozen Hot Chocolate!

I gotta admit though, I wasn't all that impressed! It was big enough to share, but it did cost $15 and tasted like watered down chocolate milk. I've had better hot chocolate from McDonald's. So yeah, kind of disappointing. But now I can say I've tried it, right?

Duh dun, duh dun, duh duh duh duh duh (pretend that was the music from JAWS)!! On Monday Grandma and Grandpa Cardon took the kids to the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay to beat the heat.

They had lots of reptiles, amphibians, drunk people, and some humongous fish!! Oh yea! And sharks! It was a pretty cool display.

My favorite is always the "Shark Alley" where you get to walk through a clear tunnel and sharks are all around you, below you, above you, etc. Freaky!

The kids enjoying some one-on-one time with Grandma and Grandpa!

These guys sure love their fishies!

The Ups and Downs of Moving

Wow. There are a LOT of ups and downs to moving! I am just now realizing that if I hate moving as much as I have with this move, we definitely picked the wrong way to pay for dental school.:) Although, I think half my problem stems from knowing we have to do all of this, all over again in a year. And then again after that....and after that....etc. Anyway, here are a few of the ups and downs that we've discovered over the last month or so: Finding one of these crawling right across my living room carpet one afternoon just after we'd gotten back from church was definitely a DOWNER. In fact, we'd just had the pesky pest control guys come and spray like a week before, so imagine my shock when I about stepped on the little guy-- if you consider a 2 inch scorpion "little." All I could think about was one of these guys crawling into Zachy's crib. Gives me the willies just thinking about it! Jonathan is assimilating into military life pretty quickly-- definitely an UP! He's got the salutes, the "Sir, yes, Sir's" down pat, and he loves the fact that we're now getting a salary even though technically he's still in school this year. It's been kinda weird to be at Wal-Mart with him while he's still in uniform and have people offer to buy him drinks, or let him ahead in line. I think he looks particularly handsome in his uniform! Another downer? The fact that contrary to what our rental company repeatedly assures us, the house we're living in appears to have been foreclosed on back in June. Go figure. Who knows when they were planning on telling us? It could be that the owner is just milking us for rent money and pocketing it, since he's already lost his house anyways. But since no 72 Hour Notice has appeared yet, we're hoping for the best! Another up? Lucy and Zach have been forced to play with each other a lot more since neither one has really made any friends yet. They actually have a pretty good time coming up with things they both can do. One of their favorites is riding in circles around and around the counter on Lucy's bike. My mom thought it was hilarious when she saw it-- Lucy singing at the top of her lungs and Zachy holding on for dear life! An interesting downer: Because Luce and Zach have been spending so much more time together, Zach has really taken to most of Lucy's interests as well (I'm sure because she shoves it down his throat). He loves wearing jewelry, pushing babies in the stroller, and the other day when I was painting Lucy's toe nails, Zachy was admiring them very intently until I was done. Then he stuck out his foot, like, "My turn!" How could I resist? At least it was only yellow polish, right? Just ask my mom how she laid into me when I dressed my little brother Taylor up like a girl when he was 2!!:)
On final "Up": Lucy has discovered that the large counter in the kitchen seconds as a stage. One morning I found her standing on top, belting out a princess song at the top of her lungs. We love that she's discovered her inner performer, thanks most likely to some show-stopping performance vibes she must be getting from living in Vegas. In fact, maybe it's something in the water. This is her rendition of "A Whole New World." We think....

Mesa Grill

Couldn't you just admire that mug all day long?!? I certainly could. This past Friday, Jonathan and I decided to kill the fatted calf and blow our entire month's date budget by going to Mesa Grill, Bobby Flay's premiere Las Vegas restaurant, while Jon's mom is in town and was willing to babysit for us.

And I know I lied and said we wouldn't be hitting the Strip again because we were all a little "Las Begused" out, but not even a week later there we were, heading right back into "Satan's Playground" (loved that one Aunt kay!), to Caesar's Palace to indulge in some $40 a plate cuisine, Bobby-style.


I wanted to take pictures of what we ordered, but Jonathan was panicking thinking it would have been totally tacky, so unfortunately I can't show you the food. But here's a description:
I got the 5-Spice Mole "Hacked" Chicken with a Roasted Tomato Tamale with Key-Lime Butter (it was magic on a plate!), and Jon got some kind of salmon that was really tasty, but I was too busy inhaling my tamale to pay attention.

The chicken itself was pretty good, but the mole was not as flavorful as I was hoping, and honestly, one of the best parts of the meal was the complimentary bread they set out. There was a Jalapeno Asiago that was AMAZING!! For dessert we got a "Deep Dish Banana Cream Pie" that was supposed to have Pecan Whipped Cream, but disappointingly (as I had a imagined a really thick crusted luscious pie), it was only a super thin wafer hazelnut cookie, with a layer of flavorless whipped cream, some fresh bananas, and more cream on top. Totally a let down, but since they weren't Bobby's desserts (he had a pastry chef) we won't knock him for it.

Okay, so grades?
TASTE: A-
PRICE: B (I know $40 a plate is relatively cheap for Las Vegas...but Jon's piece of salmon was pretty puny)
AMBIANCE: A
OVERALL EXPERIENCE: B+

Adventures Las Vegas Style

We finally made it down to the Strip, which I hadn't been to since I was a junior in high school. And it was an adventure. We started the day full of vigor and excitement, Lucy couldn't wait to see the "castle" and "America" which we'd passed a couple of times on our way to pick people up from the airport, so I was thinking it was gonna be a good day. But in true Vegas fashion it was more or less an adventure.

We started at Excalibur where we were way-layed by a time-share shark er, I mean salesperson, who nagged us for 30 min. to come tour this new hotel, etc. etc. etc. and they would give us 2 free tickets to the Jousting dinner show at Excalibur and 2 tickets to the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay plus free lunch for all of us. I was sold, but Jon was not so sure he wanted to spend the afternoon cooped up in a high-pressure-sales pitch with 2 naughty kids, so after our little sidetrack we headed out of there to the New York, New York (Dad, I trust I can count you in next time?).

We continued heading our way down Las Vegas Blvd. to the M&M factory, the Magic Mile, The Paris, the Bellagio, etc. But it was H-O-T. Like pass out, hot. And S-M-U-T-T-Y. Yes, like porn-everywhere-you-looked-smutty, so we were ready to call it a day at that point and find some lunch!

We headed back over to the MGM Grand where we'd seen a Rainforest Cafe which we thought the kids would like, so I snapped this picture, waited in line, got seated, only to then realize the kids meals were $9.99 each. For mac and cheese?!? You gotta be insane! So we inconspicuously wheeled or enormous double stroller outta there before the waiter came to take our order! Tacky?? Cheap?? I know. But it saved us $60I can think of a million better ways to use.

And just because I never get anyone to take my picture since I am the designated photographer in the family, Zachy and I attempted one. Yeesh.

And here we are enjoying our much more family-friendly In-N-Out burger for lunch. Yum! I love this place! I know we didn't get to some of the other big name casinos but I think it's safe to say we're "Las Begus"-d out for a little while.:)

Pioneer Day

Pioneer Day? What's that?!? Living in the East Coast for the last 4 years had sort of left us forgetting that July 24th constituted a holiday for mormons everywhere!! Oh yeah!! Pioneer Day!! So this year we got to celebrate it in style in Cedar City,UT with Jon's Grandma Cardon (the kids' great grandma) and lots and lots of Utah cousins.

We started the day off with a pretty cool small-town parade right down the middle of Main Street. Jon's family has lots of Cardon history in Cedar-- we got to watch it right in front of the "Cardon Block" where his family has had a menswear and shoe store for many, many years.

Zachy was mesmerized by the firetrucks and police cars yet again, but Lucy was definitely not as thrilled with the loud noises. She stuck close to Grandma almost the entire time until one of Jon's little cousins helped her out to the street so she could catch some candy.

Jon's cousins Amanda and Aubrey were SO sweet with Lucy! Lucy immediately attached herself to them and followed them everywhere (it may have something to do with the fact that they offered her one of her heart's truest desires--the donut she is clutching tightly--but that's just a guess). They even took her to the City Park after the parade where there were some Pioneer games and such going on, so I could have a nice little break.:)


After the parade and other festivities, Jon's grandma and Uncle Ron were nice enough to throw a BBQ for everyone back at their house. Lucy was in long-lost-cousin-heaven! She played with new friends, ate hot dogs and ice cream, and probably ran both Amanda and Aubrey ragged, though they never complained. Zachary on the other hand was slightly feverish, super ornery, and overall not feeling well so that was kind of a bummer.

Here's the whole family! Okay, so not the whole family-- only 3 of the 6 brothers' families (minus a few here and there), but still a pretty good sized group.

We woke up Sunday morning to make it back in time for our 1 o'clock church, and bid farewell to a great weekend. We came home to an air conditioning unit that was broken (NO cool air in the upstairs meant 100 degrees to sleep in) so we immediately wanted to go back!:) And I'm sure we'll have lots more opportunities.