Saturday 5/28/2011: We woke up and ate breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts. This is a huge event for us because we currently don't have a Dunkin' Donuts anywhere near our home (yes, we savor those little things). Then we went to Sea Life Aquarium at Arizona Mills. The Aquarium is small but still packed full of Marine life. I'm glad that Tony got us all-day tickets for about $10 each through work because we went through in about 45 minutes. The kids completed the quiz cards so that kept them occupied for a little bit. We then went to eat lunch at The Rainforest Cafe and after getting my eyebrows threaded (I needed some "momma pamper time") we went back for another tour of the Aquarium. Then we headed back to the timeshare and ate ice cream and watched Justin Bieber's Never Say Never movie. I enjoyed it very much. Hahahah, yes, I love the Bieber!
Sunday 5/29/2011: We woke up and went swimming in the pool. Even Emelia. The kids had fun and we all enjoyed the small splash pad they had there as well. Then after showering and changing, Tony and the kids went for a visit with their grandparents while I logged in for work.
Monday 5/30/2011: Memorial Day! We love and Thank our Troops home and abroad!
Tony and I got a wild hair and decided it was time to take a drive and get out of Arizona. So we packed up the car and drove up to Las Vegas! We left around 8:30am and I was able to log in at 11am and work while on the road. We stopped in Wickenburg, ate lunch in Kingman and made it to Las Vegas by 2pm. We stayed at the house and made plans to leave to drive up to Ventura, CA. on Tuesday. However after gassing up the car, we decided that staying in Las Vegas would be better. All of us are a bit congested from allergies and we need our rest. Plus...we are on vacation and really have no set plans. It's very relaxing and after being in a car for 6 hours, I'm not entirely jazzed about waking up again and driving for another 6 hours so staying in Las Vegas until Thursday suits me just fine.
Tuesday 5/31/2011: Tuesday, we wake up somewhat leisurely and still completely congested...me and the kids anyway. We met my mom and Aunt for Dim Sum (YUM) and then headed out to the Las Vegas Natural History Museum. That killed about 2.5 hours of time for us and it was a nice little museum. Then we went back and had dinner at King's Fish House at Green Valley Ranch (again...YUM)! And then spent the rest of the night hanging out at the house.
Wednesday 6/1/2011: OMG! I woke up with a huge sinus headache and body aches and could barely move out of bed. So me and the girls stayed in and lounged around while the boys went out for breakfast and a movie. Thank goodness for Kids PBS that played ALL DAY LONG! Sometimes the "electronic babysitter" is a good thing. Taylor was still congested and Emelia was cranky so the 3 of us stayed in our pajamas and vegged on the sofa. Finally after sleeping pretty much all day long, my body aches and headache went away. And after cleaning up, we headed out to the M&M Store at MGM. We all got our share of different color and flavor M&Ms. I have to say that those Dark Chocolate and Pretzel M&Ms are YUMMY! Then we headed back to the house, did laundry, packed and went to sleep.
Thursday 6/2/2011: We woke up, packed the car and headed to Mandalay Bay for Brunch Buffet. That buffet is decent but the service was not too stellar. We got seated in an area where our waitress was at the end of her shift so we basically had NO service for the last 30 minutes of our meal and were the only ones in that section. It was kind of strange feeling but also nice because the kids were getting loud. Then we headed back to Phoenix. We stopped off in Kingman, drove through Wickenburg and went straight to Dinner in Scottsdale at Chick-Fil-A. From there we went to The Container Store and purchased some items for travel and home organization and back to the Scottsdale Links we went.
Friday 6/3/2011: We got up, packed the car, checked out of the timeshare and met my cousin for breakfast at Chompie's. Then we went to IKEA to get some home organization ideas. Of course we ended up finding less expensive/comparable items at IKEA that we had already purchased at The Container Store. And since we don't have a Container Store in Tucson, we drove ALLLL the way back up to North Scottsdale from Tempe to make the return. I think it was worth the drive up and down the 101 freeway to save about $100. Then we headed back to Tucson and drove straight home. We unpacked the car and rested for about 30 minutes before heading out again to see the production of Annie Jr. A few of Anthony and Jackson's friends were in the play and we had already purchased our tickets for the show. We had a really nice time and the kids did awesome! I'm thinking of trying to get my older 3 involved in their production of Aladdin Jr. next year.
Saturday 6/4/2011: This was a nice rest day for us from all of the driving. The boys woke up and helped Tony reconfigure their beds and clean out their bedroom. They must have purged about 3 bags of toys and clothes. We ended up taking those purged items to Goodwill and ate lunch at Bubby's. Then we went to run errands. The older kids stayed at Nana and Papa's house for the night and Tony and I went to eat sushi and then went home and cleaned out the kid's study desk area. We must have thrown out between 4-6 yard sized bags of trash/papers and junk. Tony and didn't sleep all night as we were measuring rooms and drawing up plans to give our interior a "Marana Gray Family Extreme Makeover". Our plans include making more room in the formal living room for the kids to each have their own study area. Revamping the playroom so both the boys and the girls have their toys in there. Exchanging the girl's room and our office and redoing the family room. Our goal is to have the study area completed by July and the rest of the house completed by August before the kids head back to school.
Sunday 6/5/2011: Back to reality for momma! I had to head back to work and we had piles of Mount Washme waiting for us. Tony even had to log in for work since he got the call on Friday that he was traveling starting on Tuesday afternoon. The kids start summer camp on Monday and our life gets put back into constant motion again. No rest for the weary in these parts!
