Life According To Allyson

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Cleveland Rocks Days 8 & 9: Summer Footwear Galore And Saying Goodbye

Saturday, June 29th, 2013

We woke up WAY super early Saturday morning. We were in line at Old Navy by 6:45 AM for their $1 Flip Flop Sale. It has been a few years since my girls and I have gone and things were getting pretty scarce in the flip flop department at our house.

They had a 5 pair limit per person. Here is the haul we got between Lauren, Teresa, Emily, Aubrey, Addy and myself. We should be set for the rest of the summer. Except that just about 10 minutes ago Addy came to me and told me she couldn't find a pair of matching shoes. WHAT!?!?

We all went our separate ways after our little $30 shopping spree. My kids and I went home to ready our house for our new set of company that would be joining us the next day. Teresa and Lauren went to my mom's house and from what I hear, Teresa did all my mom's laundry and cleaned out her fridge and all kinds of other fantastic things. We met back up at my mom's house that evening for dinner.

Sunday, June 30th, 2013

Sunday was our last day to see Teresa and Alaina. We had Steve's sister Heather and her family coming from Missouri that evening and we were leaving Monday morning to go camping. Teresa and Alaina were returning to Ohio on Monday. They came over after we got out of church to say good-bye. We did another video chat with Sam and Bean-O. Alaina got so excited to see her Daddy. Below, Sam and Zac both turned the Kinect sensor to face the TV so we had an eteranl view the two sensors. Yeah, we are entertained pretty easily. It was a fun week and we loved spending time with Teresa and getting to know our sweet little Alaina. We miss them!

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Cleveland Rocks Day 7: Free Day! Literally!

Friday, June 28th, 2013

We woke up early on Friday to head out to a new shopping center that had several new stores opening that day. There were a lot of stores giving away free gift cards to the first 50 people in line. We camped out first at Dickey's BBQ. Emily and Aubrey staked their claim at Just Sugar.

We scored BIG TIME! Between all of us we got 4 $25 gift cards to Dickey's, 4 $10 for The Habit, 4 $10 Cherry Berry, 4 free yogurt cards at Orange Leaf, 3 $25 at It's Sugar, 3 $10 Starbucks, 1 $25 Gymboree, 1 $25 Chicos. That is $355 of free gift cards! The kids all got free sunglasses and a bunch of other prizes and we pretty much ate lunch with all the free food samples they were giving away.

That night we used all $100 worth of our gift cards and went to dinner at Dickey's. Here is Zac with Alaina. Alaina loves Zac. If someone else was holding her and he walked by, she leaped out of their arms to get to him.

What??? I'm not messin' around with those other lesser side dishes. For my 2 sides I had fried okra. I still remember my shock, 21 years ago when I was craving just a little taste of home. I pulled through a chicken place and asked for an order of fried okra. They had no idea what I was talkin' about. It only took Utah 21 years to get it here, but I'm not complaining. I'm just glad it's here at last.

After dinner we walked over to check out the kids favorite new store. Just Sugar.

The kids conveniently left their $75 worth of gift cards at home. We were not planning on buying anything until Steve saw the black licorice. So we let each of the kids pick a small bag of candy. A half a fortune later, we were finally out the door.

We caught a ride on these little golf cart taxis back to our vehicles.

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Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Cleveland Rocks Day 6: Greatness

Thursday, June 27th, 2013

On Thursday, while Teresa and Alaina were visiting us from Ohio, we went to Salt Lake to visit some Great people. Our first stop was my Great Aunt Verdene and Uncle Fred's house. Verdene is my Mother's Mother's Sister. Fred and Verdene will always have a special place in my heart because I lived with them when I first moved to Utah. They taught me all the important things I needed to know about living in Utah. Like driving in the snow, how to shovel snow off your roof (my first year here they had an enormous amount of snowfall and people were afraid their roofs would cave in) and how to plant a garden. Before we moved into our new house, we lived only about a block away from them. It was good to see them again. When we first arrived, Uncle Fred was in his back yard practicing his swing.

Fred showed us around his garden. He always grows a big beautiful garden. Most of what he grows, he gives away.

After we left Fred and Verdne's house, we drove about a mile to my Great Aunt June and Uncle Buck's house. June is my Mother's Father's Sister.

Uncle Buck showed us some of the things he has been carving.

Zac loves to carve and do wood working. Uncle Buck showed him some of his tools. Today, as I type this, it is July 9th and Zac is spending his second day in a row under Uncle Buck's tutelage.

The kids had fun finding themselves on Aunt June's "Wall of Fame".

Then we went to the Music Room and were able to sing along while Aunt June and Uncle Buck played their guitars for us. It was so much fun.

We were able to enjoy their beautiful backyard for a few minutes before we had to leave. (We had to leave because after 2 years without one, I was getting a new dishwasher installed!)