We went to a different Airborne this time. I don’t know why this place is so scary, but it is!
Is it because little kids can throw themselves and not think about the bones they will break or the muscles they will pull if they land wrong??
All slides are scary, but this one was 15 feet tall with a 90′ angle. This goes straight down, and then curves into a slide.
Paul went down it many times and tried to get us to go down. I refused, but as a great mother I am, I encouraged Eli into going down telling a lie that it wasn’t scary 🙂
So I had to go down to show Eli it wasn’t so scary. Don’t mind my screaming 🙂
Finally a little fear in a 6 year old. Eli gets it how scary it is!
Eli finally went down. He cried a bit 🙂 It was scary!
Eli had a little motivation to go down again.
After that we couldn’t stop him from going down. He must have gone down 50 times. Did I go down again? Nope! Once was enough!
We finally received a great snow storm so Paul and Eli went skiing.
Eli has been asking for weeks to go skiing. He is starting to turn, and almost did a parallel turn. I don’t know what that means, but Paul says it’s pretty good 🙂
He is growing up so fast. I remember having to ride on the carpet with him, and now he is doing it by himself!!
He also doesn’t have fear. Fast the better 🙂
A few days later the weather was perfect and Paul had to get out again. He went skiing with Jeremy and spent the day on the mountain.
Not many skiing days this year due to the lack of snow. Hopefully we get more next year!
Started out today with a frigid run. Beautiful morning, but extremely cold!
Today’s Monday lunch we drove to Provo.
We went to Good Moves Cafe.
Today’s lunch was a fun one because Bryan came with! Today was also fun because at Good Move Cafe, you play games while you eat. They had a lot of games to choose from and surprisingly they were clean.
This is so true!
Eli picked out a few fun games while we waiting for our lunch to come. For lunch we had pasta with alfredo. It was really good. I would go back and get it again.
For dessert we stayed in Provo and went to Simply Cheesecake.
And simply it was. Nothing too special. I chose the oreo cheesecake and it was just simple. We each got a different flavor and I thought each cheesecake was just simple. It wasn’t bad, but not good enough to come back.
I’m glad Bryan joined us! Aaron and Bryan were throwing out movie quotes all afternoon and I have forgotten how funny they are, especially when they are together. I hope Bryan will join us throughout the winter.
The last two weeks have been brutal. I knew when my last day of work was going to be, but no one else knew. 🙂 Can’t tell the the employees because we need them. As soon as they find out, they have a high chance of quitting.
So, I needed to direct my stress and anxiety somewhere, and that somewhere was shopping. I have shopped EVERY day 🙂
Cute, right? I purchased the shirt and pants!
In between shopping, I did have to go to work. I still need to keep things rolling. One of the days I smashed my finger on…
This traffic cone. They are doing road construction and blocked the right lane that goes to my store. Directing traffic away from my store, making the entrance hard for customers to get into. I had to move it. Need to keep the lunch rush coming even during construction.
Another stress reliever I have been doing is eating. And not the healthy eating. Mrs. Bakers bakery became my closest friend over the last two weeks. I have frequented her bakery almost every day. I would have gone every day, but she is closed on Monday’s 🙂 A lot of calories in that tiny square of tasty goodness!
Finally the day came! We announced we sold the store to employees, completed a few tasks, and had our last Subway dinner 🙂 Yup! That’s my boy!
knowing we wouldn’t be in Bountiful anytime soon, because we now don’t have a reason to drive an hour away from home, we stopped off at Dick’s for the last time. Very sad about this. They have the BEST buttermilk donuts. We were late and they didn’t have any left, so I had to try…
Their cakes. And it didn’t disappoint. For the 10 years we owned the store, we have been going to Dicks for donuts and never tried their cakes. Such a disappointment. 🙂
Next stop, my favorite cookie place.
Cutlers. They have the best cookies in the state. Yes, I eat a LOT of treats. I eat, therefore I run. It works for me.
Many times I have purchased these cookies as an employee motivator. I’m going to miss these cookies.
One last memory of our week. The crazy snow storm we drove in. The last day of driving to Bountiful we scheduled it on the only storm of the week. How is that for fantastic scheduling! I want to remember this store, because this wasn’t normal snow. It was dirty, brown snow.
Look at this. Filthy dirty. I think there is some salt from the Great Salt Lake as well.
You can see the different colors in this picture. The white snow with the crazy brown snow on top.
A lot happened during the last two weeks and we have done a lot of “last” things, but we are not done celebrating just yet. Selling the store was a huge accomplishment, but we still have a few things to wrap up, like QuickBooks and taxes. After we close out QuickBooks, we are going to do a celebratory dinner at the Dodo!
But it was special, because Little Pea was able to join us!
After lunch we went to a new place for dessert. We went to Flake.
The most delicious mini pies. They had some hand pies that I think we will have to go back and try!
The three pies we tried was the strawberry, coconut and key lime pies. Hands down the strawberry pie won. It was very tangy and the graham cracker crust was really good.
Paul really want to to go snowmobiling for his birthday. On the way, we stopped in at the store to make sandwiches for lunch. We knew we would be starving after a day on the mountain.
Drove to Monte Cristo. Utah as been going through a drought with little snow, we were worried we wouldn’t have enough snow to ride the snowmobiles. Driving further up in elevations, we finally came to a little snow and frosted covered trees.
Eli rode with Paul.
I rode my own 🙂
With the lack of snow, we stayed on the main roads. We didn’t want to risk damaging the machine by running over rocks or branches. We went down Dry Bread Pond.
Lots of open space to go where ever you wanted.
Paul picked a good day to have a birthday 🙂
We switched so Paul could have some fun. After all, it’s his birthday 🙂
We played in the snow. It’s sad and a little scary that we haven’t had snow in the valley this year. A little worried about next year.
It was a gorgeous day.
Paul and Eli. It was hard to video. The sun was so bright, I couldn’t see what I was taping 🙂
Eli had a lot of fun!
After several hours riding it was time to head home and get dinner. Every year Paul wants to go to Maddox for his birthday dinner. I don’t complain. Maddox is delicious and I’m glad I can tag along 🙂 We also took home a coconut cream pie!
I’m not going to post a picture of our house, but I haven’t vacuumed in 5 days and it’s driving me crazy. Paul took some video of the house because he couldn’t believe I have stayed calm through all this. That footage has been archived and not to be viewed by anyone. But, this is what Christmas is all about, right? Playing and being with family. We played hard every day for a week. We started playing the minute we woke up to when we hit the pillow that night. Five days of this!
We took a week off of eating healthy as well. It would be safe to say we haven’t followed the basic four food groups, unless that consists of sugar cookies and chocolate covered marzipan. We did have a balanced breakfast one morning, we went to the Black Bear Diner. Ha!
See what is around us? Mass hysteria is what it is.
We opened battleship and played a game. Paul was quick to sink our ship. Eli thought it was fun, but it was a long game and wanted to play something else. It’s his week, so we did what he wanted to do. And what was that?
He wanted to play the Nintendo Switch. We were going to get it for Eli last year, but we thought he was too young, and I’m glad we waited. This year was perfect for him.
They played all day. When their patooties got tired, they moved to the couch. 🙂
See the sock in the couch? The place was crazy!
We played Smess, the Ninny’s chess. Eli didn’t get this for Christmas, but he is obsessed with it. He is getting quite good at it as well. There are times when I don’t have to let him take my guy. He moves his guys, traps me, and takes it!
Well, this isn’t playing, but I have to remember it. Cyber Monday had a fantastic deal on a new kitchen faucet and we couldn’t pass it up. Paul said he would take just a moment to install it. After he installed it, we found out the handle was too tong and it hit the lip of the window seal. So out came the new one and the old one went back in.
Oh, the trains. Trains, trains, and more trains. Eli wants to be a train driver when he grows up so he wanted anything with a train. He received another box of wooden train tracks. We built a city out of train tracks. He is in love with this!
Eli learned how to read the legend on the instructions for the electric car track. He did a fantastic job putting the track together.
After the track was put together we had to protect the furniture because the cars were flying everywhere. We raced several races!
We brought out the electric train that blows real smoke. We also played with a fort kit and made several forts.
At night we went Christmas light watching. We found this street on Solemn street. It was king of fun to see the lights going across the street connecting all the houses.
One of the houses had a projector playing the Christmas story.
Then in the window we saw the leg lamp. Too funny.
Paul spotted Eli finishing up a Christmas project.
Different day, same Nintendo, but different game. They paused their playing to leave the house to purchase another game.
Same game, new position 🙂
It’s going to be rough going back to reality. We had a fun filled week of playing, enjoying family time, and eating whatever and whenever we wanted.
From the words of Dr. Seuss: Today is done. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one…but with a clean floor. Everyday from here to there, [great] things are every where.
As I was thinking of how the pandemic has effected us for December, I was surprised to see my list was all positives and I hope these changes continue after the pandemic is over.
The only negative I have is that the store is still low in sales, but not like they were in the spring when all this started.
I have been having all my sleep appointments online with Zoom. What a time saver and VERY convenient. Instead of taking half the day off for an appointment, I log in while sitting in my kitchen. I have my next appointment set up for next year and they gave me the option of coming in or doing virtual appointment. I told them virtual all the way. I’m hoping this option will be available in the future years.
Church is still at home every other week. The other week is in the building for an hour. They’re wearing the ties I made!
Masks – Holiday masks. The masks have been very nice in the cold! I went shopping at an outdoor strip mall and had it on the whole time. It was freezing walking from store to store and it was very nice to have a “scarf” around my face at all times, inside the store and out.
Curbside service. Okay. This one better stay after the pandemic. I have thoroughly enjoyed this service. Ordering on my phone, parking, and having my food run out to my car! This is the most fabulous thing restaurants have come up with. Paul and I may have used this service at the Olive Garden 4 times this month. It’s just too easy.
With the store, I wanted to opt out of this service because all I saw was hassle. But now after having it in place, it has become very convenient for our employees as well. Online ordering is now 60% of our business. It has made our lunch rushes smoother, less crowded, and more efficient. All with the same volume.
I’m seeing this pandemic lasting for at least another 3-6 months. It will be interesting to see what changes stay.
