FREE! One of my favorite words!

Last Friday we took a spontaneous vacation. Primm resorts are offering a free two day stay for Nevada residents till July 9th. I talked with Jerry about it a little while he was at work, but we didn't make any definite plans. When he got home we decided to do it so we called, booked the hotel, and were gone in about 40 minutes. Sadly, I'm not nearly as spontaneous as I used to be before I had kids. I'm so glad we did it. It was a wonderful weekend. The resort offered a free two night stay, two for one breakfast, lunch, AND dinner buffet, $50 free slot play, 2 free all day ride passes, and 2 for 1 golf (we didn't get to do that because we had the kids)


Friday night we got checked in and just hung out at the hotel. Saturday the kids went on the rides all day. They were only tall enough for the frog hopper, but they were fine with that. They just went over and over again. It was great. We also went swimming at the pool and watched a movie on our laptop in the room.

So here's the big question??? Is it bad to gamble with the free slot play money they gave us?? Well, we decided it's not. So during the movie Jerry went downstairs and played the slot machine and made almost $20. Great. We actually made money on this deal. I know they want you to stay for two days thinking that you'll end up gambling and giving them a lot of your money anyway. They are forgetting about us! Jerry is admittedly one of the cheapest people ever! He cashed out when he won $0.24, and anything won was pocketed for our dinner. So that night we went to the dinner buffet (2 for 1) and then did rides a little more. The kids were wiped out after a very fun day, so we went back to the room and hit the hay. It was a wonderful stay. The kids had so much fun and still talk about it.

Nevada residents if you want to do this go to primmvalleyresorts.com and click on promotions, then "freecation" The calendar says they are sold out on Saturday nights, but if you call and tell them you want to do it they'll let you stay at Whiskey Pete's, for free and just take the monorail over to Buffalo Bill's for all the activities. Just make sure you stay both nights or they will charge you! Weird huh. They assume if you stay long enough you'll gamble.

A Few Funny Random Things About Rebecca

Rebecca's pretty princess shoes with Hayden's suit is an example of what happens when two kids play for an hour alone during quiet time instead of sleep.

I was talking to my mom today and she reminded me of a funny Rebecca story that happened on our trip to Utah that I wanted to blog about but hadn't yet. Hayden is in CTR 5 class this year and anytime he is not making wise choices we remind him that he needs to "Choose the Right" and automatically he has remorse and changes his ways. Works like a charm. Not so much for Rebecca. While we were in Utah Rebecca was teasing Hayden and misbehaving. He was complaining to me about it, so I reminded Rebecca that she needed to "Choose the Right." She didn't care. So Hayden started complaining again to me and said, "She isn't choosing the right, she is choosing the wrong." Right after that Rebecca came dancing/running through the room chanting, "Choose the Wrong, Choose the Wrong!" Hmm, what works for one, doesn't always work for all.

I also was listening to Hayden and Rebecca playing the other day. Hayden wanted to play house so he told Rebecca that he was the Daddy and she was the Mommy. She said, "NO! I the elephant!" He was very upset, but to keep the peace I told him to just let her be the pet elephant. Everyone has a pet elephant right?

SUMMER EXTRAVAGANZA DAY!!

Yesterday we celebrated another family holiday that we created. It was our first annual Summer Extravaganza Day! It's a day to do all the fun summer activities all in one day to kick off the start of summer. We started by waking up and having a wonderful breakfast of biscuits and gravy. (No, not really summer-y, but yummy still.) Then we went to see the movie, Up. Like all Disney/Pixar movies I loved it, and yes it even made me cry a little. It was cool seeing it in 3D also. The kids loved it too. By the way, Thanks to Albertsons and Kelloggs for the free movie tickets! (We got free movie tickets for buying cereal. Nice)

After the movie we came home and got some lunch and layed down for short naps. The short nap turned into a long nap. When we got up we went out to Whitney Ranch to go swimming. The kids were so excited, especially when they saw what an awesome swimming pool it was. The bummer was that we got there at 5:57, and we didn't know it closed at 6:00, so we couldn't swim there. Luckilly our friends have a pool in their complex so we went swimming at their pool and had fun swimming with them. Usually it is easilly 105+ degrees in June, but we're having beautiful weather in the 80s, so swimming was a little cold, but still very fun. Thanks so much Korina for swimming with us, and helping us have a fun Summer Extravaganza..:)



When we got home it was almost 8:00, but we hadn't had dinner, and we had planned to have a barbeque. So we had a very late dinner of burgers and hot dogs. Yum!

We had planned to let the kids put their sleeping bags out on the floor and have a little campout on the living room floor, and do smores (in our microwave -since we don't have a fire pit), but because it was such a full day and late, the kids were beat and were ASKING to go to bed during dinner, so we passed on that. They never WANT to go to bed.

So next year we'll either skip the naps or go swimming before naps, and it will help us to get everything in that we want to do, but it was a wonderful day. So any other fun summer ideas that we're missing that we need to add to our Summer Extravaganza Day next year?? What do you think?

Utah Trip

A few weeks ago we were able to go up to Utah to visit. I can't believe that we haven't been up since October! I think that's the longest stretch I've gone since moving down to Vegas almost 9 years ago. We had a great time visiting with family and playing, but it went too fast. While we were there we went to Hoagle Zoo. We have tried probably 3 times to go to the zoo, but it hasn't been too fun. Usually we go in the middle of the summer and it is too hot to enjoy. We're hot and tired, and the animals have always been sleeping, or inside where we can't even see them. Not this trip! It was overcast and beautiful. The kids had a great time.



The most memorable part for the kids was seeing the elephant. Rebecca was already going through a Dumbo phase so I knew she'd love the elephants. But we were lucky enough to be there when she had to tinkle. So if you ask Rebecca about the zoo she'll still tell you that she saw an elephant pee!
They loved the penguins too. If you notice the left side of the picture there is one penguin turned away from the rest. Hayden told me that they were playing "Hide and Seek" and that penguin was "it."

Can't go to the zoo without getting this picture...

Or doing this!

Batman!...It's what's for dinner

Last night we ate "Two-face potatoes" and "Bane-roast beef." Which is really the same thing as dutch oven potatoes and roast beef, but for some reason my kids were more anxious to eat last night! Dare we attempt "Riddler - green beans"?
p.s. Bane is one of the villains in Batman.

Hayden and His Princess

We have started going to the Library for story time. It is so fun, and the kids love it. Of course Rebecca has to try going on the stage every time we go, but I'm confident that if I go enough she'll finally learn that they can't play on the stage. In my own personal opinion it is a little torturous to have story time in such a big room with a stage that would be perfect for my little "star" to perform on.

A couple weeks ago they had a fairy prince/princess day. They read stories about princes and princesses, and they got to decorate their own crowns. So cute. We used Hayden's Batman cape that I made him a while ago as his Prince cape, and pretty much pieced together his outfit the night before. My friend was so sweet to let us borrow the Cinderella costume for Rebecca,
and of course I didn't want Sydney to be left out so she got to be the "fairy" part of "fairytale", as Tinkerbell.
Hayden was excited to go to story time too because his little girlfriend, Katelynn was going to be there. She is such a cute little girl that is in his primary class. Aren't they too young for this? I actually think it is very cute, so innocent. He loves playing with her, and she has reassured her mom that, "it's just pretend," and that she "won't have a real boyfriend till she's 16."

Hayden and Katelynn

The group - Katelynn, Rebecca, Hayden holding Sydney, and Katelynn's brother Aiden. (Their younger sister is a month younger than Sydney, but she was sleeping so she wasn't in the pic.)

I hope Hayden won't hate me when he's older for embarrassing him, but Katelynn wrote Hayden this cute note last week and I thought it was so cute I had to copy it and include it.

Feeding the Ducks

We have discovered a wonderful park! Sunset Park is awesome! I met my friend, Amy Lacey with her cute kids for a fun play date there a couple weeks ago. There is a really large pond with lots of ducks, so we took some bread to feed the ducks after our picnic.

notice the HUGE chunks of bread, those are Rebecca's first attempts before learning how to break the bread apart.

After feeding the ducks we went to play at the playground and saw this little guy. A groundhog? A gopher? I am not quite sure what it is, but we had fun experimenting to see what kind of food it liked. Results: it likes goldfish crackers, honey nut granola bars, and apples and bananas, it has no interest in processed lunchables cheese, and the lunchable chicken nugget that the kids didn't like either. The kids were fascinated with it. It kept coming up, grabbing the food and quickly taking it back in its hole. Hayden said he was taking it back to his kitchen and putting it on the counter underground.

Hayden and Jacob

Rebecca and Anna

We had such a good time there that we went back the next Saturday with Jerry because Hayden wanted to show him the park. It is a great park, and it was a really fun play date.