Monday, May 19, 2008

Summer home in Alaska, anyone?

Whoo boy! When did someone remove the second half of May and June from the calendar?!? It was 105 - yes One-Oh-Five - degrees here in Vegas today!! Egad. Kristy, you better make room on your couch, 'cause I'm heading up for the summer. :-D You wouldn't mind good 'ole Uncle Paul for a little extended stay, now, would you? It's 11:00 at night and the A/C is blaring full blast - ugh, I don't want to see the power bill. But it looks like "relief" is in sight...


Check out more below for news on last week's fun adventures!

Weekend in Nashville!

Last weekend Amy, Ali, and Valerie got to head to Nashville for the recording of the FlyKids album. Marla Cilley (a.k.a FlyLady) flew them out, along with Eric and Andy Dodge, for a few days of seeing the sights of Music City and a full, long day of recording their follow-up to their first album.



They got there Thursday night and their session wasn't until Saturday so they got to spend much of Friday checking out the Nashville scene, including the Grand Ole Opry, the Country Music Hall of Fame, etc. After their session Saturday night they got to see Dierks Bentley (yes BOTH of him!) and Vince Gill perform, as well as Garth Brooks induct Carrie Underwood as a member of the Opry - what a night!

Amy said the recording session was just AMAZING! The session was held at Omni Studios, along with an "A" list of professional musicians. They had listened to the versions of the songs Amy had worked on in Logan back in March and, along with some pages of what would look like chicken scratches to me, they were able to record perfect tracks in pretty much one full take per song. The songs sound SO GOOD! I can't wait for y'all to hear them. They only got the instrumentals done so it'll be back to the studios in Logan, St. George, and probably here in Vegas to get the vocals all finished. Should be fun!

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Father & Sons (+ Daughter & Uncle) Outing

This is a week late, but better late than never...

We decided to not feel too sorry for ourselves while Amy was in Nashville last week by heading to the hills. Our ward had our Father & Sons outing up near Mt. Charleston, just about 30 minutes outside of Las Vegas. It was nice to get out away from the busy city life and let the kids get some fresh air. I called Brent last week to see if he would want to come join us and he was great to sacrifice a free flight - and a weekend with Allison - to hang out with us. The kids loved playing and hanging out with Uncle Brent. They even got to go to a baseball game with him, courtesy of Daddy's work!

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Phamily Photos

Here are some photos we recently took of the kids, some of which we shared with our Moms on Mother's Day. For those that didn't get some in the mail feel free to click through the slideshow below and look at the individual pics.

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Anchovies, anyone?

Confession time: I know we've been a little slack in the blogging department lately. Sorry. I got my sisters going and they're making me look bad! I hear Great Grandma Lacey (Grandma Great, as our kids call her) got a new computer - I'm sure she'll probably be out-posting us here in no time!

We have REALLY enjoyed the weather here the last few weeks. It's been just perfect! I know everyone north of us is probably sick of us rubbing it in (especially a particular sister after getting 17 inches of snow last week - yikes!), but summer will be here soon when Alaska, Idaho, and Montana will be sounding pretty darned good. And if you really are sick of the cold weather I hear that the housing situation down here makes for a great buyer's market. We'd LOVE to have some family join us here in Sin City!

We had a great day yesterday, just enjoying time outside and the chance to get some things done on some of our projects. We took the kids over to the District - an upscale shopping center down the road just a few miles. They just installed a new carousel that the kids have been excited to go ride. There are some pictures in the slide show here:



As for the title of this post...Jacob, for whatever reason, has had an ongoing fascination with anchovies for the past 6 months or so. Not sure where it originated but he's been bugging Amy to get him some for quite awhile now. So during a recent trip to the dollar store, Amy came across some anchovies, just like you'd envision them - in a little tin (or whatever they use now) can. So I'm at work, getting ready to come home from lunch, when I get a call from Jacob: "Dad, WE FOUND SOME ANCHOVIES AT THE STORE!!!" Amy says I better hurry quick - Jacob's ready to break them out.

So I get home and Jacob is ready to go. Of course we have to savor the moment by capturing the moment on film whatever-digital-term-we-use-now-instead.

Anna was game...
From Anchovies!

Jacob couldn't wait to open them.


The Grand Opening:


Once we had them open we thought he'd chicken out and say, "Uh, no thanks!" I could have sworn they had fine little hair all over them. Ugh. :-p


OK, here's where Amy wasn't about to let her precious little 4 year-old dive in and eat some eel without an assurance that it wouldn't kill him - so she made me try one first!


"Hmmm, now THAT'S an interesting gustatory experience!"


I needed to gather every ounce of acting skill that I had so expertly honed during my high school plays to not pull a face and ruin it for Jacob! This is definitely one thing that won't get mistaken for tasting like chicken!


Alright, so now it's Jacob's turn. I'm sure at this point he was thinking, "Now, what did I just get myself into?!"


Here goes!


Down the hatch!


Jacob absolutely loved them!! So much so that he INSISTED that Amy try one, too (much to her dismay). What a sport!


But the GAG REFLEX triumphs!


Undeterred, Jacob downed the entire tin! Mmmmmm.


The dimple doesn't lie! (and if you look closely you'll see the new line of Spaghetti-O's that Jacob developed in the process!)
From Anchovies!, a Picasa album from the Laceys

OK, I think I've officially lost my appetite now. So...on to other things!

Amy is excited to head to Nashville with Ali and Val on Thursday to record the FlyKids album. They'll spend Friday meeting with the session producer and FlyLady, et. al., to discuss their plan. Then they'll do the recording on Saturday and fly back Sunday morning. I'm sure they'll also have opportunities to go see & hear some of the sights and sounds of the Nashville scene while they're there. I'm jealous! But I get a fun consolation prize of being able to take the kids on the Father and Sons (we'll be smuggling Anna in, too - Ssssh, don't tell!) outing this weekend. I reckon next week's post should be fun. :-)