Backyard Honeycomb

Paul’s work had a family day at Hogle Zoo. The last time we were here was when Eli was a year old. We won’t pay for the entry fee. It’s outrageously over priced, so when we got a free pass, why not?

Giraffes are my favorite. Especially the baby giraffes.

His arms are about the same length as gorillas arms. He is growing so fast. He has grown 1 1/2 inches this year!

They had a face painter catered just for employee families. He was very hesitant and he wouldn’t have done it, if it wasn’t for this young lady….

They ran around together non stop! She got her face painted so, he put on a brave face- ha! and got his painted as well.

Just chatting away with the face painter 🙂

He is a gray wolf.

They were carrying on a conversation as well….

Had to ride the merry-go-round.

I tried to get his picture with the tiger, like we did with the lizard, but there were too many people taking pictures. The tiger wasn’t cooperating either.

Oh, look how young he is!

The sun went down, time to head home. Eli had SO much fun.

Today for lunch we stopped at Root’s Place. Just like their sign. It was just burgers and a little more.

Mac ‘n cheese for Little Pea. Fried cheese curds with fry sauce for me. See the manager in the back working away on his laptop? Brought back many memories. I’m thrilled we sold our stores. Thrilled I don’t have to worry about employees and if they are going to show up tomorrow morning to open the store. So happy!

I found this place a few weeks ago and was so excited to come here.

Look at that peach sunday. It was so delicious. Fresh peaches and sweet ice cream. It was perfect! I sure miss peach season.

Bryan had an errand to run down south so we had our luncheon at Summit Pizza.

What is a doodle? I know, I asked the guy that too.

A doodle are round cheese filled pizza things. A doodle. They come with pizza dipping sauce. Very tasty. We will be back!

We don’t know how to do the selfie thing.

For dessert we had cinnamon roll doodles. Cinnamon pizza dough with cream cheese dipping sauce. Eli and Morfar tried the raspberry doodle. Not impressed. No one really liked them either. They were weak with the raspberry so it tasted like they were baked next to a raspberry. I’m pretty picky with my flavors. They need to be real. But, the cinnamon roll ones were really good. Again, we will be back for these.

We started out the evening before the 4th with a movie in the park.

I’m not one to do outings like this. I would rather stay home, but this little boy loves to be out and about. We found a spot in the park, set up the chairs and two minutes later Eli took Paul’s chair and was ready for the movie!

We brought snacks. Lots of snacks for me to stay awake, ha!

Eli’s best friend came and joined us.

The next morning I talked Paul into coming back into town to watch the F16 fly by. They never came!

Went to my parents for a BBQ. Eli has been loving hotdogs lately. My veggie burger on a hotdog bun looks like slop, but it was very tasty.

We watched a little Jurassic Park. I know fitting for the 4th. Although Eli was saying this was a fake movie, we fast forward the scary parts anyway.

We made homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream. Again, looks like slop, but I didn’t want a lot of ice cream. Trying to eat well. I ate so well, I came back 3-4 times for more ice cream. I might as well just filled it up!

Paul came just in time for fireworks. Remember the days when we had to go to the city park to see the ‘big’ fireworks? The sky was lit up everywhere with everyone shooting off their fireworks.

A fun filled weekend.

Today’s Monday luncheon was at Virg’s. The food was okay. The cleanliness was a little sketchy.

As I said. A little sketchy. 🙂

I ordered just tater tots. Eli ordered pancakes the size of his head. And not just one pancake, but two!

And he ate the whole thing!!

Looking back at this picture every year is just so incredible. I still can’t believe nine years ago he came to our family. Nine years ago we were sealed as a family. We thought this day would never happen.

Now he is nine! Growing into a funny, smart young man. Every year we talk about adoption and being sealed as a family, and this year he is understanding a bit more. This year he chose to go to the Saratoga Springs temple.

The camera behind the camera 🙂

We didn’t take many pictures, because Eli was a bit nervous. There were two weddings going on. One in the front and one in the back. He didn’t want to intrude. What he doesn’t know is that weddings happen every day, every 15 min minutes, and it’s okay to be on the temple grounds. One day he won’t be as shy. 🙂

He played in the fountain for a bit.

The flowers were about done for the year, but they are still beautiful.

We are so grateful we have the opportunity to be his parents. He has no idea how loved he is!

We got back into the car to open gifts out of the wind.

A smart watch. This boy is loved and spoiled.

This year Eli chose to eat at Melty’s for his anniversary lunch. Melty’s menu are grilled sandwiches that you dip in sauces.

You can’t go wrong with grilled ham and cheese dipped in fry sauce.

Yeah, that’s my boy!

This year was the best April Fools ever! We started out the day with cold cereal.

Okay, frozen cold cereal. Ha!

And then the real breakfast. I didn’t get any pictures and I don’t know how I missed them, but I stuffed tissues in Eli’s shoes. When he put them on this morning, they didn’t fit!

For dinner we had a normal dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches, juice, and a cupcake for dessert.

Ha! The juice was jello!

The cupcake was a veggie muffin with mashed potatoes piped as frosting.

The grilled cheese sandwich was grilled pound cake with orange colored butter cream frosting.

This was fun. I went all out as well. Not sure what to do for next year…

Eli woke up to this. An empty table. I had plans to make green muffins for breakfast, but we didn’t have time to make them this morning.

What a sad face! We slept in this morning and only had a half hour to make it to to church. When Paul said it was cold cereal for breakfast, he was so disappointed. He told me a decorated table was supposed to be a great breakfast. Not cereal.

When we got home, I made lunch.

Eli said this was more of what he was expecting. Such a happy boy with food!

We had green wraps with green jelllo jigglers.

A green salad. And the word salad is being used very loosely. This salad is more of a dessert. But it was green and I was having a hard time coming up with green items.

Jello with panna cotta with a swirl of whipped cream. This was my first time making panna cotta and it worked! More importantly Eli loved it so it was perfect.

Green brownies for dessert.

Not sure what else to say about today. We ate lunch, watched a few movies together and snacked on brownies the rest of the night. 🙂

Eli and Paul went to Deer Valley several times to ski.

This is one of their favorite resorts to ski.

One time they were there, they saw the Freestyle Ski World Cup.

After a few runs of World Cup, Eli was tired of watching. So, what can a 9 year old do on the mountain packed with snow?

Eli is becoming a wonderful skier.

Warming up in the lodge for lunch.

A selfie I found while downloading pictures, ha!

Look who they saw coming down one of their runs? A porcupine. Too cute!

Eli went down a black diamond mogul run. It was challenging, but that didn’t stop him. He kept on going.

Happy Valentine’s day! Just a fun red breakfast before school.

Heart twinkies. I know, saturated fat. But we don’t eat these very often so it’s fine. 🙂

Valentine’s means chocolate. So we had chocolate muffins.

This is such a blurry picture. Hard to take good pictures at 6:30am. I need a new phone with a better camera 🙂

Eli is ready to go. Paul is still asleep.

Eli tried his jello parfait. He didn’t know what jello was. Apparently I have deprived him of a childhood treat. He loved it and wanted another one. I will have to do something next month with jello.

I don’t know what we were laughing about…

A little fruit with the saturated fat, er… twinkie hearts.

One last muffin and it’s off to school.

When we got home from school, I made some puff pastry hearts filled with mascarpone cheese, chocolate and strawberries. Crepes with cream and strawberries. Good thing this chocolate holiday comes around only once a year!