Bushels of Utah State Fair Fun!

We love the state fair. Well maybe I shouldn't speak for Mike. And I'm not sure we would love it as much if we had to pay the full admission price, but we have connections. Anyway, I think it's a fun tradition.
Our favorite things at the fair:
The Future Farmers of America's "Little Hands on the Farm" activity
All the cows, pigs, chickens, rabbits, goats, sheep...expecially if the kids notice them doing anything interesting (bodily functions, you know) and announce it loudly.
The giant vegetables
The arts/crafts and fine arts entries
The empty calories. This year we tried funnel cake. Wow, is it the opposite of healthy!
Visiting Grandma and Grandpa who take tickets at the grandstand, slipping in to catch a bit of a concert.

Hill Aerospace Museum, and a visit to Grandma's

Back in December, less than a week after Tyler was born, someone backed into our minivan in a parking garage. The person left a note and was very nice on the phone. She explained that she accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake while backing up. I wish I had taken a picture of the bumper, because it was really smashed. Their insurance would pay for the repair, but I wasn't looking forward to the hassle, so I put it off for weeks and weeks.

When I finally got around to it, I decided to make good use out of the rental van the insurance provided. I took my kids and my nieces McKenna and Savannah to Ogden to visit Mike's grandma.

We also visited Hill Aerospace Museum on the way home because it was free, and the girls thought it was so cool.

Farm Country

We visited Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point a couple of weeks ago. The girls had fun with their cousins, feeding corn feed to the animals and riding the wagon. Afterward we had 25 cent ice cream cones. It was a fun day.

Finding a new fun (free!) thing to do...

In February we went with my SIL Krista and her kids to the Gale Center in South Jordan. It was a great place for kids, like a children's museum and the best part? It's free. The staff seemed kinda uptight, so you really have to watch your kids, but that's understandable I guess. Anyway, here are some pictures:

Danger: Explosives

This picture of Lydia and Watson playing checkers makes me smile. I think neither of them really knows how to play, but the look of concentration on Lydia's face suggests otherwise.
Owen and Elise, milking a 2-D cow.
Elise loves to play school. She has the best "teacher voice", a very no-nonsense tone.

Bowling with Grandpa

Here is one of our more unique family traditions. For the last few years, my parents have invited all their kids and grandkids to go bowling, usually right after Christmas.

The little girls had a lot of fun and did a great job, using bumpers and the ramp of course. Following each ball Lydia bowled, she always had a look of triumph on her face no matter how many pins she knocked down. Due to a couple of spares and a computer error in her favor, she actually beat Elise's and my scores (although beating me was not hard to do, I think my score was 94). Mike came in first out of the four of us.

I always forget how much fun bowling is. Back when Mike and I were in college, we took a bowling class together just for fun. It was great to learn the four-step approach and have enough practice to actually improve our techniques. Someday when our kids aren't so little, I think we'll have to join a league.

Shayla and Elise

Grandpa and Lydia

Down on the Farm

These pictures are from a random picnic we had at Wheeler Farm with some of our neighbors. We really love that place, because it's free, educational, it doesn't take a lot of planning to go there, and I always feel like I'm being a good mom when I take my kids on outings!

I wish I knew what Elise was thinking while making that face. Something like "Ew, do you know where that grass has been?"

Elise is so fond of this cute kid who lives in our ward and is in her preschool class. I try not to make a big deal or call it a crush because she's only 4, but aww how cute.

Lydia and the pigs.

What a fun group!

Hanging Out with Cousins

In August we visited the Thanksgiving Point Children's Garden with Krista and her kids. It was our first time there, and it was pretty neat, if a little crowded (we went on a discounted day).

Owen helping Lydia down the lighthouse ladder

Krista and cute little Eliza

The rest of the kids
By the way, that little door in the picture below Elise and Watson is totally fake, but Owen convinced Elise that he had seen it open before, and that there was treasure inside. (So fun to have older boy cousins so she can experience this kind of big brother teasing. Reminds me of Dave.) Elise began crying on the way home that we needed to go back because she never got to see inside.

Afterward, I took the girls to Cabelas because everyone keeps telling me how neat the store is, and we're not in Lehi all that often. They have displays of stuffed animals (like the real kind, stuffed by a taxidermist, not like this moose). Elise and Lydia were fascinated.

This is the Place Heritage Village

This past year we have had a membership at This is the Place Heritage Village. It just expired on July 2nd, so we went for one last visit on July 1st.
Elise's favorite house in the village is the one where they let kids try pioneer chores. She said "Mom, look, I'm being a pioneer children!" She always wants to wash the clothes and hang them on the line. They also let kids beat the rugs with a metal beater, water the vegetable garden, and "iron" the dry clothes.

Here she is ironing.

Here is Elise doing the pony ride. She was so excited that they put her on the "baby" horse. It was the littlest one and I believe she is named "Misty".

Lydia rides the ponies all by herself and has no fear whatsoever. She is a big fan of the horsies.

Hugging sheep at the petting corral, how sweet!

Lydia liked this baby goat. It was so cute.

These ladies convinced Elise to come up on the stage in the meetinghouse (which was also a school and a theater for the pioneers) and sing the Sunbeam song. She convinced them to jump whenever she sang Sun-BEAM!

This is Elise and Lydia "square dancing", an activity they could have done all day. Seriously, all day. They have a CD player that just keeps looping the same fiddle music over and over. I think if I was the lady who worked there I would go crazy!

In the bootmaker's shop, the bootmaker himself outfitted Lydia in his own handmade boots and a real "coonskin" hat. If you look closely you can see the little animal face, and Elise wouldn't dare try it on because she was scared of it.

Elise preferred the Millinery shop where they make fancy hats with ruffles and flowers.

The most interesting part of the day was when they gathered everybody together in the schoolhouse to try the blacksmith for "attempted murder". In the middle of the theatrical and funny "trial", a crazy man burst in and confessed to the crime, ripping off his straitjacket right in the middle of the aisle where we were sitting. Then he ran out the door followed by the sheriff, and we heard some shots fired, and a woman dropped to the ground. I so wish I had thought to warn Elise that it was all acting! I've never seen her more frightened and wide-eyed, and then she started crying, as I tried to reassure her that everything was pretend. Poor thing!

Other fun things we did:

There is a little observatory named after my ancestor Orson Pratt, which I'd never been able to see inside. That day they had a guide in there showing all the old fashioned scientific instruments and a working telescope. It was fun to talk to him and hear his admiration of Orson, about whom he knew tons more than I did!

We also visited the Tithing Office, which I didn't know you could go inside! I wished we had known about it sooner. They let the kids count out the right amount of "tithing" from a big bushel of carrots, and then they let them make Prairie Diamond rings (out of horseshoe nails) to take home.

We got to do was go inside the gristmill and see the water wheel up close from the balcony.

We saw a puppet show about a cowboy named Gingerfella, who goes to the rodeo wearing glass boots, but then has to leave the rodeo and be back in the stable by high noon before his buckin' bronco turns back into a mouse, etc. Elise was so funny when she finally recognized the connection to her favorite princess story.

I'm so glad we decided to do this one last time and spend the whole day. We were so tired at the end of the day but it was totally worth it.

Zoo Pack Meeting

We visited the zoo a couple weeks ago, where a pack of wild animals Cub Scouts were on the loose. Actually, we brought them with us, and it was really fun. Mike, as cub master, helped them earn the Hogle Zoo trails patch by identifying animals and picking up litter. Elise and Lydia had fun, too. We need to get back to the zoo more often!

Lydia really liked this gorilla, or as she called it: "monkey - hoo hoo hah!"
Elise and Mike, as tall as the giraffe!

Elise and her little friend Nathan, aren't they cute?

Disney on Ice

One of our recent highlights was going to the Disney on Ice "Princess Wishes" show. I managed to get free tickets, and we made it a girls' night out with my mom, sister, 3 sisters-in-law, and 1 cousin.

The day of the show opening, there was supposed to be a free "meet and greet" outside the stadium at noon. They had this elaborate event set up, for a total of 15 minutes! Here are Lydia and Elise on the red carpet. A radio station gave them free Minnie Mouse dolls, isn't that nice?There were three princess-inspired cakes set up to look at. They were really well done, I thought. Here is Belle's cake:

Here is Snow White's Cake: And this is Elise's favorite, Cinderella's cake:
The princesses were not really "meeting-and-greeting" anyone except the news media, but Elise was thrilled to see them up close anyway. About 15 minutes into the event, the "handlers" announced that the princesses needed to go inside and put their ice skates on.

After they left, we used their backdrop for a photo-op.

This is my niece and sister-in-law with Elise at the show that night.

And here is me with Lydia at the show. It was actually very entertaining and well done, the best Disney on Ice that I've seen.