On Sunday, we made our first trip to Costco. We have a Sam's membership through Russell's work. So we've been to warehouse shopping venues. But this was crazy!!!!  Our main focus was a play scape for Sophia, which we had a friend find theirs at Costco. But once there, we didn't find what we were looking for. But we did fin 10,000 other people shopping! And we found a great scanner/printer!

Sophia was pretty excited! But we didn't end up buying it. We wanted to compare prices at home.

Bacon....A Love/Hate Relationship

How many of you love bacon but hate cooking it because it's so messy????

Well, my sister in law taught me a new way to cook it to avoid the mess and I love it!

Preheat the oven to 400.

Line a cookie sheet with foil.

Lay the bacon on the foil lined cookie sheet.

Cook for 10-15 minutes. Ours took slightly longer because I like mine crispier and it usually takes longer to cook in our oven anyways. You don't even have to flip it!!!!

GENIUS!!!!

A Busy Saturday

Saturday turned out to be a very busy day. Probably because we slept in until 9:20. Yep, Sophia went to bed later than usual the night before and slept until 9:20. And it was Russell's turn to get up with her, so I slept until 9:45. Which is a great feeling, but then I realized that if I was going to get our bathrooms and bedrooms cleaned before we left to go to a birthday party later that afternoon, I was going to have to move a little bit faster. The bathrooms and bedrooms did get cleaned. But then I had to hurry up and shower, get ready, get the present ready, etc. We were rushing around all morning. So even though it felt great at the time to sleep in, it didn't feel so great having to rush around.

But we finally made it out the door and to the party. Cale is Sophia's friend from PK and he turned 4. We were all very thankful it was an indoor party at Sunbelt gymnastics. They do tumbling activities while we watch from a room above the gym. Then they come upstairs to join us and have cake.

There's Cale!

Now the coolest part of this party, for me, was watching the person who worked there cut the cake. Look! She sticks a row of forks in.

Cuts it down the side.

Then cuts across and uses the fork to help lift the piece of cake on to the plate.

Genius!!!!

Batter Up!!!!

Friday night, my parents took the cousins to a Ranger game. Sophia said she had fun, even though it was super hot. My mom thankfully (I really appreciate it), took a few pics to document the night.

Her favorite part of the night....ice cream sandwich, a.k.a. The Big Kahuna.

How cute are they holding hands???!!!

While they were at the game, we were out celebrating our 13th wedding anniversary. We went to BJ's Brewhouse. Yummy food! And even better company!

We Finally Made it.....

We finally made it to the Sea Life Aquarium at the Grapevine Mills Mall! YEA!!!!

We'd bought tickets yesterday, so we just walked right up in the short line. However! I must say that once inside, it was still very crowded and it was kind of small, enclosed, claustrophobic. I guess because I'd been to the Dallas Aquarium when Sophia was 1, I was comparing it to that. Which is probably not fair. But Sophia LOVED it! So that's all that matters right???

I'll go ahead and apologize for the quality of the pics right now. We weren't allowed to do any flash photography (they said it would scare the fish). So I did the best I could do with the flash off.

"It's a shark mom!!!"

"See!!! It's right there!!!!"

Sophia touched a barb from a sting ray.

At one of the tanks, they had this cool see through glass bottom so you see down inside the tank instead of just down below from the side.

They also had these cool tanks you could crawl underneath and into the middle of it.

They also had "the tunnel" like the Dallas World Aquarium.

But in this tunnel, it was also glass on the bottom. Kinda cool!

Jellyfish!!! I always think of Dory from Nemo when I see jelly fish.

Yep, my flash was definitely off and my 3 year old had a hard time standing still!

Here's the "Shark Walk" where you're walking over the top of the shark tank and looking down below through the glass on the floor. You could stand on the glass just fine, definitely sturdy, but Sophia still tip toed across the glass parts.

They also had tanks you could reach into and handle sea life. Sophia didn't really want to participate in this portion of the adventure.

But Russell did!

Sophia's favorite part was the sharks (so was mine). Russell's was the jellyfish and the sea horses.

On second thought, the aquarium itself is pretty cool. The crowds, the people, million people with strollers (us included), and the mall traffic made it less fun. If you can find a day when it will be less crowded, you should go, but I'd also hunt for coupons or something. I think it was $50 for the 3 of us.

That's all folks! Gotta get ready for my first full week back!