Anniversay Day Off

DeA has been stuck with me for 19 years. To celebrate, I took off work and we went to the temple together.

Then we did romantic things like fix the vacuum cleaner.

And we had everyone over for dinner and Rissa checked on her kittens that thankfully she will be able to take home very soon.

Baby Sofia is a lot of fun, as long as her mom isn't in the room.

We had a fun activity at the Jenkins' lake property. Schnoogies looked especially beautiful in the sunset.

Vili volunteered to bury a pig and roast it. It was pretty pretty good.

Pittsburgh

Dad, Nick and I went to Pittsburgh to watch the Mariners lose. Dad also went to talk Buccee's in Walmart parking lots.

And how dumb the FAA is in ice cream parking lots.

We went through the Pittsburgh temple open house. It has yellow in honor of the Steelers and Pirates.

We were told by multiple people that we had to try Primanti Bros since they were the "official" sandwich of Pttsburgh. It's a hamburger patty on white bread with French fries and cole slaw. It was different, it started out delicious but then the fries got cold and I felt like I wanted it toasted or something.

Friday night we got to watch Paul Skenes pitch against Logan Gilbert. Of course the M's lost.

I've always thought that this ballpark looked awesome, and it did not disappoint.

The M's also lost on Saturday, because of course they did.

We had waited until the last night to try something called the meatball volcano. I knew we were in good hands when we walked in and saw this bad boy. It's 2024, how are there still cigarette vending machines?

It was delicious.

Meanwhile, back at the homestead, DeA found a way to distract her triplets.

Jens gave a great talk that I got to watch right before boarding.

The trip home Sunday had just enough go right to get us home, but overall kind of sucked. The direct flight was cancelled, Alaska tried to re-book us on Tuesday night at 7pm, we grabbed two seats on a Southwest flight and I ended up sitting next to the Mariners' president of baseball. It was quite a long day and I was very happy to be home. 

Kittens and Flying and Temple

We have too many cats in our garage. They are cute, but they are pooping and peeing and scratching everywhere.

DeAndra thought she was taking a relaxing introduction flight with Rock, but then Rock ended up behind the yoke and doing quite a bit of the flying.

Rock was pretty happy. His mom was not so much.

The kids thought it was a shame that a watermelon fell out of the car after a Costco stop. Lastima.

I tried to make bread from self-ground hard red wheat. It did not raise much at all and was about as dense as a brick.

The petting zoo has add a Luca.

Marissa claims that the goats come up to her all the time, just never when anyone else is around for some weird reason.

Ryker's golf obsession continues strong.

I had a fun afternoon playing 18 holes with him.

Later I had an enjoyable evening on the deck with DeA listening to the winery concert.

DeA enjoyed a Friday night at the temple.

She's pretty, pretty special.

The youth had a temple trip the next morning, we staying in a hotel to make things easier. Ryker had a tee-time at 3, so he dressed accordingly.

It's always special to have the kids in the temple.

We even made it back in time for his tee time.

All the girls go crazy about a sharp-dressed Rock

Pool time!

 

Texas

Ryker decided at the hotel that he wanted to start shaving. Thankfully Rock had some shaving cream and an extra razor.

4:30am came pretty early for these travelers. 

Awkwardly close airplane selfie.

It was great to see the Youngs and to hit ice cream right after we got there.

Sweet Schnoogies loved the humidity and heat.

We tried the Top Gold knockoff and the Schookums showed off her skills.

It was quite the party atmosphere in the 92 degree humid weather.

Buc-ee's is a gas station, but it's also so much more than that. It smells like BBQ and leather. It has legit brisket sandwiches. It has a jerky bar. It has like 32 fountain drinks. It is amazing.

I want to know where the beaver's left hand is.

Jens enjoyed having other girls around and to do girl stuff.

It wasn't necessarily convenient, but we took the kids to the Dallas Temple with Jacque and Noah. We were glad that we went even if it wasn't easy.

We had to hit all the available fast-food places like Chick-Fil-A and Cane's

Oh, and we ended up at Big Shots again.

Jensley wanted to try Waffle House and I was more than happy to make that a priority.

DeA came with us but we all knew that there was no way that she was going to eat anything there. I'm a little surprised that she even sat in the booth.