Daycation ~ Mar '11

Instead of going on vacation this spring, we replaced our a/c unit - fun, fun, fun :) Although we couldn't afford a full-sized vacation, we decided we'd try to a few daycations. Our first was yesterday. We kept Meg and Kylie home from school and all seven of us went to go see Toy Story 3 on Ice (having bought tickets through ticketmaster before, I got an email with a discount code for a weekday performance). Toy Story is one of the kids' current favorite movies. Jack especially loves it. Brittney and I found him Woody and Buzz pjs and he wears those as often as possible and for as long as possible. When wearing them, he insists that we refer to him by the name of the character he's dressed as and refuses to respond until we do so. And no abbreviations are considered acceptable; when dressed as Buzz, we must refer to him as "Buzz Lightyear", not just Buzz. At least he doesn't make us say "Buzz Lightyear, Space Ranger" or whatever it is :)

Anyway, all seven of us went, joined by Beca and her three youngest (although we drove in separate cars - neither of us had cars that could fit eleven!). Rob and I and the kids got there about 25 mins early. We weren't sure how bad traffic would be, so we left home a bit early. Better early than late :) The only problem with getting there early was having to listen to Kylie ask every 30 seconds how much longer we had before the show would start. Fortunately there was a short "show" 15 mins before the actual show began and that distracted them for a few mins :)

Kylie, Jack, Me, Eva, and Megan ~



Megan, Beth, and Rob (Beth did not want her picture taken) ~



Beca, Jurney, Jursey, Jorja, and Kylie (Jursey apparently agreed with Beth regarding the taking of photos) ~



Jack was thrilled when Woody came out onto the ice! (Note that Jack insisted on wearing his Woody pjs to the performance - complete with cowboy boots)





Eva fell asleep just before intermission and slept through the last half of the show. All our kids behaving incredibly well and we were very proud of them!



As the kids behaved so well during the show and as it was lunchtime, we decided to go out to lunch. Originally the kids requested kid meals from Sonic, but when presented with the option to get ice cream from Braums instead, they unanimously voted for that choice :) Rob was a little out of it as his blood sugar was messed up from not eating enough breakfast and not snacking during the show, so he stayed in the car with Beth, Jack and Eva and Megan, Kylie and I ran in and brought lunch out to the car (I decided not to try carrying 6 ice creams plus burgers out to the car on my own). It was pretty warm, so we had to eat the ice cream first :)

Rob's blood sugar restored by a chocolate pb cup ice cream and a bacon cheeseburger, we decided to use the afternoon to do something we had been planning to do for a while - buy cowboy boots for Rob. Rob used to wear cowboy boots in high school, but once those wore out, we never replaced them (MA and RI don't really have many places to buy good cowboy boots, nor is the wearing of cowboy boots horribly common). Since we have now lived in TX for over half a decade, we decided it was time. We live pretty close to the Justin Boot outlet, so we headed there.

I didn't realize that cowboy boots are sized differently than other shoes. There are two parts to the sizing - the number is the shoe size (or length of the foot) and the letter is the width of the foot. We determined that Rob needed a 9 1/2 E. One problem with shopping at the outlet is that if we wanted a pair of discounted boots, we couldn't just find one we liked and then request the right size - we had to go with what we found. There weren't a whole lot of 9 1/2 E's to choose from and Rob decided he needed a pair that had a textured sole rather than a smooth one, which narrowed the field even more. He finally found the perfect pair though! They were lighter in color than we thought he would get (both of us were thinking black and these were tan) but they fit perfectly and had a really comfortable built-in insole and good arch support. As a bonus, they were also marked down to an insanely low price :)

We were planning on getting Jack new boots too, but he didn't quite fit the smallest size they had, so we'll wait another year or two. Instead of boots, we got him a cowboy hat. The three older girls got matching pink jeweled cowgirl shirts.

We wrapped up the afternoon by stopping at Sonic on the way home for slushies. Jack got orange (his favorite color is yellow and that was the closest they had to it), Beth got grape (her favorite color is purple), and Megan and Kylie both got blue coconut, which is the flavor Brittney always gets (according to them).

Rob modeling his new boots ~





Bejeweled cowgirl shirts ~



Do you have any clue how difficult it is to get five small children to all look at the camera and smile at the same time??? I was pretty impressed with this shot :)



And a couple of pictures of my little Woody in his new cowboy hat :)