Trains, Travels, and Triceratops ;)

I've gotten rather behind on my blogging, so this will be a bit of catch up of the activities we've done over the past couple of weeks-

First off... we had a great at-home date last weekend. We've been rather strapped financially this month from Christmas and traveling expenses, so we've been spending very little money on entertainment to help make up for it - so dating has been scarce the past few weeks. We decided we needed to do something fun as a couple so we had a romantic dinner in our living room. :) Ben's always so good with setting the atmosphere - with candles, cloth napkins, and our china. He even wrapped up our pink lemonade bottle in fabric so we felt extra fancy (and pretend like we were drinking an expensive wine at a classy restaurant). Well, we had a lovely dinner after the kids went to bed and I am amazed at how well you can replicate dining out when on a budget.

As another inexpensive family outing we spent a Saturday morning at the Railroad Park in Scottsdale. We hadn't been in a long time and the kids loved riding the train and carousel, playing on the big playground, picnicking, and getting a little ice cream. Yum! And what a mess!

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Ben had to take a test near Philadelphia this past Monday. I really can't believe they make all the DO students fly all the way across the country just to take a test - the good part of it is it's really the last test he needed to take before getting his degree in June. What a relief that will be! (The bigger relief will be matching with a residency we want in March). Anyway, after taking his test he drove over to Valley Forge (it was only a few miles from his hotel) and took some pictures. He said that it was really awesome and was cursing my camera for running out of battery after only a few pictures. Oops! Probably should have charged it before giving it to him to take.




So, after buying a van (see previous post) last night, we woke up this morning with no where planned to go, but anxious to get out and drive our new vehicle! :) So, we arranged to meet up with Ben's sister's family across town to go to the Museum of Natural History in Mesa. What a fun place! It had been at least a couple of years since I had been there last and I forgot how amusing it is. The kids can pan for gold, go through old jail cells, and view lots of dinosaur fossils! It was a lot of fun. After the museum, we went to the Mesa Temple grounds for a picnic lunch and then had a little treat afterwords at Bahama Bucks. A very pleasant Saturday outing.

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So, I still need to post about Chinese New Year, but I'm waiting on pictures to get sent to me from the family. I know you just can't wait! ;)

I'm in the club!

Look! I have a van! I'm REALLY excited about it - we weren't sure it was going to happen in time for the baby to come, but we finally were able to get a deal we were happy with. In the process of getting this van, we had to trade in our Altima as well- we were sad to part with it, but I'm even more excited to be the owner of a minivan! Can you believe I just said that, mom? I'm quoted as saying to my mother "I will NEVER own a van!" - well, never say never. :) Anyway- we got a Nissan Quest, which is exactly what we wanted... it's got an interesting body style for a van, making it a little sportier looking and thus making me feel less like an old tired mom. ;) But, then again, it is still a van. We found a 2005, which is older than we were originally looking at (we're of the mentality that you should buy newer and repair less), but we soon realized we just weren't going to be able to afford much newer than that - however, it's got lots of cool features that came with it, like a built in DVD player, power seats and doors, new speakers, and even seat warmers! What the heck are we going to need seat warmers for in Arizona?!

Chicken and what?!

Can I tell you how much I love all the holidays through January and February? It's a great way to spring back from all the fun of Christmas since there is still so much to celebrate... and they're all simple holidays so all you have to do something small and it creates for such a fun day. Well, yesterday was Martin Luther King Day, so we had Ben's parents and sister's family over for a themed dinner. Now, you all will think we're super weird and crazy, but we decided to try eating chicken and waffles. Ben and I had been hearing about this for a while from Ben's brother and honestly I didn't believe it would be good (the concept reminded me of the Friends' episode where Rachel puts the beef in the trifle!). So, chicken and waffles is a southern dish and along with it we tried out a fun red white and blue drink in honor of Martin Luther King Jr Day and the big Inauguration Day to follow. I couldn't believe how yummy it all was! Chicken and waffles with syrup drizzled all over the top was really delicious (and incredibly fattening... we opted against having a dessert to accompany the meal... but isn't that what holidays are for? to eat yummy fattening food?!)

So, other holidays/events coming up are the following (if any of you are looking for a reason to celebrate!):
January 26- Chinese New Year
February 1- Superbowl Sunday
February 2- Groundhog Day
February 14- Valentines Day
February 16- President's Day (and Emma's birthday!)

Happy celebrating!

My little Fairy Princesses

Ben's has been away this evening on a Young Men campout - the crazies are out there camping in the snow up in Flagstaff. He seemed rather excited about it... me, on the other hand, was glad to be able to stay home in my warm house. :) Since daddy was away, the rest of us girls decided to have a tea party. Nothing more girly then that, right? For Christmas we got Emma a new cookbook called, Pink Princess Tea Parties. She loves it, and considering she loves cooking, princesses, and anything pink, that's no surprise. Well, she picked out the recipe she wanted to do - the teacup cupcakes (probably because it was pictured so prominently on the front cover. We headed to the grocery store and picked up a couple things we needed and headed home to get cooking. She was a good help and did a lot of mixing, adding of ingredients, and most importantly adding pink sprinkles at the end. We made most of them as regular cupcakes in a muffin tin, but a few we made special in teacups. The girls dressed up as a Fairy and a Princess and happily dug into their special pink cupcake creations at our candle-lit table. So, other than a messy kitchen to clean up, we had a fun evening - even though daddy was away. So, once I have this boy that's on it's way... how will he fit into our pink princess tea parties? I guess you always need a prince right? Or maybe daddy will have to take him on his scout campouts so that we still have our girly nights. :)

Wrapping up the holiday season

Hmm... I really am not in the mood to be blogging right now... I don't know why, but at the same time, I don't want it to turn into February without posting about New Years and our recent Utah visit.

We spent New Years Eve at Ben's parents house. We stayed up late playing games (5 Crowns, and a couple rounds of Harry Potter Clue... how cool are we?!), watching movies ("old classics" like Run Fat Boy Run and Hot Rod... ha!). We drank lots of root beer (thanks to Ben's Christmas present he's been saving - a keg of Virgils!) and the evening was sealed with a nice kiss from my cutie Ben.

That weekend we went to ASU to see the Lion King broadway performance... very cool! The costumes were incredible! And it makes me want to see the Disney movie again.

Sunday was the first of the year, so Emma started Sunbeams!! She's definitely enjoyed nursery, but after almost 2 1/2 years of it, she was very ready to move on to Primary. On the way home from church we asked her what she learned about and she showed us her new CTR ring and said that she always needs to choose the right - she said that when she gets cranky she shouldn't hit people, but to be nice. Very true, Emma. ;)

After church the kids napped while we finished up last minute packing and then we headed off to Utah. Ben had a residency interview at the U of U lined up, so it was a good excuse to go visit my family since we only saw them for a couple of days at Disneyland at Christmas time. We were also anxious for the kids to see the snow (it's only a once a year thing for them, so Emma was very excited!). I thought Becca might get into it a little more, but when we went sledding she did not want any part of her to touch the snow. She didn't want her shoes, gloves, or anything else to make any contact whatsoever. Such an Arizona girl, right? Emma, on the other hand, was seriously awesome sledding - she was so brave and fun and full of energy. She went down a huge hill all by herself many times, and hauled up her sled all by herself. I was thankful for no injuries. :) If you click here you can see the video my mom has posted of Emma sledding down the big hill - Ben didn't mean to get her spinning on her sled like he did and you can hear him say "Oh crud!" at the beginning. But Emma seemed to handle her daring ride rather well and came back up the hill smiling!

Other fun things we did while in Utah included a visit to the temple (always good to start off the new year with a temple visit, eh?), and a great date with Ben - we walked through the U of U art museum and then had a great dinner at Tucanos (one of my favorite places to eat!) at their new Salt Lake location. We also played lots of games and made a visit to Provo to see Peter and Lacy and eat out at Old Spaghetti Factory (another one of my faves!). I was hoping to squeeze in some visits to old friends during our stay there, but couldn't because of colds that hit. Poor Becca was very snotty (literally) and I was under the weather on the last part of the week. Sorry to my mom for giving her our colds!

Random note: We discovered a while back that Becca has some serious motion sickness trouble when we travel in the car for long distances. In the beginning, we thought we were just getting unlucky and she would just happen to catch a stomach bug when we traveled, but we soon realized that it was just serious car sickness (poor thing gets that from me). Anyway, on Utah trips, she'll almost always throw up at least a couple of times during the drive which is a mess to deal with while traveling. Well, thanks to advice from Ben's mom, we finally found some Dramamine that you can give to kids... the stuff we found was in pill form, so we just cut it up in small pieces and hid it in her food. Well, miraculously she made it the whole way home from Utah without vomit!! Woohoo!! I hope you can imagine what a breakthrough this is for us and her... I've routinely started bringing a throw up kit in the car just in case (including towels, wipes, extra clothes, febreeze, hand sanitizer, garbage bags, and a throw up bucket) - well, I'll probably continue to bring along my kit when we make long trips, but I hope to never have to use it again, thanks to fabulous anti-nausea drugs! :)