Vacations Vacations Vacations

I REALLY should get on here more often.......

So February 23rd I flew to Portland to see my new niece Ava and go see Duncan Sheik in concert with Danita and a few others. I only went because I got a SCREAMING deal on airfare. $100 round trip!

I spent Day 1 and most of Day 2 with my sister Becky, her husband Jake and their daughter Ava. She is SOOOOOOOOO cute! They picked me up, we hung out in Portland, Saw the Pitock Mansion, saw my old school and old house, went and had dinner at 5 Guys Burger and Fries, hung at Britt's apartment and saw my dad, brothers Caleb, Ben and my sister Chelsie too. Went back to their place in Willsonville. In the morning(Day 2 still) I got to hang out with Ava at her care center and then I was introduced to the class Becky teaches there. My dad came and picked my up for lunch and it was off to Olive Garden. Then we headed to Britt's place again. I stayed with her for 2 days. After dad left I went shopping. Came back and went to dinner at Cheesecake Factory and Target with Danita then we met my mom at the movies. We saw Confessions of a Shopaholic. I LOVED it!

Day 3 I hung out with Brittany all day. We headed to downtown Portland. She went and got her hair cut by her best friend Dani. We had lunch and Noodles and Company, then just bummed around town. That night I had planned a HUGE get together for all my friends and family to come. It was SO much fun!!! My aunt and uncle came and my cousins, my siblings and dad and a ton for friends. It was so good to see everyone!

Day 4 it SNOWED!!!!!!!!!!!! I was very angry.... We headed to the beach anyway. We being me, Britt, Mom, Chelsie, Ben and Caleb. On our way into the beach we stopped and picked up Danita's mom Diana. She is my mom's friend. Made it easy to hang out with Danita(myBFF) growing up since our moms were friends too! We had a great day at the beach! It was sunny and sort of warm if you stood in just the right spot and the wind didn't blow. But it was beautiful. We played all day! We raced back home so I could make it in time to change ect... for the Duncan concert!!! Danita and I met my friend Andrea and Danita's friend Amber for dinner at a fabulous Thai place. YUM! After dinner we met Andrea's friend Ryan at the concert. The concert was AMAZING! Holly Brook opened for him and plays in his band. I loved her!! I had waited 12 yrs to see Duncan in concert and it was just as wonderful as I had imagined.... Danita and I slept over at Andrea's on her floating house on the river. She is a fantastic artist and her home was perfect and inviting.

Day 5 I headed home after basking in the sun on Andrea's back deck and having a wonderful breakfast and lunch cooked by her and her other house guest. It was great getting to know Andrea better and enjoying her hospitality. She dropped me off at the mall where I met Shelly my next door neighbor growing up. It was so good to see her again! We sat in the bookstore and had a drink and cookies and chatted. Then she took me to the airport and I came home for 4 days where in those 4 days I had a baby shower 2 weddings and kids dentist appointments.




March 4th I flew into Palm Springs California to surprise my best friend Holly Platt for her birthday!!! She had NO IDEA I was coming. Her husband and I planned it all after she had surprised me at Thanksgiving. I was waiting for good airfare and it finally came. $220 RT into Palm Springs!!! Later on we brought her new friend Jen into the plans so she could make sure to take Holly out to lunch with other friends for her b-day. I called Holly from outside the restaurant to wish her a happy birthday. We chatted for a few minutes but it was loud outside and even louder inside. Then I walked up to her and asked if I was too late for lunch. She looked up thinking I was a friend from there then realized it was me and screamed. Fumbled her way out of her chair, threw her arms around me and bawled! It really was the best surprise ever. For the next 6 days we ate and shopped and ate and shopped and ate and shopped, went to church, watched movies and ate and shopped some more. We hit the Cheesecake Factory twice! One when we went with a few other people I was verbally abused by the waitress. She told me and and another couple that we were driving her crazy then she came back and said she could just strangle me!!! All because it was taking us longer than 10 min to decide what to have from their 20 pg menu! The next time it was just me and Holly and we told our server what had happened. Turns out she was the head trainer for all the servers. She gave us a free cheesecake! They must have spiked the strawberry lemonade because after that we went to Walmart and we were so obnoxious and laughing so much everyone must have thought we had a bit much to drink. I had a great trip and it was so fun to be with Holly and play with her and her kids.

We said our goodbyes at the airport. I headed to Phoenix for my connecting flight. We landed and hour before my flight. Then we sat there......... and sat there........... and sat there.......... turns out the gate attendant who had let all the people on the plane that had JUST left the gate we were waiting for left and there was NO ONE to let us off the plane. ALL of us missed our connecting flights! Here's the great part. All the connecting flights were with in the SAME airline and they didn't have the decency to wait for all of us who had been held captive on the plane!!!! So about 60 of us had to stay the night in Phoenix. Now usually I would have said WOOHOO!!! What a fun adventure!!! BUT I knew Joe had a hotel and special things planned for me at home. I was SOOOOOO mad that they made me miss that and waste all the $$ for the hotel... I was not happy.




Came home and indoor soccer was in full swing. Joe was Ryan's team's coach. Taylor made a new best friend named Destiny. I think they will be good friends for a long time. Joe and I hit the comedy show again and laughed our selves blue. It was a great show. St Patrick's Day came and the leprechauns turned our milk and water green. We had a great Irish dinner and had a good time. Soon after that we celebrated my sister Emily's b-day with a small party at her house. It was fun to see my family.

Friday March 27th will go down in the history books as Jen Eames being the best sister ever! My sister Sarah turned 16 on our anniversary(29th) My parents were supposed to be on a cruise that weekend so I had told my sister we would have her Sweet 16 at my house. We began plans then my parent's cruise got bumped up by 6 weeks. We still decided that enough plans had been made to just keep them. She invited just over 20 people and all but 2 showed up and some of them brought other people! We had it at the OBT for the 7:30 comedy show. They treated her like royalty. We had a party before hand and they involved her through the WHOLE show! It was awesome!!! I of course forgot my camera(I was also packing to go to Vegas in the morning) So I used Sandy's (theater owner) and I don't have the pics yet.... It was definitely in my top 5 of all the shows I have seen. I was laughing so hard my head and side hurt! It was a great party. Then 11 girls came and slept over at my house. They sat and laughed and screamed and talked in the hot for over an hour. Then we made a late night Walmart run for snacks. The house was quiet by 4am. (THANKS TO ALL OF YOU WHO TOOK MY KIDS!!!)

The next morning we had breakfast and cleaned up. I took all the girls home back to West Valley and then came back and packed the car and Joe and I headed to Las Vegas for our 12th anniversary. And because I am now tired of typing I will copy and paste what I wrote on my face book.

We stopped in St George Sat night. We went to dinner at Chili's with Aleeca Childs and her husband Wayne. We had a great time talking and getting to know them better. Can't wait to come down and go camping!

Sunday was our anniversary. Leaving St George, we stopped for breakfast at Jack in the Box and got the best breakfast EVER!!! Stuffed mini churros and a pomegranate berry smoothie. YUM!!!! We checked into our hotel and went to hear the timeshare presentation that allowed us to go to Vegas for 4 days for $99. With that out of the way we went back to the room and settled in. The view was AMAZING!!!!!!! We headed out to the Strip for shopping and dinner. We went to Cheesecake Factory. While there we saw the Atlantis show and the HUGE aquarium there. We wandered the strip then headed back to the hotel where I had the room service staff come and set out choc covered strawberries and sparkling cider and scattered rose petals all over the room. It was so perfect.

We got up early the next day on limited sleep so we could get discount show tickets and it paid off! We got tix to the Excalibur dinner show and Phantom for that night. We walked the strip some more as we headed out to exchange our vouchers for real tix. We remembered we had Brynn's Flat Stanly and started getting some great pics! We saw the new Bumblebee Camaro and a HUGE life size Bumblebee transformer. That was way cool! We got accosted by another timeshare presenter. The deal was too good... 2 tix to Blue Man Group for $17 each! SO we went and saw the new Planet Hollywood timeshare and condo presentation. They are going to be SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO sweet!!!!!!!!!! We didn't buy of course but got the tix for the next night. After all of that we FINALLY got our vouchers exchanged and raced back to refresh for dinner.

The Excalibur show was awesome! Dinner was delish! With Flat Stanley with us we got to meet and greet so many of the cast including one of the horses!

The show was shorter than expected so we had plenty of time to go back to the hotel and change for Phantom. Phantom was breathtaking! We didn't get tix down below... I wish we had... Next time we will for sure! It was a fantastic day! We went and hung out listening to karaoke til 1 am then went and got a late night meal and walked back to our hotel.

Tuesday was a perfect day!!!!!!! We got up early again.... packed for a day of fun and sun. We were headed to Lake Mead for the day! Stopped at the store to get lunch stuff and went to Joe's friend Ryan Runia's house. Got him and picked up subway, his boat and off we went! The water was beautiful. The weather perfect! We had the best time just chillin and talking and doing NOTHING! We all took a dip in the FRREEZING water. No pics... we were in the water... Got great scenery pics and pics of Ryan water skiing. Got some sun and relaxation. What more do you need?! We headed back into town around 7 and grabbed dinner at a great BBQ place in Henderson. Back to Ryan's house so I could shower since we were going to be late for Blue Man if we didn't hurry. We got there with 10 min to spare. We had 4th row seats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The show was spectacular!!!! I LOVED IT!!!!!!!!! We got to meet the band and 2 of the Blue Men. They took pics with Flat Stanley. One even made a face on the back of his head with blue paint and a real kiss!!!! It was late and I was a bit sun kissed so we headed back and I took a cool salt bath and read a book.

Wednesday was the end of our trip.... :( We STILL hadn't met up with friends we made last time we went down there. They had a baby in Dec and we hadn't seen him yet! So I was sad about that...

We spent the day being tourists and shopping ect.... Got all the kids their gifts and ate at Toby Kieth's. We headed out at 2:30 and made our way home.

It was a great trip and we found alot of things to take the kids to the next time we go down.

I will add pics soon.... If you read this far you are either amazing or REALLY bored... or you just love me alot.

REALLY?!?!?!

What would posses a 4 1/2 yr old to
wake up
take $$ from his piggy bank
walk 3 BLOCKS to the gas station
to buy a gumball?!?!?!?!?!


Ryan is playing his reading computer game. It is talking about gumballs. He says he wants one. I say no. He answers " I won't get it in my hair" I reply "Its not your hair that concerns me its the rest of the house. You may not have gum." He continues to play his game then goes upstairs.
Awhile later I check on him & check the mail.

All is well.

I went down to the office in the basement, got online and proceeded to pick out exchange students for the host families to choose from when the doorbell rings. I go up the stairs, hear Ry run to answer it, instead he comes to the family room and he meets me coming up the stairs. I tell him I am glad he didn't answer the door. I turn the corner to see a police officer in my front room. I turn back to Ryan, say well I guess you DID answer it.

As I turn back to the officer he is shaking his head. At that moment I knew Ryan had been brought HOME by him. The officer then informed me he had picked up my son AFTER a woman had stopped and called the police. Ryan told him he was going to the gas station to buy a gumball.

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOE!!!!!!!!!!!

I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!

Well here we are.......

Nearly 2 months has gone by!!!!!!!!! 2 MONTHS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I really am a slacker....

In my defense I did attempt to update the blog 3 different times. Then I realized I would have to change the back ground too so I did nothing... and then there was facebook....

We have been so super busy!

December was INSANE!!!!!! With the 3 girls in the show downtown and at the SAME time we had rehearsals for the show at the elementary school AND Taylor had rehearsals for another show she was in. In all of that I had my performances for the choir I am in.... Not to mention we had to fit Christmas and family stuff in there as well. Not sure how we all made it out of that month alive but we did. The kids were AMAZING on stage! They really did very well. My solo at Temple Sq was great too!

Christmas was the best!! We were all so super spoiled! The kids got mp3 players from Santa. The older girls got stuff for their room. Katya got nearly the ENTIRE Baby-sitters Club collection! I love eBay.... It was a great day! Joe got me a massage table!!!! And some beautiful art work for our room! He got a new leather jacket. Santa brought me the most beautiful jewelery from Turkey. We spent the afternoon and rest of the night with my family. A very relaxing Christmas.

We had a great New Years Party. (I love parties) Played some new games. We had a great time! January brought crunch time for rehearsals for Taylor's show and the one at the elementary. I graduated from my foot dr!!! My foot is healing well and straight! The whole family(except Katya) got the nasty cold virus that lasts for 18 days. Brynn brought it home, then it went to Tay and Ry. They were nearly done and I thought I was safe. Nope. I was down for a week. NOTHING in the house got done... it was pretty sad. lol! Joe got it half way through mine. It was a nasty one! Taylor's play was fantastic! All the kids did really well and I could tell they had learned alot. Taylor's character was goofy and got great laughs from the auduience. She truly is a natural. I hope we continue to have opportunities for her to grow this talent.

Now here we are. February 1st. The play at the elementary is in 9 days!!! I am excited! I think I am ready for it to be over though. It has been hard work and all consuming these last few weeks. For those who are just joing us I will give a tiny bit of history...

My friend and neighbor Mary gave the PTA the great idea of doing a school musical sometime down the road when there was $$ ect... A few weeks later she is asked "so do you want to do it?" Well if she had said no there wouldn't have been one and all would probably have been well BUT she said yes and what a great experience it has been for all involved! After he panic attack she called me and asked if I would be the music director. I said yes and since I was NOT recovering from a surgery at that point I can not blame the drugs... We brought Sharon on board and she has been a GREAT acting coach!!! We have rehearsed every Mon and Wed for nearly 5 months. Tomorrow starts our dress rehearsals. We will FIANLLY have the kids on stage. We will add lights sound and props and HOPE we will pull it off after 3 days of reheasals with them. THe kdis ahve worked so hard and have come so far. I am very proud of them. We were given an unexpected treat last week! One of Salt Lakes auditionees from American Idol that went to Hollywood (this season) is the nephew to our choreographer Beth. He came and met all our kids and talked to them, sang for them and posed for pictures!!! That was such a great treat for those kids!

The rest of the month will bring weddings and baby showers and trips! We will go to St George for my niece's baptism then the end of the month I get to go to OREGON!!!! I am going to see my little niece Ava who will already be 4 months old!!! I also will finally get to go to a Duncan Sheik concert!!!! I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Excited for that trip!!! I will get to see old friends (thank you facebook!!!) It's a great prize after all the hard work.

Well I suppose I had better make sure my kids hair is done for church... Happy February everyone!

Busy busy busy!!!!

It is a wild ride at the Eames home this season. Our 3 girls are discovering they LOVE theater. Taylor is rehearsing 3 shows, Katya has 2 and Brynn just has the one where all 3 girls are on stage together. They are doing so wonderful! I am amazed at how easily this comes to them. They will be on stage Dec 11th, 12th, 13th, 15th and 18th. If you will be in town or already live here and want to go call or email me and I will get you a discount and info.

While I am getting them to rehearsals (except Tay's Wed one THANKS LAURIE LUND!!!) and soon to be performances I am also the music director of the show at the elementary school. And I sing with a professional choir and have 19 more concerts to go before the 23rd. Our big concert on Temple Square is Dec 23rd at 8:30 pm in the Assembly Hall.

In between all that there is normal life and all that has to be done in preparation for said activities and Christmas! But we are loving every minute of it and it keeps us busy and out of trouble.

With that said you can see why I have not updated my blog! Here is what has gone on in the last couple weeks.

I went with my girlfriends Lisa, Joelle and Stacey on our annual girls night to the Utah Chocolate Show. It was smaller this year but I think I had more fun! Joelle's sisters came along with us this year. We had such a great time trying all the chocolates and all other kids of food there. The chocolate fountain was a popular place. There was a cake contest. Those were some AMAZING cakes! After we gorged on all the sweets it was time to put real food in our belly. We headed down to Johnny Carino's (where we go every year) Our fav waiter has since left since last year but we had a great replacement!!! He was awesome! We had a wonderful time talking and sharing pictures. It was a great night!

Joe and I were able to get out one night so we hit the Laughing Stock comedy show at the Off Broadway Theater where our girls perform. What a great show!!! I love that place. It is almost like a 2nd home.

We had Joe's dad's birthday lunch. All Joe's family that lives here was there even his ex step nephew! He is a really great guy. He is my age and fun to talk to.

We also had MY dad's birthday party! My brothers gave our dad such a great gift!!! They cut the pocket off of one of their mission suits and put their name tag on it and put it in a special frame!! It looks so cool!

We did some yard work and raked up all the leaves. I think my tree needs to grow less leaves....
Ry had a blast jumping into the piles. I tried to make a virtual flip book but I can't find a place to make one...

Thanksgiving was at the Jensen's home. They own the theater that we are so fond of. We had a great night with them and their family. We had a late dinner which I was totally ok with! I had all day to prepare the rest of my desserts and I didn't feel rushed. It was very nice. After we stuffed ourselves beyond capacity some of us fell asleep while others talked. Soon we had a roaring game of American Idol (karaoke) on the Wii going. It was SOOOOOOOOOOO fun!!!! Every one took turns singing. We started cleaning up around midnight and bid our farewells.

Well thats been our life in a giant nutshell. We are staying busy but like they say the busier you are the more you tend to be able to fit in.

We are so excited for this Christmas Season that has begun. I love how nearly the whole world becomes just a bit nicer to one another. I love the music. I love the parties and friends and socializing. I am especially grateful for the birth of our Savior. With out Him life would be meaningless.

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

The BEST Weekend EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What an amazing weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My 2 best friends Breezy and Danita flew in for the weekend so we could celebrate being best friends for 20 yrs!!!!

We decided he best way to do that was to go see New Kids on the Block!!!

OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (really wanted to use a diff word... ;) )

It was UNREAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will start at the beginning. Breezy was supposed to be here Fri night at 6:30. Her flight was canceled due to plane malfunction. She was able to get on a later flight that was to get in at 11:30pm. Danita got in just before 9. We went and grabbed food and went to the OBT for the comedy show. What a riot!!! The did the best game of Hecklers I had ever seen!!! Then they did Late for work just for me and Danita cuz we had to leave before the 2nd half of the show. It was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO awesome!!!!!

We left there and went to the airport to get Breezy! Her flight was another 30 min late! Oh well she got here and it was the BEST to finally see her again! We started for baggage claim when she said all she had was the her backpack. It wasn't even full!!! D had packet 2 suitcases and I had a huge full packed duffle and I still forgot stuff!

We headed to our hotel up in Ft. Union. We settled in and talked FOREVER and probably annoyed our neighbors. Oh well!!! Then we hit the hot tub! The place we stayed had a 24 hr hot tub (I made sure they did) It was so nice to relax and enjoy. We stayed up WAY too late and woke up just at the tail end of breakfast.

After breakfast we watched the rest of 27 dresses that we had started to watch in the dining room. Then we all slowly got ready for the day. We went to Ross and went shopping for D so she could find a jewel colored shirt for our photo shoot.

YES!!! I said photo shoot!!! D has a photographer friend in Springville that came up and did our pics. She was awesome! We got some amazing shots. I can't wait to see them! I did things with my foot that NO ONE had better tell my dr. But I was very careful and ony once almost hurt myself.

We left Salt Lake and went straight to the Cheesecake Factory. YUM!!!! There was a slight wait so we went and hung out in Nordstroms. Looked at shoes and D and I got our make up done at the Lancome counter. We looked smokin hot and ready for our big night! Dinner was SOOOOOOOOOOOOO yum!!! I love avocado eggrolls!

We ran back to the hotel to quickly change into our concert attire and poof up our hair. After we were satisfied we looked like older versions of our 15 year old selves we headed out to go see NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The concert was beyond words. I wasn 't expecting much. I was blown away and am completely in love with them again!!!! We were all screaming and finding ourselves giggling all night. They were even more amazing then when we were teenagers. I will be glowing for weeks!!! It was so awesome!!!!!!!!! After the concert we tried to use my E Center contacts to get back stage but the people I knew have all left. We were so sad..... We ran around the building and watched for them to get on thier busses. We watched Joey leave and thats all the cold we could stand. It was after 1 am and we were FREEZING!!!!!!!!!!!

We popcicled our way back to the car and went to eat at the Waffle House in Ft Union. It was so good and warm. Near 2:30am we headed back to our hotel. We went to the hot tub again and warmed up even more. After we got back to the room Breez crashed hard and D and I uploaded pics and vidieos to the internet. I crashed somewhere around 4. Danita stayed up til 6am!!! Silly girl.

We slept in til we had 40 min to get out of the hotel. We missed breakfast. We were almost ready and they came looking for us. We were out of there by 12:30 AND starving. In keeping with our anniversary theme we headed to Red Robin. We tried 2 new sandwhiches. They were really good! We left there in search of a park to inhale our cheesecake from the night before. We settled on the one down the street from G-ma Eames house. Joe was there getting the kids so we had them stop by so we could take pics of them for Breezy to take back to her kids. They are all really good friends too. We then took Breezy to the airport.

I hate "see you laters"

Danita got to spend the evening with me at her brothers house and then my choir rehearsal. Monday we had lunch with Tomoko and Angie. Roomamates of Danita's in Provo froma few years ago. That was way fun and I have a new friend!!! Angie just lives in South Jordan! We also went to the play reahearsal for the school then it was time to get D packed and to the airport. Again I had to say "see you later"

2.5 days was not enough......