To Park City for Thomas

This past Memorial Day weekend, we ventured down to Park City, Utah.  The main purpose was for a Day Out With Thomas (DOWT), as in 'Thomas the Tank Engine' - the kids show.  While that part was a little disappointing, the weather was perfect, and the scenery and company were great.  No illnesses this trip!

Here are our good little travelers: Owen, the navigator, and Hadley, the unpredictable wildcard passenger.  H napped most of the way, except maybe the last hour or so.  Yea!  O kept asking if we were in Utah.

Somehow, I didn't take any pictures of Park City itself!  It's a very cute ski-town that definitely has some of that Hollywood money influx.  We met up with some other families from our town at Park City City Park the first night.  Yes, that was the actual name of the park!  Thomas was the next morning.

We had to drive down about 20 miles to Heber City to find Thomas.  

Whoever thought of this little traveling show must be a millionaire.  Lots of opportunities to spend your money on photos and trinkets with a few kid-friendly activities thrown in for good measure.  He's getting pretty good at writing his name!

Several families from our 'mom's group' made the journey, so it was fun to share the experience, at least. 

The actual train ride was 10 minutes out at a snails' pace and 10 minutes back in.  Just when we started to get out from people's backyards toward the pretty scenery, the train stopped and just reversed!  Owen was so disappointed, he was almost in tears.  We were all pretty bummed.  I mean, look at the beautiful photos on their website!  I thought we'd make it closer to the mountains.  :(

Luckily, we had more in store for the trip than just the DOWT.  On the way back north the next day, we headed over to do a short hike to Donut Falls.  Little did we know that half of Salt Lake City had the same idea for Memorial Day.  Also, we didn't really research the hike and missed a turn to the falls, so we ended up heading up a steep trail to the top of the falls, rather than the easy bottom-of-the-falls overlook.  It was a workout with the baby backpack and toddler-on-the-shoulders!

As it was, everyone needed a snack break by the time we made it to the end of the steep section.

Pressing on, we made it to the top of the falls!  You can just make out the 'donut' where the water falls through a hole in the rock near the top.

Lastly, we always have to eat some Chipotle when we are in Salt Lake, since that's the closest one to our house. (200 miles!)  Someone please open one here!  

See how happy it makes Owen?  :)

Cue summer!

Ah, May...  I love it.  The weather is improving, school and routines are ending, and the excitement and promises of summer are in the air.  Owen is done with pre-school for now.  They had an end-of-year pancake breakfast at the zoo yesterday, and one of his teachers (Miss Margaret) had a retirement party.  

Here are Miss Margaret and Miss Ashley.  They had nothing but good things to say about Owen, and the feeling was mutual.  :)

We have suspicions that Owen has a somewhat photographic memory.  He has a deck of 45 cards that feature 45 different Richard Scarry vehicles with the number of vehicle occupants listed on each card.  Somehow we discovered that he had actually memorized the numbers based on a description of the vehicle, as evidenced in the video below.  (He usually gets about 65% correct.)  Similarly, he has memorized lots of U.S. states by their colors and designs from a puzzle.  Isn't the brain amazing?

Not to be outdone, I captured Hadley cruising behind a push-toy all on her own!  And waving (her new favorite activity).

Good ol' sibling time:  cooking and crawling.

Good ol' daddy time: mowing and playing catch in the yard.  Be prepared: pee-wee tee-ball is coming up in a few weeks!  We figured he should have at least seen a glove before hitting the field.  :)

Hello sunshine!

So, I dog on the spring weather a lot, but May has been a vast improvement over April!  We even reached 80+ a couple of days.  I love the sun!  I've hastily planted my garden in anticipation of the short growing season, and we've been spending more time outdoors (when it isn't raining).  Get your first glimpse of baby legs! :)

Time to break out the sunscreen and summer gear!

Hadley's first time in the sandbox.  She didn't put any in her mouth surprisingly.  She was intrigued, but not much impressed, unlike Owen who could spend hours doing his "work".

I decided to weed the flowerbeds one day during Owen's nap, and I had a little helper.  Yes, we have a cover for this thing, but I couldn't recall where, so I thought the towel would do in a pinch.  And it did for a while... until POP goes the baby.

We even tried out one of those baby swings at the park.  I guess it can fit 2 kids, although Owen seemed a little uncomfortable.  Both enjoyed the ride!

Hadley is definitely getting around more efficiently now.  She is cruising on all the furniture and pulling up on everything.  It has led to more friction with her brother now that she can follow him (and his toys) around the room! And the baby gate is back up.

It's also made the cats more wary, but Tibbs seems to enjoy the extra attention.  She'll purposely come over to H and rub on her legs, twirling her tail in her face.  This particular day, she plopped on H's feet and H ended up straddling the cat and pulling tuft after tuft of fur out.  So gross, especially when the hands end up in her mouth!  If only there were a way to banish pet shedding...

Watch out, big brother, someone is eyeing your wheels!

And we've already hit up the dairy and the zoo to see the animals.

Bring it on, summer.  We are ready!

Sun Valley

Last week we went to Sun Valley.  J had a conference there, and I decided to tag along with the kids about halfway through the week, since it was just a short 2.5 hour drive away.  We had a really nice apartment next to the main lodge with 2 bedrooms (one was a loft), 2 bathrooms, and a full kitchen.  The second bathroom (upstairs off the loft) was even large enough that we could put Hadley's pack'n'play in there, so everyone had their own room, more or less, which is what we need for naptime!  Here's the lodge - our apartment was in the trees to the right.

It also had a back deck where Owen and I played with bubbles while Hadley slept.

The first afternoon was rainy, but we decided to go explore the Sun Valley resort grounds anyway.  There was pretty landscaping with swans and such.  It was considered the off-season, so it almost felt like we had the place to ourselves!

The grounds also included a few restaurants and stores, outdoor ice skating rink, heated swimming pools, and lots of hiking trails were easily accessible across the street.  

I was imagining quite a fun week, but it was to be memorable for other reasons...  Two sick kids!  Owen was already fighting some cough/cold that made him irritable, lethargic, and appetite-less.  And by the second night, Hadley was vomiting.  Awesome.  Two days later, I took her to the doctor (on my birthday!), and she was diagnosed with rotavirus, which apparently could have been absolutely miserable if she hadn't had the vaccines.  As it was, I just had to watch her after every feeding for signs that it wasn't going to stay down.  I think there were a total of four vomiting episodes, and the rest of the time she was either asleep or grouchy.  So, our wonderful Sun Valley experience was marred by illness.  The weather was perfect, but we were pretty much stuck inside.  Boo!  The silver lining was a cuddly baby.

J and O did manage a few hikes (usually with more than half on J's shoulders), and we did a family hike on the way out of town.  The area has ties to Ernest Hemingway, and there was a little memorial on the hike.

Owen's favorite part was hitting sticks with other sticks.  Glad we traveled over 100 miles to do that!

We even broke out the baby backpack again.  Owen dozed in it a lot, but I don't recall his face getting quite so squished!  I think she enjoyed the hike.  :)

The good news is we'll be heading back to SV in a month, so I have my fingers crossed that lightning won't strike twice, and we can enjoy everything more!