A Good Hero Day for Dad!

Yesterday was a banner day for Matt being our hero!

Not only did he drive the majority of the 875 miles from Sidney, Nebraska to our house because I was pretty sick with a head cold, but he performed several heroic feats for Quinton and me!

In addition to his mad long-distance driving skills, Matt walked on top of the monkey bar rails at a rest stop playground that were about 15 feet high. Quinton was SUPER impressed by Matt's balancing skills!

Then, when we arrived home after a LONG day in the car, Quinton and I went into the bathroom only to find a freaky cricket on steroids in the tub! Yikes! Even though he was tired, Matt whipped out the Kirby and sucked that cricket goodbye! That's some nerves of steel!

Then, even though it was after midnight, Matt wanted to show Quinton what he'd worked on while we were out of town.

Now, I don't know what dad wouldn't love for their little boy to ride around the neighborhood on a Barbie four wheeler (which was FREE) but I know Matt might have been a wee bit embarassed.

Here is the before picture:

And VOILA!

Leave Matt alone for the week and this is what Quinton came home to!

Matt has some crazy art skills, apparently, too!

The only down side is that Quinton wants his "new" four wheeler to transform!

I love my dad!

Khania et al, this one is for you! Drumroll please! My dad laughing:

A Cause Worth Supporting!

On behalf of my little brother, I wanted to post his film fest award-winning video about a cause for which he cares so deeply.

Watch and enjoy!

Quinton on the Euro Bungee!

This is my first video post! Hope you enjoy Quinton's skills!

This was the first part of Quinton's jumping, after I took this video is when the operator raised the bars and Quinton was going even HIGHER!

When the operator was strapping Quinton into the harness, he asked Q the perfunctory questions required by some funny rule, "Do you have any knives, guns, machetes or anything of that nature on your persons?"

Quinton didn't miss a beat and replied, "No, I left them in the car."

The operator got a good chuckle out of that!

4th of July Bonanza!

Saturday morning, we woke up nice and relaxed after driving for two days from Chicago to Salt Lake City. My mom, Quinton and I didn't really have any plans except to enjoy the 4th of July festivities.

We ended up having one of the best impromptu holidays, ever!

We headed to downtown Provo since I'd been to "Freedom Fest" a long time ago and knew it would have fun stuff to do, but little did I know that the Freedom Fest has about tripled in size and they had a ton of fun rides for the kids - and kids-at-heart!

As you can tell from the collage of 4th pictures above, we had a ton of fun!
Quinton';s favorite ride of the day was the "Euro-Bungee" where they strapped him into a harness and then clipped him into elastic resistant bands and then let him jump up and down. The operator helping Quinton was so impressed with Quinton's skills, that he raised the bars so Quinton couldn't even touch the trampoline and then he would yank Quinton down and let him FLY about 20 feet up into the air! Quinton had the biggest smile on his face! People even stopped to watch him bounce so high and clapped when he got off of the ride!

After Freedom Fest, it was really hot so we went to the cheap-o theatre and sat in the air-conditioned theater watching Monsters vs. Aliens for $2 each. That was lovely and did the trick. We were nice and rested after the movie.

After the movie, we met up with a woman from whom we scored some dirt cheap tickets to the big fireworks show held at my Alma mater, Brigham Young University, called the Stadium of Fire! Apparently, these were HOT tickets for the 16 and under crowd since the Jonas Brothers were the headliners! Don't be alarmed if you haven't heard of them or if you have (like me) and you can't name a song they sing to save your life!

Here is a picture of the stadium as it filled up with over 50,000 people!
One of Quinton's favorite moments of the evening was when four F-16s flew right over the stadium. They were a sight to behold!

The two big acts for the show were country music girl group, SheDaisy and as I mentioned before, The Jonas Brothers. We were sitting next to a BUNCH of tweens who went NUTS when the Brothers came out on stage. The noise was a bit much for Quinton so he and I spent a lot of time under the stadium seats near the snack bar. Fortunately for me and Quinton, I realized that they sell ear plugs at the snack bar. After about 45 minutes, I coaxed Quinton into wearing the ear plugs and he was a HAPPY CAMPER! Seriously, we were able to sit down, watch the rest of the concert AND sit through the fireworks show without him having to put his fingers in his ears or cry because it was too loud. Thank goodness for the ear plugs!

Matt text me during the show and asked me to snap a picture of Quinton enjoying the fireworks since he was all the way back in Chicago. Hopefully, this picture conveys the wonder of a 3 and-a-half year old enjoying the magnificent fireworks show flashing before his eyes. We were SO close to the fireworks that my mom actually had cinders in her hair when we got home that night!

The Stadium of Fire was so much fun!

I don't know if we will ever have a chance to go again but it was totally worth it!

This is Quinton after the show...once he had his ear plugs, he LOVED the concert, dancing and fireworks. I am thankful for this blog so that I have a record, for Quinton, of all the fun things he's done in his life. I love having a 3.5 year old to share these kinds of things with and am also grateful my mom was there with us to share all of these memories, too!

We hope you had a wonderful 4th, too!

Utah or Bust!

After our airport adventures coming back from Hawaii last month, I'd decided that we'd forgo airports for a while. Since we have a wedding and a triathlon to go to in Utah next weekend, I decided to DRIVE the 20+ hours with Quinton and enjoy the scenery.

Lucky for me, I found a cheap Southwest ticket, at the VERY last minute, for my mom to fly out to Chicago and make the drive with us. It was a huge blessing to have her with us since it meant I could run into the bathroom without always having to park the car and take Quinton in, plus she provided endless entertainment to Quinton!

Thanks for coming, Mom!

Quinton, my mom and I set out on Thursday morning and made it to Grand Island, Nebraska the first day. I'd booked a hotel online for our stay and it had pretty good reviews but when we arrived and checked in, the roomy was s-t-i-n-k-y! My mom went to check and see if we could switch rooms but the room they were going to switch us to was just as stinky so we stayed put. I can't really describe the smell except that it was just plain old unpleasant!

In the morning, we noticed this cute pond out back off a nice deck so my mom and Quinton snagged some continental breakfast toast and fed it to the ducks.

One highlight of our first day of driving was when we turned off of the highway to go to our motel and the corn fields we were passing looked like they were glowing! There were so many lightning bugs! More than I had ever seen in my life! At one point, we pulled over and turned off the headlights to watch all of them...it was so amazing!

Quinton loves to be a helper so here he is "helping" to wash the windshield.
More help...
If you ask Quinton, this was probably the highlight of his participation of the trip! It got a good chuckle from several truckers walking past!

If nothing else, on a road trip, you have to keep your sense of humor. Quinton is good at that! Here he is giving Grandma a noogie!

Quinton needed to stretch his legs on the second day so we stopped at a Cabela's and walked around discovering all of the "mounted" animals in the store and admiring their giant aquariums with river fish in them. Kind of an odd place to have a field trip but it worked. Quinton was ready to get back in the car after an hour at Cabelas!

We made it to my sister, Jessi's, house in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday. It was so nice to pull into her driveway! Overall, it was a great road trip and blessedly uneventful! We'll see how it goes when I get to drive back to Chicago by myself in a week or two!

Barenaked and Tasty!

What a fun and expected evening for Quinton and me!

A little before 5 o'clock tonight, I was checking Craigslist for nothing in particular and came across someone selling tickets to the Barenaked Ladies concert at the Taste of Chicago for today and I was shocked! I had no idea and BNL is one of my all-time favorite groups!

So what's a grown mom to do?

I slapped together a couple of peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwiches, threw Quinton into the car and BOOKED it downtown, which during rush hour is no small feat!

Matt wholeheartedly supported my impromptu trip downtown and was just a little bummed he was helping with a friend's move so he wouldn't be able to make it to the concert.

Nevermind how much I paid for parking to be as CLOSE to the Taste of Chicago as I could, the concert began at 5:30 and I made it there by 6:20! That included the walk/jog like a madwoman to the actual venue in Grant Park.

It was totally worth it!

We weren't too close but we weren't too far, either. Plus, it was free!

A bunch of the songs they played weren't their most popular ones but once they broke out in one of my favorite songs, "If I had $1,000,00", it was a blast! I even convinced Quinton to step out of his stroller to dance with me.

After the concert, Quinton saw someone walk by with a giant frozen chocolate banana so as a reward for indulging me in my fan craze, I treated us to a yummy banana...hey, it's kind of healthy, isn't it???

With only a couple of Taste tickets left over, we splurged on a ride on the carousel. It was an awesome ending to a fun last-minute evening!