National Day of Rejoicing

Tuesday was the day I turned 38 years old and we partied from sun up until sun down.  Some of my friends took me to breakfast at Herm's (forgot to take a picture), and then Adam took half of the day off from work to hang out and play with me.  That night we headed out to Firehouse Pizzeria for dinner to celebrate.  It's always nice when my birthday lands on a Tuesday because that's when kids eat free at Firehouse. :-)

 

They had TV's in every direction so as soon as we sat down all of the boys started watching football highlights.  I was trying to get a picture of Jameson smiling his real smile, but he was so intent on watching the TV I decided to just get a little film clip of Jameson being Jameson.

Firehouse is famous for their Fh'zookies but before we decided to go to Firehouse for dinner Adam had already gotten the stuff to do Fh'zookies at home for my birthday treat.

In the cast iron skillet the cookies stay warm and gooey after coming out of the oven. All you have to do is add some ice cream on top, give everyone a spoon and you have a little bit of heaven at your fingertips.  Soooooo yummy. It was so rich that even with 6 of us we weren't able to finish the 2 small pans.

We finally got around to getting some family pictures taken.  Jameson was less than cooperative, but somehow we got it done.  This picture gives you an idea of what kind of mood Jameson was in during the shoot.

 

He never sticks his tongue out but while getting pictures he couldn't manage to keep it in.

 

 

 

Even with our fun 2 year old I think we were able to get a few good ones.

 

 

Jameson's cheesy smile.

 

The photographer had to take a LOT of pictures to get just 2 of his real smile.

 

 

While Adam and Britton were gone on Saturday for another one of Britton's away soccer games the rest of the kids and I hit the annual Pumpkin Walk.  As usual the artistic and creative people of the valley brought their "A" game.  Remember, all of the scenes are made using pumpkins and squash. It's amazing what people can do with a variety of gourds!

 

Here are a few of the scenes I thought were cool:

 

Jameson loved the Muppets

 

 

Jenna loved the "Wicked" display.  A lot of the scenes had music playing and this one had the song "Popular" playing on repeat.

 

Look at Snow White made out of pumpkins and squash with yellow corn stalks for her dress.

 

Unfortunately this picture doesn't do these carved pumpkins justice.  There were 10 pumpkins with different Robin Williams characters carved into each one.  You can see Patch Adams, Mrs. Doubtfire and Aladdin above.

The Duck Dynasty display.  I love how the flying geese are actually painted squash.

 

 

When we hit the Lego Movie display Jameson couldn't help but bust a move.

 

The weather was warm and windy. We were in short sleeve shirts and Korinne was wearing shorts if you can believe it. Unfortunately "warm and windy" at the end of October around here is code for "it's going to get super cold in the next few days so prepare yourself."

Britton's soccer game in American Fork was the last one of the fall season. *sigh of relief* Now he gets a week off before starting the indoor season. *sigh of "oh great, here we go again"* I won't get on my competitive soccer soap box, but just know I'm not a fan.  I've often said our family has a real love/hate relationship with soccer.  Britton loves it, I hate it.  I wish there was some middle ground.  Rec soccer is too little, but club soccer is way too much.  The older the kids get, the more intense it gets and for what? Britton has expressed a desire to play in high school so we only have to hold out one more year after this but just know that I can't wait for the year round soccer madness to end.

"Go With the Flow"

For UEA we usually go to St. George but this year we weren't sure if we were going to go anywhere at all.  A few days before the break we decided to go to SLC for a few nights since Britton had a soccer game there on Saturday afternoon anyway.  We are fortunate in that my parents have a house we can stay in so on Thursday we packed up for 2 nights and headed out in the early afternoon.  We had some ideas of things we could do, but nothing was set and our plan was to kind of "go with the flow".  Coming into SLC on Beck St. I saw a sign for the Pioneer Museum, which was one of the things on our list so we decided to follow the sign which took us up by the State Capitol Building.  The Museum is across the street, but since the kids had never been to the Capitol and I hadn't been there since my Jr. Prom was held there in 1993, we decided to take a look around.  Jameson fell asleep about 15 min before arriving and really needed a nap so Adam volunteered to stay with him in the car while the rest of us went exploring.

It turned out to be really fun and very educational.  Since the legislature is not in session the rooms were open for viewing.  We talked about how the government works and walked all around the building.

The House of Representatives

The Senate

The girls were surprisingly interested about the details of my Prom held there.  I told them how the girls lined up on one side, and the boys on the other and then they announced us as we met in the middle and walked down the stairs where we did a group dance (called the Promenade) for everyone to see.  Now that I think about it, it's kind of a weird tradition.

 

Walking down the stairs after being introduced in 1993.
 My dress was sooooo 90's (and VERY modest) :-)

 

Lining up for the Promenade.

I even told them about the flashing bowtie Uncle McKay wore when he was announced at his Prom.

 

 

Yeah, Britton didn't care about any of it, but the girls loved hearing about it and asked lots of questions.

After my little walk down memory lane and a great lesson on government we went across the street to the Pioneer Museum.

Ok, the museum was one of my favorite finds.  It's free and has so much to see!  When we walked in the volunteer gave each of the kids a little scavenger hunt paper of things they needed to find on each floor of the museum.  Genius idea since it kept them totally engaged the entire time.  Jameson only made it about 20 min. so Adam once again took one for the team and went outside with him while Britton, Jenna, Korinne and I walked through all 6 floors of pioneer artifacts.  The walls of the entire museum are covered with large portraits of the pioneers themselves.  Every time we happened upon one of our ancestors I took a quick picture with my cell phone.

Robert Marion Kerr

Henry Grow

Robert Wilson

Nancy Jane Rawlins

By the time we were done with the Museum it was off to Grandma's house for a spaghetti dinner and then to Gardner Village for the Wee Witchfest.

It was another scavenger hunt for the girls. If you find 12 or so witches doing various things around the village you can take your paper to the bakery for a chocolate chip cookie.

 

"Witch in an outhouse" Found it!

 

 

I'm amazed at how clever and artistic people are.  The witch is reading the "Better Howls and Cauldrens" magazine.

 

This bench was just begging for a picture of Grandma with the grandkids.

 

 

Jameson is not a fan of Halloween music. They had music going and even though not every Halloween song was scary when there was one that was a little spooky Jameson let us know he was not happy. Britton was the exact same way as a kid, very sensitive about these kinds of things.

 

We finished the scavenger hunt about 5 min. after the bakery closed for the night. Rats. Grandma saved the day, however, when she pulled out some chocolate chip cookie dough back at the house and made a cookie for everyone. 

 

 

Jameson's cheesy picture smiles are starting to look a little painful. They aren't, but they sure look like they are.  I'm always trying to get an authentic smile out of him for a picture, but haven't been very successful lately.

 

Friday morning it was off to the zoo for the kids. I was dropped off at the State Archives for a few hours to try and find some elusive family history records.  I didn't find anything, but at least the kids had fun at the zoo!  I'll have to get some pictures from Grandma to post later.

 

After lunch we headed out to the one and only activity of the trip that required an entrance fee. The Aquarium.

 

 

It just opened in the last year and we thought it would be entertaining for both the older and younger kids and we were right.  They all loved it. Britton got to read details about all of the different species and Jameson got to say, "Oooh, fish!" It was a win-win.

 

 

We arrived just in time for the penguin feeding. I didn't get a picture of them eating, but here are a few swimming and hanging out.



Korinne touching a starfish

 The shark observation tunnel was cool.

In the South American exhibit they had a suspension bridge you could walk across.  Jameson got in line to do it about 4 times.

 

Britton had a soccer game on Saturday afternoon so in the morning we went to a cool park that I used to take the kids to when we lived in the area.

 

 

Jameson found the train, of course.

 

 

Before too long it was time to get Britton to the soccer field 1 hr before game time. 

 

Britton's coach has him playing defense this year and Britton isn't loving it as much because he doesn't get as much action during the game. The reason he is playing defense, however, is that he is really good at it. In fact his team has the best defense in the club right now and no team has been able to score on anything other than a penalty kick the entire season.

 

On Saturday they were up 4-0 at the half so coach let Britton play up during the second half.  Britton scored a goal and had a nice assist to finish off the game. It was a fun game for him.

 

Adam came down with quite a nasty cold on the trip so I hope that Bishoping today doesn't require him to talk too much.  He doesn't get sick very often, but when he does he gets really sick.

 

 

This came in the mail while we were gone. What is it? A lotion warmer. Yes, they actually make lotion warmers and we bought one. You see, HRH Prince Jameson does NOT like cold lotion to be put on his skin.  Unfortunately during the fall and winter his skin really dries out and if we don't slather him with lotion on a daily basis it gets really bad.  The lotion battle was getting to be too much for me, something had to be done. One day he even asked me why I put the lotion in the fridge before putting it on his legs!  I finally looked up "lotion warmer" on amazon and was able to find one that was reasonably priced.  The lotion comes out nice and warm and today was the first day in a long time we didn't have a lotion fight. Ahh, it was nice.  Now I just need to find a way to get him to stop fighting me while brushing his teeth. . .