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.

It’s been a warm November. Time to play outside!

We like our hot tub. Wes and Carissa love “swimming” in it. Carissa likes to walk on her tippy-toes, but we have to watch her closely because sometimes she gets too brave.

I made muffins, and Carissa was a fan.

Writing is a difficult skill for Wes. But we keep working on it, and he gets a lot of help at school. Lately he has been getting notably better at it. Here he is writing the letter “E.” I’m impressed.

The kids and I made a Grateful Tree to decorate with leaves that list things we’re thankful for. This is Wes and Carissa cutting out leaves. Or, you know, trying to. Their scissor skills are still on the early side.

Wes loves making Lego towers. He’s quite good.

Wes and Carissa discovered they could give each other rides in the kitchen.

My mom and dad sent me a fruit basket from Edible Arrangements. It’s because I’ve been miserably sick since November 1, which culminated in a sinus infection last weekend, and I hurt my lower back and have been in physical therapy for it. My SI joint is locked, and I have problems with my lumbar (L3, L4, and L5). My back hurts every day, and my movement is limited. But stretching helps manage the pain, and I return for more physical therapy next week. However, I can’t exercise and therefore can’t work and teach my fitness classes for a little while.

Chocolate covered pineapple. Brilliant.

Reading in a box.

Painting nails all by herself.

The girls.

Wes and Elizabeth. That purple toy is everyone’s favorite, even Elizabeth’s. We set timers to help people take turns.

Wesley loves puzzles. He is good at them. This is his current favorite, a floor puzzle from the Llama Llama book series that I picked up at the book fair. It was the best investment ever, except that he lost one piece on the first day and we haven’t found it (we did dig one out from under the stove, though). It’s a 2-sided puzzle, and he does it every day.

Silly snuggler. Sometimes when I can’t find Carissa I’ll go up to her room and find her snuggled in her bed with blankets.

Lto

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?

Over the summer Wesley and Carissa earned money for our “Helper Jar” by doing chores most mornings. I promised them we’d do something fun with the money they earned, and today was that day to cash it in. I took them to the local nickelcade.

They were SO excited.

Wesley came here once for a birthday party, but this was my and Carissa’s (and Elizabeth’s) first time.

Since we went at 1:30 on a Thursday afternoon, the place was empty and the employee turned on the machines so we could use them. But this was secretly my plan, because a big empty place means an easier job for me to keep track of Wesley.

In short, the kids had a ball. Lots of balls, in fact. Wes’s favorite games involved balls–basketball and ski-ball. The one employee must’ve been super bored, because she actually stood and played basketball with Wes for about 20 minutes while I took Carissa around to the other games. All I could hear was his laughter echoing in the room.

No, that’s not true. The nickelcade is really loud, like a Las Vegas casino. But I could still hear his laughter above all the music and noise.

Carissa’s favorite game–surprise, surprise (NOT!)–involved candy. She sat on a stool and directed a claw over a pile of candy and then pushed a button to scoop up a piece or two or three. I finally had to cap how many times she could play this game. But just look how joyful it made her.

At the end of two hours we had lots and lots and lots of tickets. Over 800. The kids immediately picked out two blow-up guitars that are as tall as they are, plus a ball. Once I got out to the car I discovered another pocketful of tickets–but I gave them to another family getting ready to go in. We had our guitars, and that was enough. And that was our reward for summertime chores.