Memorial Day Weekend

There is nothing, I repeat nothing, better than a 3 day weekend especially when it includes family, friends,  lots of sleep, nommy food, and tickle/laugh fests with Matson.

Friday
Friday night we met up with my sister A* and her boyfriend N* and our friends K* and H* and their little boy C* at Pizza Factory. We love when we get to play and see C*! I can't believe he is almost 1!

C* was so entertaining at dinner.
He has the best personality!

I love Cohen. So cute! And I guess Matson is cute too!
They both have their little grins on.

Then we went to Color Me Mine and painted the night away. I seriously feel like every time I go there it takes me more time to decide what to paint then it takes me to actually paint it. Matson tries to be all creative and sometimes it doesn't work out...I would show you his vase he made me last year but he would be embarrassed. But he made this once. I made a 4th of July little jar. So cute (well hopefully it is, we will get them back on Wednesday).

All of us at Color Me Mine.

N* and my sis A*. Aren't they cute?

After Color Me Mine, Matson and K* are always craving Cold Stone Creamery. So they got their shakes while H* and I got some soft serve at JCW's. We talked all night. I seriously could talk with H* for hours, she is a great listener, is so kind, fun, and a wonderful friend! Man, we are going to miss them...dang medical school!

Saturday
We slept in too long. We went to a picnic party where it hard core rained (...haha I just said hard core) and Rookie the little drama dog that she is was shaking because she was "so cold". So we Matson babied our little drama dog and put her in his coat.

We watched a rainy day movie, That Thing You Do. Matson had a meeting. I cleaned. We went to the gym. We went out to dinner with friends at Guru's...those fries! Then chatting the night away with friends was a great end to the day. (I took no pictures of our date night. FAIL. I need to get better at photo taking that isn't just on my phone).

Sunday
We ate German pancakes (of course, that's the only thing Matson will eat for breakfast on the weekends) and then we went to church, where my little 4/5 year old Primary class children learned about how Jesus loves children, but these 4 and 5 year olds are so dang smart that we kind of turned that lesson into a lesson about how Jesus loves everyone even if they make mistakes or sin (I think I needed that lesson more than them to remind me of how I should love everyone too and that everyone sins differently and I shouldn't judge them).

Little A* in my class is kind of the class goof and said the best prayer of telling us his whole day like, "Bless me that I ate breakfast, I got my clothes on, I sat in church, I colored, etc..."and the saddest thing? We had a lesson on prayer last week! Oops, I didn't do too good.

We napped for waaaay too long like I am saying all afternoon.

Monday
A little work. Boys golfed. Girls went on an afternoon bike ride that turned into a shopping trip of biking all over Provo/Orem. The boys put together the grill.

N* and I had these same Old Navy shorts on.
A* and I had on this same Target Kids XL top.

We ended a wonderful Memorial Weekend with  little visit to my sister's grave, a Memorial Day dinner with my family, and the Bachelorette.

Me, Rookie, and A* at our sister Rachael's grave.

Class of 2012

Matson's little brother, J*, graduated last Thursday from High School. It was kind of fun to remember my graduation day.

Us with the Graduate.

Me on my Graduation day with one of my best friends K* (and my short hair)

Even though the actual graduation was a little long I may have stopped and gotten my guilty pleasure drink (a cherry fresh lime) beforehand to give me energy to sit through the whole ceremony, it ended up not being too bad except for the District guy that "accepts the graduates". Why do they always speak so long? I will cheer so loud the day I go to a graduation and the District person just says, "Congrats and I accept you?" haha.

My HUGE cherry fresh lime.

You could say Matson was bored.

So bored that I found 20 random pictures on my phone afterward.

It was still fun, good to see Matson's grandparents, and great to see J* graduate!

It will always be funny to Matson and our brother in law C*
 to ruin each other's pictures.

Matson and Grandpa

Always goof balls.

That's a Wrap

A week ago Matson had his last day at Vivint, where he has worked for the last 2 years. It was a great job but we are looking forward to the many things ahead of us. Matson, my brother T*, and their other business partners are focusing more on their new start up company.

My life as a wife of an entrepreneur and all that entails starts now. Living off my small but ok income as a nanny and from some savings as Matson seeks advice and guidance from his business mentors and grows their company oops, I used waaay too many "and's" in that sentence.

T* and Matson

Goodbye Vivint and hello new adventures!

The Lemonade Stand Challenge

You see the adorable neighborhood kids. Standing on the corner with their "Lemonade - 50 cents a cup" poster and immediately you make up all these excuses in your head of why you don't have time to stop.

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This has been me forever. I always think, "Oh, how cute!! But I have to be at the store or work (or insert excuse)."

Wellp, not this summer. My husband is an entrepreneur, I always had lemonade stands growing up, and so I am all for it. Therefore, I gotta support the lemonade stand kids! I have made a promise to myself this summer that I will stop at every single lemonade stand I see!

Already this summer I have stopped at 3 lemonade stands, one while being on a bike ride with my mom.

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So friends, I challenge all of you to join me in stopping at every Lemonade Stand you see (or at least most of them)! All you gotta do is give them a few of those quarters or loose change rolling around in your center console.

Leave me a comment and tell me if you are going to join me in The Lemonade Stand Challenge!

Sports Connection

We went to the Jazz game a couple weeks ago. It was a killer sweet game. Killer sweet? What the heck I speak so weird. (random story: my friend B* and my sis in law N* have realized how I insert the phrase "butt hole" in front of everything. Like "that is butt hole ugly" or "I am butt hole thirsty"...anyway, now they always make fun of me for it. Oh well I will probably still continue to say it and just to point it out to you I will go back and bold and purposefully use it in this post.)

So anyway......back to the real reason for this post. We went to the Jazz Game and had a wonderful time. Thanks to Matson's job at Vivint they awarded him with some box tickets to the game.

He was butt hole excited and not just for the game, but for the box seats and the food and everything. This game fell on a day during finals week, so this was a waaaaaAAAaay nice break from finals. We rushed from parking to get there. I will admit that I didn't mind the nice treatment and ate a butt hole of carrots. I probably ate more carrot sticks than a huge 20 pound rabbit eats in a month during that game and I thoroughly enjoyed them.

Matson's game face on while rushing to get to the game.

The game went super long (3 overtimes, it was sweet) and I seriously was into it hard core. I was screaming and cheering and jumping up. It was like a new sporty Erica decided to check in. Matson loved that new Erica and we connected on a whole new level: Sports. It was crazy and I learned a great lesson. Lesson Learned: Get into sports, and not just to get into them to have fun at games but to make the Mister happy.

I do not like the iPhone eyes.

A Little Shopping in Vegas

Last Friday (April 27th) after work my siblings (minus J* who is finishing up his 1st year of law school in California) and us two drove down to Viva Las Vegas. We arrived in Las Vegas at 9:30/10ish when we met up with my parents, grabbed a little Coldstone treat, and dove right on into the shopping.

We shopped the Forum Mall at Caesar's Palace. Found some goodies at the H&M there and then headed to bed late. Matson and Tyler had fun at the Nike NFL Jersey Release day event.

Matson at the Nike Store event.

The next morning on Saturday, the guys and gals split since the guys can't handle shopping all day. Let's just say that my sister, my Mom, and I have shopped this way for years in Vegas and know all the best places to hit. It was my sis in law's first time coming to Vegas so my mom was super excited to show her the ways and welcome her to The Richards Girls shopping day. haha.

We grabbed some breakfast at Einstein's and then headed out to the Primm Outlets. Usually we spend 2 maybe 3 hours there but we were there from about 10:30 to 5. We were there so long and only took one break to go grab some snacks from the car and drop off the bags. THE BEST DEALS EVER THERE. I seriously found some killllller deals. You guys would be shocked at some of the stuff I got and the price in which I got them for.

Some serious excitement about Einstein Bagels.

Ignore my nappy shirt poofy out all weird!?
But man, can a bagel satisfy me. So good. 

Just some of our receipts from the day. Oops?
Don't worry this wasn't all my damage,
we went in together a lot to get the bigger deals.

After Primm, we shopped at Charleston Premium Outlets. We met the boys there (no surprise when my dad ended up just letting Matson and my brother T* take his Lexus to meet us...my dad hates shopping). We shopped there for an hour or so, but really we only shopped for the boys because we had gotten so many good deals earlier I wasn't so interested. Matson found some cute shorts at J.Crew and some other good finds.

He was sitting outside a store like a little kid waiting for me to be done.

Still smiling after a full day on our feet. Seriously my arches were sore.

After a long day of shopping it was past 9pm and we met up with Dad finally at Battista's Hole in the Wall Italian Restaurant. The food there was so delish, but we ended up in a room with 20 bachelor idiots who were seriously yelling at the top of their lungs and then the next second they were "shhhing" (shhhing=telling everyone to shhh/be quiet). It was so weird. Drunk people are so dumb. The food was way good though.

Showing Matson and the guys the long receipts.

These two pretending their Dr. Pepper is like the wine at the crazies table.

After some din din, us girls took a look at everything we got back at our hotel and had our own little party. Then I drifted off to sleep.

Sunday we met up with my mom's cousins and Aunt Helen. It was great to meet up with them and see them. For the rest of the day we chilled by the pool and had a nice last day in Vegas. The weather was killer hot and only 86! I can't wait for it to be hotter here in Provo!

These two goobers acting like children. Always.

 

Laying by the pool. Shading our faces with our books.
Except Mom.

We took a stupid bathroom picture. I know, we are dumb.

I was amazed by the Aria's sweet features. Sweetest toilet and elevator and instead of the dumb little card outside your door that you want service, it is a digital thing.

Thanks Mom and Dad for the fun weekend in Vegas! We really had a great time with all the family and relaxing after a long semester of school. Just what we needed.