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.

In Which I Got Very Behind and Now Do a Catch Up Post

As it tends to go, I got a little overwhelmed with life.

It's been a harder semester with both math 1050 and Spanish, plus working full time, and also trying not to slack as a mother and a wife altogether.

Which didn't happen, but after a slap of reality I pulled it back together and realized where my priorities need to be, even while working and going to school.

No other success can make up for failure in the home.

I don't want to fail in my home.

As it is, the blog got set to the side for a few weeks.

And now I get to show all the incredibly random things that have kept us hopping.

Like Cali's birthday party at Hollywood Connections.

Where Grandma Julie gave Cali some ice cream cones for part of her birthday present, and we then used them to back the cupcakes in and top with ice cream on sundae toppings.  

Our local grocery store had a week where they invited schools to decorate check stands and come in and do...

Well...

This:





...all through the entire store.  Over and over.

The walking around behind the mascot, not the rapping.

Though the rapping was quite good.

A few months ago I saw a groupon for Harlem Globetrotters tickets, and as the Harlem Globetrotters have been on my bucket list since I was a kid, I jumped at the chance to go.

For "bring your parent to school day" we decided to just join the girls for lunch.  We showed up with Panda Express and Subway cookies and hung out with them at the Middle School for that part of their day.

It would have been helpful if they'd all have the same lunch, but what do you?  The Man helped me study Spanish flashcards in between lunches.

A random pic of the girls tromping into church on a windy day.

As it turns out, we have all six kids going to the orthodontist.

I'm not sure how this happened since none of their parents ever had the need for orthodontia, but *sigh* I guess that doesn't matter.

The orthodontist (who is awesome by the way, if you need one hit him up here and tell him we sent you) checked out these three, thought he was done, and then was shocked when he realized the rest of his chairs were also filled with our kids.

The orthodontist has become a family outing.

I think that brings me up to date on all the little goings on.

I have a really fun roadtrip post to do, and I still have the 10k run post to do, complete with a discount run.  It has inflatable jump houses in it!  The run, not the post.  We also need to plan our Very Merry Unbirthday Tea Party for our Disneyside Home Party ( a HUGE thanks to Disney for the fun swag for that one!).

But first, a Spanish test tonight.

Then we'll get on with the rest of it.

Last Minute to Dixie Rock

On Friday  morning I got a text from The Man.  He'd found a fork lift in St. George that he wanted to check out for work.

I'm not going to let him have all the fun of driving south where the weather was going to be a blissful 70 degrees (F) and where Grandpa Dick and Grandma KC live, and he knew it.

So we sprung the surprise on The Circus when they got home from school that they needed to pack a bag, we were hitting the road.

We got there kind of late so we pretty much just hit the hay that night but the next morning The Man took off to check out the fork lift.  I sat myself down at the computer to get some homework done that was due.  The Circus helped Grandpa do a service by cleaning up the small park in the neighborhood (they live in a 55+ community so it wasn't a public park per se, but a private one of the community's).  Grandma ran errands with Brynn in tow.  Kids were in and out of the hot tub, reading, running around, and playing with toys.

Finally the fork lift had been inspected by The Man, my homework was turned in, and we had everyone back at the house and in dry clothes.  So by request of Sean, and met with eager agreed cheers from the rest of the bunch, we headed over to Dixie Rock to climb around and soak in the amazing weather.

crazy hair and a bunch of talk about teeth

Crazy hair day at school is one of my favorite days of school.

Actually, it wasn't just crazy hair day, it was just plain ol' crazy day.  Which meant the outfit had to be crazy too.

I think The Circus did pretty good with that.  Except Cas, who's too cool to be uncool.

The only downfall to crazy day is when it also happens to fall on the same day as your dentist appointment and your mom has gets to take you out in public looking all... crazy.

You get a lot of looks when that happens.

We've been having a lot happening lately as far as teeth are concerned.  We are becoming the orthodontist's favorite family.  5 out of 6 kids need him.  Aren't we lucky?  Actually, isn't he lucky?  We've just ensured his retirement.

Cas just had her last three baby teeth pulled to start prepping for the beginning of her work.

She's missing five adult teeth.  Yup.  Five of them.  Brynn and Cali are missing one adult tooth only, but it happens to be one right up front next to the big teeth.  Apparently this is a hereditary trait, and being as I have all of my adult teeth, we can only blame it on my mother who was adopted.  We have no medical history so sometimes fun things like this like to jump out at us and take us by surprise.

Cas will be starting her treatment at the orthodontist this week.  Brynn and Cali have awhile before they start, thankfully.  Let me pay off one child before another starts, please.

Though Jayme's getting her stuff done at the orthodontist right now too.  She started a month or two ago.  She and Sean got The Man's little mouth so room needs to be made to fit all of their teeth in. 

Jayme has this awesome contraption in her mouth right now:

And this week we've now added this beauty to her bottom teeth:

After the orthodontist made sure it fit correctly, Jay and I left the orthodontist's office.  Once upon a time I had a retainer to help with a way-ward tooth that my incoming wisdom teeth had pushed out a little bit so I understand a little how this retainer thing goes.

"Hey Jayme, now your going to thay you etheth like thith (say your S's like this)."  I looked at her and giggled.
She looked at me, confused.  "My etheth?"  And as her slurred "s" came out she looked at me in shock.  "Oh my goth! My etheth!"  And she covered her mouth with her hand in horror staring at me with big eyes.

Don't worry Jay, you just need to get used to where the retainer is. 

She practiced all the way home and is doing pretty good with it now.

A random thing: we saw this truck while we were on our way home

How very awesome is that?