We contributed to the madness, boy did we contribute!

Hunger Games opened this past weekend (for those 10 of you who didn't realize that!) It was the third highest opening weekend grossing movie.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows part 2 was number 1 and The Dark Knight was number 2.  152 million!

Tanner and his fellow tributes went to the midnight premier on Thursday.  He got home at 3:30 and still went to school.  Then Friday right after school, he went again with a group of friends because some of their parents wouldn't let them go to the midnight showing.

Cynjyn went with her friend Alexa Friday evening.  Saturday, Garry and I went to a 3:40 showing with the Hills, The Sawyers, the Shafers and their friends Lorie and Mike, The Osburns, the Andersons, the Thatchers.  Then Hills, Sawyers, Osburns and Thatchers and us went to Cheesecake Factory for dinner.  We had a great time and we all loved the movie.

Krissy came into town for her Spring Break on Sunday.  She hadn't seen it yet.  So we had to wait until Wednesday, Talon's day off, to go again.  Talon, Taz and Krissy hadn't seen it at this point.  We decided to go to lunch first.  Talon wanted Krissy to branch out and try something different, get out of her eating comfort zone, so he took us to Lemongrass cafe and Krissy, Talon, Taz and I had Pho and Cynjyn and Tanner had shortribs. 

Krissy wanted proof she tried something different.

Talon loves Pho!

Then it was off to GVR for some Hunger Games fixes!

Taz took a picture, this was the third one and still not too good, but that's all I have!

Here's proof Taz the picture taker was there.  They all liked the movie, Talon a little less since he'd JUST read the book, so he remembered way more than the rest of us, but still he thought they did a great job.

Worth the wait and made for a fun weekend.  We are still talking about it.

Time to blog again

I haven't posted in awhile, I just haven't been in the mood. I think nothing has happened worthy of blogging then I realize LIFE is worthy of blogging since this is my life journal. Stuff happens and I want to remember it even if it seems mundane to those on the outside of my life looking in. When I go back through my picture folders, I realize maybe more happened than I thought and I need to document it, so with that said, here is a catchup blog post: I went clothes shopping for my birthday and spent some money I'd gotten.  I am loving all the new spring colors that are popular, bright and cheery.  I also bought a bunch of jewlery to accesorize.  I loved it. 

Taz's middle school participated in a middle school band festival and UNLV.  Garry and I went to that.  It's always fun!

Tanner had a slew of friends this month with birthday's and he tries to acknowledge them with a little treat.  He made these wrapped candy bars for his friend Amanda and took them to her for school the next day.

Garry is busy at work on a new project.  Here are the developmental stages, more on that later, when he's done.  It will be cool!!!  Any guesses?

Cynjyn has an art class two Thursday's a month.  This is what she looked like after Art today.  They painted paper mache, or maybe they just painted themselves.  I'm not sure, but she sure loves it.

I made these cupcakes for a YW incentive to Be Excited About Reading Scriptures (Bears is our theme this year for it) and then we ended up having a joint lesson with the YM, so Tanner took them to some of his other friends for bday treats.  They are vanilla cupcakes with a layer of raspberry jam in the middle.  So good, but I don't know if I'll ever end up giving them to the YW, as they are a lot of work.

Ninja made a trip to the vet to get Spayed.  She is much calmer now and is turning out to be quite a pleasant pet to have around.

I took Cynjyn to Wal-Mart the night before St. Patrick's Friday so she could get an outfit to dress up and where to school as her class was celebrating a day early.  She loved it and looked as Irish as can be for Waisian girl.

Alexa spent the night and the talked and read Hunger Games all night.  Alexa is on the first book and Cynjyn is on the second.  I went up to check on them about 9pm and they were both just laying in bed READING!  How's that for a sleepover.  We definatly have Hunger Games fever in the Goon home.

Then they made a giant road tribute with sidewalk chalk and wrote HUNGER GAMES

and listed all the characters! 

Garry and I are going to the movie with a group of friends on Saturday, Tanner is going to the midnight premier with friends tonight and Taz is going with his aunt next week.  So Talon asked Cynjyn out on a date to see it with him.  (They are now going with Krissy and Taz next week, but this was before we knew Krissy was going to be here).  So at the beginning of the week, we challenged Talon to READ the book.  I NEVER thought I'd take of picture of him reading!  And for pleasure!  Anywhooo, he finished the book in two days and immediatly started Catching Fire! 

And that brings me to last night.  I hosted our monthly book club meeting.  I chose the book Divergent.  I really enjoyed the book and it's such a quick exciting read.  Just a little breakdown.  The worldin Divergent is divided into five factions.  Amity, Eurodite, Dauntless, Abnegation and Candor.  The factions are represented by Soil, rock, glass, fire and water.  So I filled 5 glass containers with these elements to represent the choice a person has of which faction to join.  (In the book they cut their wrist and drip their blood into the bowl of their choice indicating which faction to join).  The main character chooses Dauntless and they are known for their bravery and overcoming fears.  They all get Tattoo's.  So I ordered some make your own tattoo paper and had a small bowl of tattoos available.  Each person in the book drinks a small vial of clear liquid which thrusts their mind into a virtual place where they have to make choices, this determins which faction they show the most apptitude towards. So as the ladies came in, they drank a vial of water and then took a test on the internet (via Facebook) which told them which faction they'd belong to, then they chose their tattoo (they all matched a different faction) and wore that for the evening.  So this was my display table as they came in the door.

The tattoos and bowls representing glass and fire. 

The prominate food in the book is little round patties of meat on a bun with a bowl of red sauce to put on them (The main character had never had a hamburger before she became Dauntless), so that was our food and everytime the initiates of Dauntless wanted a snack, they had cake.  It is eaten and mentioned about 4-5 times.  So I made this chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting and chocolate ganache for food.  The strawberries had nothing to do with the book, they just looked good in the store:)  Here is the bowl of water.

And these are the soil and rock bowls.  In the book, the Dauntless members are injected with an orange liquid that takes them into a virtual world where they face their fears, so I ordered some syringes and filled them with orange MIO and served bottled water that they could inject the orange liquid into to flavor it.

The whole picture.

I ended up being in the Candor faction, so here is my candor tattoo on my hand and then the main character, Tris, tattoos three flying ravens on her right collarbone flying towards her heart to represent her mother, father and brother that she left behind to join Dauntless ( I put mine more in the middle cuz my shirt covered my right collarbone.)

It was a really fun night and we had a GREAT turnout.  14 people (our club last month we had 5!).  The final ladies left at 12:30am!  I so love hosting and trying to make it fun for everyone.  This is a picture of that I woke up to today...the aftermath of book club!  Loved every minute of it!

New Addition

Meet Ninja. She is the newest addition to our family. Monday night, we got a knock on our door.  It was our friends from down at the end of the street; Ronny and Vanessa.  They had a strat cat that had been hanging around their house and their neighbors had agreed to take it, but couldn't until the next day.  Could we keep it over night for them and they'd come get her after school.  Garry answered the door and he agreed to take it for the night.  He ran to Von's and got cat litter and we had some wet food left over from Mowgli and we put it up for the night.

She was the sweetest cat and we could tell she was young.  She was so quiet and moved like a ninja.  She ended up in Talon's room for the night.  She slept on his pillow and his door was only open a crack.  Somehow, she managed to leave in the middle of the night with out opening or closing his door any further than the crack.  Thus we started calling her a ninja cat.  Mowgli had an ingrown toe nail and you could always hear him walking...a little clicking sound, we could never hear her.  One minute she was with you, the next, gone into another room.

Tuesday came and Ronny and Vanessa came and got her.  We told them she had charmed her way into our hearts and if it didn't work out with the neighbor, we'd like to keep her.  An hour later, they showed up at the door asking if we really wanted her.  Their neighbors already had three cats and were just taking her to give her a place to go.  Luckily, Garry answered the door as I was doing piano and he made the decision all on his own and said yes, we would keep her. Then came the task of naming her.  Garry and Taz had gone to the temple to do baptism's for the dead, so Cynjyn started writing down names.  We came up with Sweety, Lovey, Kiki, Shadow, Smokey, Bright Eyes and Ninja.  We all liked Ninja, but weren't sure it would roll off the tongue so easily.  Talon really wanted Ninja, but we were all boohooing that and were leaning towards Shadow.  I really wanted Kiki.  So FINALLY, they got back (at 10:00PM!) and we decided on Ninja.  She is about 9 months old and very loving and sweet!  

Sadiesx2, gardens and Jungle Speed!

 Taz got the haircut I promised!  He even asked for it!!

 Tanner has been working for weeks in his Foods Production class in a Management team preparing for a yearly competition.  They had to design completly a restaurant.  They chose a healthy fast food.  Anyway, they've been meeting at 5:30 in the mornings and during class, on Saturday's and after school.  Well the 2 day competition was the 15 and 16th of February.  His group got second place.  They all got medals and a $750.00 scholarship if they go to a culinary college (a specific one).  He was pleased with their placing and all the effort, but he's really glad it's over!

 Sadies was Feb. 18th.  The girls had a full day planned.  They met at 8am for breakfast:  Waffles (Tanner isn't a fan of them), then they went hiking.  They got home about 2 and he came home and showered and rested until 4 when they met up again and we took picture at the park.  Heidi Phelon, Tanner, Natalie Leavit and Dallin Jenkins.  Afterwards they went to dinner at a Mexican Restaurant in Sam's Town that Natalie's mom works at, then to the Wax Museum, then Slurpees and chatting at the park and they were home by midnight.  He had a really good time.  And was glad it was heading into a 4 day weekend.

 Monday the 20th was my birthday.  So, Sunday night (the day before), Taz decided to make me cinnamon rolls.  I often ask him on Sunday's to make them, but he never does.  He did it all on his own.  I only set foot in the kitchen to take pictures. 

 Oh, my were they delicious!  They turned out to good and I had a dessert for my birthday!

 On Monday, we went to Mystere for my birthday.  I had wanted to do something with the whole family and this was the perfect excuse.  We went to the 9:30 pm showing since they had better seat choices and we didn't have work or school the next day.  We all loved it.

 The next day at mutual, I got flowers and a gift from one of the beehives.  Thanks!!  I got moccasins and Breaking Dawn from my family.

 On Tuesday, Taz had to have oral surgery.  He had a baby tooth extracted and a chain attached to the permanant tooth that wasn't coming down.  It was the same thing Cynjyn had last year, only Taz recovered within hours.  He missed football practice that night, but that was because we wouldn't let him go...he wanted to.

 His friend Sierra ordered him some custom made Vans shoes for Christmas and they finally came this week.  He loves them, but they are too small:(  He was determined to wear them for the week though hoping to stretch them out.  But you can't make them longer!

 Tanner's good friend Amanda had asked a boy to Sadies last November.  Last month he bailed on her due to swim team tryouts.  So she asked a boy from school.  Three days before Sadies, he bailed on her.  She was going with her friend from school and her boyfriend and they had to change the date to the week after Sadies because the boyfriend had to work on Sadies, or something like that.  Well, Tanner volunteered to go as her date at the last moment.  Well, guess what, the other couple bailed on her too.  So it ended up being just her and Tanner!  They met at 11:30 to take pictures at the park, then went ice skating, then to a buffet at Texas Station for dinner, then to the movie This Means War and then back to our house where we played Family Cranium and Jungle Speed!

 While Tanner was out partying, we decided to go to the Bellagio.  They had Chinese New Year up and I wanted to see it.  It was beautiful.  I wish the dragons would have been made of flowers though.

 That night, Taz had Andrew, Ryan, and Josh over and they ended up playing Jungle Speed.  Now, a few weeks ago, our good friends the Sawyers (Amanda's parents) had Garry and I over to play games.  They introduced us to Jungle Speed.  It was really fun and  we thought it would be a great game to add to our ever growing list.  So we bought it on Amazon (go there if you want to check it out).  I love that the boys were bored of video games and played JS all night.  It is a very competitive game and blood has been drawn and eyes have been poked. 

 All night they were in each other's faces and the competion was fierce.

 The boys left saying how great it was to play that game!