Our Anniversary and More

Not only do I have our wonderful 4th anniversary to update you on, but Tuesday afternoon/evening as well. You may recall I couldn't decide what was for dinner back on Tuesday...so I figured I'd make Jason cook and I called him and asked if he wanted to grill. He agreed so I got the chicken and marinade ready and he grilled for us. Easton was really looking forward to playing in the yard while dinner cooked. When Dalton and I went out to join J and E, I found a monkey in our tree!




Dalton busied himself sticking stuff through the chain link fence into the dog run that came with our house:




And Daddy tossed the boys around a little too:


That night with Dalton was rough again, he always likes to be the first to wish us a happy anniversary, or happy April Fools Day or happy Tuesday, for that matter. So we were up with him a lot for long lengths of time. Grrrr. Then the stinker decides to sleep in till I went and woke him at 9:00 a.m. He's so precious in his sleep, though:


The rest of us had been up for two hours and were ready to get started on whatever surprises Jason had planned for our anniversary. So we posed for a few pictures:






And hit the road to get some breakfast. On the way I noticed some people all bundled up in hooded sweatshirts and I was like, "Is it cold outside?" So we looked at the car's thermometer...yup, only 58 degrees. Oops. Jason was like, "Look at us dressed like a bunch of tropcial dorks." But it was too late to turn back and we continued to our secret destination...turned out to be my favorite: IHOP! Yay!

Easton learned the art of sweetening a cup of coffee for J:


Dalton just liked his fork practice:


We finished up our food and got back in the car on the way to another suprise destination. This time we ended up at the Butterfly Pavillion. Yay! Jason and I had each been there before, separately, and the boys had never been. It was a lovely family surprise and we checked it all out. There was a Nemo, Marlin, and Dory right when we first got started (yes there are a few fish at the Butterfly Pavillion), Easton obliged with the requested "Smile!" but couldn't take his eyes off the famous fish:


Neither could D, for that matter:


They even had a couple of "touch tanks" where Easton got to pet two different starfish (and a ray later on):


Dalton was rearing to go as soon as we dared put him down:




Eventually we made it in to the part with the actual butterflies flying about. There are rules not to touch the plants or the butterflies but a certain someone had a hard time listening to those rules and knocked over a sign. So he got in a little trouble:




But Dalton stayed happy:

His little hair got so curly from the humidity in the greenhouse.

We wandered all around taking pictures and movies of the butterflies. I took a ton and then I said, you know what, I don't want to edit and shrink all these for people to just glaze over. So I didn't include any of those, sorry. But I did take some of my kids:


And of my husband of four years:


And this set of videos:

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

We left the greenhouse part for the Crawl-a-see-em with all the insects and spiders. Ick. Easton's favorite part was the see through bee hive (he explains it in the video above). The bees could enter and leave the building through a clear tube and then come back in to make the honey. Dalton was intent checking it out too:


Easton also got to hold Rosie, one of their tarantulas. Barf.

He got a sticker that said, "I held Rosie!" to boot. One of Rosie's offspring lives in Easton's future classroom. Isn't that fun? No, no it's not. It's gross.

Once we let Dalton down to run amuck (also spelled amok and amuk) he was intent on climbing every footstool he could find:


We also made it over to the gift shop:



Our boys are not the "gimme gimme" kinds of kids, thank goodness. At least not yet. So Easton was very excited to find out Daddy was planning to buy them each a small souvenir. Easton picked a little flashlight bug projector. Dalton got a light up ball with a bug or two inside.

We made a final stop in a play area we had overlooked where Eastie climbed a "web":




And Dalton played with a giant pencil (among other things):


Dalton was beat when we finally left:


Jason planned on lunch at Rumbi Island Grill (keeping with our Hawaiian wedding and all...) We got our food (mine was a Hawaiian chicken sandwich) to go. Dalton went straight down for a nap:


And Easton polished off an entire Stoffer's Mac & Cheese himself before retreating for some quiet time.

Once E was up I woke Dalton too--didn't want him ruining yet another night of sleep for us if we could avoid it--the boys did some coloring and stuff:


At one point Jason asked me a casual, "Are you getting hungry at all?" and I resigned myself to thinking we'd be spending our entire anniversary with our lovely children doing things like coloring and going to grab some dinner when we got hungry.

But I was wrong.

Not too long after that there was a knock at the door. Our babysitters! Gramoo and Lauren. Woo hoo! Jason said, "Let's go change and we're leaving in 15 minutes!" I love a good surprise!

I had my mom snap a picture of us in our previous outfits. I really hate how much I slouch when I pose standing next to J. Slouching is not a flattering pose.


We got changed and I took AJ's advice of pairing my new shirt with some dark wash jeans for a "night out" outfit. However, she suggested also adding some heels but seeing as how I'm this much taller slouching next to my hubby without shoes, no way would I add heels for more slouch factor:


And a quick shot of our "four years later" family:


Gramoo, Lauren, and the boys had a lot of fun, I hear. Gramoo and Easton made blue slime or gook or something in the front yard. They ate Spiderman macaroni...they got ice cream from Sonic:


Jason and I tried a new (to us) restuarant called Cafe Brazil. My food was a little spicy for me but it was nice to get away and the spanish coffee gelato at the end made my night!

What a great day! We were back for bedtime which went easily enough...and while Dalton woke twice to eat, he would go right back to sleep which is all I can ask for these days.

This morning the boys slept until 7:50! Yippee! I was already up for awhile when Jason kissed me goodbye to go to work.

We decided to get breakfast from the grocery store on our way to the library. It was too windy to eat outside so I joined the boys in the backseat of the car and we munched. I looked out the window at one point only to see a dude crash his motorcycle!!! He was okay, he wasn't going too fast and no one hit him, he was just a little unskilled at turning, I think. He laid down with the bike but jumped right back up, shook out one of his hands and then walked the bike to the parking lot to recover. Poor guy! You don't see that everyday!

The library was fine, Easton signed up for the summer reading program but I declined signing up Dalton which I now regret. Oh well.

We came home and Easton helped me to make my mini quiches which he does not eat. He talks about "When I get bigger I will like quiche". We can only hope. We ate some lunch and now they're down for quiet time.

And speaking of time...today's picture-heavy post took me exacly 57 minutes and 38 seconds. This includes cropping and shrinking all 36 pictures and viewing and deciding on the video clips.

So there ya go...all up to date once again. Bye!