We recently cached in on our present to ourselves for our anniversary this year. We bought tickets to go see a play that was highly recommended to us from Jeff and Debbie.
It was a little bit stressful to go, mainly because we didn't want to leave Holland that long with only the older girls as baby sitters. Erica was going to watch them, but there was a mix up on dates, and she couldn't. So at the last minute I texted the other moms, and she ended up getting passed around to 3 different houses to make it through the time. She loved it, but I didn't. Even though that was a bit stressful, I don't regret going at all.
Jeff and Debbie were right--it was an awesome play. Mainly it was just hilarious. The premise is that this cast of characters is trying to put on a different play, but everything keeps going wrong with the set, the actors, lights, sound, everything. So the title of this play is "The Play that Goes Wrong." I can't write everything down that happened, but it was so ridiculously funny. My sides hurt from laughing. Also, we got to experience what it was like up in the nose bleed section. Whoa it felt like the stage was straight down from where we were sitting. We wouldn't feel comfortable bringing the kids up there because of the likelihood of falling to their deaths.
It was awesome though! We love being married! Here is a clip of the beginning I found on YouTube. It isn't the showing we saw, but it is the same play. I love it!
Holland is at such a fun age. I know I just did an update on this girl, but I can resist posting some more pictures and videos. I mean, how can I help taking photos of this girl?!
Holland's best buddies at preschool together. She has gotten a little over attached to Maddy. I don't really want her to emulate Maddy cause she is pretty sassy.
Holly and Mommy. We love each other, so much, except first thing in the morning when sometimes Holland considers me Enemy #1.
These videos of her singing and dancing are so awesome! I love her made up songs.
Sleeping in the car on the way to drop off a couple of things for my dad.
Waking her up before the gym one morning. Her face is pressed up against the bars so hard that it left a mark. I could still see it after breakfast when I took that pic with the spoon.
I love her messy blond curls, but one night she agreed to let me cut her hair. It got a little shorter than I intended. Mainly I was going to for an A-line bob. It isn't perfect, but it is super cute!
That curl on the left side of her face!! So adorable!
One thing that I love about school in Arizona is that there are such long breaks throughout the school year. Yes, the summer break is shorter, but it's a trade off. Grandma came down for the girls spring break which was fun, but I was nervous about it.
My mom has had such bad health this last year. The main problem is that she has been falling, a lot. She has hit her head so many times, that the doctor wants her to wear a helmet when she works outside, but she is not even sure she can do that anymore. She has real trouble walking and uses a heavy duty walker. She has been fighting nausea all year especially with the different medications the doctors keep trying to see if they will help. Nothing has helped. And they just don't know what's wrong. The neurologist sends her to an ENT and the ENT sends her back to the neurologist. Finally recently they decided she has abnormal Parkinson's disease. Unfortunately, because it is abnormal, regular Parkinson's disease meds don't help. They really just make her throw up. I feel terrible for her and am really nervous about our upcoming travel plans this summer.
My mom was able to come here though for Spring Break, and everyone seemed to have a great time. The first day she was here, we did pedicures. The second day was game day. We played all kinds of games, including Pie Face, Azul, King of Tokyo, and a couple of others. Turns out we have quite a few games.
The next day was craft day. We made these fairy houses from a kit that my sister gave the girls for Christmas. They are darling.
My mom took the girls to Hobby Lobby to get figures for their fairy houses and we stopped to get half price shakes on our way home. Living it up on Spring Break!
The next day was Pi Day. We went to the zoo with Erica and her kids. It was a great time, even though it was very crowded.
That night we had pizza pie for dinner and a cherry pie from Costco for dessert. It was yummy although Holland ended up throwing up during the night because she over did it, I think.
Look how cute those fairy houses turned out!
On Friday morning, we went to the Botanical Garden plant sale, while the older girls stayed home and watched movies. We took Holland because of her upset stomach the night before. She did great, and it was a ton of fun to look through the plants and pick out which ones to get. I only spent about double what I had planned on. :) My mom bought us this cool aloe tree. I love it! And check out how cool the blossom is on this vine. We didn't get that one, but it is still pretty.
Right before dinner that day, we took bikes over to the park with the long circular bike trail. Holland took off after her sisters and rode that little tricycle around the the path which is a half mile! That is a lot of revolutions of that little wheel! We played at the playground and enjoyed the beautiful evening.
On Saturday we picked up the aloe tree with the help of my dad. It was a little bit of an ordeal because they couldn't find it. Turns out it was exactly where it was when we bought it.
After the pick up we drove up to Scottsdale and went the Musical Instrument Museum. There was an Irish festival that day, which meant there was a fun face paint lady there. I think this might be the best face paint my girls have every had.
Pretty awesome: kitty, leopard, and rainbow tiger! We also heard some Irish music and saw some Irish dancers.
Then we went to the museum part. Oh my goodness, it was impressive. It is organized into continents. Turns out that North America (without Latin America) was the least interesting. They really made the displays as interesting as possible with information about what the instruments were made of and videos of them being played by the local people.
It was actually a pretty cool system that they have worked out. There are wireless receivers with headphones that start playing the sound to the video when you approach the screen. Apparently the videos were mainly all taken from people from the MIM. It was fascinating to watch of a video of how a group of men made a gong. They had no protective gear at all. Either in flip flops or no shoes and no gloves melting this giant piece of metal and hitting it with funky bats to shape it. Then they filed it down, once again with no gloves or shoes, and there were little metal shavings going everywhere. They must have tough feet and hands.
Some of the instruments looked old, but were new. Like various drums made out of turtle shells and lizard skin. Other instruments were original to the era, like a harpsichord that was a couple of hundred years old.
My kids loved the experience room where there were many different instruments that you could play. Oh boy was that a cacophony.
This museum was great for my mom because she collects musical instruments. She loved spotting one that she owns and texting her friends pictures of it. The MIM is actually quite near my dad's art show so we stopped by to say hi after and walked around there. My girls' face paint was a good conversation starter.
Sunday was St. Patrick's Day, but beyond making green spinach muffins for lunch and wearing some green, we didn't really celebrate it. My mom and the girls put together a fairy house puzzle, which was kind of the theme for the week.
The next day we thought about going to the aquarium, but ended up going a different day. We went the park to have a picnic and let the girls run around. It was such a pleasant day. The weather couldn't have been better.
Such a nice weather, warm, but not hot. Although I was surprised how many people were in the pool. It was nice and warm when you were dry. I am wimpy about swimming in not hot, hot weather.
The girls made a fairy house between two trees. It actually turned into a butterfly house when they found an injured butterfly and put it in there. They were so proud of it.
After that we went to the library, probably should have done that near the beginning of spring break instead of the last day. The girls still love it though.
The following day it was hard to get up and get to the bus stop. Then I had to be on my game, make it to gx, be back to watch a little boy before preschool started, then teach preschool. Yikes. It was fine though. They made cute caterpillars for bug week.
The next day after Eliza had a NEHS meeting after school, we went to the aquarium. This is a very expensive aquarium up in Scottsdale, but it was so fun! Check out these fresh water fish with their mouths agape and see the gills in there. Holland loved it to. I think this photo of her back lit against the fish tank is awesome. I had to laugh that it is finally warm enough that I let her bring out the green dress (now a shirt) again. She loves that thing.
One of my favorite creatures I saw was this weird turtle. Ever since we saw the sea turtles in Hawaii, turtles have been one of my favorites, but this was it just cool and funky. We saw them get fed, and they would just stare at the food then snatch it all of the sudden and then be still again. If you blinked you missed it.
Of course my kids' favorite thing (at least for a while) was stepping on this scale to see how big of fish we could weigh up to. Our whole family weighs a pretty big fish.
I loved these little penguins. They are African penguins and are adorable. They were really active and social with the observers. This one couldn't get enough of Ellie.
Fun stats about the aquarium. John was able to get off work a little early and come go through it with us. We loved it!
I just loved these penguins, way more fun, if smaller than the penguin exhibit at Sea World. They just flew through the water, darting everywhere.
Then we went down the cool escalator that was a tunnel through one of the tanks to the lower floor which was the salt water fish.
Lots of cool beautiful fish and tanks. The girls wanted a picture with this spotted ray.
We saw a 3D movie about humpback whales and the whale shark. It was really fun. We were rocking those glasses.
We loved all of the little clown fish!
And tunnel aquariums!
One of the coolest features was a rotating amphitheater where we saw four different aquariums all while sitting in the same seat. Nice to sit down and have a snack!
Of course since our visit to San Diego and Sea World last Thanksgiving, the sea lions were particularly loved.
Then we got to the shark tank. I am always surprised at how many fish swim with those sharks. I guess they don't let the sharks get hungry?
Different lighting setting on my phone. I love that it takes nice pictures.
Scary sharks, but cool as long as there is glass between me and him.
We liked seeing the tank of jelly fish. They do kind of freak me out though. They can be really big and really venomous.
We had to make a stop at the bathroom before we left, and we were glad we did. Turns out instead of a mirror, above the sinks is a window to the shark tank. Awesome! What a busy, wonderful spring break!
