Other random February and March moments

In February the girls and I enjoyed a Girls Night On the Town.  First we ate at a quirky Portland healthy food restaurant (hard to see in the picture, but there are random posters and action figures all throughout the restaurant. Somehow it works in a "Portland is Weird" sort of way.")  Then we attended the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical of Cinderella at Keller Auditorium.  It was fantastic, with impossible-to-figure-out special effects (Cinderella spun around, and before our eyes her dress transformed into a ballgown. Twice. It was magical!)

This was the photo I took at the end of the "no sugar week" Bailey and I observed the week after Valentines Day.  This was the very moment Bailey was finally able to eat the chocolate pieces in her favorite Costco Trek Mix. 

It was ROUGH to cut out sugar for the week. We had to be very creative to satisfy munchies when all sugar and chocolate was unavailable.  But, we both felt really healthy and I even lost a few pounds that week.  Of course, the minute the challenge ended I went right back to my sugar and chocolate all-the-time diet.

Actually, to be truthful, Bailey and I decided that we have no desire to avoid sugar all the time, but we realized that we consume too much added sugar in a myriad of foods. We vowed to do a better job of avoiding added sugar which isn't totally delicious, and to save our sugar for the really good stuff!

In other  news, these are the cleanest shoes in town.  And proof that sometimes I'm moving a little fast through life.

Dan always brings home his stinky Crossfit workout clothes in a plastic bag.  I do not touch the clothes directly (eeeeww), but use the bag to dump them directly into the washing machine.  One Friday night I dumped in his clothes, added some more dirty clothes, and started the washer.  A few times during the cycle I heard a thump, but our water-efficient front load washer makes strange noises all the time.  It was when I removed the clothes to the dryer that I realized that I had washed Dan's expensive, purchased last June at Nordstrom, black Ecco dress shoes.  I'm guessing that it's not a good idea to wash leather dress shoes in water and detergent?  I stuffed them with chamois cloths to suck up the water and put them in the sun to dry.  They actually don't look any worse for the wear, but Dan says they feel a little different . . . .  

And it's back to the theater . . . when I bought tickets for Cinderella around Christmastime, I couldn't find good tickets sitting together, so I bought tickets for just the girls and me and we all sat separate. I decided to buy tickets to Guys and Dolls the next month so that Dan could attend a show, and I bought tickets for the girls again.  And, once again, the tickets were all separate, but at least they were good seats!

However, as the date of Guys and Dolls drew closer, we realized that the day was just packed with events and I wished I had not bought tickets at all.  Dan felt too overloaded on that day to enjoy going to a show, so the girls and I saw our second traveling Broadway show in 3 weeks.

The morning started with the Pinewood Derby.

The girls and I left directly from the church to Portland for the matinee show of Guys and Dolls. It was fantastic!

While we were gone, Dan finished his preparations for the multi-stake dance that evening. He once again has let the people in charge know that he is ready to let someone else be the official stake deejay. We'll see if anyone listens this time. I know I'm biased, but he is going to be hard to replace.  But, his free time is getting more and more precious.

The girls and I got back from Portland just after Dan left to the church and just in time for Bailey to get ready for a party and Aubrey to get ready for the dance.

Before the dance, we picked up one of her friends from theater and a few friends from the ward, including one who was attending her very FIRST dance. As is the tradition, I stopped with the girls to get ice cream to celebrate the first stake dance.  I was proud of Aubrey and the other girls. They all were so kind to each other and helped Hailee feel excited and comfortable.  Aubrey even showed Hailee how to slow dance in the middle of McDonald's, which was certainly a memorable moment!

March 20th was Joseph's first Cello concert!  He was part of a large orchestra concert at Aubrey's school, VSAA.  He did such an amazing job and was the most smiley and most handsome 4th grade cello player in the world.  

Afterward we took this picture with his best friend Alex and with Aubrey before we all left to get frozen yogurt.

My chances to attend field trips with my kids are dwindling fast. I enjoyed being with Joseph on the 4th grade field trip to Clark County Electric.

And one final moment from this last month, but I don't have a picture of this one.

One weekend Dan and I were invited to a birthday party for one of our friends in the ward. We spent a few enjoyable hours hanging out with the group of 6 couples. It was on the way home that I realized that all the other couples except one are empty nesters, and that one couple has one child at home, a junior in high school. As much as I enjoyed the company of everyone at the party, I was slightly horrified. 

Are we now classified with the older, empty nester group? Impossible. We simply do not feel that old. And, because we have 4th grade Joseph at home, I still feel like we belong with the "young kids" group, but I'm realizing that our age and our friends now indicate otherwise. I'm still coming to grips with this fact. I'm filing this in the same category as "I'm too young for reading glasses" (even though my eye doctor disagrees with me on this fact).