Kid Fun

We spent the evening tonight with our good friends Zach and Brandi and their kids doing kid stuff. It was an evening put on by SLCC's early childhood education department and the kids loved it. They spent time crafting, eating candy and then later got to sing and dance.

The Clark Planetarium

At the beginning of the year, our family set a goal of visiting one educational place a month. This month we decided to go to the Clark Planetarium. I hadn't ever been there and was really surprised at how much there was to do for free.

They had some really interesting things to see and do. The girls had a blast.

They even got to walk on Mars.

Ice Castles

I heard about the Ice Castles in Midway and just knew we had to take the girls to see it. Today was the perfect day to go since we didn't have anything going on. We drove up in the early afternoon and to get there before it got too crowded.

Online it said that princesses sometime come and visit the Ice Castles. Specific days were listed that they'd be there and today wasn't one of those. However, when we walked in, look who we found--Elsa, Ana, and Rapunzel.

We even found Olaf.

Then we started exploring. There was a maze and my favorite, the slot canyons.

Then we realized they had an ice slide. We had to stand in line for a while, but  we crawled up a small ice tunnel to a landing where a worker told us when it was safe to slide down.

We all tried it. I was afraid it would be super bumpy or that someone would get hurt, but it wasn't bad at all. It was actually kind of fun. Ashlyln loved it so much that she insisted on going down by herself (she went with Josh the first time). Sadie was nervous, but ended up having a blast and Emma loved it too.

After a while, we left to get some dinner and returned about an hour later. We heard that they turn on colored lights as soon as it gets dark to light up the ice. It was pretty cool. Unfortunately, none of our evening pictures turned out very well. We also didn't stay very long because so many people were there that we were afraid we were going to lose someone.

Sledding

The girls have been dying to go sledding and we finally got our chance. Unfortunately, Kali took Ashlyn out on her first run down the hill so there were a lot of tears and some pouting, but eventually everyone ended up having fun.

Frisbee Dodgeball

On New Year's Day we got together with the Smith side and played frisbee dodgeball. We gave Brady and Jordan soft frisbees for Christmas and wanted to show them how fun they were. Everyone had a blast, including the kids. And we were all super sore the following day.

Gingerbread Houses

We spent the evening tonight participating in the Smith tradition of making gingerbread houses. Josh's entire family participates and the girls really look forward to it. Kali is finally old enough that she was able to put a lot of effort into making a pretty cool house. I wish I would have gotten a picture of her finished product. It had a carport and a little balcony over it. Ashlyn liked making her house so much that I caught her sucking on the frosting bag. Okay, so maybe she liked the candy and frosting more than the house.

Josh and I also made one this year. Someone suggested that we make a village with our gingerbread houses and that everyone should pick a different building so we did a schoolhouse. Josh tried to help, but I pretty much took over. I love this kind of stuff. The only thing I don't like about this kind of stuff is that I never have enough time to do everything I want to. I had to hurry to put the finishing touches on, but it turned out pretty cute in the end. Too bad you can't see the benches inside the schoolhouse that I spent the majority of my time working on. Our village consisted of a nativity scene, a ship, a Christmas tree, a temple and our schoolhouse.

Ice Skating

 

We decided to do something fun as a family and headed to the Oval to give ice skating a try. Everyone got to take part in the fun, even Emma. Kali practically skated like a pro and was off on her own from the very beginning. Sadie was super nervous at first and wouldn't let go of us until we made her. Then she realized it wasn't as tough as she thought and had a lot of fun. Ashlyn needed us to push her along at first, even with her walker. But when she finally caught the hang of it she didn't want us anywhere near her. She even wanted to go in the right lane where the big kids skate fast, unfortunatley for her, we wouldn't let her. I don't even dare go in that lane. Everyone fell at least a couple of times, but it was by far our funnest experience ice skating. Next time we just need to bring helmets.

The Grizzlies

 
We used our Pass of All Passes and took the girls to a Utah Grizzlies Hockey game today, their first one. It wasn't at all what they were expecting. Sadie thought it would be boring but as soon as the music started playing all the girls were out of their seats and dancing with huge smiles on their faces. I kept having to remind them to sit down when the game started again. They were a little confused by all the fights that broke out and kept asking questions about them. Thankfully there was cotton candy. There girls were stuffing their faces with it and Emma's couldn't get enough. It was her first experience with it and she loved it.

Carving Pumpkins

Today we carved pumpkins, one of my favorite activities and one of Josh's least favorite activities. The girls fall somewhere in between. Sadie doesn't like digging out the insides. Kali enjoys most of the process, and Ashlyn is young enough that she was just focused on separating the seeds from the pulp. I was just glad Josh was willing to fix my mistakes and fill in where needed. I broke Ashlyn's stem before getting the top off and I couldn't work on Sadie's while helping Kali. So he got Ashlyn's top off, helped Sadie, and then roasted the seeds. I also loved that the weather was nice enough that we were able to do our carving out on the deck. It sure made for a much easier clean up.

But my most favorite thing this go around was the finished product. I think these pumpkins are the best we've done yet.

Bells Canyon Reservoir

The girls didn't have school today so Josh took the day off and we went on a hike. Neither of us had hiked Bells Canyon before but I was told that it wouldn't be too hard for the girls. We recently bought camelbaks and decided to give them a try. It turned out to be a fun little hike. The girls loved it.

When we got to the reservoir, we ate lunch and Josh tried to teach the girls how to skip rocks. Mostly they were just throwing rocks. Afterward we decided we'd keep going up because another mile and a half up the canyon were some waterfalls. We were pretty certain that we wouldn't get that far but thought we'd give it a try and see what we could see. Unfortunately we didn't get very far. After only a minute or two, Sadie informed us that she needed to use the bathroom. We decided to turn around and soon realized that she wasn't going to make it down the mountain. We were able to find a place for her to relieve herself and discovered that both Kali and Ashlyn needed to go too. Once the three of them were done, we decided we could head back up the mountain. Once again, we didn't get far. Ashlyn was too tired to walk so I had to carry her. Sadie was complaining that her legs were tired, and Kali informed us that she needed to use the bathroom again. We gave up and turned around. If you ask the girls, the most memorable part of the hike was the fact that they got to go to the bathroom out in nature.

The Zoo

Josh gave the girls a reading program with weekly rewards in order to motivate them to read during the summer. The final reward was a trip to the zoo.

The last time we went, the polar bear was our favorite attraction. This year, it was the elephants. We walked up just when they were putting on a show. They had workers coaching and motivating the elephants to show their ears, put up their feet, dance circles and much much more. It was fascinating to hear the facts too.

Pioneer Day

Josh's parents invited us over for a barbecue on Pioneer Day. While there, the girls put on a play / musical about pioneers that they had written just minutes before. They even quickly made invitations and handed them out to everyone before beginning. Each girl took turns saying their lines and there were short songs in between with the guitar in the background. It was quite entertaining.

Then we played some pioneer games that Cody showed us, including tug-o-war. Afterward, Josh gave a short lesson on pioneers and told the story about one of our pioneer ancestors, Amy Loader.

Taylorsville Dayzz

After a long and fun day at Lagoon, we headed to Taylorsville Dayzz to have even more fun. My girls always look forward to dancing to the music. This year Jason's band got to play on the East stage and we went over to listen to him for a little bit.

When the sun set, I pulled out the glow sticks. We made everything from balls to hats with them. They were a huge hit.

We had so much fun that three out of the four girls fell asleep during the loudest part, the fireworks. It's no surprise that they get their narcolepsy from me. I even fell asleep for a minute.

Lagoon

What a day! After learning from our mistakes in the past, Josh didn't go on a single ride other than the water ones and the Rocket in order to avoid getting sick and we left Emma with Grandma since the park wouldn't be any fun for her. So I got to spend all day enjoying the rides with the girls. Kali and I went on a ton of fast rides. Unfortunately, the Samurai scared her to death. She rode on it last year with me, but this year we weren't able to be seated by each other. She said if that happened again, she would refuse to go on the ride. Thankfully it didn't scare her enough to not want to go on any of the other rides. I just can't believe she thought the Samurai was scarier than Wicked. I did notice that after going on all those rides, I was starting to get a headache. I think I'm just getting old and my body doesn't recoup quite so easily.

Sadie needs to grow another three inches in order to be able to go on all the fast rides so she had to settle for the kiddie ones again this year.  She was, however, just barely tall enough to ride the Bat. She was so excited to go on it but told me she didn't really like it after we got off. Later in the day she changed her mind and decided it was pretty cool. Ashlyn could go on all the rides with Sadie other than the Bat, but she doesn't quite have the courage that Sadie and Kali have. She chickened out of most the rides unless they were the really little, slow-going rides. Thankfully she still seemed to enjoy the day. In fact, she had so much fun that she wore herself out and fell asleep on Josh's head while he was giving her a shoulder ride. I wish I would have taken a picture of it.

Our day was going wonderfully until this happened. This would be my phone. I thought several times that I should take my phone out of my pocket and put it in a locker for the fast rides, but after not having a problem on a couple of rides, I no longer worried about it. However, as Josh said to me, "Wicked lived up to it's name." My phone fell out of my pocket some time while riding Wicked. I'm just shocked that the employees were able to locate it. It's obviously a regular occurrence because when I asked what I should do, they immediately told me a time to return. The employee told me they would stop the ride and run a check. When I went back to see what they found, the guy had a hat full of phones and I had to identify mine.

 Thankfully we were able to finish the day out strong. It's become kind of a tradition for the girls to run through the splash pad just before heading home. They love being able to cool off and it was very much needed since I think the high ended up being 105 degrees. The only benefit to the heat was that the park didn't seem quite as crazy as it usually is. Probably because no one wanted to sweat all day long like we did. But it my eyes, it was well worth it. And I'm sure the girls would agree.

RSL Game

Josh recently got promoted to R&D Manager at work and was given 5 tickets to the RSL game as a way of saying congratulations. The crazy thing is that they were $100 tickets because they were on the 3rd row and included food. This was our view. Can I just say amazing!

Other than having to take care of a 15 months old, we had a blast. We ate more popcorn and ice cream sandwiches than was good for us and enjoyed every second of it. And the game was good too. They won 2-0.

We were also close enough to have a special moment with Leo the Lion.

Donut Falls

Ever since Josh did some hiking with his scouts he has been dying to go hiking as a family. Today we got the chance. We hiked Donut Falls and had a wonderful morning. It was the perfect temperature and the hike wasn't too hard for the girls. The only sad part is that there were so many people there that we weren't able to hike all the way up to the falls. We got to the water and were able to climb onto some of the rocks in the middle, but that's it. Despite that, it was still a lot of fun to be in the mountains and to be able to enjoy nature. We plan to do more hikes in the near future.