Utah: Park with the kids

Once we got to my mom's house we were welcomed with a whole herd of cousins!  We loved it.  My kids miss their cousins and absolutely love playing with them.  It was Wednesday morning and everyone came to my mom's house to help get stuff ready for Thanksgiving and it was quite the mad house with all these kids!  PLUS I think it is extra hard on the little kids because they are more used to having grandma's house "theirs" and then here comes new cousins they don't really know and act like the place is "theirs" too.  Only after about 10 minutes of everyone being there we had tantrum after tantrum and all the moms were trying to help the kids and NO Thanksgiving preparation was getting done.  So I made an announcement that I was walking ALL the kids to the park.  Everyone looked at me like I was crazy (cuz about 4 of them were in tears) - but I knew once we got out of the house everyone would be great.  And they were.  We had a great time, everyone got worn out for naps, and the moms made several Thanksgiving sides.  

I feel in my element when it is just me and about 8 kids.

A few pictures of what everyone did at the park (see the boys in the field in the background? That's Brock, Brad, and Sam and a few other random park boys)

I LOVE my nieces and nephews - they are so fun and so cute!

I was grateful Utah had wonderful weather while we were there!

Utah: Harry Potter

Despite our generation's obsession with Harry Potter, both Jason and I had never read any of the books or seen the movies.  A few years ago our kids started coming home with questions about Harry Potter.  Neither one of us really wanted to read it to the kids - but we also didn't want them to just watch the movies.  We do enjoy reading books together as a family and then watching the movies.  We have done this with lots of books: The Narina series, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, The Little Princess, Anne of Green Gables, etc.  So this last summer we decided to jump in feet first.  We read each book and then watched the corresponding movie.  We had heard that the books/movies got more mature as the series went on so Jason was always reading one book ahead of us.  After we read and then watched the first 3 books/movies Jason decided that you had to be in 4th grade to read the 4th book.  So we stopped at three - and since then only Noah has gone on to read the 4th book.  

Anyways, our kids have loved all things Harry Potter since we finished reading the books this summer and I had heard that South Town mall had a Harry Potter Christmas Village and so on our way from Mapleton to Sandy we stopped by to check it out.  It was pretty cool.

Then "main" attraction was the wand shop.  It was quite the spectacle.  They had "real" magic coming from the wand  that made the lights flicker and even made it start to snow.  

You can gauge the "coolness" by the look on Noah's face.  It  isn't' a great picture - but Noah just loved it.  He is the kind of kid who wears his emotions on his sleeve and he was so cute in the wand shop.  

They also had a quidditch game and Brock obviously mostly hung out there.

Utah: Fun at Grandma and Grandpa Herbert's

We stayed at the Herbert's house from Saturday through Tuesday.  I am so glad everything worked out the way it did.  Debby had been back in West Virginia fixing up her childhood home to get it ready to sell.  She had been there since August and didn't plan on coming home until she was done.  Randy had been flying out every few weeks ( sometimes months) to help with with electrical work and plumbing.  Matt and Janina decided they wanted to come to Utah for Thanksgiving - so Debby was nice enough to put her work off and host all of us for Thanksgiving.  It was so great having Matt and Janina there.  We don't see Herbert cousins much - so any opportunity we have is a great one for my children to feel family connections.  

The kids loved playing around in the basement.  Megan and Noah asked if they could borrow my phone for a while to take pictures and make videos.  I let them and they came up with some pretty funny stuff.

We also played a lot of games. 

Travis works 2 full time jobs right now and is always busy.  We were SO grateful they were willing to come down from Salt Lake to spend a few hours with us.

These are the three "younger boys"  in Jason's family there are three "older boys" then a girl, then three "younger boys".  Although in reality Matt has always been more of the "older boys" and Jason and Travis have always just been the youngest. 

We made home-made pizzas one night.

And did some dance-offs.

And Janina taught Madison how to play the piano - they practiced several times a day everyday.  Madison was so into it.  When we got home we had to sign her up for lessons.

And then there are these...  These are croughnuts.  Half doughnut, half croissant.  They are from this amazing bakery in Provo.  Janina and I went one night to get some.  BUT it was "closing".  It doesn't close until 9 and we got there at 8 but is was all closed and the girl closing it down was just some young college girl who said she was closing early because she wanted too.  I lectured her about how businesses worked and we left with out our sugar fix.  Janina then woke up early the next morning and went and bought a whole box.  They were amazing!

The weather was nice enough to play in a back yard a few time!

The best part of the trip was hanging our with Janina.  I wish we lived closer and could do it more often.  I always love the time we spend together and am so glad she became my sister-in-law so we can navigate this crazy family we married into together!  ha

We went to church together and are basically wearing the same outfit - all black with turquoise necklace and our hair in wavy curls.  So funny.

Utah: Studio C

My kids were introduced to Studio C about a year and a half ago by our friends, the Birchs.  They have loved it, so I thought they would get  a kick out of going over to the BYU broadcasting building to see what we could see.  I didn't know what to expect (I guess I could have called ahead - but I didn't think they were THAT official).  Turns out I am not the only one who wants to show their kids Sutdio C and it is VERY official.  They have a tour guide and memorabilia and you are supposed to make an appointment... oops.  Well, they did well to accommodate us and took us on a tour.  The kids were in heaven and thought it was so so cool.  

Some of the sets:

Hair and make-up

Tech rooms

Then we went to the creamery for some yummy ice cream.

And last but not least we went to the Bean Museum.  At this point we have walked the whole of campus and our car was over by Brick Oven still.  So... being the awesome mom that I am I ran back through campus, picked up the car, and drove it back to pick everyone up. 

Utah: BYU Campus

On Monday Janina and I took the kids to do one of my most favorite things: visit BYU Campus.  I have a whole routine that I follow and I just love it.  I park somewhere around the Brick Oven and walk the trail along south campus to the duck pond.  This trail is absolutely beautiful and so fun and we could spend hours on the trail alone.  I would walk this trail several times a week with little Brock and then Brock and Noah when we lived here.  Sadly the river and water falls were turned off for the year - but in truth that just made better climbing!

Then we made it to the duck pond.  I brought some bread to feed the ducks.

The ducks are pretty aggressive - they have always been that way.  I told the kids a story about Jason getting attacked by a bunch of male ducks once becasue he ran at the women ducks (or the nest - I don't remember) - they thought it was hilarious.

I had to take a selfie with my Brock - he is my duck pond buddy!

I just looked through all my old pictures to find a picture of me and little Brock at the duck pond and sadly I don't have ONE!  It was a lot harder to take selfie's back then!  But here are some cute pictures of Brock at the duck pond.

Now look at us.  So much older and wiser.  (although I would give anything to go back)

Then we went and climbed more and more rock walls.  BYU sure knows how to build a wonderful campus to keep kids busy for hours (while they wait for their parents to get out of class so they can swap kids?)

Me and Janina.  I loved that she wanted to come on our BYU campus day.  Most people don't love my kind of activities (I sit and watch my kids climb on things and throw rocks in rivers for hours and hours).

We asked Noah to take a picture of us - guess he took one of him too.  He is pretty dang cute!

Megan is my little artist and sensitive girl.  She loved all the art and statues around campus.

I took a picture of Janina and Aaron in front of the Varsity theater becasue that is where Matt and Janina went on their date the night he proposed.  Love it!

We spent a little bit of time in the art museum (mostly to go potty - but Megan and I could have stayed there for hours).  They had this beautiful rainbow made of string or wires - all the kids found it fascinating.  Brock took these pictures.

cute cute cousins!  We had a great day on campus - and we are only half way done.  Part 2 tomorrow.