Yasmine, Goodbye 2015, and January the First. (In Which Surfing is Still Awesome.)

January the first.

Starting again.

First item of business: this girl.

Right smack dab in the middle of our business for a whole night.

I loved every minute of it.

To my niece, Yaz Ma Taz: When you are a rich and famous Broadway star, you still have to claim me and send me free tickets to your shows, and there isn't much you can do about it.  That's just how family rolls, and you are mine and we are yours.

Love.

Next up, we kicked 2015 outta here in style, because it was a year that was good to us, despite the fact that Casidee, Brynn, and Cali decided to move in with their dad (though Cali came to her senses and came back home), aside from that little tidbit, which is not so little, but putting it aside, 2015 was good to us.  So very good.  I'll be trying to catch up on year of posts that have been neglected, but it was a year worth remembering so hopefully I can jamb the highlights in here soon-ish.

Plus, also, New Year's Eve is my wedding anniversary with The Man so that in and of itself requires some pomp and circumstance.

We hung out at home with snacks, games, and The Circus.  But don't be fooled, after getting my butt handed to me by Brynn in Settlers of Catan (that game!), we did get fancied up with cookie cocktails and midnight kisses.

Proof that Pinterest doesn't always fail.

We also found a long forgotten bag of hats and noise makers that Papa Mike gave us a few years ago and those came in quite handy as well.

Sorry to our neighbors on both sides who have babies...  Happy New Year and all.

AND, The Man had lost/forgotten about Christmas presents that he had bought me as he had stashed them around the house.  Merry Christmas to me on New Year's Eve (or perhaps happy anniversary?) as he found a bag of York Peppermint Patties in his car and this shirt in his desk:

He amuses me.

He also gets me.

This is why we're married.

This brings me to January the first.  Today.

For Christmas we gave The Circus a day pass to Provo Beach, where The Man and I had gone before (here), but had not yet taken The Circus.  (Also, I was happy to see that the golf simulator was gone; replaced by laser tag which is a million times more enjoyable.  Times a million more.) I joined the email list in hopes that a deal would show up at some point where we could go again, and Cyber Monday did not disappoint.

Merry Christmas kids, you have to spend time with us.

Which, thankfully, is something The Circus has not outgrown.

Yet?

We'll see.

But not if I have anything to do with it.

So today we drove down to Provo Beach where Cas and I watched everyone high above the ground on the ropes course (we know where our feet should be... safely on the ground), and we all joined in on great croquet tournaments, laser tag games, bowling, and arcadia bliss.

Plus ice cream.

And Coke.

Oh, and surfing.  How could I forget the surfing already?


Cue onslaught of pictures:

January the first, I think you've set a solid standard for 2016.

Bring it on, we're ready.

Golf Is Hard. And It Sucks. Surfing Is Hard. But It Does Not Suck. Provo Beach Resort.

A month or so ago I was looking on Groupon and noticed a deal for Provo Beach Resort.

It boasted of indoor surfing, a rope course, mini bowling, mini croquet, and a golf simulator (among many other things as well).

The thought process for me went something along these lines:

man hard to shop for
this is new
surfing good
cheap
buy it

Apparently I think like a caveman.

I wanted to use it closer to his birthday but as all good Groupons go, it had an expiration date.  So I waited until the very last possible day to use it (to be as close to The Man's birthday as I could get).

I can't even tell you how much I love this place now.

We decided to hit the rope course first.

I'm terrified of heights but was bound and determined to go wherever West went.  I wasn't about to be the poor sport that made his birthday present not fun.

It proved to be almost too much for me.

But I can say I did almost all of it.

And I only cried once.

Ignore the awesome hair.  This picture was taken on our second round on the ropes course... after we'd been surfing.

This is no wimpy rope course.  You're higher than the second story floor, with nothing underneath you all the way down to the main floor.

The Man showed off:



After that we checked out the mini croquet.

Which was hilarious.

And harder than it looked.

Though I must say I think The Circus will be much better at this than they are at mini golf simply because there are no water hazards.

The Man beat me by one.

We bowled on the mini lanes while watching a movie.

Ironically enough, The Man and I tied on this bowling game.

Apparently I'm a much better bowler when the lane is half its ordinary length.

We tried out the PGA Golf Simulator.

Golf is hard.

And it sucks.

The simulator would just bump you to the next hole if you took too many swings.

Kind of like, "okay, you really suck, how about we just move this along and kick you out of this hole.  You can try again on the next one."

We played seven holes.

I was allowed, by the simulator, to finish one hole.

One.

I would get up and swing, and swing, and swing.

And swing.

(I always thought that when people miss the ball when golfing that they had to be faking.)

(Or really dumb.)

(I now feel for those people.)

(I'm sorry for every time I wrinkled my nose in wonder at you.)

And the simulator would say, "hey loser, you don't belong here.  You're done."

And West would finish the hole by himself.

For seven holes.

I was so beyond done with that thing by the time we decided to stop and head down to surf.

In my defense, I'd never even picked up a golf club before that day.

Also, why do you need nine different sizes of one club?

Seriously.

If you go to the Provo Beach Resort for no other reason than to surf, you will be getting your money's worth.

Surfing is hard.

But surfing does not suck.

And in The Man's words, it's all about the crash.  So for you viewing pleasure, here are two crashes:





Which, finally, something I can do better than The Man.

Crash.

Happy birthday to my man in a week.

We're planning on taking The Circus to this place soon.  They also provide boogie boards so the kids can body or knee board, which we think they'll love doing.

We also want to see how they handle the rope course.

This place, in our humble opinion, gets high marks.

And I didn't even get anything for saying that.  We just really had a lot of fun.

Except for golfing.