Little Mermaid and Kolob

We only did one thing in September that is worth mentioning. My dad, the awesome, totally modest, above and beyond lawyer that he is, had a client that really appreciated the work he did for her, and gave him and all of his family plus my grandma, tickets to go see The Little Mermaid at Tuacahn, which was sold out. She also fed us dinner before the show. Oh, and by the way, she lives in a mansion. Not joking. See for yourself:

The front - you can't even see the whole house in this shot

Dining room. In case you can't see, the ceiling and walls are completely covered in gorgeous wood paneling

Pic #1 of my dream Laundry/craft room, probably any woman's dream Laundry room

Pic #2 - the other side of the room

Pic #3 - The center of the room. In case you can see it all (extreme amateur photographer), there is a sewing machine right under the window, and a 2 PC computer on the right side, and a sink on the left. . Oh, and on the wall that you can't see, there is a 2nd fridge for the main kitchen. I would kill to have this room!

The Living room, I think. Honestly, there are so many rooms like this, that I am not sure what this room is, but it is gorgeous.

Pic #1 of the kids play room. Actually, it is better named as the Fantasy Room

Pic #2 - of Fantasy room

Pic #3 - the playhouse under the stairs in the Fantasy room. Yes, that is one of those split doors, that apparently has a peep hole in it

Inside of the playhouse under the stairs. And yes, that is a very real looking fireplace.  I don't know if it really works, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Girls bedroom off of Fantasy Room - It had 2 beautiful double beds in there and some secret closets, just to make it a little more cool.

My dream bathtub

This is Matt's favorite room/rooms. It is a full size kitchen just off of...

the theater room, complete with stage and piano for the family talent shows.

Matt was drooling

Here is the Entrance. Unbelievable!!

Other side of Entrance

Who can guess what this room is?

That's right, a bowling alley in their basement. So awesome!!!

The puppet theater. Not joking. I missed the puppet play my kids put on. So bummed

Kitchen #2 - you can see it in the picture above, way at the back

Covered playground. I so wish Ogden had these. Also, there were two tramps in the ground to the right.

What mansion wouldn't be complete without it's music room.

The office. Complete with wood paneling on the ceiling like the Dining room and Entrance

Beckett's favorite thing about the house.

Dining nook off of the main Kitchen. It has an amazing view of their own personal lake, complete with swans!

Pic #1 of Main Kitchen (That is 3 kitchens). The Dining nook is right behind me. Also, those two sets of doors on either side of that dish cupboard, are doors into a secret pantry behind that wall. I want a secret pantry. Also, there are drawers in the bottom of that cupboard that actually are their FREEZER. This place blew my mind with all of the secret little nooks and crannies you could put into a house.

Pic #2 - This is their totally awesome, professional stove. How cool would it be to cook on that?!

Pic #3 - The main sink is located in front of the window, but as you can see, there is another small one right there on the right, just in case you can't make it to the main one. The cupboard and nook are to the right of this picture.

Things I didn't get pictures of were the Lego room. Yes, an entire room dedicated to playing with Lego's. And it had two thrones in there, just for fun. Also, there is an Elevator to take you to all of the 3 levels and the basement. There were iron baby gates built into the walls for the stairs, so you don't have to use those ghetto, plastic baby gates, which would totally ruin the look of the house. I didn't even bother counting all of the bedrooms and bathrooms. She has several large collections of figurines and Christmas villages. The lake had paddle boats to take a little joy ride in. There was a massive grill in the backyard. I mean, you could run a restaurant on that grill. They had a full basketball and tennis quarts, possibly 2, I can't remember. There was a ginormous tree house in the front yard that would even tempt an adult to want to play pirates or Swiss Family Robinson. The art work she had in her home was unreal. So beautiful. It was the most amazing, mind-blowing place I have ever been in. This is totally cliche, but the pictures really do not do the size, nor the place justice. An incredible experience to just be in the home. And then they fed us dinner, which were delicious, Cafe Rio style burritos, so it got even better. Imagine that.

During dinner, we found out what my did to help this family. The house/mansion was getting close enough to completion that the family was about to move in. They went on a vacation prior to moving in. While they were away, plumbers were working on the mansion. One was in the basement, and the other on the second floor. The upstairs plumber, hadn't quite been able to finishd his job of capping off two pipes in a bathroom before he left. The one in the basement, finished up and thought that everything was done all throughout the house, so before he left, he turned on the water to the whole house.  Both plumbers were leaving for the weekend. So, on Monday morning they came in to find the Entrance and Dining room just destroyed from all of the water that had been spraying out of the two pipes. Other rooms were ruined as well, but those two rooms were the most devastating because they had expensive wood paneling all over the walls and ceilings. The plumbers felt horrible, and their insurance only covered $200,000 of the damages. But that wasn't even close enough to pay for the wood. The woman's home insurance was with State Farm (my father has had major lawsuits with them and they are the devil), and they went to HOME DEPOT and got an estimate for the wood replacement from there and then added a little more and said that was all they would pay. Are you kidding me? I think the wood was from Brazil or something. So, the woman and her husband, who has since passed away, called my dad and hired him, who got them their money. I can't even imagine what the house looked like after all that water damage. It would have been so sad.

After dinner, the woman escorted us all to Tuacahn for the show, she even got my parent's the closest parking space you could get (I got to be one of the lucky people to ride in their car, it was so sweet). It was really cool. This woman went above and beyond for our tickets. We had the best seats in the house. I'm afraid she might have put some people out of their seats in order to get us all into the show. It was a wonderful production. The underwater characters wore boots that had wheels for heels. Then there would somehow be water on the stage, and they would skate around on the stage to give the swimming look. It was so good. There weren't enough tickets for everybody to go to the show, so Matt and Beckett decided to be the ones not to go. Beckett would have had a panic attack, especially if he didn't get to swim in the Hotel pool, and Matt hates musicals, so he was more than happy to go back to the hotel and swim with Beckett. Anabelle and I almost had a good time. We were pretty sick and very tired, so we couldn't really enjoy it as much as we should have. We were on the verge of downright miserable, but after all the trouble the lady went through to get everybody tickets, how could we not go to the show. Poor Anabelle was laying on the floor for most of the 2nd half, and I couldn't watch what was happening on the sides of the stage, because my glands were so swollen that it hurt to turn my neck. We were pretty pathetic.  It really was a wonderful show and lots of fun, I just wish we could have enjoyed it more.

That night in the hotel was unforgettable. The room slept 5 people in beds, and we had my mom, my dad, my grandma, Matt, Me, Beckett, and Anabelle. So, the children and I slept in one bed, with Matt at the foot of the bed, my parent's in the other double bed, and my grandma on the cot. My grandma is right next to the A/C unit for the room. She pulls on a blanket on a sunny day in July, so my dad thought it would be best to turn off the A/C for the night, so my grandma wouldn't freeze. It was a miserable night for everybody. Just in case you don't know where Tuacahn is, it is located in St. George. So our room was sweltering. No one really slept because we were so hot. And no one dared to turn on the A/C for fear of turning my grandma into an icicle. The next morning at breakfast, we were all complaining about the miserable night, when my grandma said, "I know. It was very warm. I tried to turn on the Air Conditioning, but I couldn't figure it out. So I just went back to bed." All we could do was laugh. We laughed so hard. It was like something out of a movie. I love my grandma.

On our trip back home, we decided to pull of the road and look at Kolob Canyon. It was gorgeous! If anyone is headed towards St. George, I highly recommend you take a little detour and go see it. It is breathtaking!

Beckett and I survived the first month of All-day kindergarten. There was, and still is, a learning curve, but we are doing it. Every morning after the first week of school, we would go through the battle of him not wanting to go to school and me begging/making him go. One day I had to literally drag him out of the house. He grabbed onto the stove, and then the door frame as we were going outside. Not fun. But that only happened once, so that's a good thing. Now he only says, "I don't want to go to school." 2 times a week, instead of everyday. So we're getting better.

Nothing else to really report about September. Hopefully I can get all caught up by Christmas.