Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Pinewood Derby

We just got home from Andrew's second Pinewood Derby. We did not do well at all. 

This year we let Andrew do a lot of the design and more cutting. Here he is at our neighbor's house cutting out his car with a little help from Paul and I.




He picked the paint color which I like a lot. He sprayed, sprayed and then sprayed some more. He had to be in total control.  







I had read that it is best to have the weight in the back but this car was so light it really didn't create an advantage for us. Last night we took his car to the official weigh in. It was exactly 5 oz after we removed  some weights off the bottom. We could tell it was back heavy thought. It was too late. There wasn't anything we could do at that point. When we got to the race tonight they had sent all the cars down the track to make sure they would all make it. We were told that it popped a wheelie on the way down. 


We were anxious to see how it did. It was bad. It rattle the whole way down. We tried racing it backwards but that didn't help. 


Andrew had a wonderful attitude even though his car sucked the worse. I was really proud of him. He put a lot of time into his car and it would have been easy for him to get upset. 


Here it is getting ready to go down backwards.


There it is in the back of the pack.


Hey at least it made it down.


They gave everyone an award. Andrew earned Judge's Favorite. I thought that was so nice! He was happy with his title. 


Paul and Andrew looking happy even though we were actually pretty embarrassed LOL! Hey there's always next year. 

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Holi

Holi is a spring religious festival celebrated by Hindus. If you are in Utah it's a fun free place to go and get dirty. (I heard it called Utah's version of Woodstock)

Last year we saw kids all over covered in the chalk. I took pictures of a few of them and blogged about it. The kids begged us to let them go this year. The time arrived for the festival and we kept our word. We took the kids to Holi down in Spanish Fork, Utah and it was interesting.

The day started with traffic. Then we got to the fairgrounds where we were suppose to pick up a shuttle bus. The line was forever long. We had to wait about 40 minutes for a bus. When we finally got on our driver got us lost. We took a 20 minute out of the way detour. Lovely. There were people on the bus saying they felt like they were being held prisoner.


Finally we arrived at the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple. It didn't take long before we were getting chalk thrown at us. 


Paul is not a fan of messy and dirty. This was a ways out of his comfort zone. 


There were TONS of people there. I was so worried we were going to lose a kid.  


They were eager to get chalked. 


I like the live music. If the kids hadn't been there I probably would have been down in this mess. 


After we bought our chalk we were able to get more involved LOL! We just kept getting more and more colorful. 














Finally we were done. We had had enough. We didn't want to deal with the lines or the crazy bus driver again so we walked back. It was about two miles to our car. It wasn't a bad walk at all but Andrew whined half the way that he was cold, tired and his feet hurt. We finally made it to the car. We were hungry at that point so we went to the creamery for dinner. We sure did get a lot of funny looks. 

That stuff was such a pain to clean up. My white bra is now stained pink in some parts. Emma and Paul's heads are still stained. Andrew's ears still have purple in them. All of the Q-Tips in the garbage are purple. We are still finding colors when we blow our noses. Eeek! It was a lot of fun. We are glad we got to experienced it but we may not ever do it again. 

Last Week was a Good Week,

This week not so much (but we won't focus on that)  Last week the weather was so nice. We actually had the windows open.


I saw signs of green and color popping up here and there. I was starting to feel really really good in general. My spirits were way up. Paul and I are still running. My endurance is getting so much better. I feel really proud of myself. I am now up to eight minutes with a short walk and then another eight minutes. I know it doesn't sound like much but for me it is. I never thought I would be able to run at all. Oh and I no longer feel like I'm going to die. 


I made one of my favorite treats to eat. Even the vegetables in the grocery store are looking better.


The kids had a snow make-up day on Monday. They haven't had school canceled due to snow so they got the day off. My mom came down and taught me how to make Indian Bread. This is a recipe that my great-grandma use to make so I was really happy to learn it. I've been enjoying the loaves ever since. 


Tuesday my friend Rees came back for a quick visit from Arizona. We got to spend the afternoon having lunch with her. It was wonderful! It was so good to see her again.


That afternoon I took Emma to get her haircut. She got about three inches cut off and had some side swept bangs put in. She was so happy with her new cut. 


The kids had earned a night out to dinner. We asked them where they wanted to go and they said Texas Roadhouse. Even though I had already gone out for lunch, Tuesday night was the only night we could so off we went. We got a free onion appetizer with a coupon I had. It was all very delicious!!!


Wednesday night Andrew had spirit night at the local skating rink. I took the kids and Paul met us there.  I am so happy that Andrew has learned finally learned how to skate. They had a pretty good time!




Thursday was of course St. Patrick's Day.


On Friday I had the kids write notes to tie on our balloons. They put their email address on the notes and let them go. As of yet they haven't heard anything back but they sure had a great time sending them off. They said they will do it each time we buy balloons. 







Saturday we went to Park City to see what the outlets had to offer. The kids made out much better than Paul and I did. I had a moment of weakness and almost bought a Coach bag. They had some that were 50% off of the clearance price and then the store was offering 30% off. It would have been a great deal but I didn't do it. I'm still a little sad but I know it's for the best.

On our way home we stopped off in Heber. 


We had a very generous gift certificate for Tommy's BBQ. What do I love? Food! What do I love more than food? Free food!!! We ordered so much stuff trying to use the whole certificate since we don't get up that way very often. It was hilarious how much stuff we got. We got ribs, pulled pork, brisket, tons of sides and a whole pie.


While the girl was packing our food Andrew rode his skateboard around the parking lot. There was no one in sight so even I didn't get nervous. 


Check out the hoodie he got at Volcom LOL! He loves this creepy thing. 


That night we went to Maggie and Robb's for smoked brisket that Robb made. It was delicious and we had a great time being with friends. 

Sunday we ate the free BBQ after church. It was really really good. I will crave that brisket for a long time to come. I got to take a wonderfully long nap that afternoon. It was so nice.


This week the weather went back to cold. We've even had some snow. I'm pushing through with some retail therapy here and there. I will make it but it's hard. 

March Madness was the big focus this week. Paul was so excited that BYU was doing as well as they were. Check out this super cute caramel apple he bought at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. 


We prepared for the big game with more chips than I think we will ever be able to eat. It's sure fun trying though.


At the beginning of this last week I tried adding in some extra exercise which made me really sore so I missed some of my running. Andrew missed a day of school. We had really busy over scheduled days with things that weren't very fun. I just didn't feel as good last week. I'm hoping that the week to come with be a great one.