Michael Vey

Harry Potter has nothing on Michael Vey in this house.  The 3rd installment of the series was released this week and it was a much anticipated day around here.  I had pre-ordered a copy from Amazon and gave the pre-order slip to Britton for his birthday back in August.  The date of release was Tuesday, September 18 and it couldn't get here soon enough for Britton.  We assumed that it would be mailed out on the release date so Britton was expecting it to arrive 2 days later but it arrived around 6 p.m. the very day it was released.  I walked in and handed it to Britton who was standing next to Jenna and when they saw it they both starting jumping up and down and screaming.  I know Jenna was screaming like a girl, but I wouldn't be surprised if Britton was as well because it was pretty loud. (He will deny it, of course). With so much excitement Jameson decided to join in and starting jumping up and down and screaming at the top of his lungs. Oh Michael Vey, what have you done to my family?  It's all good, of course. The author is Richard Paul Evans of "The Christmas Box" fame.  He definitely has a couple of Veyniacs living at our house, that is for sure.

Britton and Jenna both love to read but Britton has really turned into a bookworm.  He reads more books than anyone I know and even though I consider myself a fast reader, Britton puts my speed reading skills to shame! There probably isn't a single person for miles that can read faster than Britton. He'll sit down and read a big thick book with hundreds of pages in 4 hours and then answer any detailed question you can throw at him. It is not uncommon for him to read 2 books in a day. He reads so much we have to take away his books as punishment went he doesn't get his stuff done.  I find myself saying things like, "Britton, stop reading your book!" Who tells a kid to stop reading? Me. And you would, too. And he doesn't just read a book once, he reads the same book over and over and over again.  I noticed over the summer that he kept checking out "The Candy Shop War" by Brandon Mull.  I knew he has already read it so I asked him, "Britton, how many times have you read this book?"  He replied, "Uh, about seven."  During the summer he would check out over 20 books from the library and then wonder if he had enough to get him through the entire week.  Yeah, he's a bookworm alright. The fact he still finds time for soccer 3-4 times a week, piano and cello is amazing.

On Thursday night Britton had a soccer game in Layton and so Adam took both Britton and Jameson with him to the game.  The girls and I were getting our dinner ready when Jenna mentioned that Brandon Mull, a popular author whose books my kids have read and adored was going to be at a local bookstore in town for a book signing that night.  On a whim I took the girls to go meet him.  I knew Britton would die when he found out, but I decided you have to jump on this stuff when it comes your way so off we went.  Brandon Mull wrote the Fablehaven series and all of his books have been New York Times bestsellers. 

We waited in line for an hour, but he was so nice and personable and the girls were thrilled to have met him.  Jenna told him that her brother Britton had read all 7 books in his Fablehaven series in 5 days. He was quite surprised and said that was the fastest he had ever heard it being done.  So, Britton is kind of famous now in his own little way.

Jameson can now get himself out of his crib. Oy. This is not good people, not good at all. We're going to have to come up with a plan, and come up with it quick.  The next few weeks may be very interesting to say the least.

And so it begins. .

Britton came home with week with a paper that said, "Congratulations, you have been selected to be on the Thermo Fisher Science Team! Oh, and by the way [I'm paraphrasing here] you have to stay after school every Tuesday and Thursday until November. Agh, and so it begins.  If there is an academic extra curricular activity within 20 miles, Britton will find it and want to be a part of it.  I asked him how they decided who was on the team and he said you had to fill out an application, which he promptly did, of course.  I love that he wants to be a part of such things, but I don't love having to go to the school to pick him up a couple times a week. You see, I love the bus.  I love how it picks up my children and brings them right back again every single school day. The bus just makes me happy. Unfortunately, my kids keep doing activities that require me to become the bus and I don't love that quite as much. 

Korinne is hard on clothes. She wears them out, she "misplaces" them all of the time, she stains them, and she can't ever remember where they are or where they should go when she is done wearing them.  She is also very clever. At the beginning of the summer I kept noticing her in shorts I  hadn't seen before. Not only that but she seemed to have an infinite supply of them.  It took me awhile to realize that each time she couldn't find any shorts to wear in her room she would sneak into Jameson's room and find a pair of his pants.  His pants fit her just right around the waist and went right to her knee. Perfect. She wore his pants all. summer. long. This week I finally took a picture of her in his pants before she headed to school. 

She also steals his socks on a regular basis, but that is a story for another day. Good thing Jameson didn't need any of his pants this summer because it saved us from having our usual summer clothing crisis.

 

No School! No School!

 Back in April I purchased a Groupon for 5 Connect Passes for Salt Lake City.  It allows you entrance into 13 different venues in the area over 2 days for a fraction of the cost of going to each location separately.  Since I knew we weren't going on a family vacation this summer I thought this would be a great substitute.  A "stay-cation" if you will.  But then the summer got busy and we never did find time to use them.  The expiration date (Sept 2) was looming so this week we did the unthinkable, we pulled our kids out of school on Friday and headed to SLC for our end of summer extravaganza. We covered a LOT of ground in 2 days.

1st stop: This is the Place Park

 

One of the advantages of going on a school day is you practically get the place to yourselves.

 

Doing some laundry

No wait for the pony rides!

Teaching Jameson how to milk a cow-- a very important skill these days.

2nd stop: Hogle Zoo 

The kids have gone to Hogle Zoo many times with my parents on their Grandparents pass, but I must admit is has been a LONG time since I've been there.  Imagine my surprise when I saw that everything was completely different than when I was young.  They have really upped the program over there!  By this time it was quite hot outside and Korinne was in the stroller more than Jameson was. Adam caught a picture of me pulling Korinne up a hill in the stroller while Jameson walked beside me.  It was pretty representative of the day.

 

It was so hot most of the animals were sleeping, but we did get to see a great seal show, a bird show and the polar bear was very entertaining as he swam laps.

 

3rd stop: Red Butte Garden

 

Ok, we kind of cheated on this one.  Yes, we had entrance to the garden, but mostly we just used the front as a picnic location and ate our lunch.  Our next stop was right next door.

 

4th stop: The Natural Museum of History

 

 

This was one of Adam and Britton's favorite stops.  We have never been there before and they had a lot of interactive things to do.  Britton was definitely in his happy place.

 

View from the top floor terrace

Once again the kids had the children's play area to themselves. 

 

5th stop: The Gateway Discovery Center

 

This stop is always a crowd pleaser with kids.  Britton and Jenna have pretty much outgrown the downstairs area, but couldn't get enough of the 2nd floor which is geared to older kids.

 

 

 

We thought of Uncle Shawn when the kids got to play on the life flight helicopter.

 

If someone isn't going to use the stroller, I will.

 

6th stop: Clark Planetarium

 

This is where we started to lose Jameson. His 45 min nap wasn't quite enough to make it through the day.  We all started watching "The Rocky Mountain Express" on IMAX, but Adam and Korinne were the only ones who got to see the entire thing.  I had to take Jameson out and then Jenna and Britton left during the middle because they didn't like the subject matter.  (It was a documentary type film that talked about how a lot of workers died during construction)  They aren't that into hearing about death, I guess.

 

7th stop: The Lion House

 

As part of the connect pass you get a meal at the Lion House. We were hungry and it tasted so good! The kids will tell you the rolls were the best part.  I liked the rolls, but I don't think the Lion house has anything on Adam's rolls. Just sayin'.

 

Bonus stop: The Beehive House

 

Although not part of the connect pass it was right next door and the tours went until 8:30 p.m. so I took Britton, Jenna and Korinne on a tour. Adam took Jameson around Temple Square in the stroller. He had had enough fun for the day and wouldn't have survived the tour.

 

Dad, this is great and all, but I'm tired.

 



Day 1 complete! We all went to my parents nearby condo and crashed, but not before Adam and Britton watched the RSL game on TV, of course.

 

Day 2

 

1st stop: Thanksgiving Point

 

 

The kids loved the museum. They had plenty of hands on stuff to entertain the kids along the way.

 

2nd stop:  The Utah Olympic Park

 

 

This was the biggest surprise of the trip.  I had no idea what the Olympic Park was or what there was to do there so I was pleasantly surprised to see all it had to offer.  We were able to watch members of the US National team practice their freestyle skiing stunts into a swimming pool.

 

Here is someone in mid air coming off the ramp

 

Our passes allowed us to pick one activity from the zipline, alpine slide or a guided tour.  The girls picked the zipline, Adam went on the alpine slide and Britton chose to keep his feet on the ground and opted for the guided tour.  I decided to go on the tour with him so he had some company. I quite enjoyed the tour.  They took us to the top of the Nordic Ski Jump and the top of the Bobsled track and let us stand at the starting line.

 

Britton looking out over the Bobsled track

My family and I attended a Bobsledding event during the Olympic Games in 2002 from this very location.  Britton was about 6 months old at the time.

 

The 2002 Olympic Nordic Ski Jumping event took place here and it was CRAZY high and VERY steep.

 

This was about as close as Britton got to the edge.  It was a little much for him.

Here I am looking over the edge.

 

The view was absolutely amazing, but it didn't turn out very well in the picture.  I can only imagine what goes through the minds of athletes as they get ready to fly through the air from the top of this mountain.

 

 

We also enjoyed the 2 museums at the park.  One was a skiing museum and the other was a museum about the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.  We ended up staying a few hours longer than we originally thought we would and I think it was probably my favorite stop.  By the time we were ready to leave it was clear Jameson was d-o-n-e done.  We decided to get something to eat and head home.  We saw a lot during our 2 days and even though we could have kept going, we were content to be done. 

 

We give the Connect Pass 2 thumbs up.  It saved us oodles of money, especially with the added Groupon savings!  We got to see things we wouldn't have seen otherwise and had a great time.