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.