Category: Our Family

Kyle and I have decided officially that we are DONE with IHOP!

When I was a kid I remember that my parents took all of us kids to IHOP every Sunday morning for breakfast. Every week! I remember our family getting lots of looks and people asking if all of us kids were from the same parents. And their next question was always ‘And no twins???’ Anyways I remember really enjoying IHOP.

Later after Kyle and I were married, and I was pregnant with Ethan I remember Mom would on occasion take me to IHOP for lunch while all of my siblings were in school. I LOVED their blueberry pancakes. A meal at IHOP just wasn’t complete without the pancakes topped with the yummy blueberry topping.

Kyle has never thought IHOP anything special, but since having kids it was always a good place that we could take the family. They used to do a “Kids eat Free” after a certain time, type of special, now it’s a “Seniors eat Free” after a certain time. Last week we went to IHOP because we were out grocery shopping, at dinner time (ya that was really bad planning) and the kids were hungry, and Ethan asked very nicely if we could go to IHOP and get some pancakes for dinner. So Kyle decided that we would do it. We hadn’t been in awhile and Kyle asked about the kids eat free special and they told us that they don’t do that anymore. Ok that’s fine, but then we saw that each kids meal is $3.99. Ouch! And one of these $4 kids meals consisted of 2 donut holes, 1 piece of bacon and 1 egg, that comes to $1 PER PIECE!!! Then Kyle and I were kicking ourselves for leaving the IHOP coupons that we had at home on the counter. Anyways, we got three kids meals and shared the food around so that all five kids got food, and everything was alright. Actually almost alright. My sausage was squishy and my hashed browns were still ‘firm’ not crispy at all, they were still WHITE and firm as in, NOT COOKED all the way. But my blueberry pancakes were yummy so it wasn’t that big of a deal. The whole trip cost us $45! And I had decided I am DONE with IHOP food except for the pancakes.

Just to put that into perspective, on the road heading home from our California trip we stopped at Red Lobster in St George for dinner. They were still open and Kyle felt that the kids needed a chance to get out for a bit considering we still had about 4 hours left on our trip and it was already 9pm. And their food was great! The service was great! The waiter did everything in his power to get our food out fast so that we could get back on the road….totally GREAT experience. And that cost us about $55 (with the tip added).

So back to my IHOP story. This weekend we saw our IHOP coupons and saw on the side of the whole ad that kids meals are supposed to be $1.99, ok so WHY did they charge us $4/per kid meal last weekend??? And since we knew we would be taking Liesl and going to see a movie and that we would be out about dinner time we decided that we would give IHOP another chance. And we took our coupons this time. This trip wasn’t much better. Kyle talked to the manager about being charged full price for kids meals the week before when the ad that we have (and we brought it with) says that kids meals are “$1.99 All Day Every Day” and the manager did nothing but give him excuses that on weekends they don’t do that unless you ask for it. UH HELLO the ad says EVERY DAY!!!! So that was dumb. So then we just proceeded with our order, letting the waitress know that we had coupons and all that, and that meant that Kyle and I NEEDED to order drinks too, because the coupon said that you have to buy a meal and two drinks to get a meal free. OK so we did I had the watermelon lemonade, which was nothing but horribly sweet, rather disgusting actually. I couldn’t drink it and had the waitress bring me a glass of water so that I’d have SOMETHING to drink. Kyle had a mango lemonade, which was a little better, but still overly sweet. And for food I ordered the blueberry pancakes. And seriously a plate of FOUR pancakes with blueberries on top $8! No joke. Anyways seriously unimpressed. When we were all done, Kyle went to pay for our dinner, and he stood there waiting forever for someone to come to the register so that he could pay our bill. Liesl and I had taken the kids out to the car, and we waited for him out there. When someone finally DID come they wouldn’t give us the $1.99 kids meals AND let us use a coupon. So they just gave us the $1.99 kids meals. Which means that Kyle and I wasted our money on those nasty lemonades. 🙁 And the whole bill still cost us $50!

Ok so $45-$50 for IHOP food or $55 Red Lobster????? Um I think I’m going to go with RED LOBSTER!!! I’d certainly rather have the quality food and the quality service rather than pay the same price and be disappointed!

SO GOODBYE IHOP!!!!

We kidnapped Liesl today and went to see ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ in the dollar theater. On the way to the theater we stopped to get frosties (which the kids call “frostings”) at Wendy’s. Liesl tried to hand Kyle some money to help pay for it, but he wouldn’t take it. So Tyra snatched it out of Liesl’s hand and said “I’ll take it!” THEN she asked Liesl if she could have it. Liesl laughed and said that she could have it “IN the car”. But after that she had to give it back.

The movie was cute, and we all liked it. Ethan is already saying that he wants to go back and see it again. 3 of the 5 kids sat and quietly watched the movie. Dinah at one point was just screaming in the aisle and had to be taken out, she was just mad that we wouldn’t buy her a drink at the theater. And Chloe is just not capable of sitting still unless she is asleep, and Kyle couldn’t get her to sleep. 🙁 But hey this is Utah where everyone around us had kids too, and nobody got on our case for having a couple of noisy kids, because they all understand….Unlike the people in California where people everywhere just don’t understand what it’s like to have kids. I also now know why some people refer to that theater as the “Sticky Feet”. I sat down and I just felt like my feet stuck to the floor and every time I picked up my feet I could feel the resistance of the stickiness pulling my feet down and then that classic sound as I pulled my feet up off the floor. Uh ya so the “Sticky Feet” I get it now!

After the movie we went to Ihop for dinner. And Dinah was cranky there too. She just would not sit down. I had a headache and ya…..basically the best part of being there was getting to spend some time with Liesl, which is a very rare occurrence.

Independence Day is an AWESOME holiday. As a kid my family’s tradition was to make homemade ice cream, and we did fireworks out on the corner (until do-it-yourself fireworks were outlawed in California) and watch the movie “Yankee Doodle Dandy”. Now that I’m grown and married I have insisted that we keep the tradition of making homemade ice cream, but instead of just vanilla every year, like my family has always done, we have had fun making all kinds of flavors. And instead of “Yankee Doodle Dandy”, we like to watch “1776” which is an awesome musical about the writing of, and signing of the Declaration of Independence. LOVE IT!

Of course since getting married we don’t JUST watch a movie and make homemade ice cream on the 4th. The 4th of July happens to be Karen’s birthday, so that gets added to the plans. This year we had a family dinner at our place to celebrate both the holiday and Karen’s birthday. We had bratwurst, sour kraut, kartoffelsalat (warm German potato salad), a green salad, and cherries from Karen’s tree. And for dessert Laurel made a jello cake, and of course we made homemade ice cream, mixed berry ice cream to be exact. It was all yummy!

After dinner Laurel and I escaped down to the basement to work on a project that we had been working on before dinner, and everyone else just hung out. So since I was in the basement I didn’t take any pictures, but thankfully Liesl did and I’m just going to use hers. 😉

Tyra is such a social butterfly and THRIVES on attention. And I just love this next picture of Chloe. I love how her eyes ‘sparkle’:

Then here’s Kyle playing with Chloe:

When it got dark they all went outside to play with sparklers:

And when all the sparklers were gone Kyle started doing fireworks in the street, while the kids sat in the back of the MegaVan to watch:

I just love Jeremy’s face! Hehe….

When the fireworks were all gone they came back inside to hang out for a while, because Laurel and I were still working in the basement.

Dinah is such a crack up! Liesl told her to open her eyes, so she opened them as far as they could go!

And this picture just cracks me up too. Kyle is such a great dad, I think because he never really grew up, and he just knows how to be a kid with the kids. 😉

Love you hunny. 😀