NYC in Photos

Last weekend Preston and I took a trip (sans kids) to NYC. We were planning a trip to New York for our 10th wedding anniversary, but then Daxton suddenly showed up, and then Cora suddenly showed up, and we never got around to it until now (four years later). This was our very first trip without the kids, and our first time being away from them for more than one night. I was nervous about that, but they had tons of fun with Grandma and Grandpa and we had fun, too.  I will do a post with some of the things we did before I forget everything, but I am too lazy to do it today, so I am just going to post a few pictures I took.

When the kids are not around, I take a lot more pictures that don't have people in them! I always wanted to take a photography class in college but never got around to it.  I like to take photos though, even though I only have a little crappy point-and-shoot camera and not a fancy one like my sister has.  Maybe someday I will get a decent camera and maybe take a class but until then this will have to do.

A corner in the main terminal of Grand Central Station:

The doorway of the Chrysler Building (by far my favorite building in NYC and probably the whole wide world) with some taxis reflected in the glass.  Even the doorway of this building is cool.  You should see the elevator doors!  Too bad the security guys don't let you get close enough to take a decent picture of them. 

The Atlas statue across from St. Patrick's cathedral, with Rockefeller Center in the background:

Times Square in all its craziness:

Subway sign with some cool designs and clocks behind it:

The Brooklyn Bridge on a cloudy day:

More Brooklyn Bridge with the city behind the cables:

The Empire State building from the Top of the Rock.

Downtown with 1 WTC rising (cloudy again, dangit):

The Chrysler Building again.  Lurve it.  Thank you, sunshine for shining for this picture.

 One of the many subway trains we rode on:

 The Statue on another cloudy day:

 The Rock:

More NYC to come...

Camping Trip II - the Sequel

Everyone had so much fun on our first camping trip, that just two weeks later we were up in the mountains again!  This time, we decided to try and be really, really brave and try to camp for TWO NIGHTS instead of one.  Crazy, we know.

We went to the Tanner Flats campground up Little Cottonwood canyon this time.  We loaded up and were soon at our campsite, where Preston quickly had a fire burning and our traditional tin foil dinners cooking.  The kids and I set up our camp chairs and scouted around.  We found the all-important location of the bathrooms and chased some chipmunks and squirrels.  Preston set about putting up the tent, and right after he did...it started to rain. 

Then it rained harder. 

Next thing we knew, instead of sitting around our campfire, we were all sitting in our SUV looking out at the raindrops pelting the forest.  It rained pretty good for about half an hour.  The upside to this was that the noisy people in the camp site next to us decided to pack it in and went home.   (I am sure they were telling each other on their way home that between the rain and all those noisy kids at the neighboring campsite they had made a good decision to leave :-).  After the downpour turned into a drizzle, Preston ducked out to check on the fire and our dinners.  The fire had miraculously survived the downpour, and our dinners were ready!  Yay Preston!  It was still drizzling pretty good and our camp chairs each had a puddle where our bums were supposed to be, so we decided to eat dinner in the tent.  The kids thought it was superduper fun. Here are Dax and Cora, waiting for Preston to unwrap their dinners:

Our camping chef:

After dinner was over, it had pretty much stopped raining.  We ventured back outside, dumped off our camping chairs and (most of us) found our jackets.  It was nice to feel a little chilly for a change.  We ran around chasing some more squirrels, and just enjoyed ourselves until our chairs had dried out enough for Cora's (and my) favorite camping moment - Smores.

Before long, it was dark, and time for some spooky stories!  Here is Cora's turn:

Here is Dax, whose story wasn't nearly as disturbing as last campout, which I was glad about.  I told a story about some dinosaur bones that came to life and chased a paleontologist around a museum.  It is so hard for me to tell a story without laughing because as long as I am talking in a "spooky" voice, Daxton just stares with these huge eyes and a horrified look on his face.   It. Is. Awesome.  When it is his turn, he is all smiles.

After the stories were over and we were brushing our teeth, Cora discovered something that WAS actually spooky.  Or at least creepy.  It is hard to see in this little picture, but a little mouse came running into our campsite to clean up our graham cracker crumbs.  He is crouching right by the leg of the picnic table:

Ew.  Anyway, after we got all settled down, the kids did really well again with going to sleep.  The secret we have discovered is let them stay up until they are dead on their feet and then turn off the flashlight so it is pitch black dark, and voila.  Instant sleeping. 

Too bad they have not yet figured out how to sleep in. 

Dax and Cora were up at the usual time (7ish) the next morning, and everyone was a little grouchy.  We ate our breakfasts around the campfire and walked around the campground a little.  Then we headed up to Alta, planning on doing the mile-ish hike up to Cecret Lake.  Unfortunately, we were informed that the parking lot at the Cecret Lake trail head was full, so we could either wait for a shuttle van that came every 15-30 minutes and could fit about 8 people, or we could walk an extra couple of miles up the "Albion meadows" hike.  Since there were about 20 people waiting for the shuttle, we decided to take the hike.  It was all uphill, but I was amazed at all of the wildflowers that were still blooming.  Here is my Cora, in a field of flowers:

Arden wanted to get in on the action too.  Isn't see a toothless beauty?  I love this picture.

Here are a few shots of the flowers.  I wish I could have done a better job of taking pictures.  There were just fields and fields of them!

Arden and Dax were practically running up the hill because every so often was a sign that gave some information about a different animal.  Cora was still a little tired from the night before, and I pretty much carried her the whole way up that hill.  After a couple of miles, our trail merged with the Cecret Lake trail, and it started to get rocky.  Here are the kids on a great big rock!

The last half mile or so up to the lake is pretty much a switchback up a rock cliff. Cora, at this point, decided she was going to get a rock climber, and she climbed up that whole cliff by herself.  She was so proud of herself, and I was very thankful that she was finally moving under her own power.   Finally, we were here!

It was fun to see the snow that was still up there, and some teenagers had walked around the lake and were sliding down the snow on their backsides.  The kids thought that looked like fun, but I didn't want to walk around to the other side of the lake because there was no trail and because I am a mean mom.  We were all nice and toasty warm after our walk up the hill, but there is no swimming or wading in the lake, so we had to be happy poking the water with sticks.  We sat and and had a break and ate some fruit snacks and granola bars. 

After our snack break, it was time to head back down.  Cora again, bravely climbed down the steep rock switchbacks, but after we were back on the flats, I was carrying her again.  *Sigh* 

By this time we were all pretty tired out and decided to try and take the shuttle from the trail head parking lot back down to our car instead of hiking.  Luckily, there were only a few people waiting and the van pulled up just as we got there!  Woohoo! 

We decided to head to Snowbird for lunch, because by this time it was coming up on two o'clock and Preston knew that if I didn't eat food soon I was going to start getting "Hangry," which is a combination of Hungry and Angry.  (When I get hungry, I tend to get juuuust a little bit grouchy).   We told the kids that after lunch we would do the alpine slide before we headed back to camp.

We found a Mexican restaurant over at the Cliff Lodge with semi-reasonable prices and decided to eat outside since it was so nice.  We ate some chips and salsa while we waited for our lunches to be ready.  All of the sudden, a few drops started falling on the yellow tarps above our heads.  Then the sky opened:

The picture, again, is NOT doing justice to reality.  It rained.  It poured.  It hailed. The temperature dropped 15 degrees. The patio quickly emptied into the restaurant building, and people ran for cover.  We ate our food as slowly as we could but it was still POURING when we were done.  Preston decided we should get dessert.  I got hot chocolate because it was cold.  Dessert was gone, and still it rained.  Our car was quite a hike away, and there was no way we would make it without being soaked to the bone, which didn't sound like much fun.  Someone had pity on us and told us an arcade in the building for the hotel guests.  We headed in and wasted a some quarters playing racing games, air hockey (the kids were surprisingly good at this), and winning some 5 cent bouncy balls from a silly game that cost 50 cents each time.  Oh well, the kids were entertained.  Finally, after our quarters were gone, the rain had stopped. 

Unfortunately, the Alpine slide was still closed, which caused much whining.  We let the kids "pan" for gold (or at least pretty rocks) instead, since that was open. 

After that, we headed back down to our campground and dumped the water off our camp chairs again.  Preston made us some dutch oven cobbler while we examined our rocks and we roasted hot dogs for dinner.  We took a walk down to the creek, and it was much higher and much muddier than it had been that morning!  We also finally got a picture of this little garter snake that had been sharing our campground with us.  The kids thought they were so lucky to be able to see so many animals at our campground!  I, on the other hand, I would much rather have seen more animals like deer or rabbits, and not so much with the mice and snakes.  I know, I am weird. 

After dinner, the kids wanted to tell spooky stories again, since apparently that is your only option for sitting around the campfire.  I tried to get them to sing songs with me, but they weren't having it.  Spooky stories it was.  Unfortunately the kids had used up all of their good material the night before.  This time, they pretty much took the flashlight and shined it on things, and pointed them out in spooky voices, like so:  "Once upon a time...there was...a tree!"  (shine light on tree).  "Then, there was, a Cora!" (shine light on Cora, who giggles uncontrollably).  Not much plot.  I cooked a couple more Smores to amuse myself.

We stayed up until the stars were shining, and I tried again to point out the Big Dipper, unsuccessfully.  That night the kids slept pretty well again.  On the other hand, I didn't sleep much at all.  Preston snores a lot while we are camping because he is only comfortable on his back on his flimsy camping mat, and when he sleeps on his back, he snores.  Also, I lay awake for about an hour trying to talk myself out of a middle-of-the-night bathroom trip I really didn't want to take (I did end up having to take my blind, contact-less self down the road to the bathroom with only a very small flashlight as my guide, hoping that all of the stories I had told Daxton about there not being any bears in the canyon were true).  Dax, again, was up by around seven in the morning.  Me and Cora were just a little tired sitting around the campfire the next morning:

A few Smores helped liven me up.  As we were getting ready to clean up and head home, this silly little bird came wandering into our campsite.  It was not very fast, and was walking way to close to the kids.  Dax, of course, started chasing it and actually picked the poor thing up by its wings.  Preston made him let it go, but it kept hanging around our campsite and Dax and Cora both kept chasing it around and almost catching it.  Finally, Preston had to pick it up on some wood to keep it from being squeezed to death by preschoolers:

This poor bird was not very fast, and very, very stupid.  I am pretty sure it is dead now. 

Anyway, we packed up all our stuff, put our fire out, and headed home.  Everyone needed a bath and a nap, but we had a fun time!  Who wants to go camping?

Mid-Summer Adventures

We have been doing some fun stuff this summer, but I never seem to have time (or is it the energy) to sit down and blog about the things we have been up to like I want too.  I am sure you, my two faithful readers, have been wondering why I am so lazy.  So here comes another fast and furious catch-up post.

We had been avoiding the zoo since June 1 since the new "Rocky Shores" exhibit opened since we were afraid of the crowds.  As the end of June approached, we decided that it had been long enough and headed up.  Here are the kids watching the seals swimming around and around (I know there are four of kids instead of three, Arden's friend A came along).  

They really liked the seals, but for sure the favorite was this big guy:

This is the new sea lion.  He is blind in one of his eyes (see how it is white), but he was totally entertaining.  He swam right by the kids a few times, and they squealed like little pigs every time he passed by.  He is HUGE. 

Unfortunately, the new polar bear was taking a nap while we were there and the three new grizzlies were also taking a snooze.  Oh well.  The kids are happy as long as they get some cotton candy and a drink from this baby:

During June the kids took some arts and crafts classes down at the park by our house.  Here are Cora and Dax, creating lady bugs from Styrofoam and pipe cleaners:

Arden really liked her class too (no pictures, sorry), but again I have even MORE beautiful artwork to figure out where to put. 

I enjoyed the classes too, since all three of them went at the same time.  That is right.  I had 50 minutes with NO KIDS to watch.  After the first class or two when they were all doing fine, I would sometimes run around the track at the park, sometimes I would read a book, and once or twice I took a quick trip to the grocery store all by me onesies.  That's right, ALONE.  At the grocery store.  THAT hasn't happened for about six years. 

After those classes ended, swimming lessons started.  Dax and Cora were the only ones in their class, and by the end they were both getting pretty dang brave about "swimming" with their faces in the water.  Here is my boy Dax, or at least the top of him:

 And here is Cora, my little fishie. 

Cora is fearless when it comes to the water, and she can actually swim a little ways all by herself under the water.  Her form is questionable at best, but she can go few feet.  Her favorite part of class was when her teacher would put some weighted rings on the bottom of the pool, and then "help" (read: push) her to the bottom of the pool to retrieve them.  She was so proud of herself, and worked really hard.  When she would go across the pool with her teacher practicing swimming across the pool with her face in the water (like in the picture above), she spent 90% of the time with her face in the water, and only came up to get air.  Dax, on the other time, spent most of the time negotiating with the teacher.  Here is the typical conversation they had on the way across the pool:

Teacher:  Okay Dax, put your face in the water!
Dax:  For how many seconds?
Teacher:  Just for as long as you can.
Dax:  How about free (3) seconds?
Teacher: Okay.
Dax:  Maybe I can do five seconds (by now they are already halfway across the pool)
Teacher: Okay, let's see.
Dax: Are you ready?
Teacher:  Yup!
Dax:  (here he is quiet because this is the part where his face is actually in the water)
Teacher (when he comes up after about 3 seconds):  Good Dax!  Again!
Dax:  How many seconds was dat?
Teacher:  Um, four.  Do it again!
Dax:  Oh wook, here is da side of da pool.  Wet's turn awound and go back.
Teacher:  Okay, Dax, face in the water!
Dax:  For how many seconds?

You get the picture. 

Arden did AWESOME and can go across the pool all by herself now, doing a combination of the front crawl and the doggy paddle.  She also started learning to dive:

Her favorite thing to do at the pool now is dive down to the bottom and retrieve whatever thing she has thrown down there.  Cora keeps me busy when we go swimming now because she doesn't want to wear her floaters most of the time, and truly believes she can swim by herself.  Scares me to death. 

At least during swimming lessons I let her teacher worry about her and I get to sit on the side in a lounge chair and soak up the sun and pretend I am on vacation for half an hour a day.  The kids loved their swimming lessons so much and learned so much that we all agreed to sign up again.  We start our next session tomorrow!  I hope Arden's hair isn't completely green by the time we are done!

Somewhere in there we had the 4th of July.  AMAZING fireworks up at the golf course on the 3rd, and then we went to the traditional Riverdale parade with my family (I love saltwater taffy) and to my sisters for our annual 4th of July BBQ.  No pictures of anything.  I am a slacker, I know.

Here is just a random picture of Dax and Cora at Lowes.  I am working on repainting our living room (pictures to come if I ever get done), and they were "helping" me shop.  Every time we go to Lowes or Home Depot and spend any time or even just pass by the paint section, all the kids just HAVE to pick out a few paint color sample papers of their favorite colors.  Once I swear we ended up with about 73 in the cart.  Sorry, Lowes.  

Last week we went to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point.  This was by far Dax's favorite part:

This is an actual, real live paleontologist carefully cleaning off a dinosaur bone with a tool that looks like a pen hooked to a wire.  The kids were so impressed by this, that yesterday while Preston and I were working in the yard, the kids each found a rock and started cleaning the dirt off them using pens and paintbrushes, pretending they were paleontologists.  Awesome.

Here are the kids next to the T-Rex skeletons:

Dax could have stayed here all day, staring up at these two guys:

We also went to see the movie "Brave," which I really liked.  I thought it was great the way Merida is so feisty and unlike most Disney princesses, she is trying to get out of finding a prince and living happily ever after (although she could have been nicer to her mommy).  It was a little scary for Dax and Cora though.  I had to carry my boy Dax out of there with his head buried in my neck.  Arden was brave (heehee) enough and liked it too. 

We also went camping again, but I will save that for another post.

First Camping Trip 2012

We took our first camping trip of the summer a couple of weeks ago (yes, I am behind again).  We went up to a campground between Heber and Strawberry Reservoir that I had never been to.  We had so much stuff in our car (tent, sleeping bags and sleeping pads, coolers, bags of clothes, firewood, etc. etc.) that we had to fold down our entire back seat.  That meant...all three kids had to sit in the front bench...within reach of each other.  Then we made the mistake of putting on Kung Fu Panda 2 for the kids to watch in the car while we drove.  Soon, everyone was happily Kung Fu-ing everyone else.  But, inevitably, before long it had disintegrated into back-seat pandemonium.  There was hitting, pinching, hair-pulling, name-calling, you name it.  It was EPIC. 

Once we got out of the car, everything was much better!  The kids were off gathering a lot of sticks for kindling for our campfire.  Preston quickly had a great fire started, and our hobo dinners were soon cooking.  Dax, Cora and I took a little walk while Preston and Arden were putting up the tent.  Dax, who had seen posters about bears in the bathrooms at the campground (flush, of course), was convinced there was a big, mean bear hiding behind every bush, which made our hike pretty interesting.  I told him that we would probably not see any bears at all.  But, if we got lucky and happened to see one, we should do what it said on the signs in the bathroom, and yell at the bear and clap our hands to scare it off.  He spent the rest of the hike clapping his hands and yelling, you know, just in case.  Soon Cora joined in.  I guarantee that if there were any bears in a 5-mile radius, they were heading for the hills.  Eventually I found a caterpillar and that distracted them from bears, and we carefully carried the little guy back to our campsite to show Arden.

We unloaded the car into the tent, and Dax took a spill, face-first into the dirt.  Here is the poor little guy, doesn't it just break your heart?

Luckily I had a whole bunch of band aids and Neosporin in my little diaper bag first aid kit, so soon he was ready to get back to having fun.  Arden by now had taken over my camera, and documented Dax no longer crying:

 Then she took some choice shots of Cora.  Here is one of my favorites:

 Attractive. 

Then she took a picture of me and Corbie by our tent:

Then she wanted one of the tent WITH the rain flap, but she wanted to be in this one.  Here she is, striking a pose (while the other kids just kinda stand there):

Arden makes me laugh.  While we were waiting for dinner to finish cooking, we saw a deer and tried to follow it into the forest (unsuccessfully), and Arden took a bunch more pictures with my camera and ran the battery almost down to zero. Then, just before dinner, Cora fell down too.  Luckily I have still had a zillion band aids in my bag, and she was soon patched up. 

After our tin foil dinners, which the kids DEVOURED, it was time for the highlight of any camping trip (at least for me), Smores. 

Oh, Smores, how do I love thee?  Let me count the ways...One, Two, Three, Four, Five...I lost count after that.  My camera battery finally fully died after this picture:

Arden, unfortunately burned herself on a smores stick, so more band aids and first aid was necessary.  Camping is dangerous!!

We decided that instead of trying to get the kids to go to bed at anything close to the regular bedtime and then fighting with them in the tent, we would just let them stay up until it was nice and dark.  Since it was pretty much the day after the summer solstice, it took some time before darkness came.  We spent some of that time telling spooky stories.  I told one about Pinkfoot, a big pink monster that lives in the forests and will come in your tent and roar at you if you don't share your Smores with him.  Scaaary stuff.

Everyone took a turn, but Daxton told the best story. I wish I would have video taped it or something.  He held the flashlight under his face at just the right spooky angle, and then told a surprisingly scary story about a bunch of people who went camping but then they didn't listen to their mom and ran in the road "and got runned over on the fweeway and DIIIIEEEED, but they came alive again and walked around and den a bear came and ATE one of dem, but then he cwimbed back outta da bear's mouf and PUNCHED da bear," and then the zombie campers ran around the forest having other zombie adventures.  He used his spookiest voice, and I was laughing so hard by the end.  Where does he get this stuff???  It is not like he is watching "The Walking Dead" at home...more like Team Umizoomi.  Oh well.  His story didn't scare anyone but me. 

The stars were finally out, and with the days being so long it had been a while since the kids had seen them.  We pointed out the big dipper, but I am not sure if the kids really saw it or not.  After a little stargazing, the fire had burned down, so we decided it was bedtime.  As we climbed into the tent, Cora looked up at me with a worried look on her face and asked, "Did we weave a Smores on da table for Pinkfoot?"  I assured her we had left him one, and she smiled and climbed into her sleeping bag.

We got everyone settled in and read them a (non-scary) bedtime story, said our prayers, and announced it was TIME FOR SLEEP.  Preston turned off the flashlight, and after that I didn't hear a single peep from Dax or Arden.  Cora whispered to herself for a minute or two, but she was soon out cold.  AWESOME.  I was so excited about how fast the kids went to sleep!  I was soon wishing I could have done the same since Preston was quickly snoring, and it was much harder for me to kick him and make him roll over since Dax was sleeping between us.  Oh well.

Dax was up by 7:30, which is a pretty decent sleep-in for my little morning lover.  We slowly stumbled out of the tent and had breakfast.  Then we were off on a hike, but we had to call it a "walk," since Arden had declared that she hated going on hikes.  Our hike was uphill at first, and I was soon carrying Cora, who still thinks she can't walk more than 50 yards on her own.  Good thing for her she still only weighs about 27 pounds.  Arden was whining quite a bit as we climbed the mountain, but once the "walk" reached level ground, everybody was happy.  The hike was really pretty, and we saw lots of flowers and lots and lots of butterflies.  It was a pretty long hike (about 4 miles), and Cora was carried about 3.75 miles of it.  Dax was an awesome hiker, climbing over and under any logs in our way, and blazing the trail most of the way.  He was a little disappointed that we didn't see any animals, but he found lots of great sticks, so he was satisfied.  Luckily, Preston's phone takes a decent picture (UNLIKE mine), so here is us on our little hike/walk. 

We headed back to the campsite for lunch, which was hot dogs roasted over the fire (and maybe another Smore or two).  Then it was time to pack up since I had to teach primary the next morning.  The kids had made friends with some little boys the next campsite over, so they played with their new friends while Preston and I packed everything into the car.  Luckily, with two boxes of firewood gone, we only had to fold down one of the back seats, so everyone was safely out of everyone else's reach for the drive home.  It made for a much more peaceful drive. 

The kids were pretty tired Saturday night and slept great.  Cora was begging to go camping again the very next day (Sunday), and cried and cried when we told her we couldn't go back out again that very night. 

We will be camping again soon!