"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. . .