Spring Break-Days Five and Six

Chris worked from Brad's house on Thursday while the girls and I engaged in a little cleaning activity. You'd have thought I asked them to scale the Eiffel Tower without climbing gear...but no, it was just to vacuum Brad's house. Their chores were finally completed, but not without a lot of complaining.

Today was my turn for an eye exam. Somehow I walked away with some blingy Tiffany glasses on order. They (as in my brothers) say you just can't have too many pairs of glasses. Well, never having had to wear any but sunglasses, I think I'll just start with one pair.

During my eye exam, Chris took the girls food storage shopping looking for the elusive canned bacon. I know, it does sound a bit yuck, but I tried a morsel and it wasn't too bad. We followed that up with lunch at Arctic Circle--a first for me and the girls.

Off to temple square. We had been told there was a small section in the museum on temple square that was dedicated to children, so we thought it would be fun to take a look. Kristen and Amy loved dancing in the big skirts and would have stayed at that exhibit all day, but sadly, other children wanted to dance too.





I am still working on taking indoor pictures in manual mode. I deleted at least half of my pictures because the shutter speed made them too blurry. My camera has some limitations, and I have a definite learning-curve to work with, so no critiques of my picture-taking. Someday....





We headed over to Temple Square after leaving the museum and wandered around for a bit. We were just a week, maybe two, shy of beautiful Spring blooms and blossoming trees. It was fun regardless. Kind of gave the girls a good reference point for watching General Conference this weekend.





We were on the road to Rock Springs, WY just after 4:30 pm. I know, Rock Springs. Woohoo. Chris had meetings Thursday afternoon to be home for, and it just seemed to be an easier option to get him home in time to be fresh for his presentation. The girls loved the two-bedroom room we stayed in. Can't say that Chris or I were complaining either!



Chris had a short meeting at 9:30 am Thursday morning before we left. While he was on the phone, Amy and I packed up the van and we were ready to go when he hung up at 9:45.

I love having a DVD-player in my van. It sure makes travel easy. Kristen still asks, "Are we there yet?" dozens of times, but at least she has something to keep her occupied.

Spring Break-Day Four

Every time I have been to Utah in the past three or four years, I have said that I really wanted to go to IKEA. And it never happened. We were always too busy going here and there that there just wasn't time--until Spring Break 2011. Getting there wasn't so intuitive for me or the GPS. In fact, I put IKEA in to the GPS and it came up with "Mike Auto Service" and Spike A-something. We finally backtracked from 123rd back to the Bangerter exit and voila! we were parking in no time.

It was a pretty cool place to shop. We spent three hours looking around and having lunch and when we got directions on how to exit, we went through areas we hadn't even been in. My sister came with us and we spent the early part of the day together.

After leaving IKEA, I took the girls up to my brothers' Optometry practice, Hidden Valley Eye Care, for eye exams. I recommend them if you are looking for an optometrist or cool sunglasses--Maui Jim, Tiffany, Chanel, Oakley--to name a few. Brad was kind enough to examine all three girls. They are all a bit far-sighted, but seem to have no issues with close-up reading. So, that's good.

This was Kristen trying to follow the tiny dot. Her expression was pretty hilarious, even Brad thought it was picture-worthy and recreated the moment once the girls had retrieved my camera.





After dinner, we met up with Shane and Mitch and my parents at La Hacienda for dinner. Interesting fact: growing up in Southern Alberta, the only Mexican food we ever had was from Taco Time. You can find a Chinese-food restaurant on almost every corner, but no Mexican. I have loved Mexican food since emigrating from Canada...my parents are slowly coming to terms with it.

Spring Break-Day Three

There's not supposed to be SNOW on Spring Break!!!!! Who planned that? Can't say that we had tremendous weather at all while in Utah. And that's not so great when I forgot my jacket at home...along with my cell phone. Thanks to my sister for letting me borrow hers.

So, this wasn't really a vacation for Chris. It was the end of his fiscal year and he had people to see in Utah. The girls and I set out to have fun. First stop, Cabela's. Okay, so seeing the fish only takes about three minutes, five if the fish are really intriguing. We didn't spend much time at Cabela's as we planned to meet Susan, Carson and their younger kids as well as my sister-in-law, Donna, and her four kids at Discovery Gateway (a Children's Museum) in downtown Salt Lake City. Fortunately, I looked at the location of the museum on Google maps before I left, because the GPS never recognized the address I put in. Anyone want a GPS?



We parked and tried to figure out where to go but ended up asking a Dick's employee. We located the food court, ate a quick lunch and met up with the others at the museum around 1:30. Thanks again to our Denver Museum of Nature and Science membership. FREE! We spent the next three hours with kids running here and there and trying not to get trampled by little kids pushing mini grocery carts.





Cousins:











We left downtown around 4:30 in order to make it back to my brother's house by 5:15 and from there to our friends' home in Spanish Fork by 6 pm. I'm pretty sure we arrived a little late. Brett and Deni, thanks for hosting a fun evening and inviting Fenns. We had a wonderful time.

The only complaint as we arrived back at my brothers was that neither Amy nor Misha wanted to sleep with Kristen because she snored. I think she must have had some allergies because she was stuffy the entire time we were in Utah...and she snored. So Chris and she scouted out a new place to put her mattress--under the stairs in her own cool bedroom. She was happy with that and dreamily snored away for the next couple of nights. Amy and Misha didn't complain anymore, at least not about her snoring.

Spring Break-Day Two

We opted to attend my brother, Dallin's, ward at 11:00 am on Sunday morning. It turned out to be quite a neat day. My brother, Brad, attended along with my parents. At the beginning of the meeting it was announced that their ward was going to be split. Dallin was called as the 2nd counselor of the new Bishopric. He had only known since earlier that morning about the calling. The fact that we were there, along with my parents, was purely coincidental, but not, as I pondered on the prompting Chris and I had felt to come to Utah for Spring Break.

We had originally planned to only attend Sacrament meeting and then go to Shane and Rochelle Allred's for lunch. We still went for lunch, but called to postpone a little as we were able to be present for the setting apart of this new bishopric. My youngest brother, Mitch, who attends a singles ward in the same building, had no idea about Dallin's new calling as he stopped to visit with us as Sacrament meeting was over. It was pretty neat to have Chris, my dad, and two of my brothers helping to set Dallin apart.

We enjoyed a delightful afternoon at the Allreds. Before arriving, our girls weren't sure they remembered the Allred kids, but quickly got over any shyness to play and have fun. Isn't that an amazing quality about kids? They make friends, renew friendships, and show kindness so easily. Chris and I enjoyed a great afternoon talking and laughing with Shane and Rochelle. Perhaps someday we'll see them moving back to Colorado.

From the Allreds, we headed back up the hill to Dallin and Donna's for another family dinner. They had recently moved to their new home and it was the first opportunity for us to visit. Such an amazing view. The traffic at Traverse Mountain might be horrendous, but the views can certainly be breathtaking. And getting together with family is always wonderful for laughs and reminiscing.

My four brothers, youngest to oldest:





As I am busily taking pictures, I snapped this one of Shane in this lovely sweater. He then remarked something to the effect, "Shoot, I forgot about your blog." If you want to explain about the sweater, Shane, you can leave a comment.





My parents:

Spring Break-Day One

Our children were looking forward with great anticipation to their Spring Break trip this year. We signed Amy and Misha out of school early on Friday afternoon so we could leave early and so that we wouldn't have to drive through much of Wyoming or Utah in the dark. You never know what the weather is going to be like. All three girls were giddy with excitement. Barring a few road detours just a short distance from my brother's home and a GPS malfunction, we made our trip in fairly good time. Note to self, use the newer GPS next time. We were looking for Wendys in Evanston, and it had us driving through neighborhoods and back streets. We finally arrived in Lehi in time to put girls to bed, watched the final minutes of a basketball game, and headed to bed ourselves.

One of the main reasons my girls were so excited to visit Utah was to see their cousins. That is a definite drawback to living so far from family. My sister's youngest was baptized on Saturday morning in Orem. We arrived with plenty of time to spare and had fun greeting family as they arrived. My parents even drove down from Southern Alberta to attend the baptism.

My sister:



After the baptism, my sister, Susan, had planned a luncheon for family. It took cousins no time at all to let their friendships take off from where they had been the last time we were all together.

After cleaning up from lunch, we headed over to my sister's house for the afternoon. Her family had moved to a new home since we had last been in Utah, and we were excited to visit. The kids jumped on the trampoline, played spies, jumped more, ate more, had fun.



We had also made plans to meet up with some of the friends we had met on our cruise in February. We left my sister's house around 4:30 to meet the Weavers, Foutzes and Christensens at The Old Spaghetti Factory in Taylorsville. So fun to see everyone again. Our group was a little bit larger as we all brought our children as well. It was just a little bit crazy. Let me just say, I'm glad we don't have wrestling matches with young children while trying to grab a few bites in between anymore.

This was our kids' end of the table:



And all of us together (Scot took the picture):

Feeding the Ducks

The first week when Kristen and I came out of the Longmont Recreation Center after her swimming lesson, she was excited to see the ducks swimming in the pond and commented that we should bring bread the next week to feed them. For the next three weeks as we left the Rec Center, she sadly lamented that we should have brought bread to feed the ducks. For her last lesson, she began telling me two days prior that we needed to remember to bring bread to feed the ducks. We did.



She and a little friend from her swimming class shared the bread I brought and happily fed four ducks a half a loaf of bread. The larger of the four ducks, were quite territorial and weren't about to share--we just had to throw a little farther out so the smaller ducks weren't left out.

Who Ate My Pretzels!?

Thursday the 24th, Amy had a poetry reading at school and was invited to bring snacks/treats to share with the whole class. Because soft pretzels are now her specialty, she opted to make some for her class. She needed 30, she had enough dough to make 30. As her father entered the kitchen from his long commute from the basement, he snagged two of the pretzels and promptly ate them. It took Amy a short while to notice that she now had only had 28 pretzels. "Who ate my pretzels?" she cried in alarm. Her father calmly replied, "I did." She proceeded to not so calmly express to her father that she needed every one of those pretzels for her class on Friday.

To make her happy, Chris offered to make another batch for her. Not exactly what he had planned to do in his short amount of available time before having a meeting at the church, but it made her happy, and we had some pretzels to take with us on our road trip.





Just for the record, Chris and Amy make amazing soft pretzels.

Redecorating

I've been thinking about redecorating the mantle. Still not committed to this look. What do you think?

New Addition

It is amazing the things we want and get excited about as adults. This was a birthday gift from Chris and my in-laws, and Chris was kind enough to hang it for me on Saturday.





That and this handy shelf to add more storage to my closet.

Amazing Accomplishment

If you remember, I started teaching Kristen how to ride a bike last summer. As a barely-turned five-year old, she had a bit of a struggle. This year, as the weather has turned nice quite early, I told her that she needed to start praying for courage to learn to ride a bike because we wanted to go for bike rides as a family. She balked and was determined not to learn.

Ice cream.

I bribed her with ice cream. Savvy little thing, she said, "I don't want ice cream, I want $10 bucks." I told her no, she could have ice cream. She negotiated me up to two scoops. I figured it was a success that she was even willing to try. I was willing to buy a little ice cream.

So on Thursday when we were close to 70*, she and I headed outside to the cul-de-sac to practice. We started off in much the same fashion as last summer--we practiced starting and stopping, looking forward, more stopping. I think she was on the verge of quitting altogether. And then...[insert Hallelujah chorus] she got it. I ran beside her lightly holding my hand against her back. She did fine thinking that I was hanging on to her. When she finally stopped I did my own little wahoo, happy dance and shouted, "You did it!" She looked at me like I was crazy. I told her I wasn't really hanging on, and suddenly you could tell by the look on her face that she KNEW that she could do it.

I took her to Wal-mart for ice cream at McDonalds. She chose a smoothie.

I admit, she has been my most challenging child to teach, but I am so thrilled that she finally got it. On Friday afternoon, we were out practicing again. Amy arrived home from school and Kristen was anxious to show off her new skills. I ran home to get the camera while Amy stayed with her and yelled downstairs to Chris, who happened to be home, that Kristen was riding a bike. I grabbed the camera and a water bottle, and we headed back to the cul-de-sac. SHE WAS RIDING!!!!!

Chris needed to take the van in to get the tires rotated Friday afternoon, and us girls tagged along--Kristen was getting more ice cream. We had Chris drop us off at Carl's Jr, but they don't have ice cream cones and Kristen was quite adamant that today she wanted a cone. We ran like crazy girls to cross the street on the light to get to Chick-fil-A. Kristen got her celebratory ice cream cone. Her learning to ride a bike was well worth the investment.



As with all of my girls, I taught them on a smaller bike where they could easily put their feet down to stop if they had to. It was their security blanket, if you will, but the bike was obviously too small. Chris bought new tires for our next bigger bike (he's secretly glad that his garage is going to be minus two bikes soon), and Kristen was off.

Swimming Lessons

Kristen's swimming lessons this week were not quite as much fun as previous weeks. The "kiddy" pool was being fixed and was closed off for lessons. All of the kids had to endure the big pool. I say endure because it was obviously a lot colder water as you saw a row of six little kids shivering on the steps. Another drawback was in having much deeper water. The kids had to swim one by one. Not so much fun, especially when you were freezing. Hopefully next week the problem will be fixed.

Amy's Toe

Last Saturday, all of the girls were outside playing with the neighbors enjoying a wonderful day of sunshine and Spring. They flew kits, jumped on the trampoline, ran around, played soccer--fun. Amy didn't complain too much about her injury until Sunday afternoon when she took off her church shoes and could hardly walk on her toe. I took a peek at her toe and noticed it was red and bruised on the end. I made sure it wasn't an infection that was causing her the pain and asked if she had done something to injure it.

She thought back to the day before when they were playing soccer and she had kicked the soccer ball smack dab straight on with her big toe. I told her that there wasn't a whole lot I could do, or even a doctor for that matter, for a sore, sprained or broken toe except to tape it to the toe next to it. We tried that, but as you can imagine, that didn't really take away a lot of the pain.

Monday she was up early getting ready for school and still complaining about her toe. I suggested that once she had her tennis shoes on with support, it should help. It must have been a pretty good kick because she came home Monday night and spent much of the evening languishing on the couch. She kept telling me that I could get crutches for her from King Soopers. I finally relented around 8 pm as the girls were going to bed and went to King Soopers to pick up some crutches. Learned something new: give them a $30 refundable deposit and they WILL lend you a pair of crutches.

Tuesday morning she was again getting ready for school but feeling a little more chipper about having crutches. As her time to catch the bus grew near, she wasn't moving quite fast enough. I saw one bus drive by and thought it was hers and that she had missed the bus. I agreed to drive her. As we got to the corner of our neighborhood, her bus pulled up. She still wanted me to drive her to school. I, unfeeling as I am, told her no that the driver would wait for her.

Fast forward to the end of the day. Amy's foot was markedly improved. I've had broken toes before, I know how much they can hurt. I think what helped was that she had a day off the toe to allow it to recover. New pain--armpits.

I returned the crutches Wednesday morning, but not before her sisters found a lot of reasons to use the crutches too.



A close up of a cute face!

Amy's Band Concert

Amy had her second band concert of the year. She has improved immensely in her flute skills. Taking piano lessons and flute lessons at the same time has a positive impact on her abilities with each instrument--specifically, her ability to sight read has seen marked improvement. We are proud of her for working so hard.

Chuck E Cheese

Kristen is lamenting the fact that we have never taken her to Chuck E Cheese. That's because we took her older sisters a couple of times and quickly learned that it is not so much fun for parents to hang out there. While Kristen was engrossed in a commercial during lunch she asked, "Mom, why can't we go to Chuck E. Cheese?" My response: "Because it is an annoying place for parents." Referencing the parents in the commercial, "But they're having fun." I replied, "They're actors."

Camera Fun

I am having fun learning to take better pictures. It is not instinctive for me to know what setting to put the shutter speed or the ISO to, but the fact that I know they need to change for different lighting and activities is a big jump from my "Auto" days. My girls are not always appreciative of my request for them to pose so I can practice.



I like the foliage and trees around my house because they don't complain; however, they aren't all that exciting this time of year either.





When I got on the trampoline with them, Misha and Kristen were quite happy to pose for me.

Heart Moments

We try to follow a schedule in the morning before Amy leaves for school in order to have family scripture time and prayer. Sometimes she is hungry and likes to sneak in a few bites of cereal before we all gather together, and then she is finished eating early and begins to interrupt our time together with getting ready to get out the door.

So the other morning I could hear her spoon clinking in her cereal bowl, while her dad and I were still upstairs. "Are you eating already?" I yelled down to her. Her response, "Don't worry, Mom, we're reading scriptures."

See, it was one of those moments when my heart took a picture.