June 11, 2012

...in 32 weeks!

My Favorite 1 Minute Craft: Felt Rosettes

I've made so many of these cute rosettes and they take maybe 1 minute!All you need is hot glue gun, felt, and scissors. Hobby Lobby has the greatest color selection for felt. I use these little darlings on head bands, wreaths, and hair clips. Let me know what you think. Find the tutorial here.

Logan

Lexi and I got a deal at a hotel in Logan so we decided to plan a trip and go. It was a busy week for me planning and hosting a cross country meet so it felt good to get my sub plans ready, clean up the meet, drop Gavin off at grandma Watsons and hit the road.

We arrived around 8 in the evening and drove up and down main st looking for a good place to eat. We found Gia's, an Itlalian restaurant, walked in and wondered where everyone was. We were the only ones there so we got first class service to some good pasta.


Then Lexi suggested we go watch a movie. Why not? So we got directions to the theatre, and arrived just as Contagion was starting. It felt weird not having to be home for Gavins bedtime after a late dinner and a movie. It was after midnight by the time we went to bed. That hasn't happened for a while!

We slept in the next morning and took our time getting to breakfast and enjoying the hot tub. We got ready and did sealings in the temple. Neither of us had been in the Logan temple before so it was a great new experience for both of us.

Then we changed, checked out, and found a Mexican restaurant to eat at. Next we took a scenic 15 minute drive up the canyon to the trailhead of the Wind Caves hike. We walked off lunch up the steep switchbacks through red/orange/yellow bushes and trees to a beautiful cave/arch.
(no pics from phone available)

We headed home but wanted to avoid Friday/game night traffic through slc and Utah valley. So we stopped by our favorite custard place, Nielson's. Custard and fries ended up being a great dinner.

It was such a great trip and a great day off for me from work and for Lexi from Gavin. But we're happy to be back while Gavin didn't really seem to mind or notice we were even gone.

Ice cream made on a COLDSTONE

Lexi and I love Coldstone ice cream! We always get the same thing. She gets cheesecake ice cream with raspberry, I get cake batter with cookie dough. Every once in a while we think we want to try something else, only to be devastatingly let down and wonder why we ever strayed from our favorites. After we get our favs, we go and sit on a bench in the mall and people watch. The problem? It can be a little pricey. (a good alternative is Maceys ice cream. $1 for 2 small godd-sized cones, including tax). So we're always looking for deals online.
The other day I found some good ones on Deal Dragon. For a free coupon you print off you get 2 quarts for $9. We decided to try it out last night. Here are the pics of the overflowing goodness

My cake batter with cookie dough. Didn't get a pic of lexi's cause I was too distracted by mine.

Not sure if we enjoyed people watching people more or if people enjoyed people watching us. After a couple minutes of silence and purely enjoying our steal, we had to set a limit (15 more bites) to when we would stop or we could've finished the whole quart. We then sealed the container and hurried home to get the precious quarts in the freezer (but took a couple more bites first). It's now a joy opening the freezer and seeing such a beautiful site. We can have our favorite Coldstone whenever now!

The one legged napper!

The other day I went to get Gavin out of his crib from a nap. He usually is standing up when we go in to get him but this time he was on his knees struggling to get to his feet. When I picked him up I saw why:



Both legs stuck in one. He was a little frustrated but I had to take a few pictures before I fixed it.

(on a side note, is it socially acceptable for me, a guy, to be blogging like this?)

Land of Mary

Todd here: Who hates uploading pictures to blogger? So here are the pictures of our trip in backwards order with some medium sized and some small (you'd think I'd learn by now).

Anyway about a month ago Lexi, Gavin and I flew out to Maryland to visit Lexi's brother Rob and his family. We were out there for a week and loved spending time with them. They were such good hosts. (To see day-by-day blog updates go back a few posts).

These are at a museum just outside the Naval Base Rob works at:

Gavin behind the controls inside the museum:
Rob told us all these cool things about the planes.
Working some controls:
This is at the beach inside the base. We were limited on our picture taking so this is the only one we got. We just have the memories of the sweet F-18s taking off!
DC day 2 Capitol:
Botanic Gardens, alone... :)
You'd think all that walking would shrink my belly down just a bit, uuugh!
Air and Space Museum:
Natural History Museum:
The bay about 2 minutes from Rob and Tina's house with really warm water and biting horseflies:
DC day 1 Jefferson Memorial at dusk:
This is standing behind the Lincoln Memorial watching the sunset:
Construction on the reflecting pond, not sure what they're doing.
Lincoln Memorial. Such an awesome site:
We got a lot of looks with our 3 strollers going everywhere: "There's a reason for the elevators" -Black guy (to us going down the escalator in front of him)
WWII Monument:
White House:
Washington Monument:
No routines for the babies at DC, so naps were taken whenever and in whatever position:
This is the restaurant where we met up with Lexi's cousin:
Outside the American History Museum. (C'mon Todd, suck it in at least for the pictures!):
"There's no place like home:"
On the metro:
The bay in the evening:
Walking to the bay. We loved all the greenery and catching fireflies:
Day 1 at Solomon's Island, a boardwalk with some shops and stuff:
That's the stroller we got from the church lost-and-found before it was taken to the D.I. It was cheap and old but lasted us the whole week full of metros, museums, DC and much more.

Such an awesome trip. We were glad we went. But our favorite parts were just hanging out at night and playing games after the kids went to bed. We're hoping Rob and Tina will move a little closer to home so we can see them more often, but were happy to hang with them and tour part of the East Coast along the way.

What do the following restaurants have in common?

-Red Robin

-Olive Garden

-Los Hermanos

-Pizza Pie Cafe

-Iggy's

-Tucanos

???

We get our moneys worth!

Lexi and I love going out to eat and these are some of our favorite places to eat. The reason is because you get a lot of food for your price. Let's go more in detail about each:

-Red Robin, all you can eat steak fries with the purchase of an entree. Their burgers are really good too. Someone once asked Lexi what her favorite part about Red Robin Burgers was, "The fries" she said. We always have them bring out the fries right after we order as if they're an appetizer. We also ask for BBQ sauce, Ranch, and Campfire sauce (BBQ mixed with Ranch). All for around $20 for 2. Every once in a while they have $5 burgers. They haven't done it for a while, probably because we would always go in and eat more than our share of $10 worth.

-Olive Garden, all you can eat salad AND bread sticks with entree. This always amazes us. When we compare this with, say, Pizza Factory where you may get one twisty bread thing, but you have to pay extra for a plate of salad. (Oh, and btw, it costs $1 for a side of Ranch there!!!!!) For the same price for an entree at Pizza Factory, you can get a similar one, along with all you can eat GOOD salad and and you can eat GOOD warm bread sticks. Amazing!

-Los Hermanos, no secret here. You sit down, you get all the chips and salsa you could eat during your entire visit. They're good too, but not very filling.

-Pizza Pie Cafe, all you can eat salad, pasta and pizza. For less than $7 you get a good salad bar, an okay pasta bar, and a good pizza bar. Oh, and great dessert pizza. All this for less than the price of an entree anywhere else.

-Iggy's, entrees come with really good and warm bread with a good dipping sauce. Their entrees aren't our favorite (still good stuff), but when you can bug the waiter to keep'em coming without adding to the bill, you can't complain.

-Tucanos, we only go here twice a year, once during February and once during April. You get a free buffet with the purchase of one during the month of your B-day. (You have to receive a voucher thing in the mail). We go during lunch time and pay around $16 for 2 buffets instead of the dinner price of about $25.

We really know how to beat the system, don't we?

Please comment with your restaurant recommendations, preferably ones where you get a lot for your money :)

While I'm on the topic of all you can eat, this evening Lexi and I went to Shakey's Pizza Parlor in American Fork. Its a new pizza buffet we heard about and wanted to check out. We knew it wouldn't be as good as Pizza Pie Cafe, but didn't think it would be this bad. Some of the reasons that we didn't like it compared to Pizza Pie Cafe include the following:

-only 3 choices of salad styles rather than choosing whatever toppings and dressings at PPC.

-only 2 choices for pasta rather than several kinds of pasta along with several kinds of toppings at PPC.

-Extremely Mediocre pizza. It's not often that I don't finish my first slice of pizza at a restaurant, but I had to with the Alfredo Pizza. The same thing happened with several other kinds.

-You have to ask one of the zit-faced teens behind the counter for a side of ranch for dipping. Uugh, at PPC they have little cups next to the ranch to serve yourself.

-Ok dessert pizza. I love the cookie dough pizza at PPC.

-I guess Shakey's has soup, but I didn't try it. It wasn't really the "theme" of the restaurant, and I know my restaurant themes!

Unfortunately all this has added a little to my....figure. So next time you see me, please don't ask when my baby is due :)

AZ/Ca Trip

Back before we went to Maryland Lexi and I went on a trip to Arizona and California. Being a teacher I have the summer off. For now, I'm not working during the summer, just relaxing. So we've decided to take advantage of this time and Gavin's age to go on our own family trips. This is the schedule of our summer:

-School got out end of May

-A week and a half later we went to St. George with my family for a week (See a previous post).

-A week and a half later we did our AZ/Ca trip (which I will give more details about later in this post)

-A week and a half later we got back from AZ/CA

-4 days later we left to Maryland for a week (Brief day-to-day were given during, a more detailed post will come after AZ/CA post)

-Now we have about 2 weeks before the Watson family reunion

-Then we'll have another 2 weeks before school starts

Not a bad summer! (And you always thought growing up as a student that the summer was for you)

Anyway, Lexi and I can't go an entire year without going to the beach. We also wanted to visit my brother Tim and his family in Arizona. So we thought we'd put it all in one trip, traveling when we wanted to, working around Gavin's schedule, etc.

We first we to Las Vegas. None of has had been there for a while and we figured we wouldn't have much of a chance to go for a while. We got there at around 4 p.m. and had the evening to spend there. It was just the right amount of time for an LDS couple to spend there without spending money on shows. Speaking of LDS couples, we probably saw about 5 other strollers there, which is not a lot compared to seeing tons walking around the Orem Mall. Ok, I'll finish with the boring details and get to the pics

No, we did not coordinate our shirts again, we are just always on the same wavelength when it comes to picking out traveling outfits.

It was a pretty good one time trip to Vegas. We're not planning on going back anytime soon.

We spent the night there and got up the next morning and headed out to Arizona to visit Tim & Shelbie. We loved spending time with them and their boys. Gavin especially loved the boys but still wasn't sure about walking, like them.

It wasn't too hot, just 116 degrees! We went to the Mesa Temple Visitor Center and walked around. We could barely stand the heat. We had to stop next to all the trees for shade and go back inside for air conditioning just after a few minutes of walking around outside.

The Stake YSA had a babysitting night, so we dropped the kids off with a bunch of strangers and when out for dinner and dessert.
It was necessary to take a dip in the pool
Dark Chocolate and White Chocolate. (Or Chocolate Milk and Skim Milk)
After only a few days in AZ (and they were short days, we wished we stayed longer after we left) we headed West for Southern California where my Grandparents live. The moment we stepped out of the car, we could feel the moist air of the OC and couldn't wait to get to the beach.

Gma and Gpa loved Gavin, and he loved them and exploring their house.
We did everything on Gavin's schedule. After his first nap we went to the beach. Then we came home and put him down for a nap and had gma listen for him while Lexi and I went to the spa. After his second nap we went out shopping or for dinner.

Feeding the ducks:

We left So Cal and went to St. George to spend the night there on our last leg of the trip. We loved doing Cafe Rio then Nelson's Custard and swimming in the evening. This was our first little family trip and it was a blast and a success. Many memories were made and we look forward to many more such trips.