MURDER and Other Date Night Ideas

This was an awesome week for Luku Bear because we got to go visit Daddy at work!  Marinda had been saying for the last six months that she wanted to take the kids to visit and eat lunch with Daddy once a month, and now she actually did it!  Luke was so excited that he was literally bouncing off the furniture.  When Marinda told him that we don't do that, he gave her this stricken look and said "But it is so good for jumping."  He was absolutely right, the couch in the reception area was perfect for jumping, but sometimes you just have to do things that don't make sense.

We visited Daddy's office and met some of his co-workers, then we headed up stairs to the "cafeteria" for lunch.  Cafeteria is in quotes because it is really more like a bunch of mini gourmet restaurants.  Marinda is a lot more impressed that Amit only buys salad when he as so many delicious options in front of him.  They ate lunch outside and Luke had fun looking at all the little cars below (instead of eating his lunch) and then we went home.  What a fun day!

We forgot to take pictures during lunch,
but here's one of Amit being an awesome Dad!

This was also a sad week for Luku Bear because he got sick!  There's something going around primary/playgroup, and it was Luke's turn to get it.  So Marinda and the kids stayed home for the second half of the week, but they still got to go to a playgroup of sorts.  Another family had all their kids with the same sickness, so we went of to their house and all the kids watched movies.  This was also fun because they got to see a Tinkerbell Movie for the first time and Luke likes watching the Neverbeast one over and over.  Marinda loves them because Tinkerbell is an engineer!!!!!!  Woooo!!!!!!

Marinda asked Luke if he could pick one toy for Jacy to play with during their play date.

Friday night Amit cashed in his Christmas present and he and Marinda went to the Murder Mystery Dinner Marinda bought for him. The theme was 1920's speakeasy at the hight of the prohibition and mobsters and bootlegging. Amit's costume was easy - he has a striped 3-piece gray/dark navy suit and had perfected his "doll face" accent. Marinda's costume was a little more challenging, but luckily there's this little site called Pinterest that has all sorts of great ideas. After two days of work she managed to only spend $10 ($5 for the lipstick, $5 for the shinny barrette).  She actually gained money by doing this - while looking through her purses to find one that would work with her costume she found $50 cash!  WOO!!  Anyway, their costumes were so good that these two hot shots were actually mistaken for cast members by some of the other guests when they arrived!

Who's that snazy couple?!?

There was a closer venue in Seattle that Marinda and Amit could have gone to, but they thought that a 1920's theme would be more fun than a 1980's prom, so they drove the hour up into Snohomish to this random, backwoods reception hall.  "We were positive we were actually going to be murdered," Amit said when asked later.  "I mean, there wasn't even any reception!"

So for those of you not familiar with how a murder mystery dinner goes, you get seated at a table with some other couples, and one of the cast members comes up and introduces themselves (for us it was Lou De Zar, the mobster who owned the speakeasy) and then he meets all of us, and then introduces us to our star character, who is a suspect for the murder.  It is completely random that they pick once they are there, and it was a guy from the couple we were sitting next to.  He was "Doug Graves" (yes, there are LOTS of puns for these things), and we had fun reading over his bio sheet.

So then the show begins and the actors do a good job leading the guests into participating, when all the sudden Lou stumbles from the backroom having been stabbed!  THERE WAS A MURDER! *GASP*  A detective shows up and interviews the suspects during the courses, and in between corses we got to run around the room with fake money to bribe suspect to give up the information that is in their character binders.  At the very end our table submits a guess and explanation about who did the murder based on the evidence.  We were wrong, but it was still lots of fun.  Definitely use a Groupon though if you want to do this, but we would recommend it for a fun date night!

And how were our kids with the babysitter?  It was a new sitter who responded to Marinda's plea to the playgroup email list, so Marinda gave her the run down of everything and then proceeded to do a healthy (but not too much) amount of worrying.  When we got home she said our kids were amazing. Luke went to bed when she told him to and even told her it was time to turn out the light after two books.  Jacy hung out with her for a bit, but then was rubbing her eyes, so she put her in her crib and she fell asleep.  Yeah....  In the words of Tally Turner we have aliens for kids.

Saturday Morning held a real treat for the Misras.  If you look at this blogs archives around when Luke was born and a few months before and after, you will find this random couple who apparently was always hanging out with the Misras.  Well, that one couple has finally returned to the North West and Amit and Marinda were so happy to see Julene, Danny and Miss Kate Knechtel!  Luke was a little more interested in playing with his dump truck at the park we met up at, but in true Luke style has been mentioning "his friend Kate" all afternoon even though he hardly even looked at her then.  It was SO wonderful to see them again and hope that we get to see them often now that they are only an hour away.

She looks like she's up to something...

Lastly, a big congratulations to Hyrum Joseph Slack, born July 15, 2015 at 10:15pm, 8 pounds 12 ounces and 20 inches long.  Welcome to the family!

Luke Stories:
- Marinda was playing her harp when Luke came up wanting her to play with him.  She said "Just a minute, let me finish this song."  He responded with "I'll help you finish your song!" and then plucked a string and then told Marinda that he had finished her song for her.
- It was really windy one day while Luke was playing outside (he LOVES digging in the rose garden box and will do it for hours).  Luke didn't like the wind and was telling Marinda that it was the wind chime that was causing it.  He then said that he was going to get his sword and hit the wind to make it go away.
- One night Amit was reading "Magic School Bus: Lost in the Solar System" to Luke (he loves the magic school bus books, I mean, there's a bus!  But watch out for the dinosaur one, that one is graphic!).  When Amit turned to the Mars page, Luke pointed to the canyon-like stripes and asked, all by himself, "Are those riverbeds?"  Amit was the most surprised and proud father in the world as he told Luke yes, they were.  Luke then thought for a second, and then asked "do they have blankets?"
- Luke has started playing "Lunch with Daddy," only reversed.  He packs up his lunchbox with peanut butter crackers or blocks and says "I need to get going". Then we have to pretend to be sad because he's leaving, but says we can visit him for lunch. Sometimes he rides the bus by sitting down and telling Amit to drive the bus for him, and then standing up two seconds later. He has piled up his "computers" on the chair in the living room and has told us all it is his office, then asks if we want to come visit him at work.  So we go over there, and then he asks if we want to go to the cafeteria and eat pretend lunch with him.  Then he tells us that it is time to go home and that he'll come home when he is done eating his lunch.  So now we're wondering if he thinks that is what Amit does at work - he goes there to eat lunch, and then comes home.  It is really cute.  :P

Jacy Stories:
- Jacy is FOUR MONTHS OLD TODAY!  Get ready for next week with her stats!
- Jacy is sitting up soooo well that we've busted out the high chair for her to sit at during meals.  What a big girl!
- She has continued with her career in singing.  When she yells her projection is admirable and she is actually holding a tone pretty well.  :P
- She is also getting so good at holding things, that if we prop it up just right, Jacy can hold her bottle all by herself!
- During church today Jacy spat up all over her dress.  This is notable because Jacy NEVER spits up. So Marinda took her to the mother's lounge, got her out of her wet dress, and made a little sari type of dress for her out of her receiving blanket.  Marinda was feeling pretty clever, until she spat up all over that one too.  *sigh*

Mmmmuah!

She's just so independent these days

What a fun family dinner now