Megan's First Concert... Sort of.....

With Hannah Montana concert tickets running in the hundreds of dollars, we decided to do the next best thing - the Hannah Montana 3D Concert Experience! My good friend, Tammy, and I decided to try to get tickets for this yesterday afternoon once we realized it was only going to be in theaters for one week. Most places were sold out through the entire weekend, but we found one new theater that still had tickets available. We bought them through Fandango, got dinner and sitters for the boys and headed out the door 45 minutes later!

We drove up the freeway to the Mesa Riverview center (for those of you who visit the Scout Shop, you'll know where this is!) We grabbed dinner at Chick Fil-A and headed over to the theater. We were so lucky to get seats in the 4th row (from the front!) This is when you DON'T want front row seats! The concert was fun and the girls LOVED it, but I was sitting next to the most crazy Hannah Montana Fan in existence. She was screaming, singing, and basically going crazy the entire time. I kept looking around, and no one else in the theater had the same enthusiasm that she did. She couldn't have been more than 10-12 years old.
Here's the girls getting their photo taken with Hannah after the concert - fun, huh????

It was nice to be able to go and enjoy a fun concert with Megan - I have to say that Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus is (so far...) a fantastic role model for girls. Let's just hope she doesn't follow the same path as Brittney Spears and Lindsay Lohan as she gets older!

You Gotta Love Southwest!

I'm supposed to be at the airport right now - all by myself, reading a book and maybe splurging on a Vanilla Bean or Caramel Apple Cider from Starbucks. But, alas, I'm not.... here's the story -

Back in September my cousin, Heidi, called me to see if I'd figured out what I was getting my mom for Christmas. Of course, I don't start shopping that early, so I could say, "nope, not a clue!" Well, she had this brilliant idea - we buy tickets for us and our moms to Time Out for Women and we make it a Girl's Only Escape Weekend. So, through weeks of planning, we decided to meet in San Diego today (Jan 31) to spend the weekend in Southern California and go to TOFW. Our itinerary was to fly into LAX today and then spend tomorrow at Disneyland. On Saturday we would go to TOFW and do a session at the San Diego Temple. Then we would fly home on Sunday. It was an excellent plan and the moms were THRILLED when we unveiled the plan on Christmas.

So fast forward 4 weeks and it was Monday night. I'm cooking dinner and get a frantic call from Heidi (who lives in Ohio). She just found out that Deseret Book cancelled TOFW because it would conflict with President Hinckley's Funeral Services. Apparantly, many of the "presenters" wanted to attend the funeral. Anyway, this put us in a real mess. They rescheduled TOFW for the weekend of May 10. So, my cousin and I both got on the phone to see what it would take to change our airline tickets to the correct weekend and cancel hotel reservations. The hotels were very understanding and one (which was supposed to be pre-paid, non-refundable) let us cancel and not charge us for it. United Airlines on the other hand made Heidi's life a nightmare. She couldn't fly Southwest because her airport doesn't service them. She is going to have to pay almost $200 to change her airline ticket to the new weekend. I, on the other hand, called Southwest, explained the dilemma and they said, "no problem. We've cancelled your reservation (2 days prior to the flight) and put a credit for the ticket price in your account. When you are ready to schedule the new flight, call us back and we can apply your credit to the cost of the new ticket." How's that for service? And I bought the cheapest ticket available online... not the refundable one. The one with the most restrictions! You just can't beat that for customer service!

So, I'm sitting here, trying not to daydream about my completely kid free afternoon at the airport... 90 minutes on a plane (all by myself)... and a great weekend in Southern California with my mom, cousin, and aunt. Instead I'm planning the tiling job we are now hoping to get done this weekend, since I'm suddenly available. Of course, Eric is sick, so it may not happen, but I'm going to need a big project to take my mind away from dreaming of Southern California Fun!

And I'm NEVER again going to buy tickets for a TOFW event unless it is in Phoenix. We hoped that Deseret Book would be willing to give us a refund on our tickets and let us attend in May free of charge to offset the cost of changing our travel plans, but no deal. When I called to plead my case, she patiently explained that they had already received several requests from others in the same dilemma that we were in and they had a strict "no refund" policy! What a load of (insert your own expletive here) !!!!!

I knew I liked this guy....

I recently bought a book at Sam's Club by Glenn Beck, called An Inconvenient Book. I really LIKE it! Glenn Beck is a convert to the church and conservative and on TV everyday (I think it's CNN, but I can never remember....) On top of all that he's very entertaining. He likes to make jokes, poke fun at people and get in their faces... that's why the following video was so touching!

Bed Head

This is what Brayden's hair looked like after his nap yesterday .....

I think Eric is jealous - he has no hair and all his boys have more than their fair share!

Beloved Prophet Passes On....

The official Church press release on LDS.org :

"Beloved Church President, Gordon B. Hinckley, Dies at 97 in Salt Lake City on 27 January, 2008. President Gordon B. Hinckley, who led The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through twelve years of global expansion, has died at the age of 97. President Hinckley was the 15th president in the 177-year history of the Church and had served as its president since 12 March 1995. The Church president died at his apartment in downtown Salt Lake City at 7:00 p.m. Sunday night from causes incident to age. Members of his family were at his bedside. A successor is not expected to be formally chosen by the Church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles until after President Hinckley’s funeral within the next few days. "

For the full story, click here: http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/beloved-church-president-gordon-b-hinckley-dies-at-97

It was sad news last night when we heard about President Hinckley passing away. I sensed at the last general conference that his time was short. He didn't give the usual "opening" and "closing" remarks and his talk was very short. He was a great man and will be missed! Although it's sad news that he is gone, it makes me happy to know that he's finally been reunited with his wife, whom he loved more than anyone. Here's an excerpt from her funeral (almost 4 years ago)....

"When in some future day the hand of death gently touches one or the other of us, there will be tears, yes," said son Clark B. Hinckley, reading a letter his father wrote his mother after nearly 60 years of marriage. "But there will also be a quiet and certain assurance of reunion and eternal companionship."

That's what it's all about, right? Being reunited with our loved ones for eternity. That's what makes this journey we call "life" so worthwile.... Sheri Dew had this to say at Sister Hinckley's funeral and I think it applies to both of them. I don't think she would disagree.....

“When I learned that Sister Hinckley had slipped through the veil, I had a flood of emotions, but through my tears I also felt a sweet jubilation. I couldn’t help but think, she did it! She did what she came here to do, and she did it magnificently, for she left everywhere she went and everyone she met better than she found them."

A Great Weekend!

This weekend has been much anticipated by Eric and I for a couple weeks now. We babysat overnight for some friends on their anniversary, so they offered to repay the favor for us, even though our anniversary was last month. Well, hey, 15 years is a big one, so we decided it definately couldn't hurt to celebrate twice!!!

I used our Hilton Points (Eric accumulates them when he travels for work) to book a room at the Hilton Squaw Peak Resort in North Phoenix (for the locals, it's on 16th street, just north of Glendale Ave.) It was a fun place and would be great to bring the kids in the summertime. There is a HUGE water park area behind the hotel! We went out to dinner at Cheesecake Factory on Friday night, and Eric gave me my Valentine's Day gift 3 weeks early - a new 8 GB ipod Nano in RED!!! I LOVE IT!!! He wanted me to have it on my upcoming trip next weekend... (more on that later this week...)

Saturday, we went Geocaching for the first time. Eric got a portable GPS unit a few months ago (one of those "necessary" purchases when you are a scoutmaster!) and we've heard how fun geocaching can be. We found a "cache" in NE Scottsdale, that was in the desert and you could ride bikes most of the way. So, we took our bikes and headed out there... boy was it "out" there... probably 5-6 miles North of Frank Lloyd Wright and 7-8 miles East of Scottsdale Rd. We had a great time, burned lots of calories biking on a sandy, dirt road, and found the cache very easily! If you want to learn more about "geocaching" go to this website to read all about it: http://geocaching.com/

It's always nice to get a break from the routine to refresh and recharge! It's even better to have unlimited time to talk with your spouse and not be interupted by kids... oh wait, we did get interrupted on Friday night when Taylor sent us several text messages asking us when we were coming home... we answered back, "NEVER!"

Of course, we were kidding.....

Glendale's Got Game

Yes, the superbowl is coming to Phoenix.... well Glendale to be specific. This is the first time the valley has hosted the superbowl since the 90's and definately the first time post 9/11. For the last year, our news have been giving us tidbits on how we are getting ready for the big day. Glendale has never hosted before, so they are really excited about it all. We've heard some of the goofiest news stories about gearing up for the big game, such as how the airports will accomdate all the private planes and leer jets coming in for the week (because you know that only the SUPER rich can afford superbowl tickets), and how people in Scottsdale and Paradise Valley are renting out their homes for the week at the modest price tag of $1,000 a night. (These are Blackhawk type homes... my house would probably only go for a couple hundred a night....) and how Scottsdale is literally cleaning every street in the busy shopping districts so it looks clean (and they are putting extra cops in the area to keep druggies and hookers out of sight from our out of town guests)... but I think this story takes the prize... who knew that Glendale would have to worry about this.... click below to watch the one minute clip about Glendale preparing for the "Big Flush".... it's pretty funny!

http://www.kpho.com/video/14513283/index.html

Too bad I'll be leaving town next weekend to meet my mom, cousin and aunt in Southern California to attend Time Out for Women in San Diego! I'm going to miss all the excitement!