Hoover Dam / El Paso visit

Since we went for a quick trip to Las Vegas for Mario's Open House, we wanted to get a little more out of our trip, so we went to the Hoover Dam. The several times we have driven to Vegas I have seen the signs but we have never stopped.  We finally checked it out.  Luckily it was fairly early when we headed out, so we got there before the crowds.  It was neat to see, but kids felt like it was trippy looking down. They kept spitting off the edge and watching it land.  We walked across it and then we went up on a bridge to look at it from above.   They had fun making jokes with the word dam.  Like "Where are the dam bathrooms?".  They rubbed the toes of the statue for good luck. As we were leaving a lot of people were showing up.

We were able to see Mamaquel and Grandpa Whetten in El Paso on our way home.  Mom had been in Utah recovering from a toe amputation and was able to fly home that Sunday that we arrived in El Paso.  We were happy we could see them and that Mamaquel looked good.  We also saw Uncle Bert because they were in town with the birth of their baby the night before.  The baby had to be in the NICU for a few days, so we didn't get to see the baby and Kara.

We stayed with Grandma Mindy on the way there and back.  We made sure to measure the kids on GraMindy's garage wall. There might be some changes coming up and so it may be one of the last times to do that.

Marios Wedding

Mario got married in Portland, Oregon on June 22nd, our 20th wedding anniversary. Cynthia Camille and Carlos went to the wedding in Portland. They had an open house scheduled for the next weekend in Las Vegas.  So, we decided that it was easier to make a trip to vegas than to go to Portland.  It ended up being more like a reception than an open house.  They had it at the Gaspar de Alba home with tables set up inside their living room and some tables out in front of the garage.  They played music out front for those that wanted to dance.  The teenage kids mostly hung out in front.  They served tacos of chicken, beef, and carnitas with beans and rice.  Katrina also made a lot of different desserts.  We spent a lot of the day helping get things ready for the night.  We just took orders from Katrina.  It was fun getting together with family and celebrating Mario and Kiley.  It was a quick trip, but the kids were excited to spend a short time with their cousins.    

We made a 4 day drive for 1 full day in Las Vegas. 

20th Anniversary

We wanted to do a little something for our anniversary since it was our 20th.  Matt was going to be leaving on our actual anniversary for a high adventure scout trip with Brayden.  So, Matt and I left Sunday, June 16th and went to go spend a night in the Hotel Contessa on the river walk.  It was a quick getaway and Kylee was in charge of taking care of the kids. It was nice to get a little break and spend some time together.  Of course the night we were gone, a crazy storm came through and Kylee ended up calling us around 2 in the morning.  The power going off and on with the storm caused the home alarm to go off in the house and Kylee called to find out how to turn it off.  Then a bit later, the church alarm monitoring company called Matt to say the alarms were going off at the church.  So, Matt had to call Jerry Potter so he could go meet the fireman at the church, since we were a lot farther away downtown. So, it ended up being a crazy night.  The next morning Matt and I went on a walk on the riverwalk.  It started to rain  while we were walking, so we took a break under the bridge while it rained.  We ended up eating breakfast at Jims close to our house from a recommendation of Aly's.  

Surprise tooth extraction

We went for a routine dental visit for Blake and Asher.  When they started to examine Asher they noticed that he had a abscess on his gum.  That meant that he had trauma to his baby tooth.  I vaguely remembered that Asher had bumped his tooth in the past month and he said that it was wiggly.  When I felt it I didn't think it was wiggly and kind of forgot about it.  They took an x-ray and said that his permanent tooth was fine, but that they needed to remove it because it could damage it before the baby tooth came out.  They said that the baby tooth was probably going to come out within the next 6 months anyway.  So, they numbed Asher up.  He was kind of whimpering during the procedure, so they numbed him up some more.  It took some tugging, but they got it out.  I felt bad for Asher, but he looks so cute with his toothless grin.  He put the tooth under his pillow and got $3 from the tooth fairy.

update - when we drove through El Paso and saw Mamaquel and Grandpa, Grandpa noticed that Asher was missing a front tooth.  Even though Asher did not have the tooth to hand over and it was taken out with the dentist, he wanted to pay Asher for his tooth.  He was counting out $5 when he decided to just give him a $20 bill.  Asher was excited, but didn't quite understand how much that is.  

Tangled hair - donation

Julia has been growing her hair for 2 years where she hasn't cut it a lot, just some trims.  She has beautiful silky thick hair.  At one point donating her hair was mentioned and Julia was in favor of it.  With swimming starting and her hair being really long, she was ready because it was getting really hard to manage each time after going swimming.  It would get really tangled and she needed to use a lot of shampoo, conditioner, and leave in conditioner to help her comb out her hair.  Julia has learned how to braid her hair and has done a really good job at learning how to do different kinds.  She even learned how to do a 4 strand braid. She has a talent with braiding hair.  She was sad that she could not be Rapunzel for Halloween this year.  I looked up how to donate hair because I have heard that Locks for Love charges for their wigs.  So I found out that Wigs for Kids does not charge.  I found a salon that does the hair cut and sends it in  So, we went to Sweet and Sassy on Saturday morning to get her haircut.   They separated her hair in 6 sections because it is sooo thick and she was able to cut 13 inches off.  She felt so much lighter and a little sad.