We had this brilliant idea to go to Salt Lake City the day after Thanksgiving and to stay in a hotel right by the new downtown mall.

Then we remembered it was Black Friday. But we went anyway.

Getting ready took most of the morning, as things do with kids. When we were all finally packed we were on our way to Salt Lake City. We checked in to our hotel downtown, parked the car, and started pulling stuff out. That’s when John said, “Where’s the suitcase?” and our conversation went something like:

“I don’t know, didn’t you pack it in the car?”

“No, I thought you did.”

“No, I thought YOU did.”

And so we checked ourselves out of the hotel and transformed our overnight plans into a short daytrip.

We began at the Leonardo, a science and creative arts and technology museum.

Our first stop was the creative studio. Carissa, Wes, and I each made something out of clay. (Elizabeth played on the beanbag.)

Wes and Dad made a train. I made a turtle. Carissa made…I’m not sure what it is.

Next we went upstairs where the kids played in the pixel station.

Next was the green screen room. The kids could stand in front of the green screen and see themselves on a TV with a weather map behind them. They thought that was neat, but even neater was holding up a green piece of fabric and making themselves disappear on the TV. Cool science!

See how Wes is partially missing?

The kids spent a lot of time in the Motion Capture room, where they could dance to music in their bare feet. A motion sensor could pick up one person’s structure and while you dance, you can see your skeleton move with you on the TV screen. Carissa was too little for the motion sensor to detect her, but it worked for Wes. (P.S. Do you notice how he’s pulling the same dance move in the picture below as in the picture above from the green room?)

The kids loved dancing in this room, especially Elizabeth. Good thing the place wasn’t busy.

Even I got to rock it out with my kids.

John helped the kids make a stop-action film in the room near the dancing room, but I guess I didn’t take any pictures. They also used a paintbrush to touch a computer screen and create art.

By now it was 5 pm and kids (namely me) were getting hungry. We took the Trax train back to the City Creek Mall and walked around to find a place to eat. Turns out that on Black Friday, at a new mall, on the night Temple Square turns on its Christmas lights, restaurants are pretty busy around 5:30 pm. We went to four different places but all had an hour wait. We went to the top floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and got this picture:

I thought that might be the closest we’d get to the lights, but we decided to take a quick stroll through them before heading back towards our car. At least it was above freezing, which was especially nice since I left our kids’ hats and gloves and my scarf in our car back at the hotel parking lot.

It was about 6:30 pm. We thought we would go back to the hotel and end up at a drive-through somewhere. This was a little disappointing since we had been looking forward to a sit-down restaurant (which we haven’t done in a long while). Just as we were headed back through the mall towards our car John pointed out a Brazilian steakhouse. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask, so for the fifth time I asked what the wait was, and for the first time I got a “You can come right in” reply. Hallelujah!

It was a Brazilian churrasco-style menu where they serve yummy fresh-grilled meat at your table, and you can get additional sides from the salad bar. We were hungry, and the children were tired. It was pricey but we didn’t care. We weren’t paying for a hotel anymore, so why not?

And it was delicious. The filet Mignon, grilled pineapple, garlic mashed potatoes, cheesy bread, caramelized bananas, fresh Parmesan… Yep, it was a tasty dinner. Carissa made it through the whole dinner happily, but progressively more tiredly.

Elizabeth fell asleep in the stroller not too long after we sat down. Wes ate a little and then crawled into my lap and fell asleep around 7:45 pm. We enjoyed our peaceful dinner.

Thanksgiving was this week. On Monday my brother Matt came for Family Home Evening, which we do together as a family every Monday night. We made cookies, had a short lesson about gratitude, and decorated our Grateful Tree with leaves.

Wes and Carissa enjoyed making cookies with Uncle Matt. They get excited when he comes (Wes says, “Uncle Matt–white car!” because he knows that’s what Matt drives). Carissa likes dumping in the ingredients, and Wes likes eating the cookie dough (Carissa can’t because she’s allergic to eggs).

Wes brought a pilgrim hat home from kindergarten.

Our Grateful Tree.

Last week, while it was still reasonably warm, I took my three kids to our local pumpkin patch. I like that it’s so close, and so free. And every year they make it a little better, too.

We got to go on a tractor hayride around the pumpkin patch. The kids really liked that.

School groups come and go. When the kindergarteners were there, it got a lot busier. But once they left it was nice and peaceful again.

One of the new improvements is two big slides. The kids climb hay bales to the top, then slide down the pipe to land in a cushion of corn kernels. Wes jumped right in and had so much fun. Carissa saw him having fun and joined in, but unfortunately I realized too late that the two slides were different; Wes was on the big, tall one (of course) and Carissa should have gone down the smaller, tamer one instead. So she didn’t like her first experience on the slide, and I ended up going down with her on the smaller, tamer one from there on out. They both had a good time.

On the other side of the slides is a big pit of corn kernels for the kids to play in. Wes enjoyed jumping off the bales, the higher the better. Carissa preferred to look at the pumpkins nearby. Elizabeth sat in the corn a little, until I got tired of pulling corn kernels out of her mouth.

We had a fun time, spending a couple of hours there.

Last night I took my kids to downtown Salt Lake City with my parents, who are visiting.

We started at City Creek Mall, which we haven’t seen since it’s been built. The kids liked the creek running through the middle with fish in it. But we had to stop Wes from throwing rocks in. The kids were ecstatic to hand out with their Grandpa.

We HAD to stop at Godiva. They were pretty busy, but we got a few chocolate bars and a dark chocolate milkshake to share (Wes drank most of it, no surprise there).

Then off to Temple Square.

Dinnertime was quick approaching, and we decided to eat on the 10th floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building at The Garden. We hadn’t been there before, but it was good food with a nice view. Elizabeth ate the menu.

There are fountains everywhere at Temple Square, even in the restaurant and lobby. The kids liked that.

After dinner we tried to get some photos but the kids were kind of done sitting still.

We went back to City Creek to return something at a store.

One last stop: Trader Joe’s, which is new to Salt Lake City. It sells products that are preservative-free and many are organic. I came specifically to get these:

And that was our adventure in Salt Lake City.

The kids like to play this matching game together.

Elizabeth apparently likes strawberries.

The kids play Legos together really well. Their specialty is tall towers.

Carissa just got bangs.

Today I took all three kids to the swimming pool. The next-door city has a new recreation center with this nifty indoor pool play area.

Carissa was timid to start and never went up the stairs or down the slides. But she had fun.

Wes was in heaven. From start to end and every second in between. He is at home in the water and as free as free can be.

Elizabeth, surprisingly, loved it and expressed her independence by wanting to walk everywhere in the shallow pool. I found she had the most fun when I stood her on the side and helped her jump in. She is very spunky in the water.

The pool provided life jackets for the kids if we wanted them.

Afterward we sat on the grass out front for a mini-picnic of pretzels, baby crackers, and milk. Does life get any better in October?

At the end of June John and I took the kids on a hike up to a waterfall with some of John’s buddies. The wives and kids stayed at the base of the waterfall while the menfolk hiked up above the waterfall and then repelled down it. John’s gone repelling before but this was his first waterfall.

It started with a short hike up that originated in a residential area.

The kids played at the bottom, tossing rocks and eating snacks. (Wes tossed, Carissa snacked.)

The men didn’t reappear at the top for a long time. It turns out they hiked too far up and had to backtrack.

Then the big show!

(I’m pretty sure this is John saying something like, “Oh my! That is cold water!”)

Wes was waiting at the bottom for a big hug.

The view on the hike back.