seriously?

I hate when I have to recap a whole week because I KNOW I am leaving stuff out.

On Monday we helped clean out the loft at Ryan's parents house in hopes that we can turn it into a play room for the kids. I kind of love cleaning and de-junking so this was actually pretty fun for me. I err on the side of throwing everything away though...

After a morning of cleaning Ryan got a call that he needed to go into work so the kids and I went to my mom's to play for the afternoon. We went out to lunch at Cafe Rio, made our own laundry soap (I feel so industrious!), highlighted my hair, and played. Then Ryan told me his dad was taking everyone to the Jazz game that night in the Suite. I wasn't too excited about taking our already exhausted kids to a 7:00 game. Luckily my mom said they could sleep over! You know Mady is ALWAYS up for a sleepover. The tickets were pretty sweet - - I had never been in the suite before - - until the Jazz Bear got in to the suite next to ours and started spraying confetti and silly string all over them. And then us. He is annoying sometimes, although pretty sweet job: you can be totally annoying and no one knows its you!

Tuesday I started feeling sick so I was planning on just taking it easy. Instead I had kids coming over to play all day, and found out I needed to play a musical number at the retirement home. I found a babysitter for the kids and quickly practiced a piano piece and drove over. I guess they do their relief society/priesthood meeting on Tuesday afternoon's to help break up the week and spread the meetings out. I got to play twice at two different facilities. The first was higher-functioning elderly who were more independent. I had a woman recognize the piece I played and say that it was one of her and her husband's favorites. We then went to the lower-functioning/Alzheimer's ward. It was really sad and hard. Again, I had a few people recognize the piece and I talked with people for awhile before I left. It made me wish that I could stay and just visit with them because you could tell they just wanted to talk to someone so badly.

That night we had a family dinner before Lincoln was set apart as a missionary! Which meant another late night...the Salmon family is getting so big it makes family gatherings hard. But it was great to see Linc before he left.

Wednesday we met up for one last lunch at Pizza Factory as a family. Our kids were running around in circles being crazy while we ate. Oh well. Mady was pretty sad to see Lincoln go.



Since then I have been resting and recovering from being sick and having an all-day migraine. I have attempted to get back on a schedule and start cooking again, although my first night of cooking dinner was kind of disastrous. Huge triumph for me? Not freaking out, but just breaking open a can of tomato soup, which the kids loved.

Yesterday two great things came in the mail: our new exercise bike and a new Ipod for me! I had an original IPod Nano which was recalled for some reason so I sent it in and got a brand new tiny Ipod Nano with a touch screen. How sweet is that?

Other sweet and not so sweet things: buying a 9 foot Christmas tree 80% off, having Austin poke his fingers in each loaf of my rising bread right before I stuck it in the oven, painting Mia's toenails for the first time, spending 15 minutes trying to find Tahini at the grocery store with no luck, hearing Mia say "Hello", having a tea party with Mady, and buying tickets so I can go on a business trip to Las Vegas with Ryan in a week (not exactly the exotic vacation I was hoping for with him, but I will take it!!).