Father's Day 2013

We had a Father's Day/Birthday party at our house this year.  It was my Grandpa Jim's 79th birthday so we thought it would be great to get all of us together to celebrate both occasions.  We had the family over for a BBQ and a pool party!  Mindi made paper ties for all of us to wear.

Cousins!

 Pool time!

Chandler checking out the slide :)

Abby loves the slide too!

Happy Father's Day!

My Hubby hits the 50!

Yep you read that right, Vinnie has hit the big 50!!  I wanted to make his Birthday an awesome one!  It began with a quiet breakfast at one of our faves, Cracker Barrel.  The boys were all in school so it was just the 3 of us.

After the boys got home from school we had a little birthday celebration.

Later that evening my  Mom came over to watch the kiddos so I could take Vinnie out.  I wanted to do something different for him.  So I picked a restaurant downtown that we had never been too.  Bayou.  It was yummy.  It was nice to try a different place.

After dinner we headed to watch a ball game.  Go Bee's!  This entire evening was a complete surprise to him,  he had no idea where we were going until we got there.  Again, this was totally out of the ordinary of something we would normally do.

I even caught a foul ball!

The best surprise for his birthday was still yet to come.  We had a weekend planned to head to Wendover.  While Vinnie was away in Alaska a few days earlier I secretly packed an extra bag and hid it in the garage.  When it was time to put our things in the car to head off to Wendover I hurry and snuck the extra bag in.  I told him that I wanted to drive because we had to stop somewhere first on our way out of town.  He thought this was a bid odd but he went with it.  He had thoughts running through his head of what I could possibly need to stop for as we were going way out of our way.  As we approached the airport I told him that we had a plane to catch in an hour and a half and we were headed to Vegas!!!!  He was in shock!  I was so excited that I was able to keep this to myself for so long.  We stayed at the Luxor and I had booked shows for us throughout the weekend.

We went to Gordon Ramsay's Pub & Grill for lunch.  That was fun and exciting for us because we are fans of "Hells Kitchen".  It was exciting to be in one of his restaurants.  It was delicious!

That night we went to the best show ever!  Absinthe!  We had front row seats and boy were we close!  I could stretch my leg out and touch the stage with my foot.  It was a very funny show, filled with raunchy humor.  It was in a circus type tent outside of Caesar's Palace.  It was our first Vegas show ever and it was awesome!

Of course we got some gambling in...we aren't big gamblers but we do enjoy the penny slots :)

They even had one of his favorite iPad games, Plants vs. Zombies!

 

and this is a gem of all gems...oh my!!  

We went to the Penn & Teller show which was awesome!  We also like to watch Celebrity Apprentice and enjoyed seeing Penn on that show so it was fun to see him in person.  Before the show started they let us go up on stage and look at some of their props.  After the show they came out and gave autographs.

Another night we went to Cirque De Sole which of course was incredible!  

It was an amazing extended weekend and a Birthday to remember.

 Cheers & Happy Birthday Vinnie!

Easter Time!

We had a fun filled Easter Weekend.  We went to South Jordan Park for an Easter Egg hunt which was a bit tricky because they divided the kids into ages and of course that put us in 3 different groups.  Fortunately we had Austin with us so we were able to each take a kiddo to their designated area.

After the Easter Egg hunt the kids still wanted to play so we went to a little park near the neighborhood.

Easter seemed to approach us pretty quickly and we didn't even have our eggs colored until late the night before.  Of course it is a tradition you don't want to slip by, well maybe we as parents do but not so much the kiddos.  Hahaha!  The little kids loved it but of course we had to convince the teenager that it was fun to color eggs.  I guess it kind of loses something when you're too cool for things like this.  He was a sport and even though he won't admit it he enjoyed it.

         Of course, Gabe did a Charlie Brown egg!                                           Awe. so sweet!

The kids went to bed right after.  They woke up early the next morning and followed the trail of candy from their bedroom doors to their Easter baskets.

Gabe woke up before anyone and followed the trail downstairs checking out his Easter basket before any of us even woke up.  Because of this, I was lacking in the pictures as it was a bit chaotic.

Daddy gave Sebastian & Abby tattoos :)

We also had Easter dinner at our house followed by some games.

Nana (Great Grandma) with Sebastian & Abby

Austin as Captain America with Grandma Marci!

Happy Easter & God Bless!