Thursday, Friday & Saturday's activities

Warning...another long entry.

So it's Saturday night and all my primary stuff for tomorrow was done this afternoon...usually I am finishing it up about 11pm and begging Brandon to help me color the last few pages! I should finish it earlier more often this feels great!

The last few days have been a little busy but fun days. I was reminded again on Thursday how nice it is to live in a city that has so much to offer. I seem to be consistently hearing about community events that invite families to spend time together with something to do. Usually I don't feel the need to attend these activities because I feel the church also has many activities and our family has plenty to do already. However when I was on the treadmill Wednesday morning the news was doing this story about Shaq's Dunkman Contest. It was at US Airways Center and it was FREE and opened to the public. I thought "man Carson would love that but he has school tomorrow." Then I thought "school, schmool...we're going." After Boston's therapy Thursday morning the two boys and I were off to the arena to watch the final five guys who represented their region of the United States as having the best basketball dunking skills! It was actually pretty fun. And some of those men could jump! They were all in their 20's and just street ballers trying to win some cash. The winner walked away with $10k and a photo shoot in some basketball magazine. We got their early so we sat like 7 rows up from the floor. The entire thing lasted about 2 hours and it was good entertainment. I packed a lunch & snacks for us and we ate our PB&J while watching the competition. I learned about all the different charities Shaq is involved with and walked away with a greater appreciation of how he gives back to the community. After it was over we came back home and the boys both took a nap while I worked then when Brandon was done working we headed out to Mesa for a family dinner and games to say goodbye to Uncle Ryan who is leaving to go work in Colorado for the next few months.

I realized a few blessing from that day:
1. When we were out the boys were very patient and obedient as we waited in line to get into the arena. (we waited about 25 mins & neither one of them ever complained or tried to run off)
2. Even though the sign said "no outside food or drink" the man checking my bag realized I was by myself with 2 little kids and said I could take our bag full of food in.
3. Boston doesn't really need a stroller anymore so that is one less thing to load up and have to cart around
4. We seem to always enjoy each other when the three of us go out. (of course we enjoy it when Brandon is there to but he had so much work to do)
5. Not one time during the entire 2 hours watching the show (which at points did move very slowly) did Carson or Boston try to walk away or even go anywhere out of my sight. I never had to leave my seat.
6. We live in a great community that has a lot to offer...not to mention that living in our neck of the woods we are centrally located to so many things.

Friday was a day I had planned to run errands in the morning then clean the house really well in the afternoon. The day started off not as planned when I didn't wake up from my alarm to go running (sorry running friends...I must have been very tired). Then Carson's carpool came to pick him up but I had just woken up and Carson was still asleep. Two days of missed school...oh well, it's just preschool. (sorry Shawna). After breakfast I told Carson he could ride his bike while I ran and pushed Boston in the stroller so we could all get exercise for the day. We all got dressed in our exercise clothes and went out to the garage to find Carson had a flat tire on his bike. Brandon had switched tools on his air compressor and I didn't know where the right tool was to pump up the tire and he was already gone for the day. We came back in and I decided to do our errands earlier than planned and off we went. (I hadn't even showered yet but we weren't going anywhere too important). So off we were to the errands but first we stopped by the park for park day and the boys played for about 20 minutes then I got a call from my sister who needed a babysitter ASAP so we quickly did the few things we needed to do and went straight out to Surprise. By late afternoon I was smelling pretty bad but the boys had tons of fun playing with their cousins. I realized I'm making progress in learning to roll with the punches...my day didn't go as planned and I didn't even hyperventilate!

Saturday we enjoyed having Papi (a.k.a. Brandon) around. This is the first Saturday in about 8 weeks he didn't work...ok, so he did work a little this morning but only for about 1.5 hours so that doesn't really count. We cleaned up the back yard, did laundry, watched the suns game, made brownies, went on a bike ride, worked on primary stuff and attended a ward party in the late afternoon. It was nice being together and not having to go anywhere.

I made this new game for primary to teach the kids this months song so hopefully it'll be a success.