Oh, What a Week

...and the craziness has really only just begun.  As a quick recap: It started raining on Sunday, with only a couple of breaks between then and Friday morning.  With the severe burn in the mountains this summer, there are no plants left to either soak up rainwater or prevent erosion, so there was a pretty great risk of mudslides.  Therefore, homes that were deemed vulnerable were evacuated as of Wednesday morning.  That night, residents were allowed in with ID.  Whew.  Thursday, however, was a different story.  Levi and I were not allowed past the barricade, so we called Aaron, who was at home with A.J., and we all headed out.  I am lucky enough to have an awesome cousin that lives in Las Vegas who had already invited us to stay at her place if we needed it, so I took her up on it.  It was so great to have a relaxing weekend with lovely sunshine.

This week, Aaron is in Phoenix until Thursday afternoon.  I'm supposed to leave for Catalina Thursday morning.  He leaves for Phoenix again on Sunday before I get back and he'll return again on Friday.  Oh, my goodness it's going to be challenging.

However, I did take a few pictures of the fun.

Since Jake and Carrie were taking Lila to Disney on Ice Friday night, and our boys were absolutely not interested, we went to an aquarium instead.

Look at the size of that fish!

This aquarium is one of the most interestingly decorated I have seen.  It's in the Mandalay Bay casino/resort thing.  Because ALL entertainment, including movie theaters, in Las Vegas are in casinos.  Not my favorite place, but there's not much I can do about it.  Casino money buys nice looking stuff, though.

They had a really neat exhibit that made you feel like you were inside a shipwreck, and then one wing was a tube, so the sharks and rays could swim all around.  It was pretty fascinating.

This is a very impressive waterfall that we missed the first time we walked past because from the back, and upstairs, you can't even tell it's there.

And finally, one of my favorite photos of the trip.  The three little ones together.  A.J. and Levi and sweet little Lila.

Ten years and two weeks...

and counting.  Yep, Aaron and I have been married for 10 years.  Doesn't seem possible sometimes, it's gone so fast. 

Jon was still here, so he watched the boys for us while we went out to dinner at a place in Pasadena.  Red, White and Bluezz has live jazz every night.  We went on a Monday, so it was just a solo guitarist, but he was pretty good.  Here's to another 10 years!

Winter Break is over...Yay!!/Boo!!

I'll give you the full holiday recap but first just let me say that I'm glad that the kids are back in school. It was nice to have lots of time together, doin' all the holdiay and birthday stuff, but after a while the lack of a routine starts to grind on all of us and things get a little crazy. So, since it's been almost a month since we last posted how about some nice pictures from Levi's school Christmas program to start.

Posing for a photo op before the performance...

 

And rockin' the moves to the songs like he was born to do it.

On Christmas Eve the boys opened their Christmas jammies and sang carols for us.

And a collage of favorite gifts from Christmas morning:

  

That's right. A.J. was using his batting cage and pitching machine outside on Christmas day. 68 degrees outside. We all got Mizzou shirts from Santa and watched the MU vs Navy bowl game on New Year's Eve. Boo. We would have gone to the game if they were at the Insight Bowl in Tempe, but alas they were not picked for that game. They probably could have won that one against Minnesota.

We'll give you the details of Levi's birthday party in a little while, so stay tuned.

-Aaron