Ethan’s a Man Now

Happy 18th birthday, Ethan! We celebrated him by not doing much, per his request. In his words, “Birthdays are mid, Mom.” You can practically hear his eyes roll. 

Ethan was kind enough to not sleep in on his birthday so he could eat the breakfast Randy made for him. He went mountain biking and thankfully lived to survive the crazy stunts he gets thrills from. We didn’t even get to sing happy birthday to him when he dug into his birthday cake because we were all at lacrosse games. I wasn’t mad since it was his cake and I must say, it tasted divine! I need to make homemade cakes more often!

Ethan works hard and plays hard. I never know if/when he’s doing school but he’s got great grades so it’s getting done somehow!  He’s excited to be going to Utah State in the fall and is saving up to buy himself a car. I have a feeling he will be living his best life in college and we are all excited for him. 

Family Temple Trip

This event deserved a post of its own.  We went to the temple with everyone (except Marcus) during spring break.  I'm sad to admit we've never gotten all of us together to do this yet.  Someone is always missing!  But this time we felt complete, or at least as complete as we can be while Marcus is in on his mission.  Marcus saw this picture and actually felt bad because we all looked so happy without him.  I told him we still miss him terribly :)

I couldn't get us an appointment until 8pm but we decided to see if there was room for us before dinner time.  Unfortunately there was a huge group from Seattle gathered in the waiting room so I quickly rushed my family down to the baptistry to get in before the crowd descended.  It worked!  Landon and Parker were baptized by Ethan while Henry and I explored the beautiful temple grounds.  If you'd like to know more about what happens inside the temple, go HERE.

Since Henry isn't old enough for a temple recommend to do temple work, he and I explored the gardens and had way too much fun together.  I died laughing at all the faces he pulled as he pretended to hate the beautiful flowers.

After we explored all there was to see, we went into the visitors waiting room.  It was so quiet and peaceful inside and we had about twenty minutes to kill so I read Book of Mormon stories to him.  Henry loved the illustrations of stories we talk about frequently, especially the pictures of battles.  He asked questions and listened so intently.  I know I will never forget this experience with him and look forward to doing this again after Marcus comes home this summer when we really will ALL be together.  Personally, I love going to the temple and attend every week.  The peace I feel while I'm there extends into the rest of my life and I find myself looking forward to going back again and again.  Heaven feels so close in the House of the Lord.

We Survived Spring Break

We stayed home for spring break, against my better judgement.  I begged the boys to let me drive us to Utah and I thought after a day or two they might change their minds.  They didn't.  Randy even suggested we go somewhere and that's saying something!  We didn't.  Sammamish was like a ghost town.  Most of our friends were gone the entire week and by the end of the week, literally everyone we knew was gone.  I honestly started having flashbacks of the early quarantine life and literally took some deep breaths and went for a jog to get my head in the right place again.  Luckily it worked.

Day 1 of not much fun consisted of doing a Family Challenge from our Family Challenge Book.  Henry scratched off our "assignment" and it revealed a piñata party.  We invited a couple friends who were also bored, to join us.  We stocked up on candy at The Dollar Store and then went to Second Hand Sports to see what fun we could find there.  

Turns out beating up on a practice dummy was a lot of fun, especially for Henry.  

The Party Store had so many pinatas to choose from and the boys quickly agreed they wanted the Poop Emoji piñata.  I refused to ask the sales clerk to get the poop piñata so Matthew proudly walked up to the register and said "We'd like one poop piñata please!"  Even the sales clerk got a laugh.

We played some (fun to me) ninja music while the boys used their best kicks and punches to destroy the piñata.  It broke after about twenty seconds.  Fun over.  The whole event bought us a couple hours of sorta fun times.
Landon was a good sport through the whole thing.  I keep forgetting he's almost in high school.  I still think of him as one of my three littles.

Tuesday we had a whole lot of funnish adventures.  I dragged the boys to the Kraken practice facility to see the professional hockey team practice.  It was free, the facility is super fancy, we got free stuff, and I had fun watching while talking to my friends.  It was also really loud as pucks were flying everywhere.  I didn't realize how loud hockey is.  

I invited some other bored friends to join us before they went out of town.

We stopped at Shake Shack for lunch on the way home and that made the whole adventure a happy one for everyone.  Will Landon ever not love cheeseburgers?  So far, it's still the best bribe to get him anywhere.

That night we took advantage of $6 movie day and saw Arthur the King.  That's Henry running to the theater and no, I did not approve his outfit.  

Thursday was the day things really started to feel boring.  We cleaned out the boys' drawers and took a bunch of junk to Value Village which is always so refreshing.  Then I treated the boys to lunch at Costco.  So fun, right?  

Friday night I got a break while Randy took the boys to Top Golf.  I like Top Golf but staying home was even better.  I read a book and felt so blessed.

On Saturday, Henry and Parker woke up early and squeezed in about five hours of screens/Fortnite with friends.  By the time I got home from my stuff they were losing their minds but they didn't know it.  Henry was seriously a disaster.  So I did what any desperate mother does.  I drove all the way into Seattle to take Henry to the science museum.  I hate museums but the science one isn't terrible.  Plus, every kid needs to see the naked mole rats.  Luckily, we never made it past the huge play ground.  Henry doesn't even remember ever going there and he was in heaven as he climbed all over the place.  He even bribed me to buy him shave ice.  Which he took one bite of and then ran off to play.  We lasted a couple hours and wore him out enough that he fell asleep on the drive home.  Hooray for a screen free afternoon.

Watching Henry play at the park by himself is going to be my future for the next five years of my life.  Hooray for caboose babies that don't have siblings close to their age to play with. I tell myself Henry and I will become best friends.  I'll let you know when that happens :) He is pretty good at reminding me multiple times a day that "I'm the worst mom in the world."

Mexico - Part 3

Six days in Mexico went by in a blur of relaxing, swimming, sightseeing, and more swimming.  We chartered a boat to go snorkeling like we did last time but it wasn't great.  It was so windy we had to drive really slow and we still got soaked from all the waves.  When we finally got to the snorkel spot, we saw a manta ray and a few fish but the water wasn't clear so there wasn't much to see.  Luckily, Randy was able to reel in a huge fish so the trip wasn't a total failure. 

 One of the guys caught it on his line and asked Randy if he wanted to pull it in.  Randy had no idea what he was getting himself into!  It took about ten minutes of heavy pulling.  All I could thinks was Randy's poor back! 

We drove down to Tulum to see the ruins there and scored again!  A guy convinced us to buy tickets from him that included bikes to get to the ruins and passes to nearby cenotes.  It was super hot and we were so thankful for the bikes.  Randy loves ruins/museums/reading plaques.  I do not.  At all.  My boys feel the same way.  So we split up, glanced around at old ruins, and suffered while Randy made us take pictures.  Luckily even Randy was melting in the sun so we rode our bikes back to a 7-11 to slurpees.  

The cenotes were beautiful!  One was a big cave and we swam to the back where Ethan found a huge, deep cavern to snorkel around in.  There was also a small tunnel we swam through on our backs.  It was so small I refused to do it but the boys did.  

We spent our last night eating at the poolside restaurant, swimming, and playing card games.  The trip was uneventful in that no one died, we didn't get kidnapped or pulled over, and we had no issues with the rental car.  We had an early flight home and wouldn't you know that Henry decided to throw up right as we were going through security.  I was worried they wouldn't let us through but we made it.  Henry and I are now well acquainted with barf bags (they work great!) and by the time we arrived back in WA, we were all rested and hit the ground running to get Landon to his lacrosse game.  Vacation over!

I think we closed out the pool every night

Our trusty little rental car.  Good thing Marcus wasn't with us or this would've been a super tight fit.  Don't worry, there was still plenty of fighting and breathing each other's air. 

Henry having way too much fun with my phone in the back seat.  Parker was a good sport to sit next to him.

Mexico Part 2 --Isla de Mujeres

We decided to explore Isla de Mujeres, and tiny island off the coast of Cancun.  Our GPS took us to the wrong ferry parking lot but that ended up being a blessing.  A guy approached us in the parking lot to give us directions and when Randy told him we were looking for a ferry boat, he said he'd take us over in his own boat for the just a little more than the ferry tickets.  It took half the time, we didn't have to wait in line with hundreds of other people trying to catch the next ferry, and he brought us back to Cancun after our day of adventuring.  It was a major win!

The water is so beautiful! I almost wish the boat ride had been longer.

We rented a couple golf carts to explore the tiny island.  It took me about three minutes before I quickly let Ethan take the wheel.

We drove through the crowded streets to see all the shops and restaurants and then went in search of a less-crowded place for lunch.  We scored again!  We ended up eating at a beach resort where we sat at a table on the beach and a watched as a chef made us fresh guacamole at our table.  It was heaven!  And all the boys tried the guacamole too so clearly they understood just how amazing the whole experience was.  

One side of the bar had swings to sit on and the other side behind the bartender was the pool with stools to sit on in the water.  After we finished eating lunch, we had the pool pretty much to ourselves.  

Henry's face!

We loved iguana sitings but I'm the only one who able to actually touch one of them.

We should've spent more time at the resort because after we left, there wasn't much left to explore while we waited for our boat to come back.  But we saw some Mayan ruins and beautiful overlooks.

We returned the golf carts and walked the streets.  All the souvenir shops had the same stuff but it was still fun to browse.

Our boat back to Cancun