Anniversary anyone?

Our 15th wedding anniversary was on Wednesday, June 20th.  Pretty significant huh?  Well, we had pack meeting.  We did go to lunch and to the temple to do sealings which we try to do every year, and Pack meeting was lots of fun.  It was a really good day, but not really the 15 years of marriage celebration I was looking for.  We figured we would spend the day in Vegas on Saturday to celebrate.  It just so happened that Kyle's sister Lauri who just moved to Henderson needed a few more pieces of furniture from her mom's house and Kyle's mom was flying into the Vegas airport and needed someone to pick her up so we thought we could make a celebration out of it.  By the time we dropped the kids off at Beckstrands, and got the seats out of our van and all of Lauri's stuff loaded in, we were pretty late into the day.  One of our favorite places to visit in Vegas (besides Thunder Down Under) is the International Marketplace.  So that was our first stop (well the bathroom in the marketplace was our first stop).

  We always buy our Asian supplies there and try to find some other crazy things we haven't tried before.  Kyle is a great cook, but when he cooks he doesn't just want to make spaghetti, he wants to iron chef something exotic.  The store is really unorganized and you just have to search the whole place every time, which is a fun adventure- especially the butcher block.....

We didn't buy these but I did eat one of these at the French Culinary Institute in New York last month and it was actually quite good.  It is the most adventurous thing I have ever tried, and liked. We didn't bring a cooler so we could only buy canned or packaged items.  Here is most of what we ended up with:

Coconut milk and rice noodles can be purchased in St. George but they are WAY cheaper here.  Masaman Curry is the stuff you pay 13 bucks for at Benja's Thai restaurant- so we stock up on that too. DOBROVA in the background was a ridiculously good version of Nutella-that bottle was half empty before I could get a picture of it!  It was a new discovery along with the honey.

Aren't these beautiful?  They are honey jars from Lebanon.  The one on the left is layers of all different kinds of nuts and then honey poured over them and sealed.  I am keeping that as a decoration for a few months, I love it so much.  The one on the right is "pulverized nuts with honey"
peanuts and coconut, and pistachios and walnuts and chickpeas and apricot stones.  To which George said, "are you sure those are edible?"  They taste good, hearty, earthy but good.  We are blessed with kids with adventurous taste buds.  They will try all of these things, and like most of them.  They never fight us on trying new things.

This was basically the only thing we got to do in Vegas for fun.  Our anniversary trip to Lebanon, with a layover in Bangkok.  We are hoping to take a real trip somewhere, sometime.... the details are a little foggy still. 

We went to Lauri's to drop her stuff and pick up Jillyn (Lauri had gotten her from the airport). Then we went and got some lunch at BDubs.  Now I don't know why we call it that, it is Buffalo Wild Wings. But the Kentucky brothers "dubbed" it that in Louisville where they were religious patrons.  This was my first real experience and it is certainly not worth a special trip to Vegas, (don't tell my nephew Drew) but salt and vinegar wings and Dr. Pepper is a great combination! Lucy thought everything tasted great, even the tabletop, that girl can eat!  After lunch we jumped back in the van and headed home to make it to the adult session of Stake Conference, and retrieve our kids.

Happy Anniversary Kyle.  I am grateful for every minute of every year, especially the minute this morning when you woke me up to tell me you caught the mouse that has paralyzed me this week.
You take such good care of me and the kids.  I am proud and grateful every day to call you mine.

Swimming, is it really getting us anywhere?

Swimming isn't really a place we go, but something we enjoy, even I have learned to swim and have learned to love swimming this summer and healthwise it is getting me where I want to be.
Every summer my kids join the DSC summer swim team.  I love that it is a daily way to get their energy out and to cool off, but none of us really love the swim meets.  Today was our own little team meet- but our team has worked it's way up to over 100 kids over the last few years, including about every neighborhood kid we know.

My kids are in there someplace....I don't think you can actually see either of them.

 I convinced us all (me especially) that it was a good experience and we could skip one weekend in Pine Valley and learn to compete. Side Note: We are not competitors at our house. Some of us (not me) are performers and would rather just share our talent than try to prove that our talent is better than the next guys.

So off we go to the swim meet in 104 degrees and 15 mph winds, set our little sun tent up and get sunscreened up, and my chin up and try to enjoy the evening. 

It started off with a freestyle relay that Emily didn't know she was participating in and I think the anxiety of that really got her blood pumping because she swam like a maniac and saved her team as the anchor leg.  Watch her totally school the girl next to her!


The kids worked hard and had a really great experience (which yes, translates to: we won't be bringing home any blue ribbons). It was fun to spend some time with my friend Kelly and the rest of the neighborhood parents  and to watch all the kids swimming their hearts out!  Evan has also been having swim lessons the last two weeks at the college and he loves it. He wishes he could go every day, but he is not quite there yet.  He mostly likes pencil diving off the blocks to see if he can touch the bottom.

Hairspray Happy

We are extremely biased about the awesomeness of Hairspray the Musical at Tuacahn.  BECAUSE...my youngest brother Bradley designed the set, and it is fantastic.  The music is great too, and it has always been one of our favorite movies.  Also, one of our favorite THS alums is always in the dance ensemble so we play "who can spy Tino first" as the scenes and costumes change.
We got to see the first preview night that was only for family of cast and crew with Brad, and some of the set pieces weren't even painted yet, but it was very exciting to think we had an insider's view.
Then on Tuesday, June 19th, we took George and Emily to see it fully painted and in full swing.
Emily was in rapture all night and was dancing and singing along every chance she got.  I have a hard time not dancing and singing along too, but just in my head.....I'm no Emily.  Performing is horrifying to me, but I do have an amazing talent of enjoying and appreciating other people's actual talents!

 Hey Mama, Hey Mama look at us.......fabulous!

weekend getaway

We try to take a lot of little trips- Mostly Pine Valley, Lehi a few times,  Lake Powell a few times and Vegas a few times, and Disneyland at least once a year with a little random trip here and there.  We were blessed to be able to go to New York 2 times in the last 2 years. (and I went with my sisters the year before that).  So that is why I decided to name this blog "Wells Wanderings".  I don't usually take a lot of family pictures unless we are "at a place".  We also recently got an Ipad 3 that takes great pictures and also is always with us thanks to the newest Angry Birds app. (of which there is always a new one- the pigs are currently in space).  This last weekend was just about perfect.  The kids had an end of week performance at Tuacahn for Desert Stars, where they were fabulous of course!

and then we headed straight out to Pine Valley.  I got to scrapbook on the porch (my favorite summertime activity) while the kids played and Kyle tinkered and napped.  Then some friends (and the deer) showed up for dinner and s'mores.

We slept over and slept in and then Kyle ran to Central (about 10 miles).  We cleaned up, closed up, and picked him up and then stopped in Veyo to fish for Crawdads, swim and try the famous Pronto Pups (which would have been better with less pup and more pronto.....I think) but were still good, as far as corndogs go..... Matty kept trying to eat her hotdog "bait", we are lucky she doesn't have the gungus kyotis.  The crawdads thought Evan's toes were hotdogs so he spent most of his time perched on a rock.  Josh said sticks were a waste of time and waded in and fished two handed, and he got the biggest ones of all of us.

We got home in time to get some work done, run some errands to prep for the Sabbath.  Kyle and I also took time out to go get some dinner in the middle of the errands.  Perfect weekend if you ask me.

Father's Day Surprise

Kyle thought this would be just like any other Father's Day, and really it was-

                                   it started out with waking up too early to crying kids, breakfast in bed,  then after church there was the dinner of choice,

homemade cards (this one was unusually large),

 unwrapping the shirts he picked out and the gifts the kids made in church.

 There was one surprise envelope though....

Kyle has had an extremely stressful couple of years, and has found that swimming and running really keep his anxiety in check.  He has been working really hard and I am so proud of him and wanted to show my support and give him something to work towards.  He is officially registered for the 2013 St. George Ironman 70.3.  A new journey begins (another reason I wanted to start this blog).

Beginnings....

I have never been at the top of the fashion curve, or kept up with the trends, so now that everyone I know has had a blog for years: I have decided to join.  Really we have been doing a lot of fun stuff recently and I wanted a way to keep track of it without scrapping it.  I love scrapping, but I am two years behind on my 2 year old's scrapbook so that isn't really an option.