Over the River

And through the woods, To Grandmother's house we go!

When we realized that the kids had the whole week off at Thanksgiving, we thought it would be fun to spend the holiday in Utah with family and friends.

And fun it was! We shopped, saw friends, hung out with all our Utah family, ate great food, and played lots of games.

We were able to squeeze in the Museum of Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point with friends one afternoon. We'd been there once a few years ago and the kids were excited to go back.

It's a fun place, with so much to experience and do. (Hang like a sloth, anyone?)

(I can't believe Bug was able to build this without anyone destroying it. Of course, right when he was about to wreck it while we filmed in slow motion, a kid DID come through and destroy it, but I was surprised that didn't happen every minute or two as he tried to build it.)

Thanksgiving day meant lots of food prep. I had come down with a pretty bad cold on the drive out (it was as if my body knew that I was slowing down and ready for a week of no responsibilities and no stress, so perfect time to be out of commission), so I stayed out of the way and let me kids step in. 

And they did a great job! It was fun watching them work with my mom and brother (and Daddy-o did all the pies, of course).

Peanut even helped with setting the table.

We had a great afternoon with my whole family--they all have Thanksgiving together every year, but I don't think we have been around for it since the year we got engaged.

Codenames is the perfect game for a big group with a big age span.

We had a lot of fun with some of the "connections" people were trying to make.  

This sweet little baby was teething and not having as much fun as most of us, poor thing. But we had a few happy moments playing together.

Friday was our last day and we were able to fit in visits with more friends (some of our favorite neighbors from Charlotte!)

and another round of cousins at their new house. We now have my whole family and two of Daddy-o's siblings who live in Utah.

And then Saturday morning, we woke to this! Not what we were hoping to drive home in. I started having flashbacks to February when the same thing happened as I was trying to leave with the kids and we had a very miserable first part of our trip.

But this time, the roads weren't quite as bad, and Daddy-o did the driving so I didn't have to panic :) 

All in all, it was a great week. I keep saying it, but we are so glad we get to see our families more often--we're pretty lucky with the people we are related to!

Museum of Curiosity

 

We spent the last couple days back with my family. Daddy-o's vacation ended earlier than the rest of us, so he had to miss out on our trip to the new museum at Thanksgiving Point.

 

This place was pretty awesome. There were 4 sections, and in 4 hours, we only had time to do 3, but the kids were having so much fun. First, they explored the Kidopolis, a little city with a magic shop, a recording studio, theaters, a bank, and all types of fun.

 

The art studio had some really fun stuff.

 

Then, we went down into the rainforest which was my favorite part. There were so many interactive how-do-you-compare-to-the-animals exhibits,

 

like this sloth hang.

 

The kids did a lot better than I did, but I do think that the fact that I was lying on the ground if I didn't really pull myself up may have had something to do with it.

 

Then, there was this really amazing climbing structure that they explored for probably about an hour.

 

Our last section was the Waterworks, which also included some weather stuff, like this wind chamber with 85 mph winds and an earthquake exhibit.

 

And of course, there was all the water play.

 

They had a lot of fun there, until we finally had to drag them out for a very late lunch.

Cousins

We've spent a lot of time this week playing with these cousins. Rara and Uncle D moved to their state last summer and it's so nice that we can see my whole family at once now.

We got to go visit a couple of reindeer on Wednesday--Comet and Sven.

The reindeer were fun, but I'd say the stop at Rubio's for fish tacos before hand may have been the highlight for all the over-12 crowd. We miss our fish tacos, but at least we don't have to wait for San Diego trips to get them.

We also went up to Salt Lake City that night to see the lights at temple square.

It was REALLY cold walking around that night, but we braved it for awhile.

The lights were so pretty.

And these kids are so cute. We were missing K because he fell asleep as soon as they got him in the stroller and pretty much napped through the whole thing.

While we were there, we actually ran into some of MY cousins and aunt and uncle. Uncle D noticed some crazy person holding a couple of cups of ice cream and then we realized it was our cousin, haha. You must live in a cold place when you can eat ice cream outside when it's below 30 degrees. There were a lot of people there and we can't usually go anywhere in Utah without running into someone we know, but it was pretty fun to see a big chunk of their clan.

Only 1 more day until Christmas!

I'm a Cowgirl!

We had a field trip to The Farm on Thursday. Bean has been there before and loves feeding the animals, and most of all, riding the ponies.
She even got to meet the alpaca up close.
Now, if you are wondering why there aren't any pictures of Bugaboo, well, this is about the best I could do. It's pretty difficult to get a good picture of a kid who won't let go of you. My little animal lover learned that he likes animals better in books than when they are towering over him. I wish I had gotten a picture of him when I tried to put him on the pony--he let me know with some very emphatic head shaking and clinging desperately to me that there was no way I was going to be setting him on the back of anything that moved by itself. But he did enjoy meeting the chickens.
When we first got there, Bean ran straight to the computers they have set up for the kids and immediately began "coloring" the picture on the screen. I had no idea that she actually knew how to use a mouse! Or that she would be able to figure out what to do with this program with no instructions, but she had it all under control by the time I caught up with her. I guess kids really are just born understanding technology these days.

Tulip Festival

The gardens at Thanksgiving Point opened this last weekend, and Monday was the most gorgeous day of the spring--sunny and in the 70's, so we took a little MBASA trip. I've decided that the only way to do the gardens is to make sure there are lots of other kids there to distract Bean from all the walking she does--she was a trouper and only told me she was tired once.

Of course the water was the highlight of the day. At least it was warm enough that the kids didn't mind walking around dripping the rest of the morning.

Bugaboo was fascinated by the ducks--he LOVES animals. And he loves saying, "Gwack, gwack."

A bunch of the kids. The best group shot I got.

Bean and Bugaboo with one of our neighbor friends--we are going to miss living by them when we move.
And finally, a line of kiddos. I don't know what it is, but I love seeing a bunch of kids all lined up watching something.

In typical Utah fashion, it snowed the next day.

We hope we get more days like that soon because we need to go back and see the tulips when there are more in bloom--the cold weather these last couple weeks has slowed things down so the Tulip Festival wasn't much of a festival.