Roof Restaurant & First Big Snow Storm

Tonight we took Joseph out for his belated birthday dinner. This is a tradition we started last year. Last year we took Ethan to the Roof for his date, and it was there that we set up the policy that each kid would be able to go to the Roof Restaurant one time during their life at home with us and on our dime. Joseph didn't go to the Roof Restaurant for this birthday dinner date last year, and since this is Joseph's last birthday with us, this was his last chance to go.

We enjoyed a lovely meal and Corey and I shared about how proud we are of Joseph and everything he's done. There's not much left for us to teach him, so we know that means it's about time for him to fly the nest and launch into his bright future. We're excited for ya Joseph! Here was my view during our dinner, I love these two.

Their view of me, I had the better view with the windows outside, they just had the pictures on the wall.

Time for the traditional photo with the temple behind us.

That beautiful temple is where Joseph's story began, cause that's where Corey and I got married. Here we are almost 19 year later (Yes, he was born before our first anniversary... and life haven't slowed down since!) Seems like just yesterday. Same with memories of our little Joseph. Can't believe he's 18!

Well, that dinner tonight was definitely the highlight of the day. The other kinda big news is that we finally got snow. This morning I was able to look out over our little balcony to see how much snow there was, always a nice feature.

This balcony railing measurement lets me know if I need to get up and shovel before Mel goes to GMS or not. She wanted to take the car today, but we said not if it snows. But this snow means that I still need to get out of bed and clear the driveway so I can take her to the bus. Since I was up and awake, I decided to test the roads and try to go to the temple. I went to the Draper temple, which is up on a hill with some steep roads, or they seemed pretty steep in the snow. It hadn't been plowed, I almost thought I wouldn't make it, but I did. Not many other people did though, it was pretty quiet. I just did initiatories and had the booth and the workers to myself. I was grateful to see the roads had been plowed by the time I was done. That made it much better to drive in. The kids had fun sledding. Finally they can go sledding in the tree farm! Abi wore a hat, but her hair wasn't tucked in her coat, so she had nice balls of snow stuck in it. She came in to tell us she was back, and we both laughed and I told her to turn around.

Her shirt was totally drenched too.

I am not a skier, or atleast don't have/make the time to be a skier yet (I will someday) so I don't mind these snow sparce winters and clear roads, I think it's been nice. But I'm glad for these kids that they finally have some snow to work in.

They had a lot of wet fun outside. It was a good Saturday.

24 Years

Today was our happy Anniversary. Our celebrations were held over this past weekend by 1) going up to Wolfcreek Thursday night (with AN&K in tow), 2) skiing on Friday at Snowbasin (also with AN&K), 3) a date night dinner at Miyazaki, and 4) climbing yesterday morning. Today is the actual date, and we had all the kids home to enjoy our final celebration - our Family Anniversary Feast! Here are the kids after the meal when we were dancing in the front room -  

I meant to get a photo of just Corey and I, oops. We all missed Hyrum today. After dinner when we were watching the House, Peter was the first to say "I miss Hyrum!" and everyone else piped in as well, feeling bad about little things they used to argue over with him. I guess they are all growing up and getting along better, yay! He's almost home - he's 3/4 of the way done! The sisters that were in the MTC with him all went home this past week. He'll be back before we know it. 

So, this morning we got ready for early church (starts at 9 this year) and I was teaching/leading the class discussion today in our ward, so I got up early to try and do some final prep for that, then we went to church, came home and changed, and worked to get our fancy feast ready. We girls all got distracted from our cooking and cleaning tasks by adoring how cute Katharine's feet were as she climbed up a stair.

So, Sophi helped set the table, Abi made her famous pink mashed potatoes, I roasted veggies, made a citrus beet salad, and cooked salmon. I don't know what Ethan was doing, but he did come and grab bites of treats as we set up. Lily and Mel have been absent for the past few days, hiding in their room working on something that I can't see, since they would hurry and hide it from my view anytime I went into their room. So I originally had the thought that it's too bad that they are so busy working on whatever that was that they didn't help me clean, which is ALL I'VE WANTED for my birthday and Christmas and my whole life (sigh)... but then I thought "I guess they should be free to give gifts that they are excited about, not just what I want..." I texted Corey at 5 and said he could come back anytime. The  food was ready, we're just waiting for Joseph. Corey and the kids came back, Abi held a blanket to block off the kitchen from view, and they were ushered upstairs to get fancy! Pearls and lace and a pink bow!

Table all set with china, goblets, ribbons and flowers. Short video right before we ate.

Waiting patiently for the feast to begin. I bought Peter those suspenders yesterday just for fun.

Joseph's here! Mel and Lily came downstairs - 

Before we began, Mel and Lily gifted us what they've been working on for the past two days. They originally planned for it to be a Christmas present, but they didn't start it in time. And it wasn't all the way done, they said they still have a few things to finish, but wow o wow! They illustrated a little book about our relationship! Here's on example - a pretty accurate drawing of our first date (fourth pic)!  

It made Corey cry, so they knew it was a hit. We talked for a bit more, thanked God for our marriage and family, and then enjoyed our family feast.

I really like this tradition. I'm glad that we have this fun meal together. The kids say that it is one of their favorite things. And it's also good that it's not a national holiday that we need to share with the rest of the country. I guess it kinda goes along with Valentine's day, but this is really our thing and I love it. 

Oldest to youngest serving themselves (but I said they should let the little kids go first so that they can scoot into their seats on the far side of the table benches. 

After the meal, we watched our wedding video...

...then The House (we all let Ethan know that we're ready for the next episode)...

Katharine fell asleep on Mel, aww...

And then we had a dance in the front room, and took a group photo of the kids. It was a nice evening and it's one of my favorite traditions too. After cleaning up a bit and kids dilly dallied...

And now we're heading to bed at a fairly decent time and we're all going to go skiing tomorrow at Alta! Well, Joseph has to head back to Provo in the morning, but the rest of us will be skiing. Should be fun! I feel so grateful for Corey and for our life together, it has been wonderful. I give all the credit to Jesus Christ and his gospel, which has made Corey amazing as he strives to follow the Savior, and guided us along the way in the important decisions we've made regarding our family. The fruit of the gospel is wonderful. And with that another year is in the books.

1999 - Marriage - Honeymoon at the Homestead in Midway, Utah (Dinner at the Lion House)

2000 - 1 Year, went Blue Boar Inn in Midway, Utah (Dinner at the Roof and the Blue Boar Inn)

2001 - 2 years, went to the Worldmark resort at Wolf Creek in Eden, Ogden Canyon, Utah

2002 - 3 years - Pepperdine Weekend at Malibu, California (Corey was there being recruited for his MBA so we turned it into a trip)

2003 - 4 years - Wharton Visit in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and trip to Washington DC

2004 - 5 years - Homestead in Midway, Utah (trying to relive that first night)

2005 - 6 years - Hotel Monaco at Salt Lake City, Utah (Dinner at the Roof)

2006 - 7 years - JW Marriott and Teotihuacan in Mexico City, Mexico

2007 - 8 years, Barao Geraldo Chacara in Campinas, Sao Paulo Brazil. We had just moved to Brazil for our first adventure and Corey spent the day looking for a car with a friend, and I spent it with his wife learning Portuguese. 

2008 - 2010 - undocumented here on the blog, so sad. We were living in Sandy in the Crosswood house at the time... him, I'll have to go break out the scrapbooks to remember what we did.

2011 - 12 years - in Chile, took little Abi to the ER after getting her finger slammed in a door by the wind in our windy apartment.

2012 - 13 years - Skiing and The Roof with baby Sophi

2013 - 14 years - a romantic dinner for 10, went to Park City, kids stayed with Corey's parents, bought red flower framed pictures.

2014 - 15 years - Skiing at Solitude

2015 - 16 years - Dinner at the Garden Restaurant, Night at Grand America

2016 - 17 years and a quote from the Proclamation on the Family, Corey and I took a little early anniversary trip to Hawaii, in Feb we had our anniversary family dinner

2017 - 18 years - I uploaded our wedding video to Youtube, went to San Diego and Tijuana

2018 - 19 years of family pictures, big snow storm on our anniversary

2019 - 20 years - Grand America with baby Peter and night skiing at Brighton. I made a list of 12 kids, 10 moves, 7 cars, 4 countries, and 2500+ blog posts

2020 - 21 years Bed and Breakfast fail, then Hotel Monaco, family breakfast feast, 21 years and a little trivia

2021 - 22 years Jackson Hole and Grand Targhee anniversary Ski Trip turned Family ski trip, Wasatch Broiler for lunch, Tuscany for dinner, family dinner

2022 - 23 years - Skiing at Brighton and dinner at LaCaille, 7th annual Anniversary feast

2023 - 24 years, Night at Wolfcreek, Skiing at Snowbasin, Dinner at Miyazaki, Climbing at Momentum, Illustrated book by Mel and Lily, anniversary feast.

Melodie is an Adult!!

Well, we've got another adult in the family! Happy Birthday to Melodie, 18 years old today! We took her out to eat to celebrate. It was a normal busy day for this senior, with school, then Lyceum and then a ward youth activity of caroling, so our dinner reservation wasn't until 9pm. We took her to the Roof Restaurant, to keep with our "Congrats - you're an adult" tradition that we also started with Joseph. 9:00 at night was a little late to eat at a fancy buffet where you want to get your money's worth, but we did our best.

I got full pretty quick. "You look full..." is the common comment when I say that. Yeah, I think my stomach storage capacity has gone down significantly.

So Joseph went to the Roof to celebrate his 18th birthday, and we also took Ethan to the Roof already, and that was his turn. He doesn't get to go again at 18 cause we're only going to budget one time per kid. Corey joked that we took Ethan at 15 years because that was when he thought/felt that he was an adult. I teased back that we were probably a few years late if that was the case, he's felt he was an adult/our equal atleast at 13 years... But back to Mel - wow, 18 years old!!! These kids are growing up fast.

Group pic, yay, There's me in my last trimester glory.

Never flattering. Oh well. Although I will offer it as my personal opinion that a pregnant women should never be photographed except for on delivery day. ...Even more so never be photographed by on purpose (I'll never do a preg photo shoot), and even more so in a bikini. Even if you're not that big, just don't, it's not pretty. Sure, it's amazing and a miracle, and I guess kudos to ladies who feel beautiful when pregnant, but that's not me. This is just the time to be endured. (I probably need an attitude adjustment. ...or I'll give myself a "This is my 12th..." pass again, cause yeah, the charm has kinda worn off...) Trying to so a selfie -

Then Corey said "Here let me, my arms are longer!"

While we were down at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, we figured we'd make a donation to the giving machine for the Light The World.

We didn't buy a cow, but might pool together with my siblings to give one of those as a group gift.

They have some fun options.

Happy birthday Mel, we're glad you were born! She also successfully made it through 18 years without kissing any boys, and so Corey's gonna have to pay up, per the deal that Corey made with Joseph and offered to the other kids as well. Mel says it was a little too easy of a deal for her, so she might feel guilty for draining her dad's bank account for something that wasn't a challenge. Or, she also said she'd be willing to keep it going for another year if it would give her a little more money. Ha, we'll see!Here's to your future, you're almost ready to launch into your life. We'll do our best to help you finish getting prepped in the next 6 months, and then good luck! We'll be cheering you on and will be on to the next kid on the chopping block.

Rodizio

We have been planning for a while to take Melodie out to eat at a Brazilian Rodizio before she leaves on her mission. Well, it's down to crunch time now, cause she just has two weekends left! Corey was a little worried that if we waited until next week, then some emergency would probably pop up and the opportunity would slip out of our reach. So, to prevent any last minute tragedies, we took Mel out tonight! We let her join us on date night. We usually don't let them join us for date night, cause we decided we don't like it. We need time without them. But we made an exception tonight for Mel. We had the kids come with us on date night for their birthdays one year, which I believe was 2017 from these two posts for Abi's and Sophi's birthdays, and that was when we realized we didn't like it, but we had to finish all the kids birthdays. Ethan received a food payout. It was a long process, finished up Wesley's birthday date night a month late in July 2018. So that tradition got nixed one go around. But we do make exceptions from time to time, like the "soon to be graduating" meal at the Roof with our 18 year olds. (Joseph, Mel, and Ethan got his early when he "felt" like he was an adult, haha) 

So, back to tonight. We went to Braza Grill on State Street. It was a "30" minute wait (really ended up being 50, blah) but we thought that's ok, cause that will give us time to work up our appetite. So we walked over to a Halloween store that was close by, cause Corey promised Sophi he'd get her some vampire teeth. I don't love the scary parts of Halloween, or the candy part. I do like kids dressing up, but that happens every day around here. Mel was tempted to purchase the horse head. She settled for a photo.

Then we realized there were lots of ugly masks in the background. Oh, and some signs that say "Pleas Do Not Try On Masks"... Sorry, we honestly didn't notice them! I did think after she put it on that she probably shouldn't in this corona world. But she says she doesn't have covid! Still, sorry to whoever buys that mask if she does! So, we bought a few things for kids costumes, and then went back to wait at the restaurant. We were finally seated, and went to the food bar, and Mel was having flashbacks to when we ate out in Brazil - like here when we let Mel and Hyrum join us for a meal out. 

Mel took a photo of her plate. Mmmm - rice and black beans, Molho a Campanha (Brazilian salsa), polenta, farofa, fried bananas, yummy. I really like farofa. 

But the main reason and purpose for this dining out experience was to prep Melodie for her mission by making her eat something she doesn't want to eat. Cause every missionary has an experience where they are eating with the locals and are presented with a somewhat repulsive food item. Mine happened with menudo. Corey had chicken feet and other things on his mission. If Mel makes it to Brazil, there is a good chance she will be presented with the opportunity to eat chicken hearts. So time to practice and learn how to eat something gross with a smile, so that you don't offend your host. They had to be special ordered at the restaurant. They brought us over a little bowl with probably 15 chicken hearts in it. Corey showed Mel how it was done and munched them down like popcorn. Two of them got wasted on her plate cause she couldn't do it and had the plate taken away. Corey saved a few in the bowl for her. Finally there were just two little ones left. The owner of the restaurant came over and asked how our meal was, Corey and him talked a bit in Portuguese, and he was from Sao Paulo but he actually served a mission in Joao Pessoa where Mel's been assigned! So that was cool. He said he doesn't care for chicken hearts himself. They taste, like... chicken hearts. But he told Mel he'd get her a free dessert if she ate the two last chicken hearts. The kids have all tried them before, except Melodie admitted that she never did eat one in Brazil, despite being presented with numerous opportunities. Mel, it's time. Dad wants you to do this... 

And you'll get a free dessert! Having a personal invitation extended to her by a stranger was the motivation she needed. and she hurried and chewed them up... She wanted to just swallow them asap, but her body was like "no" and wouldn't let them go down, so she kept chewing even though she wanted to get them out of her mouth, funny. Finally down they went - 

She did it! How was it Mel? 

I actually had a little bit of chicken and red meat too tonight, the first in a long time. It was good, but I'm ok with out it and won't be having any again. Corey gets meat now and then for the kids - pork sandwiches, he made sure to have steak when Ethan was doing MTC and joined us for Sunday dinners. I'm glad that I'm ok without it. Sorry cows. (That's the real way to fight global warming, by the way. ...if you think it is a real thing, (I could be persuaded) then you better be vegan or atleast start cutting back, we eat way too much meat in our western society) Ok, that's a topic for another day though, or probably not on the day that I went out to eat at a Brazilian BBQ. 

Corey was making us laugh on the way home. He skipped lunch and was hungry, and he overate. I didn't, even eating a few bites of meat and starting our meal after 8:30 pm (way later than I like to have dinner), I felt satisfied and fine. But when we were getting into the car, Corey started to groan... "Ugh..." followed by a deep breath and sigh. "I don't feel like I treated my body like a temple." Some of the meat he ate was very undercooked, I said he treated his body like a slaughter house. Then after another few deep breaths. "I feel like lying on the couch and drinking beer. ...Not that I've ever tried beer, but that's the character that fits me right now." We were laughing pretty hard at him, so he kept exploring his feelings, the last one I remember was "I feel like wearing a gold chain necklace and letting it dangle in my chest hair" Funny. It's always enjoyable to go out with Corey, and it was fun to be with Mel too, she's almost outta here. She's going to do great on her mission, Indianapolis, here she comes soon!

Start The Day

I got up early yesterday to help Wes get out the door. Today I got up all by myself! Go me! I won't count my chickens before they've hatched, but maybe I'm out of my 8 month slump. I went for a short bike ride, and stopped to take in a big whiff of these lovely flowers. 

They smell soooo lovely.

And after that warm up I went to the gym to life weights. More lovely flowers by the entrance there - orange lilies. 

Admiring lovely flowers is a good way to start the day. The kids did great at their school work today. It was really fun to help them and I also love watching them help each other. Natalie is a good teacher.

We haven't done it everyday yet, but we're getting better. 

I took the kids swimming tonight for like 90 minutes. It was pretty chilly in the water, and it was very windy too, which made it feel even more cold. Poor Peter had purple lips. 

 

At 7:30 I decided he could be done and I got him dressed and helped him warm up by laying him down on the warm cement. Back at home, I loved watching him look through a book in the corner of his room. Those little toes!

Yes, this is a book that he has ripped from it's hard cover. 

I tried to hot glue it back together, but he ripped it out again or dropped it or something and it's in two pieces now, but still functional. And two pieces is better than 20 (second pic). He's adorable. I haven't share these pictures yet from last Friday, June 4th, when Peter came with me to the Capitol for a 1:45 appointment at the Lieutenant Governor's office to get Ethan's birth certificate "apostilled" as part of his visa application. 

It's fun to run around in a big echo-y building!

And he liked the lions outside on the stairs. 

It was very hot when we went walking back outside, so we stopped for a break in the shade of the bench but P wanted to go back to the lions. We'll come back again someday. There is a fun path around the capitol that I thought would be fun for the kids to ride bikes on, maybe, so we'll see if we come back for a little family bike ride sometime and you can show your siblings the lions. I've got a few more pictures from last Friday that I didn't share either (that post was fully consumed with documenting our need for help at home and Wesley's poor school performance) - Peter being adorable when Corey took them to his parent's house. They like to have summer popsicles at Grandmas!

Corey took kids over there because Abi was going over to hang out at a friends house, so Corey took her and a few kids and worked over there until she was done. She only wanted to stay for a little bit so she could come home for date night. I guess I'm pleased that the family date night tradition has enough pull that she sometimes chooses it over friends. I helped get kids ready to go with Corey, which is sometimes a hurdle he can't bear. Daniel was looking sweet as I put on his shoes. After I got them on, I told him I wanted a picture of his sweetness. 

This was a little forced rather than the natural sweetness he had as I was putting on his shoes, but it still made me smile. 

They came home and then Corey and I and Hyurm left to meet Corey's parents at the California Pizza kitchen for a date night celebration. They don't take reservations, so we walked around the mall for a bit until they were ready to seat us. 

Sadly, the Shanghi Bowl is no longer there, which is a bit tragic cause that was amazing. I was very pleased with the warm roasted vegetable salad with shrimp, it was quite excellent. 

It was nice to go out to eat with Hyrum to celebrate his graduation, since we weren't able to on graduation night since it got out too late. Hyrum is a good kid. We never have taken him to the Roof, which was a tradition we wanted to keep with our adult kids (here are Joseph, Melodie, and Ethan's Roof date nights) Hopefully it will open up before he leaves on his mission in September! Oh darn... I just looked it up - it's closed because of renovation projects and won't be opening until 2023!! I guess we'll have to take Hyrum after he gets home from his mission! Ok, well, I think that was all the photos and events that I had to catch up on from last weekend. I hope it was a good day and hopefully a good start to a good week. I want to take advantage of this summer and make it awesome for my kids, for Corey, and for me.