Girls Weekend

WAHOOO!!!! A couple weekends ago I got to go on a much needed girls weekend with some dear friends. Lindsay, Jackie, Jenni and I started out Friday morning with breakfast at TC Eggingtons. (SO DELICIOUS)!!

We then stopped at the first nail salon we saw (which in hindsite was a bad idea) and got some sub par, but very funny pedicures that we were able to laugh over the rest of the weekend!

We went to our resort and chatted by the pool, then chatted in our room, then chatted over a delicious dinner, then chatted as we walked around Scottsdale, then chatted over frozen yogurt, and then chatted in our room until we all fell asleep exhausted!

Saturday morning we went to bagels, ate them by the pool and relaxed until we had to get ready for Jackie's graduation from ASU! It was so fun to be there for her and cheer her on! Also, the ceremony was crazy long, so we had a hysterical photoshoot in the very top row of Wells Fargo Arena, and were actually escorted out at the end of the ceremony...oops!

After that we hit up In N Out, had a great graduation party for Jackie, and then went to Native New Yorker at a ridiculously late hour for half price appetizers! Sunday we all got together one more time for a little hangout time before we drove Lindsay back to the airport.

It was seriously so fun and so needed! Thanks Gals! LOVE YA!

Hurray for Easter!!

Easter weekend was wonderful! We went to a ward breakfast where Jaxon got to do the easter egg hunt, then swim lessons (not awesome...more later...) and then home to find that the Easter Bunny had visited and left Jaxon a lovely basket! I am loving our tradition of doing Candy/Easter Basket/ Easter Bunny on Saturday, and keeping the Sabbath for the real purpose of Easter- the resurrection!

Dave and I decided that we pretty much LOVE getting Jax candy for anything!
Why?
Because we are awful parents and love to rot his teeth?
NO!
Because Jaxon THINKS he loves candy!
He loves being the proud owner of candy.
He loves looking at his candy.
Occassionally he loves sharing his candy (especially if it's with dad!)
BUT HE DOES NOT LOVE EATING CANDY!!!
If you ask Jaxon, he says, "I love Candy! Uhhh.... I'm just full. Plus, I'm saving it to share with dad later!"
You can ask anyone who has been over lately, Jaxon's Easter basket is on a corner of the counter for him to pick from whenever he wants...and it still looks exactly like it did on Easter! (Minus the 2 Andy's mints!)

Here is Jaxon modeling his lovely Easter glasses made a preschool-

The Haul the E.B. left.

Jaxon's basket-o-candy

Happy little man...


And lastly, the cruddiest egg hunt pictures there could possibly be- in fact... don't even look at them...they are only for posterities sake!! :o)



The proudest Mommy Moment came on Sunday though. I picked Jax up from his primary class and asked him what he had learned. He told me they learned about the resurrection. His very chill, male, never has much to say, teacher then told me, "Uh, Jaxon taught the whole lesson. Everytime I started telling about something, he finished it. That kid knows his stuff!"

Yes, I was beaming...I'm that mom! I can't take all of the credit though. We did take him to the Easter pageant (see previous post) and we talked about what was going on during the whole thing, but also they learned about it all week in preschool- love love LOVE his preschool!

Love Easter. Love my boys. Really...just loving life!

CHAAAAAARGE!

Last night Dave was out of town, and I try not to think about it too much so I don't freak myself out too much, but right before I go to bed, I always try to find some sort of "weapon" to sleep with, just in case. I couldn't find the maglight, so I unscrewed one of the heavy but wield-able bedposts and layed it on Dave's pillow.
In the morning (incident free night by the way) Jaxon came in and said, "What's that for?"
I told him it was in case I had to fight anybody who tried to break in. (I believe in being as honest as possible...)
And Jax did the most hysterical thing I've ever seen...
As if he already had this scenario planned out, he said, "MOM! Don't use THAT! Use this- watch...."
He then picked up a metal, 4 legged stool that I sit on to do my make-up, held the seat to his belly with the 4 legs sticking out and yelled, "CHAAAARRRRRGGGE!!!!" At the top of his lungs, and ran for the door like nobodies business. He ran out the door, then back in and said, "See mom? Instead of just whacking them once, you can 'ching' them 4 times with this thing! Awesome, right?"

Yes Jaxon.
THAT.
WAS.
AWESOME!!!!

When Dave got home, Jaxon told Dave I slept with the bedpost incase I needed to "knock the heads" off any "bad families" that try to break in.

....close enough.

Also, today on the way to preschool Jaxon told his buddy Brailyn,
"If you ever go to China, you HAVE to eat either duck tongue, tiger heads, or bird eyeballs. I'M SERIOUS!"

I'M NOT AN ATHIEST!!!

I still have Easter and Disneyland to blog about, along with lots of funny things Jaxon is saying and doing lately, but again, this was too funny not to share-

I'm in the choir at church. Our choir director sent out an email (the first email to the whole choir that has been sent) to let everyone know that we would be having a rare before-church practice to go over our song one last time before we sang. Well, she accidentally sent that email to ashleyrogers@gmail.com, instead of nzashleyrogers@gmail.com Whoever and where ever this other Ashley Rogers is, this is the email that she sent back... TO THE ENTIRE CHOIR!!!!

"Well, seeing as though I'm now athiest, you can COUNT ME OUT! I'm going to enjoy a good sleep in in the morning!"

Since I obviously didn't get the email, I didn't know about early morning choir practice and thus....didn't show up! The choir director doesn't know me too well, and asked everyone about this email that I sent. And guess what??? The entire ward choir assured her that it is "totally my sense of humor" and not to take it personally!

WHAT?

SERIOUSLY?

okay....maybe I would do that.
...maybe.

Anyway, we all got up to sing without a hitch, but later in church she stopped me with a nervous laugh and said, "ha...ha.. you kinda scared me with that email you sent..." I had no idea what she was talking about! When she told me and we checked the email address and I assured her it was NOT in fact me who sent the email, then she AND I, had a great laugh. Several other ward choir members stopped me throughout the day and told me they thought it was pretty funny, and a couple of the older ladies gave me very disapproving looks. Needless to say, I spent most of the day stopping to chat with anyone from choir to explain the real situation.

Later that day Dave had a meeting back at church, and an older gentleman from the choir said to him, "That's some sense of humor your wife has...." I don't know about you...but I'm pretty sure it was NOT a compliment.

To tell you the truth, I think the whole thing is hysterical!

Mother's Day

There are lots of things to blog about, but this one I just had to do first. My Mother's day was wonderful, partly because it was the first day I was able to nap and start feeling like a human again, instead of a world traveling zombie. But the bigger part was my sweet boys and how much they spoiled me. I got lots of thoughtful things, including a Sonic Gift card from Jaxon. We always let him decide what he wants to get the other parent for Holidays, and for me it's always either a Sonic Gift Card, or a Fry's (food and drug, not electronics) gift card. What can I say? He knows me well...as those are the two places we go most often!

But the most special gift came from Dave. I've been dying for a massage from my friend Marlo, so I asked Dave to give me a gift certificate for a massage. He asked exactly what I meant, and I told him, a HOMEMADE gift card, NOT made on the computer. You have to really know Dave to know HOW FAR out of his comfort zone this is. But sure enough, when I woke up from my delicious nap on Sunday afternoon, I was presented with this-

He was slightly embarrassed but also so secretly pleased with himself, and seriously, it might be one of the best, most precious gifts he's ever given me. He said,

"I bought letter stickers at Staples, because my handwriting is not so good, but I know, I know... I didn't do a very good job of putting them on straight. And did you see? I used your paper-cutter-thing to cut the pink paper smaller than the blue paper so it would be double like you do! And also, I used really nice handwriting to write your name on it!" (And seriously, did he ever!!! His usual handwriting is nothing short of illegible chicken scratch!)

Can I just tell you how much this certificate means to me? It means that my Dave did something he hates, and doesn't think he's very good at, just to show me he loves me!

Let me just say, I love my boys. I was so blessed to get these two!

First- China!

I'm Baaaaaaaack!
First, China-
It is always an adventure to travel to China. But this time was a little harder for me. Our trip got suddenly moved up almost two weeks, and I wasn't really prepared to go. Had lots to do back home, including prepping for my pump video. A week of no exercise, flipping my days and nights, and spending over 50 hours (in a 5.5 days) traveling either on a plane, in a taxi, or in an airport...that's not the best preparation!
When I got back I had a really REALLY hard time switching my days and nights back (that always happens to me) and as a result, ended up doing my video on 1.5 hours sleep! (It's okay, adrenaline took over!)
Anyway- we completed all of our business with no hiccups, and as a result got treated to a very very nice Chinese lunch by the owners of our tie factory.

ENTER: DUCK TONGUE
Tha'ts right, this little gem was one of the appetizers at our very fancy lunch. I was served by our business partner who stood grinning at me, clearly not going to look away until I devored it and said how delicious it was. I had no choice. Again- adrenaline took over. I took a very large, chewy, spongy, tongue-y bite from the "non-long thin neck connector" end, and sent it down the hatch with a big swig of coke. I can't remember how it tasted, becuase that spongy texture almost got me. As soon as I swallowed she moved onto serving the next dish, and I quickly hid the tongue under my plate. Our next appetizer was bamboo shoot soup with bamboo greens. It was VERY VERY crunchy, but tasted like chicken noodle soup. Since this is not my first business lunch in China, I knew that I would continue to be served copious amounts of food, so I better make good and clear what I liked (Translation: what I would be able to eat the most of without getting sick and offending our business partner) Boy did I make lots of happy faces and "delicious tummy rubs" about that soup. Half the meal I spent chomping away at that crunchy bamboo becuase she just kept filling my bowl, but I'm a smart women, because NO MORE TONGUE! :o)

Our trip really did go quite well, and with the little amount of time I had to shop, I stocked up and did all of Jaxon's school shopping! I Got him a lot darling knock-offs that will last him through the whole year, including two pairs of Nike's, Adidas, and some Converse. I won't even tell you how much they cost, becuase we would all spend out nights crying ourselves to sleep over the ridiculous prices of things here in the states!

Lastly, I have to leave you with this awesome picture. This was the weather report on Tuesday. Please note- there is only a 30% chance of Wednesday! I was cracking up everytime I walked through the lobby and saw that.

A new post...BUT I STILL MISS SODA!

A lot has happened between me giving up soda (which I miss a little more every day...) and us going to the Easter Pageant, but this was such a special night, I have to blog about it before I forget.

I still remember the first "Easter Pageant" I went to here in AZ. I was 16 and had never heard a thing about it. Some friends invited me, and I thought I was going to see some sort of "Pageant" as in girls, swim suits, talent section, etc. Imagine my surprise! Anyway...I digress...

So the day before the Easter Pageant officially starts is "Dress rehearsal" night. They run the whole thing through with costumes, but start it earlier (7 instead of 8) so of course, we had to go. It would still put Jaxon to bed well past his bedtime but he is old enough to understand the play and he already had learned so much of what he would be seeing, and I felt really strongly that it would be an amazing experience for him.

I had a photoshoot that I Couldn't change, and was very worried that I wouldn't get there in time to enjoy it with my boys, but I rushed and made it before the performance even started. Jaxon immediately crawled into my lap, snuggled his way in, and stayed there THE ENTIRE TIME!!!

I LOVED IT! This does not happen very often...1. he's a 5 year old boy now, and 2. He is RARELY EVER STILL!!!

We spent the next hour in the most beautiful weather, setting, production, and conversation there ever could be between a mom and her 5 year old boy. (Yes, Dave was also there, but he saw the tears in my eyes and the tenderness between me and J, and he let me have the whole moment,...thank you Dave...) Jaxon never stopped asking questions (Albeit, possibly a tad too loudly, but who could be mad at the sweetness of a little guy asking questions about Jesus, the desciples, the ten virgins, John the Baptist, etc..) And for one precious hour, I got to whisper my testimony of the Savior's life, mission, and ministry into Jaxon's eager ears. If this sounds cheesy, it's because it is, but I just can't write casually about this night I spent with my boys. It's moments like this that I will treasure forever.