Alcatraz Report

Hailey has a history report to do about a place in California that has affected our history AND she has had to of visited that place in the last year. I told her to pick somewhere close! Ha ha!

She chose Alcatraz! So we had to look at our very busy schedule and find a weekend that we could get away to Alcatraz so a week ago we headed to prison!

Here we are on the boat ride over. Oh, and I just have to say that the weather was BEAUTIFUL!!!! You never know what you are going to get in San Fran but this day it was amazing!

Gotta fix the hair!

The girls

So if you haven't been to Alcatraz before, they give you headphones and a digital player thingy and you listen to a recorded tour guide all the way through. They do a GREAT job retelling the stories of Alcatraz and the prisoners. You hear voices of prisoners telling stories of things that happened, you hear the slamming of the doors. It is pretty cool.

On the other hand, keeping 4 people synced at the same spot on the recording when everyone wants to stop and ask questions is not so easy.

We tried to lock her up . . .

 but they said they couldn't keep her =)

Little T man was a very good sport.

Hailey and Ev in the library.

 Evan lasted about 1/2 way through before he took off the headphones. They were kind of big for his head and he got tired of them. But then he kept asking questions and we would have to pause our recorders and everyone got really out of sync then.

The kitchen . . . 

and Evan trying to climb the bars again. Stay off the bars Evan! Such a boy - must climb EVERYTHING!

Oh, and then Hailey got to meet a real inmate from Alcatraz. He had been locked up in Alcatraz for 5 years, 12 days for bank robbery.

We were not sure how we felt about him making money off of his crime but it made a good story for the report, which is what we were there for, so okay, cool.

Me and T. He did great until we got on the boat for the ride back. By then he was done being confined to anything! He just wanted to get down and GO!

(Oh, and just so you know, this kid is full on walking now. The last few days he has made it his main form of transportation. Now when he falls, he just stands back up and keeps going. Crazy kid is only 10 months old!)

Good bye Alcatraz!

Now we just need to write a report and make a slideshow presentation. 

Ahhh, homework!

One busy day

Actually I should say it was one busy week leading up to one busy day.

Not last Saturday, like 2 days ago, but the Saturday before that, April 28th I believe, was one busy day. We started off with our garage sale that morning. Once a year a group of realtors sponsor a community wide garage sale and we decided that if we were going to do one, that would be the day to do it. I had a friend that wanted to do it too so we joined forces. She was waaaaaaay more organized than I was. She started marking and pricing her items way in advance. Me? Ya, I waited until the night before.

We had watched her kids while her and her husband went and did the paperwork for buying their new car!!! So  exciting! Her payment back to me was to come back after putting her kids to bed and stay up with me til way late marking and pricing my things. We got done about midnight. Kurt was thrilled to get his boat cleaned out but then it was all over the garage.

We got up super early and started putting our items out. We had a good day; weather was beautiful, traffic was great - thanks to all the advertising done by the realtor group and we made $170. Not bad for spending the day with our friends and getting rid of clutter.

By far the funniest customer was a guy that came by bright and early. We had barely gotten anything out yet and he drives by, stops, gets out of his truck and asks:

"Got any shot guns?"

"Uh, no."

"Any kind of guns?"

"No"

"Any ammo?"

"No."

"How about any gambling stuff?"

I felt like saying "look dude, we have baby stuff, baby stuff and some more baby stuff. Oh ya, and some household stuff too. You've totally got the wrong house!" But I just politely said "Sorry, no." You never know, he could have been a future customer for my waffle maker, or maybe the milkshake maker would have caught his eye. But apparently he was just into guns and gambling and moved along to the next house.

The most amazing customer was a mom that was 16 weeks along with quads. Yes, quads. She was looking at the baby stuff, obviously. What a great family. We are praying for them to have a smooth, healthy pregnancy.

Then after the garage sale we had a combined birthday party for the girls. Yes, Hailey's birthday was back in November and Kayla's was back in January and we just had a party for them. The previous year I was early prego and so sick I couldn't pull off any parties and last year between losing my mom and having a new baby, birthday parties just were not in my realm of thinking. Soooo, very belated but it counts, right?

Kurt had been working in a yard down in Sac and next door had a birthday party going on. Well they had a DJ guy that Kurt said was amazing. He kept the party going, kept the kids moving and laughing and having fun. So we decided to go big for this party and hire a DJ. We had the party at the park right around the corner from our house. The weather was perfect! I watched the forecast all week with my fingers crossed that it would be nice and it was.

Kurt was right. This guy did not disappoint. He is a PE teacher at a school and has an energy level that did not stop. The girls and their friends had so much fun. Plus, not only is he running the whole party, he takes pictures too! These are all shots from him.

He took a group picture of each girl with her friends.

Kayla's posse

Hailey's posse

Then he took individual shots with each girl with each friend. 

(Hailey is eating a green m&m - lovely)

He goes for 1 hour 45 minutes straight. Does. Not. Stop.

He kept those girls dancing, playing games, laughing. It was awesome.

He did a "run way" where they had to come down the run way and strike a pose. He also had them do it in groups.

And individually. I was SHOCKED Kayla did it by herself but here she is stikin' her pose!

Our Hailey

Cousin Sierra came and helped with the baby. She was a life saver! Thank you Sierra!

At one point he had them standing in a group and they were shouting to a song. Again, he snapped pics as he kept them going.

My (belated) birthday girls

Another group dance

And here is the magic man himself. Steve.

 So the party was a huge success. The girls loved it and had an awesome time. The following Monday I had girls coming up to me after school at pick up time thanking me for inviting them and saying it was the best party ever. Makes a mom feel good.

Big R vs. little r

One of my many (heavily exaggerated) talents is a little something I like to call "open mouth, insert foot." Yes, I would say I am very good at this talent =)

So I will admit it - I am socially challenged. I try not to be but for some reason I just am not very conversationally gifted. I try to push myself out of my comfort zone but a lot of the time I end up saying something dumb or say it in a backwards/awkward way. You have probably picked up on that on my blog. Words just are not my thing. I don't mean to say things the way I do but I open my mouth and, bleh, out it comes.

Like the time when Kurt and I were dating and we were eating at his sisters house and Kurt asked me if I wanted any soy sauce. I answered, in front of everyone, "Why? Does it make it taste better?" Obviously, that made it sound like the meal wasn't good but it really was. Very delicious in fact. I think what I was meaning to say was "Does it (soy sauce) taste good on this?" Anyway, I was MORT.I.FIED!!! Luckily she was very understanding when I then turned bright red, apologized and tried to explain that wasn't what I really meant. Oye.

Or the time I was at a church function and we were meeting people in our new ward and I pushed myself to make a comment at the table I was sitting at and said "Ya, and I don't understand why some couples run their finances like "this"?" (Not going to say what "this" was because I don't want to offend anyone on here if they run their finances like that.) And a lady at the table says "Me and my husband do it that way." Awkward!

I am learning to laugh it off or explain what I meant but sometimes you dig the hole deeper so you just have to let it go. I am learning. Always learning. And most of the time, laughing.

So a few weeks ago I had another wonderful conversation with someone. Our school has mentors that come in and meet with the kids. I signed up to be the mentor coordinator for Evan's class so I was in charge of contacting people and getting them on the calendar. I had been going back and forth with this one dad via email trying to get a date that worked for both him and the teacher. I thought I knew who he was but wasn't sure. Well one day I was behind him in the pick up line in the hallway. I thought it would have been rude if I didn't introduce myself to him since we had been emailing recently. So I took a deep breath and asked:

"Excuse me. Are you Rich?"

He turned to me with an odd expression and said "Excuse me?"

"Are you Rich?" This time a little more hesitantly because warning bells were starting to ring in my head as they do every time I start picking up on the sensation that I have once again said something weird.

"No."

"Oh, ok. I have been emailing a dad about mentoring and thought maybe you were him."

"Nope, not me."

So then we wait in line to get our kids and on the way out I get the horrible thought of: what if he thought I said "are you rich?" You know, with a little r. As in "do you have a lot of money?" Oh man! Panic sets in as I wonder: what should I do?

He happened to be behind me as we walked out so I turned to him and said "Um, I just realized how that sounded. I assure you I wasn't asking about your monetary status!"

He started laughing and said "No worries. I'm not rich either way!"

Ha ha ha! What a great sport.

So moral of the story: be very careful with your Big and little r's!