Go Utah Jazz!

Last night we had tickets to the Utah Jazz vs. Houston Rockets game. Mike bought three tickets so he, Carson and I could go to the game.

At about 5:00 we dropped Hayden and Amaya off at my mom's house. They spent the night there since the game didn't start until 8:30 and it would be really late before we would get back. Both of them were excited to sleep over at her house instead of going to the game with us, so it worked out well for everybody, except maybe my mom since she had to babysit a lot last week. I think she's resting up today.

After dropping them off at my mom's, we decided to go eat at a Japanese restaurant not far from where we live. I've been there for lunch before but Mike's never been there, so we decided to go there. We didn't want to go eat downtown because we figured all the restaurants would be crowded with the Jazz crowd so we stuck to our own neighborhood. The restaurant opens at 5:30 and we got there at 5:40. They asked if we had a reservation and we didn't. They said they didn't have any openings, unless we wanted to sit at the counter. That was fine with us. Now we know if we want to go there again to be sure to get a reservation. The food was excellent. Neither Mike nor I like sushi or sashimi, so we stuck with tempura, which I know isn't the healthiest choice, but it is delicious. The shrimp we had were probably four inches long. Carson ate so much food I thought he was going to explode.

We decided we didn't want to have to find, or pay for, parking downtown so we decided to take the light rail train. We drove to the station and waited for the train. As we were driving to the station I commented about how nice and relaxing it was only having one kid with us. Carson was behaving perfectly. Mike said, "Maybe we should have stopped at one." I have to agree that having only one child is so much easier than having three, especially with our two wild boys, but then we wouldn't have as much fun and as much love as we have. Anyway, Carson was so good all night long and we had such a great time with him. It made me realize that we need to try to do things one-on-one with the kids more often. I think Carson felt good about the night and I think it made him feel older being able to go to a fancy restaurant and to the Jazz game with us. He had a great time.

We rode the train downtown and outside of the arena they had some activities for kids, a live band and some other things to do. I tried to get Carson to get an autographed poster of the Jazz dancers, but he didn't want to. Give it about seven or eight years and I'm sure he'll think differently. Carson played a basketball game and a football game and then we went inside. We got our drinks, beer for Mike, Coke for me and lemonade for Carson, and some popcorn and went to go find our seats. They were on second row from the top. Even worse than that was that we could only get two seats together. Our third seat was on the other side of the arena. The place was packed so Carson had to take turns sitting on our laps.

The game was great. The Jazz won, even though they almost blew it at the end in typical Jazz fashion. It was very exciting. Even though we were clear at the top, it was so much fun being there with everyone screaming and cheering. It is so much better than watching it on TV. We were hoping they would have won the prior game so we could see them sweep the series, but it wasn't to be. Now they have to go back to Houston for two games so hopefully they can pull another win there. I think we're going to try to get tickets for a game in the next series if they make it that far. The tickets sell out so fast, though, that it's tough to get them.

When we got home Carson was really tired. He wanted to sleep with us. I ended up sleeping with him because Mike needed to get up early to go to a golf course to do a job. Really, he went there to work, not to golf. He's doing a side job so he can golf for free all summer, so it's worth it. Carson and I didn't wake up until 9:30 and Mike was already gone. I haven't slept that late, unless I'm sick, for a long time so it was really nice.

Then Carson and I made banana pancakes for breakfast. He helped me make them and cook them and we had a really nice breakfast just the two of us.

Then we had to go pick up Hayden and Amaya from my mom's. After that the teasing and whining and fighting started. I felt a little bit guilty but I really wished Carson and I could have had a little more alone time. I think he needs more of that. But I did miss Hayden and Amaya and they were very excited to tell me all about their sleepover at Grandma's house.

The lesson I learned from this weekend was that we really need to set aside time to do things with one kid at a time once in a while because it's so nice to be able to interact with them without the others teasing and fighting and causing problems. Right now I think it's more important to have more alone time with Carson since he's the oldest and I think sometimes he feels he's treated like a younger kid like the other two.

Overall it was a great weekend and I really needed a fun, relaxing few days after the week I had last week.