Pre-Back-To-School Frenzy

Well, folks, we are getting down to it.  T-minus one week until school starts around here.  So are we spending our days sharpening our pencils or shopping for clothes?  Nope.  We are trying to squeeze the last little yummy juicy drops from summer.  We went to Bear Lake last weekend with my family (well, some of them).  The drive up on Friday night was long, and was made a little longer because Cora had to stop to go to the bathroom 4 times.  Oh well.  She is very small, she must have a very small bladder.  We eventually made it to La Beaus in time for dinner and I got my mandatory Bear Lake Raspberry shake checked off my summer must-do list.  Hooray!

 

The next morning we headed off to go waverunning.  The lake is all filled up and it is much harder to find some sandy beach to sit on than it was a couple of years ago.  We had to drive all the way to Idaho to the north shore, but we found ourselves a sandy beach.  And obviously, there is not much we like more than to frolic on a sandy beach in the sunshine.  Here is Cora, mid-frolic:

 

 



Cora was VERY excited to get out on a waverunner, and she is an official fan now.  The water was pretty smooth (well, until the usual afternoon wind kicked up), and she loved going fast!  Well, fast-ish.  She was giggling and squealing the whole time.  I even let her choose which way we went, and she loved feeling like she was driving.

Arden likes to show off her supermodely-ness.  Watch out boys!  (Seriously, watch out.  I know you are coming in the not-too-distant future and I am NOT looking forward to it.) 

Watching my Arden run around, I kept singing to myself..."Blonde hair blowin' in the summer wind / A blue-eyed girl playin' in the sand" (is anyone else loving that new Killers song?)

 

Dax spent most of his day running and splashing, but found some time for panning for seashells. 

 Dax (of course) wanted to go on the waverunner with Grandpa.  He is getting a little better, but still is not as big of a fan of going fast as the girls are. 

 Arden went out with Preston first and he let her "drive" too.  She loved it.  She is officially a speed demon. (check me out pushing them out to deeper water...this is not the part where they went fast).

After we had our fill of sun and sand and splashing, we headed back for some yummy chicken burritos courtesy of my sister Amanda.  Cora learned a lot on this trip.  I showed her how ice cube trays work (she had never seen one before), and she also learned about how to wash dishes without a dishwasher:

She loved it.  I think she mostly just liked hanging out with her grandpa.

Cora WOULD NOT go to sleep that night.  I think it was about 10:30 before she finally held still long enough to zonk out.  Unfortunately, she woke up at 7:00 a.m. and was G-R-O-U-C-H-Y.  She asked for a drink of water and Arden jumped up and got one for her.  She started to have a tantrum because she wanted ME to get the drink for her, NOT ARDEN (which has got to go down in history as one of the dumbest things to throw a tantrum about...EVER).  She totally lost her mind.  I had to take her out to the car and close the doors because I was afraid she was waking up the neighbors, it was THAT serious.  She eventually calmed down, and we headed to the pool. 

I got too busy swimming to actually take any pictures.  Arden is an awesome swimmer now and loved diving for Preston's waterproof watch, and playing keep away with Grandma and Amanda.  Dax just followed Grandpa around and pretended to be a shark.  Cora wanted her floaters OFF and swam back and forth between people for a long time.  The only way she can swim anywhere is with her face in the water and her whole body about half an inch below the surface.  She just kind of wiggles her way over to where she is trying to go.  When she got too tired of that, she held on to my shoulders and made me swim her around.  We would dive down under the water and then come up.  My mom told me that every time we went under the water her eyes were wide open and she was smiling hugely.  Little fish.

Soon we had to head back for lunch and then head home.  Cora of course, fell asleep in the car.  More adventures to come...

Late Summer Adventures

We have been keeping it close to home for the past couple of weeks, but still trying to squeeze some fun in where we can.   A couple of weeks ago we went up to the dinosaur park in Ogden.  You can guess who liked this little outing best. 

Dax loved looking around at the skeletons (this is an Allosaurus skeleton, which Dax loves because of his "Big Al" show). 

He also loved the dinosaur statues outside, especially the statues of a T-Rex standing over a recently-killed Parasaurolophus, complete with a bite mark, which seems a little graphic for a kids' park, but nobody asked me)  This is a statue of a much-less graphic Triceratops, although Dax appears to be trying to feed it his arm:

 



But most of all, Dax (and Cora) especially loved the animatronic dinosaurs they have upstairs in the museum.  These have been around for a while and are looking a little worse for wear if you asked me, but Cora and Dax were both transfixed and kept asking me if they were really real dinosaurs.  They could have stayed there all day long.

We took the kids down to City Creek last weekend (no pictures) to have dinner at Blue Lemon (yum!) and look around.  They loved the fish in the stream.  Cora was so impressed by all the big buildings, and told her teachers at nursery how she had gone to the "Big City." 

The next day we went to the Weber County Fair as well (no pictures, I am such a slacker), and Cora got to see her very first demolition derby!  She was suitably impressed, but a little bit disappointed that we didn't catch any of the dozens of t-shirts that were thrown into the crowd. 

Last week we stopped by the Mrs. Cavanaugh's chocolate factory that we have driven by hundreds of times.  We heard they did a tour (with free samples at the end), so we decided to check it out:

Here are the kids watching the hand-dipper cover some chocolates:

The rest of the tour was interesting, but a lot of it was done via videos.  There was a short video about how chocolate gets made, starting with the Cocoa tree all the way through to the finished product.  Then there was a short video about the company.  The kids were pretty bored of videos by the end, but they very much enjoyed the free samples.  We also got some caramel apples since they were 2 for 1 and we got coupons from the tour.  I call it time well spent.

Our next adventure was another trip to the zoo.  This time it was my work party, and they had free face painting AND we could ride the zoo train as many times as we wanted!  Whoo-hoo!  Even though we were at the zoo and most kids got their faces painted like animals, Cora and Arden had their own ideas and asked for flowers and butterflies instead:

After we ate dinner and rode on the train a few times, we headed over to new Rocky Shores since Preston hadn't seen it yet.  We got to stay at the zoo after it was closed, and the animals were waking up as it started to cool off.  The grizzlies were all awake.  I am not sure what Arden is doing here, but she kind of looks like one of those Price-Is-Right models showing off the merchandise.  "And heeere, Bob, we have three brown furry grizzly bears that can knock your head clean off with one swipe of their paws!  What are my bids?"

Even the polar bear was awake and putting on a show.  She kept doing circles.  She would swim up under the water:

And then POP her head up right in front of the kids!

 She would swim on her back for a while, then dive down and repeat the process.  It was so much fun because we practically had the place to ourselves.

A few days ago we went to the Gateway and had lunch with a friend I have known since junior high.  I told the kids if they were good during lunch, i would let them run through the fountains.  They didn't break anything or throw any major tantrums during the meal, so I called it a success and we wandered down and let the kids play while we grown-up girls talked some more.  Here are Arden and Cora, milliseconds before Arden caught a stream of water straight to the face from that hole she is looking into:

 The same thing happened to Dax, and he screamed like a little girl for a minute before he calmed down.  I guess the water is cold because the kids decided to warm themselves up by laying down on the nice, warm, filthy pavement:

Yes, we took baths.

We had been planning to go camping out by Dinosaur National Monument this weekend, but then discovered the campfires are still not allowed out there.  Since most of our camping revolves around the camp fire, we decided to bag it and just camp in our backyard instead.  Dax saw me on the deck and shined (shone?) the flashlight at my camera right as i was taking a picture.  

 Last night was our Stake Fair.  It is an annual tradition with a BBQ and fun stuff for the kids.  They had a band this year which is always fun for me.  The kids especially liked the clowns that made balloon creations:

Unfortunately, every one of these balloons popped within 20 minutes.  Oh well, we had other things to cheer us up.  Like Cotton Candy!

 And snow cones!

 There was also bouncy houses, a (very) small petting zoo, and popcorn.  And for the finale of the evening, we stood in a now MUCH longer line to get replacement balloons.  Arden got the fanciest balloon thingie I have ever seen:

We have only 2 more weeks until school starts, so we are going to try and enjoy our lazy morning and warm evenings as much as we can before the craziness starts! 

Olympic Ideas

I haven't taken many pictures lately or done much blogging lately (or much of anything else, for that matter), but I have an excuse.  It is the Olympics. I love me some Olympics.  The kids were all pretty excited to watch them for the few days.  Arden especially enjoyed the gymnastics.  However, now that we are in the second Olympic week, they are pretty much done and they want to watch "My Little Ponies: Friendship is Magic" instead.  Or at least the girls do.  Dax's favorite thing to watch right now are some documentaries from a few years back we can stream for free called "Walking with Dinosaurs."  He can't get enough.  He rewinds his favorite parts and watches them over and over.  One of his most favorite parts is when an Allosaurus attacks and jumps on the back of a Diplodicus.  Don't worry, the Diplodicus gets away, but he watches that part about 10 times in a row when he comes to it.  He also makes Preston get down on all fours and he re-enacts that moment with Preston acting as the Diplodicus and Dax (of course) acting as the dominant carnivore.  He asks me all the time to "be a Diplodicus," but I refuse.  I know, I am no fun.  But back to the Olympics...

Since the kids are unwilling to watch hour after hour of water polo, cycling, track and field, etc., I am forced to save all of it on my DVR and then try to catch up at night after the kids are in bed.  It is not going so well.  It is Friday night and right now I am watching events from Monday. 

It should be an Olympic sport in itself to try and avoid accidentally finding out who won the gold in this or that event before I get the chance to actually watch it.  I am getting better at it, but I have had a few deductions from my score (can everyone please SHUT UP your headlines about women's soccer?  Sheesh.  I haven't watched it yet!), but I am still hoping to make it onto the podium. 

Speaking of podiums, the kids did enjoy "Olympics week" at gymnastics this week.  At the end of the class, they all got a turn getting a medal and standing on the podium with an Olympic torch.  Cora was so excited:

 Almost as excited as Dax:

Arden got to do it too, but unfortunately my camera didn't have the battery power to flash for a picture of her.  Don't tell, okay?  Cora has been wearing her medal off an on all week.  She wore it to the park yesterday and got a lot of compliments on it (though not as many as she got on her hot pink skinny jeans). 

Preston and I have been trying to decide which sport we should start our kids training for so that they could be Olympians.  We have ruled out gymnastics for Dax, since we notice there aren't very many 6 foot plus gymnasts.  We have been wondering if it would be easier for them to become Olympians in less popular events like badminton or handball or judo. 

Arden is pretty sure she could do any of the swimming events "as long as I don't hafta do the somersault to turn around."  She tried to do one an underwater somersault once and got water up her nose.  She hates having water up her nose.  A gold medal is not worth getting water up your nose, according to Arden. 

Cora is pretty sure she could do any of the events.  Every time she saw anyone doing a swimming race, she would say, "I can do dat."  Anytime anyone was doing any kind of gymnastics, she would say, "I can do dat."  Rowing?  Sure.  Cycling.  Of course, she has been practicing on her tricycle for years.  Maybe she will be a swimming-rowing-cycling-gymnast quadruple threat. 

Dax doesn't answer my questions about the Olypics because he is running around the room in his "dinosaur mode."  (You can tell Dax is running around in "dinosaur mode" as opposed to his regular running around mode because he is running on his toes and he is taking BIG, loud steps.  His body is tilted forward.  He is holding his elbows close to his sides, with his little fists in front of him, with only two fingers extended, because that is how many fingers T rex has.  If you see him in dinosaur mode, watch out.  He is on the hunt for Diplodicus.  You might be one without you even knowing it.  Too bad dinosaur running is NOT an Olympic event.)  I am pretty sure Dax could win gold in wrestling right now if there was a 4-year old division.  He will take you DOWN.

Well, I am missing some good, outdated water polo as I type this, so I am gonna stop for now.  Go Team USA!  See you in 2024 or so.

New York City

It has been a week since we got back from the NYC, and I gotta tell ya, it seems much longer ;-).  I thought I should hurry up and do a post before I forget everything. 

The kids were pretty excited about having Grandma and Grandpa come and stay with them, but when the time came to leave, Arden would NOT let go of my shirt.  She kept saying, "Mom, don't go!  Mom, stay with me!"  Heartbreaking, I tell ya.  I knew she would have a great time with the grandparents, but it still made me feel like a terrible person as I gave her a big hug and a kiss and then quickly ripped my now stretched-out shirt from her clingy little fingers and ran.  These plane tickets were already paid for, sweetie. 

The plane ride was very quiet, although I was pretty disappointed that our personal entertainment systems were all on the fritz.  I was looking forward to watching a movie or kicking everyone's butt at the trivia game all the way across the country, since this was my first kid-free plane ride in oh, about 6 years.  Instead, I proofread a 10-Q report for work.  Much more boring.

When we got to JFK, we decided to skip the taxi ($45 plus tolls and tip) and opt for the LIRR (Long Island Railroad), which cost only $7 or so per person.  I had only been to New York before for work, so I could take a taxi without thinking twice since I wasn't really paying for it, but since we were footing the bill for this one, we opted for the train.  Public transportation is part of the NYC experience, right?  Only problem was that it was after midnightish when we landed, and we missed the 12:21 train by a few minutes, so we were hanging out in the train station until 12:49 a.m. Oh well. 

We got to Penn Station after one, and then walked a few blocks to our hotel.  I know the city never sleeps, but I was pretty surprised to see quite a few street food carts still open near 2 a.m.  I was tempted to get a snack since the airplane food we ate for dinner was not so great, but thought I should probably wait until breakfast.  We stayed at a supernice hotel near Times Square (picked by Preston, attaboy!). 

The next morning we woke up a little earlier than I wanted to, because I was starving.  And you know what happens when I need food.  I get HANGRY.  Preston recognized the situation and we quickly set out on a search for a New York Bagel.  We were going to ask someone at the hotel where to get a good bagel nearby, but there were lines of people waiting to check out, so we set out on our own.  We walked a little ways but didn't see anything that looked better than the bagels at the grocery store in Utah.  We were close to Grand Central Station and I knew there were lots of shops and some restaurants, so we ducked inside.  We found a bakery and stood in line for bagels, and I was glad because I was seriously in need of some nourishment.  After we waited in the line and asked for some bagels, they told us they were out of cream cheese.  WHAT?!?  Seriously, you have nothing for me to spread on my bagel.  They pointed us across the terminal to another bakery, and off we went, me getting hangrier with every step.  Preston got a bagel in my hand as quickly as he could, and I soon felt much better. 

We headed to the main terminal and took some pictures:

Here is Preston, and our hard-fought-for bagels:

After we wandered around Grand Central, we went to the Chrysler Building (see pictures from prior post) and then just wandered around those streets with the familiar names...Madison Avenue, Park Avenue, Lexington.  Then we went over to Broadway and looked around Times Square.  Here is me in the middle of the craziness (yes, I am blinking...it is a disease).

We went into the famous Toys R Us to pick up some souvenirs for the kids, and saw this:

I missed my Daxton. 

After some more wandering, it was time for LUNCH!  On a tip, we headed for Moshe's Falafel cart for a falafel sandwich. 

It. Was. Awesome.  The falafel sandwich, for those who don't know, is a pita or flatbread filled with falafel (fried balls made from chickpeas...crunchy on the outside, soft in the middle), vegetables, tahini sauce, hot sauce and french fries (the good ones have french fries, in my opinion).  We headed to Bryant Park and savored our lunches....does anyone know where I can get a good falafel sandwich in SLC? 

After lunch we wandered around Bryant Park and worked our way back over to Times Square to stand in the TKTS line for some show tickets.  The line for the "plays" was about 1/100th the size of the line for the musicals, so we got in that line.  Tickets in hand, we worked our way to the MOMA, for their free Friday afternoons.

Here is me, with one of my mostest favorite paintings, Starry Night by Van Gogh:

The MOMA was awesome, so much great stuff in there, but unfortunately about a zillion other people came for the free Friday afternoons, and Preston and me soon started feeling a little claustrophobic.  We had to wait in lines for some of the more famous paintings (the picture above was the result of a 5 minute wait or so), and had to push our way through crowds to get from gallery to gallery.  We didn't end up staying as long as I would have liked, but it was probably more than enough museum for Preston.  We grabbed a snack on the way back to our hotel and then got changed for the show.

We saw "One Man, Two Guvnors" at the Music Box Theater.  It was a comedy that first opened in London's West End, and the cast was still all British.  The star was James Corden, and he was hilarious.  My favorite character was Alan, though, who was an aspiring actor who wore all black and walked around at an angle all the time like he was on a stage and made big dramatic hand movements and impassioned speeches about everything.  I laughed so hard at this show I was worried that my eye makeup was all over my face.  Preston actually laughed a contact out of his eye. 

After the show, we found ourselves another New York staple and dined on New York pizza, the kind that you can fold in half.  Awesome. 

We passed through Times Square again , and it is hard to tell at street level that it is nighttime because the lights are so bright.

We took a walk around the city, and took this picture of the Empire State building. 

It was early morning again, so we headed back to the hotel room to watch a little Olympics, which had started that day.

The next morning after breakfast of smoothies and more bagels we took the subway to the Upper West side.  We took a walk down Riverside Park, but the day was cloudy and hazy so we didn't have a very good view across the Hudson.  We headed over to Central Park and walked around the North Woods for a while.  Here is the little bridge that separates the wild woods from the more landscaped part of the park:

 Then we took a walk around the reservoir:

 We only meant to walk halfway around it, but somehow we ended up doing a complete circle.  Oops.  We had a lot of stuff on the agenda so we left the park and headed to the subway again.  We went all the way downtown, and took a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.  I had never done that before, so it was pretty fun, even though the bridge was having some refurbishment work done that blocked some of our views.  Also, it was cloudy which was a bummer.  Still a neat experience!

 Our next stop was Ground Zero.  We wanted to stop by the 9-11 memorial, but apparently even though it is free you have to have a ticket to get in, and we didn't have a ticket.  We could have walked a few extra blocks to see if there were any tickets left for that day, but we didn't have enough time for that.  We were able to see the construction of the new buildings there, and there were a few monuments like this one we were able to see:

There is still a different vibe down there than in the rest of the city, it seems to me, even though everything is almost all put back together now.  What a horrible day that was. 

We walked around downtown and looked at the cool buildings that are down there.  We saw the Stock Exchange and all that good stuff, and then headed over to Battery Park:

 By this time it was looking very gloomy, and it soon started raining.  We (along with a few hundred of our friends) headed for the subway and went back to the hotel to change.  We had tickets for Top of the Rock that night, so rain or shine, we were going.  Here is Preston, looking towards the Empire State:

When we made the reservations, we were hoping for a nice, romantic sunset view.  What we ended up with was more cloudy hazy views, but it was still fun to see the city from a different perspective, and luckily it didn't rain while we were up there. Here is one of the few pictures we got of both of us together on this trip:

 After we had finished looking at everything and taking a zillion pictures, we headed back down to earth and to dinner.  We ate at the Sea Grill, a really nice place right in Rockefeller Plaza (I mean, I could see the golden Prometheus statue out the window at our table).  It was our one fancy NYC dinner.  The crab cakes were the best I have ever had!  We had put on our online reservation request that we were in town for my birthday.  No one said anything about it during dinner, but here is how dessert looked:

 After that, every person we saw (the waiter, the manager, even the host on our way out) wished me happy birthday.  It was a fun birthday dinner.

After dinner it was a little drizzly and the heels I was wearing were hurting my feet, so we didn't stay out too late.  We headed back, watched some more Olympics. 

The next morning we had tickets for a Brunch sightseeing cruise around Manhattan on the Classic Harbor Line's old fashioned yacht.  We thought we left our hotel in plenty of time, but by the time we wandered over to the subway station and started waiting for our train, I looked at my watch started getting worried that we might miss our boat.  We waited for our train to come for what seemed like forever, and then it seemed like a VERY slow train.  By the time we got back up to the street, we had a few blocks to go before we made it to the Chelsea Piers, and less than 10 minutes until the boat was  supposed to LEAVE the dock.  We ran.

It was probably only about half a mile, but I was wearing flip flops.  I made VERY loud FLOP! FLOP! FLOP! noises with every step, and it was pretty embarrassing as we ran by people.  Oh well, I didn't know any of them.  We made it to the docks and everyone was just getting on the boat.  Phew!  We had to head inside the boat, which had an indoor area with tables for eating and an outdoor view deck.  They asked us to stay indoors while they maneuvered out from the docks, and unfortunately the day was VERY humid that day and it was toasty warm inside.  Preston and I were sweating after our little jog (well, Preston was sweating, I was glowing.  A lot.)  I had some napkins in my purse and we were delicately blotting our faces while we waited for the all clear to head outside.  Here is Preston, enjoying the nice breeze on the boat and trying to cool down.

 The cruise was great!  We went up the Hudson and under the George Washington Bridge, then down to the Statue of Liberty.  Then we headed up the East River.  Here is me under the Brooklyn Bridge:

We also ate.  A lot.  There were bagels (good ones!), muffins, scones, waffles, fruit, a delicious frittata, a great big ham, and then a dessert course near the end.  Awesome.  It was a really fun cruise, I just wished it was a little sunnier.

On the way back, we decided to walk.  We walked up the High Line, which is an old abandoned elevated railroad track that has been converted into a park.  Sounds weird, but it was pretty fun.  Pretty crowded, but still a nice walk, I love to skip those stoplights. 

After the High Line ended, we hoofed it back to our hotel to pick up our bags and head out of town.  The sun came out now that our sightseeing tour was over (dangit), but it was nice to see the city all nice and sunny as we took our very last walk.  Goodbye, NYC!

 We again wanted to avoid the taxi costs, so took a NJ Transit train to Newark, where we were flying out.  Unfortunately, we picked the one car that had broken air conditioning.  It was sweltering in there, but we didn't know it was the only car that was broken, as it was completely full and we felt lucky to have a seat.  After about 10 minutes of sweating and fanning ourselves with whatever papers we could find, we heard the announcement that only our car was hot, and everyone jumped up and headed to other cars.  We had to walk through 10 or so cars, but we finally found a seat.  Ah, I adore whoever it was that invented air conditioning.  Thankyouthankyouthankyou.

When we got to the airport, we changed our clothes in the bathroom ;-)  The flight home was pretty uneventful.  Once we landed and took the bus to the airport parking lot, and it struck me just how FAR I could see.  Wow, it is wide open here!  I could see the mountains, the lake, the valley.  It was so nice to feel all that space after being in the cramped city just for a few days.  And even nicer to get home to some tired, excited kids.  Thanks again, mom and dad, for taking such good care of them!