7 lessons learned from madame tussauds wax museum

7 lessons learned from our trip to madame tussauds wax museum:



1. using the president's personal phone line is really no big deal:

2. stevekemp is still the world's greatest photo bandit:

3. ALL THE LADIES want to get married to george clooney:











4. george clooney tends to be a bit handsy.  (but i really didn't mind.)

5. lindsay lohan is still not a great role model for the young girls:

6. mia ONLY wanted her photo taken with girls:

(thanks, kamwee for your awesome photography skills)

7. the dads really only wanted their photo taken with girls, too:

9 lessons learned from labor day weekend in las vegas

9 things we learned from our labor day weekend in las vegas:




1. friends accompanying last minute always make for better times. and better jazz hands:

2. it is still possible to milk out your 20th anniversary even 2.5 months after it happened at a surprisingly great new restaurant find:

3. mindi doesn't ever need to ride the new york new york roller coaster ever again in her whole entire life:


****UPDATE 2019 I AM POSITIVE THIS THING DIRECTLY EFFED UP MY ALREADY EFFED-UP SPINE!!!!!****

4. somehow it is possible that chandler will find the only feline in the entire madame tussauds wax museum:

(but we all wanted in on that action):

5. speaking of wax museums and roller coasters....

if you (allegedly) know somebody or are somebody (allegedly) that would be in possession of a counterfeit nevada driver license (again, allegedly) it just keeps paying off.

like in the form of half-off wax museum tickets & free re-rides for all ten persons in your party on the coaster:

6. sipping something out of an adorable container makes it even just a little better:

7. waking up to this view never seems to get old:

8. seeing this view is the reason why we keep doing it:

9. pseudo-suburban gang signs never go out of style:

we went to the olympic park in park city

one of the new things we experienced this year in park city was the utah olympic park



coming up the hill we could see the ginormous ski jumps and were just a bit awestruck:

the main agenda was the zipline. we opted for an all-female run and fared pretty darn well:

having proved at lagoon that she was a gnarly adrenaline junky ready for the next thrill, mia sailed through like the seasoned veteran she'd become:

she also decided that once was NOT enough, so she went for round two:

my favorite part of the afternoon was watching the freestyle aerial show.
the skiers, which seemed to be on the MUCH younger side (am i getting old? hmmmmm.) would ski down the jump up to 60 feet in the air and perform acrobatic fantasticness before landing in the 750,000 gallon splash pool:

super hardcore:

dolly's bookstore

one of our very favorite destinations on park city's main street is dolly's bookstore

however, we visit this quaint little bookstore not for the books, but rather for the CATS.


mr. dolly & che (SHAY, as in che guevara) rule the roost here, literally. chandler is absolutely beside herself every time she enters, thinking about the beauty of a workplace environment that not only tolerates but ENCOURAGES her crazy cat-lady behavior:


mr. dolly is the 3rd cat in the line of dolly namesakes:

che has been around for nearly 18 years, and prefers to chill out on the various sofas and chairs scattered amongst the store:

chandler's ultimate goal would be to move to park city solely to dedicate her life to her two loves: books AND catties!


we have a feeling she would fit in just fine:

thankful thursday

things i am thankful for this week:




**lagoon's one and only redeeming quality:

** police officers who don't haul this mother's arse off to jail after her 6-year old calls 911.

twice.





**and for the same said 6-year old who had the gall to tell the dispatcher who called back to the house that she "had the wrong number". nice:

{buy that rad t-shirt HERE}

**the fact that you really only need ONE chair to watch television: (a mere 18 inches from the set)

**the desert sage that blooms during these miserable hot months--it is my favorite plant and brings me much joy: (did i just sound like a member of AARP? yikes.)

park city 2011 or living it up at the stein eriksen lodge and loving life.

we loveLoveLOVE our annual trip to park city--the girls look forward to this almost more than any other trip that we take.

our dad's favorite part of the vacay is the drop in temperature of almost 25 degrees: heaven!


this year we walked up and down historic main street:

& took in the quaint "village" view that we haven't yet grown sick of after ELEVEN CONSECUTIVE YEARS:

we rode ziplines:

took time to stop at smell the gorgeous flowers at our hotel:

as well as those painted randomly on the side of buildings on main street:

we also posed for glamor shots:

& rode up beautiful green mountains on ski lifts:

we feel blessed to live our lives doing such totally rad things: