Cowabunga Bay With The Best Orthodontist. And Pikachu Escapes.

Generally when we get invited to an after hours, private event at Cowabunga Bay, the weather tends to be overcast and windy and we don't get into the water very much.  Anyone who's ever been to Cowabunga Bay knows that the water is very cold, and the only time I find myself wanting to submit to it is if it's a very hot day.

Every summer our orthodontist, Watson Orthodontics, holds an appreciation event for his patients and their families at Cowabunga Bay.  Last night we went with tentative feelings due to our last three or four experiences with cold weather.

Luckily (?) for us, Utah has been in dry streak of 100* F weather.

And the water was perfect for such heat.

If you need an orthodonitst, we highly recommend Watson Orthodontics.  (This is not a paid post, we just really like him).

Yesterday The Man sprained is ankle and wasn't up for a lot of walking around at the water park, so we found a nice shady spot to take the ebb off the heat, and sat and watched the kids swim around the lazy pool.

As life goes, I've picked up on the trending Pokemon Go from the kids.

And I like it.

Not so much that I need to battle Pokemons, because, what is that all about anyway?  I have no idea.  But what calls to my addictive soul is the ability to collect them all.  I just want to fill in all those numbered slots with the different Pokemon pictures and know that I got every single one.

So it's on.

And they were all over Cowabunga Bay, while I sat in the shade with The Man, and the kids swam in circles.

Also?

This morning in my car Pikachu himself made an appearance in front of my house.  And I caught him.  Only to have him escape, but I had run out of pokeballs from catching him the first time so I couldn't do it again.

That, my friends, is no way to start a morning.

Mother's Day. And Little Things.

I spent all day yesterday at a conference for work.  I learned a lot of neat things and heard about some interesting situations, like the goings on of the different types of polygamy groups and about how the Board of Parole works (just to name a couple).

But all they had to drink was water and diet soda.

Like, literally, that was it.

They had several coolers of drinks and there wasn't anything that wasn't diet.

Seriously?

I know, like it's so bad to drink water for the day.

I feel ashamed now.

I'm sorry for complaining.

School started yesterday with a big bang Chemistry chapter one due by midnight... on the first day!  That's kind of unheard of with the online classes, so far, but I guess that will teach me for thinking I know how things are supposed to go.

When I sign into my online account with the SLCC on my phone auto-correct tries to fix my login name...

Also, my most amazing Words with Friends accomplishment to date:

Seriously, how does that even happen???

Last year come spring I couldn't get The Circus inside to get chores done because they were so wrapped up in jump rope.  This spring it's four square, and it just so happens that the lines in our driveway make a perfect four square court.

Take that morning chores, you don't stand a chance.

Mother's Day.

The Saturday before I ran to Chik-fil-a for a quick lunch and when I pulled up to the window the teenage girl handed me a rose with a cheery, "Happy Mother's Day!"

So brownie points for them.

Mother's Day means eating frosting on my pancakes because The Circus made them and spent time writing "Mom" with hearts on them in frosting.

Mother's Day means kind notes in crooked and slanted handwriting, with scribbles as words are sounded out and thoughts are processed.

Mother's Day means a lot of stick figure pictures of "Mom and Me" with more hearts painstakingly drawn out.

Mother's Day means The Man took over the grilling of dinner.

Mother's Day also means a long game of Risk with Grandma Julie and Grandpa Brent.

Mother's Day means I got to conquer the world.

Pasta Coming Out Of Our Ears In The Name Of Celebrating Cali, A Video, And A Bad Lip Reading

I realized something that was quite obvious.

But I'm a little slow so it's taken me a couple of weeks to figure it out.

Twice a week I'm lugging myself out of a warm bed and to a cold studio for yoga before the sun comes up.  And lately I've been craving a good hard run routine.

My body's been feeling soggy.

I'm craving the feeling of strength.  Of feeling solid.

It occurred to me...

I can use the work out facilities on campus for free with my student i.d.

And I'm already going there a couple of mornings a week anyway...

My struggle is that I'll have to get up even early than I am and that is a hard struggle for me.

I need to talk myself into being okay with mega-early mornings.

I think I can, I think I can.

We celebrated Cali's birthday with her yesterday.  I've started doing mommy and me dates with the kids on their birthdays.  Just a way to get them some one on one time.

On their birthday I go check them out of school for lunch and take them to where ever they want to go.

Cali wanted Olive Garden but I nixed it because we were already heading to Macaroni Grill for dinner, at her request.

So she chose Noodles & Co.

Because that's so much different.

I think this girl loves pasta.

We made this video on a new app called Vine.  I'm kind of in love with that app right now.  If you happen to have it, you should find me so I can see what you're doing on there.  I'm The Circus.


I watched her order mac and cheese and asked her if she was going to eat that again at dinner.

She looked confused.

"Do you even know what kind of food they serve at Macaroni Grill?"

No.

She saw on the commercial that they got to write on the table with a crayon and she was all over that.

The only reason she picked Macaroni Grill for her birthday dinner was to draw on the table.

And for the record, she ordered ravioli.

She got a free desert of her choice and the waitress sang happy birthday to her in Italian.

As a side note, beware when you sit Granny Suzann next to the kids.

She does a lot of encouraging.

I was introduced to bad lip readings today.

I was probably laughing a little too much at this, but it seriously cracked me up.

For you on a snowy Tuesday:

(at least it's snowy here.  If it's not snowy where you are I'm going to come visit next week, yeah?)

(it is Tuesday, right?)

(that reminds me of a time when I thought it was Tuesday but five year old Casidee was adamant that it was Wednesday.  Our schedule was different depending on which day it was and suddenly Cas had me so confused.  So I called my ex.  "What day is it?  Tuesday or Wednesday?"  He laughed, somewhat unkindly, and answered, "Why don't you just look at the calendar?"  "What good is looking at the calendar when I don't know what day it is I'm supposed to be looking at???"  Dang five year olds who think they know everything.)


Oh geez, that's funny stuff right there.

Our random and not too busy weekend

Our a/c has decided to not work.  Which we thought might be okay since we're now into September and the temps are slowly but surely dropping into fall time...

Right?

It would be right except for the slowly part.  Come evening time we were busting open the windows and doors hoping to catch some cross breezes.

It didn't work well and now our house is home to flies and moths.

You just can't win them all.

Our weekend was a jumble of little things.  We finally finally finally have the upstairs bathroom finished to a point where I think I can take "after" pictures.  We just need mirrors. 

And the goldfish.

But we have towel racks hanging up! 

Can I get a *woot woot* for no more towels on the floor?  ... in theory anyway.  We'll see how the follow through comes along with those little kids using that bathroom.

Their bathroom is so much nicer than mine.

But we're making headway on the kitchen and main floor and I'm loving that  so I can't complain.

On Friday Cas decided to be all grown up and go the movies with a group of friends.  The "grown up" part comes in to play when I mention that that group included boys.

One of Casidee's girl friends was sent to our house, in preparation for this event, with this written on her arm in sharpie:

I was laughing so hard.

Frankly, the girls outnumbered the boys in this group, and I personally knew the boys and their families so I wasn't at all worried about the group dynamics but this resulted in Cas going to the movies with this on her arm:

And you better believe I smudged out my phone number on these pictures because the last thing I need is my phone number plastered on the internet.

I took Cas to the orthodontist on Friday, she's coming along great.  They've changed her bands so now they're starting to work on pulling the teeth together more to fill in the gap of the missing teeth.  We're pretty excited about this.

Tayler went to the eye doctor to double check if she really needs glasses.

The doctor teased her about getting glasses that look just like the machine.

Can you seriously imagine being a teacher and looking out at your class and seeing this? 

I find it a hilarious thought!  Completely irrational but hilarious.

Oh, she doesn't need the glasses.  She's 20/30 so we'll just keep checking her every year to see if it changes.

I scrubbed the bathrooms this weekend and I have to say I love a bathroom that smells like bleach.  It just screams clean when it smells like bleach.

We finally made it to the dollar theater to check out the new Spiderman.

In love with it.

I used to hate Spiderman movies. 

Not anymore.

"Mother... Hubbard."

I can now see why Sean would claim it to be his new favorite movie, it is, indeed, worthy of such a claim.  Though I won't be claiming that, I'm still true to my "Pride and Prejudice," but I can see myself buying that new Spiderman.

Maybe Santa will put it in The Man's stocking.

We got home from seeing that Spiderman movie to find our yard full of kids. 

Like, full of kids.

They're vampires I tell ya.

And here's this:

My drawing skills with Draw Something are amazing.

And now that you have seen a finger drawing of dentures your Monday morning is complete. 

You're welcome.

Also, you all need to learn how to play Fluxx.

We're a little hooked since I bought it and taught it to The Circus on our Moab trip. 
Hello Sunday Family Game time.

We love you.

I've put Pirate Fluxx on my Christmas list. 

If I'm really good maybe Santa will put it in my stocking.

It's not too late to start being good, right?

Tomorrow I will tell a story. Today you get nothing.

I can't write the post I wanted to today because I forgot to grab the pictures I need for it.
Grrrr.
I read a quote the other day and it brought "the car crash" back to mind.  I realized I don't have a record of that, and it was pretty terrible, which made it pretty miraculous.  Tomorrow?  Tomorrow.
I'll have to put a reminder in my phone to grab the cd of pictures for it.
Because I forget things.

And I'm looking at what else I should be blogging about to keep track of things and none of it's really jumping out at me.

So instead I will entice you with pictures from Draw with Me.  You should all be playing with me.
If you did, you would get pictures like these:

Also, Chess with friends!  Where West is the only one who plays with me :). And he beats me :(. 

I've decided that Words with friends frustrates me.
Sometimes people use words and I just want to come back with, "use that in a sentence.  I dare you."
I think people cheat with that game.

And songpop, apparently, unless it's the 80's category, I have no idea what the songs are.
Does that make me old?
I feel dated.

I'm only 33. 
Maybe it's just because I've listened to them the longest.

Here's a random picture of the clouds that I took last night while sitting on the lawn of the church, waiting on teenage girls:

Pictures of clouds never get old.

Have I shared this picture with you yet?

West doing hand stands with the circus never gets old either.
At least I can beat West in a game of hands up stands up.

Take that West.

Tomorrow I will tell a story.  A grand story.
Today, apparently, you get nothing.

put it on itube

The man and I have taken up playing Chess with Friends on our phones.
We'll sit there and complain when it takes too long for a move to transfer over.
Because, you know, we couldn't actually pull out a real board or anything.

Stinky West beats me every time.

Yesterday when I stopped to get gas for my car, I stopped the car but left the key in, got out and started to fill my car.

When it was done I climbed back in and turned the key.
It wouldn't start.

So I tried to remove the key so I could get a fresh start at it.
But the key wouldn't come out.

I struggled with it for a minute. 
Turning and unturning and trying to pull that thing out.

It wouldn't start and the key wouldn't come out.
Finally I succumbed to calling The Man.

He started running through a check list.
Is your steering wheel kinked?
No.

Wiggle it back and forth.
It's not working.

Is the car in park?
And I looked down...

You have got to be kidding me.
I knew I had to tell him.

I left it in drive.
Thankfully he laughed at me for interrupting his work morning with the fact that I didn't put my car in park before turning it off.

I retold this to my co-worker, Linda.
We started going off on "what could have happened" scenarios.

Like the car rolling away from me while I was pumping gas, and taking the gas hose, or even the whole gas pump, with it.
Linda says, "you could have ended up on itube! Or, I mean, the ipod."

She doesn't get out much.
After we were done laughing I was finally able to let her know that it's called youtube.

Brynn's faces for freezing six warts from her toes.
There was a method to my madness, taking pictures of her in this moment.

It made her laugh before she was off on her next face.
It distracted her for a moment.

Maybe I should have made a video for itube.
Maybe I should invent itube.

Brynn was good as soon as we left the office.
Other than she couldn't wear her shoe.
She's the one asking for this treament to be done after all, and when that girl sets her mind on something, it set in stone as far as she's concerned.