Friday, November 26, 2010

Yes that's a snowball

Guess what Jasper ate...

A TEA BAG.

Seriously. What dog eats a TEA BAG off the counter?!

She baffles me.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Contrast

We've had INCREDIBLY cold weather. As in single digit highs and below 0 lows. Brrrrrrrrr. Why does weather like this even exist?!?!

But we did get some snow, so Archer got to have his first "real" experience with snow. Last year we didn't get much snow at all, and he was too little to enjoy it. This year...
The picture speaks for itself. He LOVED the sled. And then he LOVED plunging himself into the snow. I wish I had a picture of it, but I was too busy trying to keep him sort of upright since his snowsuit inhibited his motor skills!


The big boys. B on the left, P on the right. They helped John shovel the driveway, and built a little sledding hill. My little daredevils. Bryton made it almost to the street!


And in contrast to the unbelievably cold temperatures and snow, my little lemon plant! A little piece of summer in the midst of winter. We've had a couple of lemons grow so far, but we picked them before they reached maturity to try to get the plant itself to grow a little. I think this one is actually going to ripen!
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Bad Dog

I find it amusing that the most consistent word (well, words) in Archer's vocabulary are "Bad Dog" which he uses repeatedly throughout the day. Most used time of day: meal time, when Jasper is lurking around Archer's chair hoping for a handout (which she usually gets).

I still have more pictures from our trip (I know, they're never-ending), and now some snow pictures. I'm just incredibly behind. Hmmm...maybe the fact that I have 3 house-bound boys and 1 dog who refuses to go out in the snow for more than 2 seconds at a time has something to do with it. Add that to the fact that I just finished the bulk of my Christmas shopping (yay!), but I have some sewing projects on the agenda for the boys that will hopefully be Christmas presents...yeah, the blog is getting neglected.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

QOTD

QOTD: "God is bigger than the boogie man...and Inspector Gadget!" -Preston

Friday, November 19, 2010

The Olympic Park

Obviously we had to make a trip to the Olympic Park since we stayed in Park City! We happened to be there when they were doing some sort of Bobsled trials, so we even got to watch a few bobsled runs. It was pretty cool to see - it definitely looks MUCH faster in real life than on TV.
P&B in a bobsled at the Olympic museum


Future Olympian?!


Watching the bobsleds. You can see the bobsled coming towards the far left of the pic. As I mentioned before, I forgot our camera (ugh) so John didn't quite have the timing mastered on the new one. Bryton was actually a little bit intimidated by the bobsleds - they were pretty loud and he didn't want to be anywhere near the track. It was pretty fun to watch them zooming past though (and he did enjoy watching them...from a distance!).
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Thursday, November 18, 2010

The Aquarium

Sorry for the massive amounts of "picture posts." I no longer pretend to be a scrapbooker, so this will have to do! :)
And continuing on with our vacation...

The Living Planet Aquarium. The boys loved it. John and I thought it was a bit of a rip-off. Too much money for too small of a space! P & B are into all-things-under-the-water so obviously it was a hit with them, and the $2 toy turtles that they purchased in the gift shop kept them occupied for the rest of the trip with lots of games of Hide the Turtle.

Faux-boat that they had set up on a "dock" - a lot of the aquarium seemed geared toward older kids, like the steering wheel selected different facts on a computer screen. Not exactly practical for kids who can't read, but driving the boat was exciting nonetheless!

Petting the sting-rays! This was by far the most exciting part for Preston (along with the sting-ray "sting" simulator...he seemed to think it was fun to shock himself repeatedly).

Crocodile!
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Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Hogle Zoo

Next up: the zoo!

Coming from Portland, we had high expectations, but it was a lot of fun. Some areas were under construction, but it still took us a few hours to see all the animals.

Boys & Elephants

And they even had a baby elephant!

The Rainforest


Creepy vulture that I thought was a statue at first...it was like this the entire time we were watching it!

Lunch time!

We decided that the giraffes had a system worked out. As soon as this guy finished eating, he went inside and the other one immediately came out. Clock work...or they just really didn't like each other.

The small animals were so friendly! This meerkat ran back and forth between us the entire time we stood there, and there was a funny squirrel who started doing crazy jumping tricks as soon as we got in his sight.


We even managed to convince Archer to ride in the stroller...for only about 5 minutes and only if he was holding this leaf, but it's a start.

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Museum of Ancient Life

What could be better than dinosaur bones?! The boys were in awe at how big the dinosaurs were, and they loved all the hands-on exhibits. Favorites were the sand/water table (it had little dinosaurs and trees, plus the water had a current to wash away the sand "banks") and digging for dino bones in the gigantic sandboxes. Least favorite: the huge shark. Both P & B were a little scared of it!




Scary shark! B is trying to escape.

Playing in the sand & water with the dinosaurs


Even Archer got in on the fun

Digging for bones!
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Thanksgiving Point

Thanksgiving Point is just outside of Salt Lake...it's basically a big complex that has different areas in it. We went to Farm Country and the Museum of Ancient Life.

Farm Country!

Preston loved riding the ponies, but Bryton refused to even sit on one (or pet one for that matter!)

Jailbirds! They had a little kid-sized town that included a jail and dance hall. The boys were in heaven!



And the best part of Farm Country...
They had a whole farm set up where the kids could plant and harvest the veggies/fruits, load them on a conveyor belt truck, and unload them into the store. The boys did this for over an hour, and still weren't ready to leave! I'm definitely going to have to figure out a way to build something like this in our playroom.
Archie standing on the garden

unloading the truck!

Farmer B and Arch

Planting



Harvesting fruit from the tree
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The Trip, Part 1

Well we are finally back from our road trip. 2 weeks, 4 different hotels, and about 35 hrs of driving. Yikes. We had SO much fun, but it was definitely time to get home!

Our first destination was Park City, Utah, but we stopped in Montana on our way since there was no way we were going to drive over 12 hrs in one shot! John had a conference near Park City but the class was only 2 days, so we had lots of time to explore the area (and go swimming in the nice warm pools).

I was so proud of myself for packing everything while John was at work so we could leave right away and stop in Montana at a reasonable hour, but turns out I forgot both the laptop and the camera. Grrrrrrrr. We stopped at Costco and bought a cheap-o camera, so the picture quality is so-so, but at least we were able to document the trip!

The pools! They were all outdoor, but they were so warm it didn't matter.


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Tuesday, November 9, 2010

QOTD

"I always keep it safe...and STYLISH!" - Preston

Monday, November 8, 2010

night time swim at Park City with snow on the ground!

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Friday, November 5, 2010

Sad ski lift in Park City...one lonely patch of snow! At least the pools are nice and warm! :)