Thanksgiving Point

On the way from the Herbert's house (Mapleton) to the Hanna's house (Sandy) we stopped at Thanksgiving Point (Lehi) for the day.  I have a pass to our Children's Museum here in Denver and it gets us in free to all the museums in Utah - including all at Thanksgiving Point.  I have always wanted to go and spend the whole day there rather than go up and back from my mom's several times - but we never could becasue of nappers.  Now that Maddie isn't napping anymore I thought we would try it.  The plan was to go to The Dinosaur Museum, have lunch, The Gardens, Farm Country, dinner, then the new "Museum of Natural Curiosity" we haven't been there before and I was really excited - and I knew the best time to go (crowd wise) would be later afternoon/evening.  

Well, things didn't exactly go as planned.  This was our first "all day excursion" EVER and by 4 pm the kids were too tired to continue.  We had to miss the new discovery museum and promised we would return on another day - we never did.  That will be one of the first things we do when we go back to Utah.  But other than that it was a great day.  The boys loved rediscovering things they did as a child and the girls loved doing things for the "first" time (they had done all of it - they were just babies and couldn't remember).  I loved spending time with them and not feeling rushed to have to get home.

The Dinosaur Museum

Goodness, this place is hard to take multiple kids too.  I lost several of them several times.  In most rooms there are ramps to go up and ramps to go down and each kids went different ways everytime.  It was easier when I had a stroller and they all hopped on as we went to different rooms.  But they are all old enough now that I don't really watch them that great and let them wander and look at what they want to look at - buy was that a mistake at this museum.  After we lost Madison for a good 5 minutes we sat down and came up with a new plan.  After that things went much smoother.

They also had a gnome hunt throughout the museum.  They had put 17 gnomes all around and you had to try and find them.  Brock was determined.  The problem was they were tiny and they didn't give us any hints.  We looked all over and never found one!!  It was very discouraging.  When we were all done we went back to the front desk and begged for some hints (we had to at least find one!) - they gave us two hints for 2 gnomes and we were able to find those.  One was on top of this shark.

lunch

The Gardens

Farm Country
While we were waiting in line to ride the horses it started pouring rain - and I mean pouring rain.  Madison is quite scarred of storms so she was done!  Grandma and Brooke took all the kids into the little market place to wait out the storm and I dutifully saved our place in line and rode out the storm.  I am such a good mom!  Luckily it only lasted about 10 minutes.

My mom, Brooke, and Caroline joined us.

BYU trail to the Duck Pond

This my be one of my most favorite places in the world (I am being serious).  There is a trail along 800 North in Provo that leads up to BYU campus.  Brock, Noah, and I walked it almost daily while we lived in Provo.  I love walking it with them still.  The trail has changed and improved a lot since we lived there -  the river used to be a ditch with muddy water - now it is a beautiful creek with rocks, waterfalls, and wildlife.

We could seriously take 3 hours to walk this less than a mile trail.  My kids love throwing rocks in rivers, rock hopping, and climbing waterfalls.  And they all wanted pictures of themselves.  So there are a lot.

I didn't take pictures at this "new" part.  I have no idea when they added it - but right above the duck pond they made this giant rock wall with several rivers and waterfalls cascading down it.  We had already spent about 2 hours on the trail and duck pond - so we had to hurry through this part - but we could have spent another hour or two here.  I kept looking for signs that said, "please keep your children off the rocks" - but i never saw one.  I think they built it for all of our children to play on.  Yea for family focused!

Once we got to the top of campus I showed them around a little bit.  I took them to the JSB and Wilk and showed them where Jason used to work graveyard shifts as a Janitor.  I talked about how we both took classes all day and Jason worked graveyards all night.  I showed them where some of our classes were and they were thrilled to go in the underground library. They seemed genuinely interested.  We went to the creamery and got an ice cream cone.  It is funny that I felt motivated to do that - I feel like it is part of the BYU experience but truth be told that was my first BYU ice cream (gasp!).  Jason and I were so poor that we never did things like that. It was kind of nice - feeling that I had come with our four kids and could afford to buy them all an ice cream cone - I could have never imagined that 13 years ago(or even 3 years ago)!  Although I am still too cheap - I was aghast at the prices.  I let them each have one scoop.  When they got it they said, "its so little" - I lectured them about entitlement and we moved on.  Maybe I will come back next time with my grandchildren and feel like I can afford to get them 2 scoops!

I loved being on campus with my kids - it would have only been better had Jason been there.  Actually that is not true - while we both HATED Provo and BYU while we were there, I have grown a fondness too it and it has created a very special place in my heart - I can not say the same for my dear husband.  He still hates it.  I do hope our children will go to school here.  I think it is a wonderful place to go to college and start a family.

Grandma and Grandpa Herberts

The day after school got out (the morning after our chip party) the kids and I packed up and went to Utah.  Our first stop was the Herbert's house in Mapleton.  The kids LOVE going to their grandma Herbert's house.  The world kind of revolves around them there.  The rest of her grandchildren live all over the country and are never there when we are there.  (In truth they have one grandchild - Gwen - who lives there right now - but that is not the usual.)

One evening we went on a bike ride and fed some horses.

They made a beautiful lake in the middle of Springville/Mapleton that we went to one night.  It was too cold to get in - but it was perfect to play in the sand, throw rocks, watch fishermen, and walk around the lake.

We wanted a picture with the lake and a beautiful sunset - we knew the clouds were moving and we needed to get the picture FAST before the sun got in the way.  The kids were not moving fast enough - and it turns out we missed our chance - sorry Grandma - you don't get a face in these pictures.

And I am SO SO SAD about this picture.  It actually looks like it might be my first ever good picture of everyone looking as happy as we really are.

Then we went to the new Bean Museum - this is the only picture I got.  The bean museum has a special place in  my heart.  I spent days and days and days there on cold winter days with my crazy toddler boys who desperately needed to get out of our tiny apartment - and it was free.  The new one is a million times better - but I am sad our old one is gone.

Out of school Chip Party

I wanted to do something fun for the kids on the last day of school - something out of the ordinary.  My kids don't get a lot of junk food - they often don't know what things are when they go to parties (cool-aid, pringles, oreos, etc) at first i feel a moment of mom-pride thinking about how I have shielded them from non-food items, but mostly i just feel bad for them because they are missing out on so much goodness!

So I planned an out-of-school-chip-buffet party.  I tried for weeks to come up with a sort of chute saying to call our party - and if I were a more clever woman I could have - but alas cutesiness is not one of my strengths - so i set out an invitation telling everyone to bring a bag of flavored chips and just set chips on a table.

I took the kids to the chip isle and told them they could each pick a bag - they were amazed - they had no idea there were so many kids of chips - it IS kind of weird that there is a whole isle just for chips.  It seriously took about 20 minutes for them each to decide on a bag.

We planned on doing water games at the party - but it was all rainy on the last day of school - so we just ate chips.  Seriously they all eat a whole bag - I am told not one child ate dinner that night (including my own).