Girls' Weekend 2011

Some friends and I went away for our annual Girls' Weekend.  Only this year we could only swing 1 night.  But it was still needed and fun and therapeutic and divine.

Shopping in Park City for a bit before heading to the hotel.  Colleen found some subtle earrings that she'd been dying over.  (Seriously? I've seen chargers that were smaller.)

The view from our room at the St. Regis in Deer Valley.

Strike a pose!

Molly, Colleen, Jenni, Tricia, me

One of these gals has a house in Midway where we usually stay; it's basically free, there's no check-out time, it's close to home.  Scheduling didn't work out for us to stay there, so we opted for a hotel that would give us early check-in (noon) and a late check-out the next day (4:00).  We don't usually shop or leave the house for any reason.  We literally stay in our pajamas until it's time for dinner, then we get cleaned up, go out for a quick bite and then get back in our pj's and stay up until 2 or 3:00 talking.  We did that exact same thing in Park City this year.  

I feel like my cup runneth over with the gift of amazing friends.  I gush to Landon when I get home about how lovely they are.  Our guts hurt from laughing, our makeup was smeared from crying, I always get a headache from lack of sleep, but it's totally worth it.  To quote one of these ladies, because I feel the same:  "I sat in sacrament meeting today with a big smile on my face, and I'll be honest, that NEVER happens.  I just felt refreshed, not rested, but refreshed, by having spent the weekend with you girls.  And, I was analyzing why that is.  Why is it that just sitting around eating and talking with all y'all feeds my soul like it does?  I mean no offense, but it's not like anyone said or did anything that amazing.  But here is the thing - you (each of you) are inspiring to me.  I ALWAYS come away from this weekend wanting to try harder at the things that matter most.  Some groups of women make me feel like I want to be thinner or have a cuter house or be more organized or try as it were to "appear more perfect".  For whatever  reason, you girls make me want to try harder to love, to serve, to school my thoughts and words, to feed my soul, to feed my family, to pray and listen and most of all to laugh my head off at how ridiculously hard the battle sometimes (almost always) is."

Semi-good Idea

Last night I put glow sticks in the tub with my boys.  It looked awesome when we turned off the lights, and I wished I had a decent camera (and some photog skills to capture the awesomeness).

Apparently one of the glow sticks had a leak in it.  I shook them to activate and when we turned off the lights, our little bathroom looked like a hotel bedspread under a blue light.  Or a crime scene.  There were splatter patterns on the floor, walls, my bathrobe.  And then that leaking glow stick got in Henry's eye and stung and then there was crying.

It was cool for a few moments, though.

Good News Minute!

Henry had a checkup for his eyes this week.  His left eye went from a 20/60 to a 20/30!!  The patch is working.  The doctor kept congratulating me and shaking my hand:  "You're preventing a blind, crossed eye in your child.  Well done."  I'm wondering if we're one of the few parents that actually followed doctor's orders.
He's been a champ about wearing his patch.  4 more months of the patch and if he's made more progress, he probably won't have to wear the patch anymore.  It looks like we've avoided surgery and I'm thrilled.

He first got glasses in March.

He had an MRI in March to make sure that is eye that was crossing was not caused by any neurological issues.  It's extremely unsettling watching your child be put under.

Slowly waking up.

Wearing a patch for one hour each day.

Halloween 2011

 Ethan is obsessed with anything military.  He wakes up early in the morning to watch TV and you won't catch him watching PBS or the Disney Channel.  Oh no, he's got several shows recorded from the Military Channel:  Top Ten Tanks, The Best Guns Ever, Jets R Us (I'm making up titles here.  I really have no idea what the shows are called.)

So when we had the opportunity to borrow an army costume from my friend Molly, Ethan was ecstatic.  His dad did a really cool job on the camo makeup; Ethan kept looking at himself in the mirror.

When he got home from trick-or-treating, he had leaves stuck to his back.  Landon said he would lay on people's lawns in the dark to see if he really was camouflaged.  Stealth Trick-or-Treating.

Henry went to preschool dressed as the Hulk.  With Glasses.  It took some sweet-talking from Landon to get Henry to let us put face paint on him.  The deal being that he could dress as Spider Man for trick-or-treating that night.

I forgot to take a picture of him on Halloween;  this is some stock footage from a few months ago when we ran errands with him dressed up.

Henry got back from trick-or-treating with a ton of leaves in his candy bucket.  I asked Landon what happened and he said that without Henry's glasses and behind those tiny eyeholes in the dark it was pretty hard to see.  Henry kept falling down and dumping his loot.  Finally he ripped the mask off and ran to catch up with the gang of kids.

I love this holiday and wished I had felt a little better so I could have enjoyed it more.  I love that we had warm weather.  Remember how ticked you would get when your mom would make you wear a parka over your Mary Poppins costume?  

We have over 100 bags of chips left over; we way overbought.  Come by for some after-trick-or-treat bags of Doritos.