Spring Guests and a Bedroom Mini Makeover

Ann and Tony really wanted to come and see Alyssa compete last season, but the Spring Show is an easier way to watch them skate. At competition they wouldn't even be able to talk to her, and then they would sit all day and watch a million other teams while waiting to see her for 2 minutes. Plus, in the Spring Show she was skating with her regular season team (for the last time) and with her off-season training team, so there was a lot more skating and a lot less waiting. They came out for a few days, but with the busy show schedule it seems like it was over before it began. It did mean a lot to Alyssa to have them travel to see her skate though.

We decided to go to a Brewers game the first day they got here. It was early May, but for some reason it got hot just for that one day. I don't think we even made it through the whole game.


 
We did have great seats! Look at how close we were to these guys at the start of their race. Of course, maybe the fact that we were in the unshaded part of the park had something to do with the last minute deal we got on tickets. 
 
We went to downtown Kenosha one day and tried Mike's Chicken and Donuts for the first time. We have been there many times since, and I think they have about the cutest logo ever. 




 
A few shots from the show. They skated their NY routine as well, but you have seen those costumes a million times. This routine was to Phantom of the Opera and I thought this costume was beautiful.
 
During the finale one night. Taking a bow. 


 
I am usually in the locker room, but for this one I wasn't. I hurried over there after the show to get a picture of the girls in this costume but only a couple of them were left. Alyssa is well-known as the slowest locker room skater ever. Everyone else will be changed and gone and she will still be in her skates. I was probably too slow getting down there because a friend from church and one of my seminary kids came to watch Alyssa so I was chatting. Even Alyssa had her skates off, and almost everyone else was long gone.

 
I rounded up the two other skaters that were still in the locker room. 
 
I guess those are the only pictures I have of Ann and Tony's visit. It was a quick trip. The kids did each get a turn sleeping at their hotel, and they also went to Chuck E. Cheese's, but that turned into a fiasco. My kids are terrified of animatronics. Have you heard of Five Nights at Freddies? It is some dumb game where the animatronics in a pizza place come to life and kill people. Ann and Tony didn't know this so they thought the kids were just being brats when they didn't want to go. They did get it worked out though...the kids faced their fear and survived. I personally don't mind this little phobia of theirs, because I used to get asked to go to Chuck E. Cheese's all the time and now they never mention it.

These next pictures are actually from last fall, but I saw them sitting on my phone and thought I would dump them here as well.

After we redid the basement office and made it a room for Alyssa, the other two kept asking for new rooms. Chloe's room was already "done" so I didn't want to start over. One day we were at a cheese shop and noticed that it had an Antique Mall attached to it so we went to take a look. I am weird about used stuff, so I don't usually buy anything from a thrift store or antique store, but we found a dresser for $50 and a headboard for $35 and Seth thought we might be able to use them in Chloe's room. We bought them and on the way home we told Chloe we would paint the dresser. We meant that we would paint over the primer that was on it, but when she heard paint, she thought we meant we were going to paint it decoratively. She said she wanted our friend Jaci to do it. (Jaci is the one who designed our cute family reunion t-shirts) I wasn't entirely on board with decorating a dresser, but I figured we could try it and paint over it if it was tacky. Jaci and her sister Jenna came and spent a day with us and we all chatted while Jaci painted. She claims that she only sketches and does not paint, but you could've fooled me.  I thought it came out so cute!

We wanted all new hardware for the dresser, but they do not make anything the size of the ones on the bottoms drawers so we had to keep the old ones. We did let Chloe pick some new hardware for the top drawers though, and then we just ordered it in gold so it would match the old stuff. 

 
Then we just got a new comforter, new drapes a voila...a new room without even having to paint.  The comforter has monkeys on the reverse side, which is why Jaci put a monkey on the dresser.
 
And that concludes this random, disjointed edition of blog catch up.