Tuacahn

Yesterday was so fun! I've heard a lot about Tuacahn since moving to Vegas and finally got a chance to attend a show there. Melinda and I headed out around noon and hit St. George around 2pm our time. We stopped to shop at Barnes and Noble, Old Navy, Taipan, and Pebbles in my Pocket. We had a great dinner at "Texas Road House" and then headed for the show. The theatre is so cool! Its nestled in the red rock and is all out doors. We found our way to our seats which were awesome. Front and Center about 8 rows back. We loved the "Big River" show. It was so fun to see Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer on the stage with Jim. There were some great solos and harmony in the songs and it was really well done. To create the Mississippi River they, had water from the red rock behind the stage meander down and then spill on to the stage. As it got closer and closer to the front row we were all leaning forward to see what would happen. It dropped off right before the front row and then kept recycling for the river scenes. It was so cool! It was a fun break for Melinda and I. Her husband is deployed and I am big, pregnant, and worn out. We thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

Fun Weekend!!

This weekend was such a blast! Marlina and her boys flew in from California. It was going to be a big surprise, but Marlina called and told me a week ago so we could make sure and get pick ups and drop offs at the airport at good times. We did surprise my kids however and that was great fun!! We drove from the airport straight to the school on Friday. I got my kids out of class and said "there is a big surprise outside just so you know when you walk out of the door". Carter burst through the front door of the school and immediately spotted Dustin and Andrew. He threw his back pack and water bottle down and ran to them for huge hugs. It was really a fun sight to see. Dustin and Andrew could hardly contain themselves up to this point. Fun memories.
The weekend was planned around my baby shower. Marlina wanted to come to it. It was a great party. I got so many thoughtful gifts. My friend Susan from California sent a "freckly face" blanket, burp rags, and wipe container bundle that I love- she is so talented. Her link is on my creative links. Marlina purchased a darling out fit from Gymboree complete with "little sister" and "big sister" matching shirts. Another friend Jen made a bead bracelet and matching pacifier clippy. I also got a darling "Mutze" hat, bonnet, and booties made by Ashley. Not to forget any of the way cute outfits....I feel very spoiled and blessed to have such generous friends.
Later that night I took Marlina to see "Mystere" at Treasure Island. Its one of the top Cirque du Soleil shows here in Las Vegas. It was fun to take her to it because it has lots of emphasis on acrobatics and dancing as well as amazing displays of strength. Fun!
All the kids played and played and played and wore themselves out. I don't think they ever stopped talking about Pokemon the whole weekend. They spent a lot of time in the pool too! Thanks for coming Marlina and boys....lets do it again soon!!

Alaska Fishing Trip

Last week I went on an amazing vacation! I spent a week in Larsen Bay on Kodiak Island in Alaska where we spent all day fishing and enjoying the scenery. We had a couple of guides taking us out on boats or to rivers to fish who would bait the hooks, clean the fish and throw the fish back we weren't keeping. We had meals prepared for us and fun little houses to sleep in each night. There were a total of 10 guys from the mixture of my mom and Boyd's families and we had a great time together. Getting there was a little interesting as I had scheduled to fly at night and sleep on the plane and the airport. Well, thanks to a little friend called Ambien and Alaska changing their gate on me I almost missed my flight from Anchorage over to Kodiak. In my half-awake state I heard them making the last call to board my flight and took off running.

Once we arrived in Kodiak we took a 40 minute ride in a small 6 seat airplane to the other side of the island. The scenery was beautiful with a lot of overcast skies, intermittent rain, cold weather (well, cold for someone from Las Vegas anyway) and there were A TON of bugs! Anytime you were on shore they were relentless. Thank you to Cabela's for recommending I get a bug net for my face.

During the vacation we saw a lot of wildlife. Bears, bald eagles, whales, seals & sea otters. We caught even a greater variety. While we were trying only to fish for Halibut and silver salmon we were just so darn talented we also caught sea rays, Irish Lord's (a.k.a. "mother-in-law"), an octupus, cod, dog sharks, pink salmon (which were not looking so good as they had spawned), Dolly Vardens, and Boyd even caught a star-fish. We also pulled crab pots which is much easier than they make it out to be on the greatest catch. Although we pretty much just watched our guide pull up the pots. We did clean out our own crabs though which was a lot of fun. The Alaskan crabs were HUGE, too bad we couldn't keep them, but the snow crabs and dungeness crabs were very good eating!

While I did pull in a couple of 50-60 pound halibut the biggest halibut of the trip were 120 and 150 pounders. Halibut are good fighters and bottom dwellers so it takes quite a bit of energy to get them in the boat. The 150 pound halibut put up such a fight that we decided rather than trying to bring it in the smaller boat that we happened to be in at the time and letting it flop all around and hit us to use the 20 gauge shotgun we had on board. The shotgun was VERY effective.

It was a great vacation with even better company and one that I hope to repeat!

Off the back of the boat the first morning.  We had 2 boats and guides.

My first "keeper" Halibut.  
My brother Jason with his huge Halibut. 

The scenery was amazing!
We saw so much glassy water!  We were all wishing we could have this kind of water when water-skiing.
Alaskan King Crab.
Irish Lord A.K.A. "Mother-in-Law"  Nick-named because it has spines and not the prettiest fish.

Silver Salmon
This halibut was the biggest of the week.  You can see the little tiny ones on the ground to the right of us.  Silvers in front of us and even a "yellow-eye" fish.
The river we fished in.  I really enjoyed river fishing even though we were about a week early and there weren't a lot of Silver Salmon in them yet.  
Me and my two brothers.  Dave on my right and Jason on my left.  This was the first trip we did something like this since we were young and used to go hunting together. 

This and That

Between vacations Jared is home this week. I have a "honey do list" a mile long so he is keeping busy. He was home all day Tuesday except a few hours when he had to read out the monday night films, (he worked all night), so I took the opportunity to go get a pedicure with my friend Rachel who is due a few days before me, and got my hair done! Last night was Rachel's baby's shower so we wanted our one saving grace (our toenails) to look nice! It was a fun day! I came home to find our new kitchen table put together....thanks Jared and Jake!!! p.s. I'm starting to hate this floating baby I put on the blog....its like every time I open up our website its taunting me....ha, ha, you still have 41 days to go!! It may find its way off the blog very soon.

I like how Rachel placed herself right behind the fountain thanks a lot!!

new scrapbook pages

I've done some new scrapbook pages this week while jared was in Alaska fishing, if you want to check them out visit my creative outlet blog. Jared has some stories to tell, I let him post about his trip when he gets home!

Something to smile about!!

I have a love - hate relationship with this particular book. As you can see, its been well used and is showing its wear. It is the book we use to learn how to read at our house. I have taught Carter, Hanna, and now Jake through this program. While I like the phonics based program, I think a more appropriate name would be "How to teach your Child to Read in 100 not so Easy Lessons"!! Jake and I have been working on this since February 7th. (exactly the same amount of time I've been pregnant ironically) Some of the ending lessons get really hard and take up to 45 minutes to complete. So its a huge commitment on my part as well as my children when we choose to start. Once we start, there is no going back. This book has come on many vacations with us and been read in the car, at the table, and just about everywhere!

This is a picture of our last lesson and story that we finished today!!
WAY TO GO JAKE!! I'm so proud of you and me for sticking with it. We are going out on a special date tonight. He has chosen COSTCO pizza and Baskin Robbins ice-cream for dinner. We are also stopping by Game Stop for a new video game, but he doesn't know that part yet. Were totally celebrating because we deserve it!!!

HELP, Child Insomniac

Please help! I'll take any suggestions. About 6 weeks ago, Hanna started having horrible sleep problems. She is suddenly scared of the dark (hello she's seven and never had this problem before), and can't get to sleep. She has tried to climb in our bed, which is totally a no-no, and wakes us up constantly. What can I do for her? We've tried the light on in her closet, night lights, primary songs, ocean wave sounds, she slept in the little boys room for awhile...seriously I don't know what else we can do. We say a little prayer with her nightly to help, but that doesn't always work either. She says she's afraid of lightening and wind. (We get that like twice a year in Las Vegas, so not really sure where she got that one). Okay so I've tried to be understanding and patient, but the patience is wearing off and my "Monster Mommy" claws are starting to surface when she comes out of her room for the 5th or 6th time at night crying to me saying "I can't go to sleep". If you have any suggestions, please let me know. My already thin patience is waning.