BAHAMAS! Part 1. (Fun at Dinner)

 Let me tell you a story about my Brother Brian.  In 2009 my parents took all their children and spouses on a cruise.  At dinner one night, when the cruise photographer came by and was taking pix of everyone, Brian stuck a piece of spinach or parsley or something in his teeth and closed his lips until the photographer snapped the picture.  The next day this was the photo that was displayed.  We still laugh about this story and it has definitely gone down in family history.

On the Bahamas cruise of 2015 we decided to re-create the scene.  And then from there it grew into doing a funny picture every night at dinner. (I am still missing some of the pictures that were take by the other girls!)  Yeah we were making idiots out our ourselves, but everyone else was drunk so they probably didn't care.  Or they just thought that we were too.

The parsley

The lemon 

Napkins on the head.  Amy was a good sport to go along with all our sisterly weirdness.

Looking way too normal here.

Had to get a pic of some of the food.  It looked amazing but disappointingly, most of it wasn't that good.  

Weekend trip to Las Vegas (from NOVEMBER!)

The sequence of this actually works out ok since the post just before this (or after if you are actually on the physical blog) is about Ian's birthday, which was also in November.

Let me explain why I am posting November news now:  I had a little mishap with my blog printing and ended up printing more of my blog than I wanted to. I normally print just a year at a time but this last time I printed it into a book I ended up printing almost, but not quite 2 years.  So all the stuff from the end of last year was in the book and should not have been.  So now I don't want to put posts in between other posts that have already been printed because I want them to be printed in the next book.  So things are just going to be sort of random til I get caught up.

So, back in November I arranged a trip with Kent to Vegas for our anniversary. I posted a quick thing about it and the Blue Man Group, which we went to see.  Kent had a bunch of pix on his phone that I didn't have for awhile so they never got posted.  So here they are.

Freaky eyeball balloon from Blue Man Group show

The Hoover Dam was really cool.  We had planned to take our family there several years ago and went to Las Vegas and took our kids to Circus Circus to play in their fun dome.  That night Ian developed croup and we ended up leaving the hotel super early in the morning and just going home.  We plan to take our kids here sometime in the near future.  Just a side note:  My grandpa Nelson spent time during the Great Depression helping on the Hoover Dam project.  I don't think he did construction on the Hoover Dam but he worked in one of the mess halls, feeding the workers.  I am not 100% sure on this but I think this is where he lost his pinky finger.  I will have to check up on that to make sure.

Very Belated Birthday

 Ian's birthday is in November.  When his birthday came around we did the usual family celebratory things, and were going to maybe NOT have a friend party...  The weekend after Ian's birthday Kent and I went on our anniversary trip to Las Vegas.  Shortly after that it was Thanksgiving, then the Christmas season.  The party kept coming up ("MOM, when am I going to have my BIRTHDAY PARTY?")  Then I went on my cruise (see, I have been BUSY!  And to actually plan something in far enough advance to get invitations out even FARTHER in advance, well, it just didn't happen.)  So, before I left on my cruise I set a date for the party.  In January.  Two months late. (I'm sure someone else has done this right? If I would have waited about 10 more months I would have not been late anymore.)  Anyway, we got the party planned, invited the friends and had the best belated birthday party ever.

It was quite a different party than we have ever had. A lot of the time we do pizza.  Ian wanted sub sandwiches.  Usually we do cake or cheesecake.  Ian wanted root beer freezes.  So that's what we did.  We even put a candle in the straw of his freeze.  The party was a success and most of all, it actually happened.  Now we don't have to worry about parties for a few more months.

Candle in the straw

Party guests:  Ellie, Ian, Tanner, Justin, Mallory, Adele, Cody

New Year's Eve 2014

We didn't have huge plans on New Year's Eve but we decided to have each person pick an activity to do until midnight.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of us playing Mario Kart, and of me repeatedly falling off cliffs in that stupid game.  That was Elise's choice of activity.  And because it was her choice she got to choose the levels.  So of course she picked all the "fun" (read : SUPER HARD, Mom is gonna DIE)  levels.  And so, I spent the entire time being lapped 10 times and falling off the cliff 100 times.  I have to say that I am a really good driver, and I CANNOT for the life of me play that game successfully.  And because of this, I find it tedious and annoying.