House project, Easter, birthday boy and how to catch a flower thief

This Easter weekend was a fun and productive one.  A couple months ago we replaced our wood burning fireplace with a gas one.  It's been one of the best purchases we've made in our home.  With the new fireplace, the mantel needed a makeover.  Remember this was a couple months ago we got the new fireplace.  It's been on our to do list for months now and this weekend I got kind of naggy, (sorry McKay) I was sick and tired of seeing this project not finished.  We whipped out the masking tape, drop cloths, lacquer and my dad's sprayer and we went at it.  It took us all day, but I think it turned out pretty nice.  We ordered a sample of tile and in the process of waiting to get it to see if that's the color we want to go with. 

McKay's parents came up and took both of us out to dinner to celebrate our birthday's.  We were both craving Indian food and went to Taste of India.  It was delicious and I ate a lot.

Easter Sunday was great.  It was warm and beautiful outside.  I love walking to church in weather like that.  We went to the Craig's for dinner and had some extended family there.  It was delicious and I ate a lot.

Monday morning I was making breakfast and noticed all of these pretty spring flowers neatly arranged in vases on our kitchen table.  I thought, "where did all of these flowers come from?"  As I pulled out of our garage to drive to work I saw flowers in some of our planters in our front yard, the crazy thing was I know McKay and I didn't plant them there in the fall.  I thought again, "where in the heck did all of these flowers come from?"  Later that day I called McKay at work and asked him if he knew where all of the flowers that were in the house and in front yard came from.  He told me Easter Sunday night, after I went to bed, he had the idea of going over to the foreclosed/vacant home next door and pick some of their flowers because they were so pretty.  I put two and two together and said to McKay, "You dug up some of their bulbs and planted them into our garden?"  He replied, "Yeah."  I laughed so hard, I thought it was funny and cute.     

Later in the day I got a call from my Mom telling me she was buying McKay's birthday gift (a Jazz hat and Jazz lanyard).  She told me that with her purchase they gave her two free Jazz tickets to that night's game and wanted to know if we could go.  I told her we didn't have anything planned and that would work out perfectly because McKay has been wanting to go to a Jazz game all season long.  

I called up McKay and told him I had a surprise for him and I was going to pick him up from work.  The first thing he asked me was, "Are you going to embarrass me?"  I laughed, "What would make you think that?"  At first he said he didn't want to go.  I told and promised him I wouldn't embarrass him and we were going to have fun and be ready by six.  McKay has been wanting to go to this restaurant called Mo Bettah Steaks in Bountiful. I thought it would fun to get some take out and eat dinner in our car before he head out to the game.  I ordered there mixed chicken and beef dish and a shaved ice. I drove to McKay's work and told McKay what was for dinner; he was so excited.  Dinner was delicious.  It was almost as good as our beloved Taste of Hawaii .  The shaved ice was the perfect consistency and texture and the blue raspberry coconut flavor was a winner too.  

After we ate dinner in the car, I started to drive to our destination.  McKay kept on asking where are we going?  I told him I wasn't going to tell him.  We were drove by the Gateway (so we could park for the game) and McKay saw all of the people entering the Energy Solutions Arena for the Jazz game and he forgot there was a Jazz game tonight and wished we were going to the game, I smiled.  I found a parking spot at the Gateway and let him open up his gift from my mom.  He loved his hat and lanyard so much he decided he wanted to wear it out.  We walked out of the parking garage and toward the ESA and then I told him we were actually going to the game.  He was so happy and giddy.  Of course our seats were up in the nose bleeds, but that's ok, we had a good view of the entire court.  The best part was we won!

Tuesday, happy birthday McKay!  At work I was telling one of my co-workers what I did over the weekend and told her how McKay went over to the vacant house next door and picked flowers and dug up bulbs and planted them into our yard. We were laughing about how funny it was and when she had the idea. The idea was how funny it would be is someone pretended to be a police detective and call McKay to let them know they were doing an investigation of some stolen property "flowers and bulbs" that was taken from this vacant property on Sunday night.  It was genius.  I asked for some assistance from a guy who I work with to help me make the call.  We now call him Detective Hansen, because that's the name he decided he was going to use when calling.  We wrote up a script, found some police background sounds, and Detective Hansen made the call.  Of course McKay was busy at work so he didn't answer his phone.  So my co-worker left a message.  A couple minutes later, McKay calls back!  Detective Hansen tells McKay late Sunday night a neighbor of his saw him with his headlamp on digging and taking things off of this property and wanted to know if he had any information about this.  McKay being the honest person he is, responded in a nervous way, "Yes, that was me.  I was in their yard cutting their flowers and digging up their bulbs.  That was really dumb of me and I shouldn't have done that.  I didn't think anyone would care because the house is vacant due to foreclosure."  Detective Hansen tells McKay by having shovel, a headlamp on, and digging through his neighbors yard late Sunday night looks pretty suspicious.  He continues by thanking him for being honest and is planning on calling his neighbor to let him know his side of the story and will be in contact with him as the investigation continues.

A second later my phone starts ringing and its McKay.  I answer my phone and ask him how his day is going.  He tells me I won't believe just happened and how one of our neighbors saw him stealing our neighbors flowers and reported it to police!  I could tell he was upset about it because McKay was in the process of applying for his concealed weapons permit and didn't want an investigation to hinder his chance of getting this permit.  I told McKay that it wasn't that big of a deal and I'm sure the police department wouldn't press any charges.  I could tell he was really concerned about this.  Our conversation went on for a few minutes later and then I decided I didn't want him to suffer any longer so I told him the truth.  His response was, "Are you kidding me?!  You got me good.  Don't ever do that again!"

After McKay got over the embarrassment of what happened earlier in the day we went and got some yogurt.  Yummy.  Happy Birthday McKay!