Weekend

 I've been really looking forward to this weekend and seeing a Hales Center Theater production, "Cash on Delivery!" For Christmas, we gave Marge 4 shows at Hale Theater that Marge, Dan and I could all go to together. We haven't been to a Hale show except to see "A Christmas Carol" in quite a while. Mainly because they're shows are so well done, when you don't plan ahead, they sell out--and we haven't planned ahead. So Marge's gift was actually a gift for all of us to enjoy! 

We ate dinner at Trio and then went to the show at the new theater which is huge and actually holds 2 theaters. So they've got quite a few shows to choose from.

I'd never heard of the play before, but "Cash on Delivery" was laugh-out-loud funny. The actors had to be quick on their feet to keep up with all that was going on. It was fast-paced and fun and the acting was fantastic. (As always.)

While we were at the show, Nick had a couple of friends over and in charge of finding all of them dinner. I had some Costco favorites in the freezer that I suggested they could eat, but when we came home, Nick's waffle maker was on the counter. Not only had he whipped up waffles for dinner, he'd cleaned up as well! Very impressive!

I love that he thinks nothing of making meals from scratch. And he doesn't just throw the ingredients in the bowl, he actually separates the egg whites and beats them separately as stated on the recipe! He's a natural in the kitchen -- my little chef.  He said on Monday at school, quite a few people said to him, "Nick, I hear you make a mean waffle!"  

(He actually had to share a talent in English last week. As we considered different talents (Saxophone, Clarinet, Rubik's Cube, Lacrosse) none of those jumped out as something he wanted to share. Then he suddenly said, "Can I make waffles? I can make them tonight and take photos of the process for the report." So that's what he did. He also wanted to take the photos with Dad's iPhone X because they're such good quality. They turned out awesome.

After we got home, we ended up taking Nick to his friend's house for a sleepover. He's been making a bunch of new friends in Jr. High. So fun. On Saturday the group went up skiing at Snowbird. One of the dad's drove them up there, but they took the bus home. I was super excited for him to learn how to ride the bus home from skiing. It's easier to take it home your first time because you're not so worried about losing time on the way up or figuring out where you need to get off, etc.

On Saturday, Dan happily agreed to go with me to IKEA to buy more bookshelves for my office. This is a huge sacrifice for him because he HATES IKEA. It's not the quality of the furniture or the style or even having to put it together. It's the store itself with the maze you have to enter where you can't walk straight to your section but instead wander back and forth throughout the entire 2nd level past every display for every room in the house. He feels trapped. 

But today we just went directly to the pick-up location since I already knew what I wanted. We took the new truck (yes, the company now owns a truck that is stored at our house or Chad's). And surprisingly, the same boxes that fit in my car, would not fit in the truck bed. It's about 2 - 3 inches shorter than the Lexus back. The Lexus has always fit every piece of Downeast furniture I've ever purchased and wanted to take home with my right then. It's amazing really.

But of course they fit diagonally so it worked out just fine. We also made a stop at Costco. Which is a nightmare on a Saturday. But it was so nice to do these nightmarish errands with Dan. Made them a lot more fun.

One of the reasons for stopping at Costco was to pick up ribs that Dan was going to make for Sunday dinner and pizzas for Saturday night. Morgan and 10 of her friends from BYU were coming up to sleep over! As Freshmen in the dorms, it's nice to get a place bigger than the lobby of the building to hang out, and not have to shut down the party at midnight, like you have to in the dorms. It was a fun group of kids and I always like sitting down to dinner getting to know everyone. 

They chatted with us at dinner then did their own thing -- played games in the game room, went out for dessert, and watched a movie at night. The good ol' days!

Dan and I built IKEA furniture.

Sunday morning we got up to make the kids pancakes. Most had to go home back to church responsibilities. But Morgan and a couple of friends came with us to church and stayed for dinner. Dan's ribs always turn out delicious! After dinner I worked with Marge on her computer because it wasn't looking or acting like it was supposed to. We tried a few different things and checked many different settings and tried again and again to figure things out. Then finally, we figured out that certain settings had been turned off. When we turned them back on, it auto-filled like she was used to! Yay! It was a victory for both of us!