Day Out With Thomas (and the occasional dinosaur)

I know that I promised I would put pictures up of our adventure to Utah a week and a half ago, but I took over 200 pictures and I just don't think that they will all fit on here, so I will have to pick and choose which ones to show. We left for Utah Friday morning, May 27th, and went straight to Thanksgiving Point. We went to the Museum of Ancient Life, but Thanksgiving Point is so much bigger and has so much more to offer than just a dinosaur museum.

The first thing you see when you walk in is a giant T-Rex. Very Jurassic Park-esque.

I think Uriah wanetd to have big eyes like the dino in this painting. He was so excited to see everything that he wouldn't look at the camera.

Big dino leg. Uriah isn't even knee-high to this dino.

Some kind of ancient lizard. It was dangerous, but I got just close enough to snap this picture before it could have bitten my arm off.

An exhibit of the beginnings of the dinosaurs.

The long neck dino that was just too big to fit into my picture. Instead of having a wide angle lense, I had to take 4 different pictures of this beast and tape them together to make one picture of the whole body.

One of the rooms had a large sand and water table that you could play in, with toy dinos and fake trees. I put Jordyn's hand in the sand and you can tell that she wasn't too happy about it.

The head-butting dinos. (That's all I can remember about them from Jurassic Park 2)

It took us a little while to convince Uriah that this shark wasn't really scary, but I don't think he ever believed us, even when Jared put his hand in the giant's mouth.

This was a huge exhibit of a mammoth skeleton being taken down by some human skeletons. I decided to show the picture of the guy getting crushed by the mammoth and the other guys ingorning his pleas for help.

Another room was really just one large sand box, no water this time. There were fake fossils in the sand that kids could uncover with brushes. Jordyn decided to use her brush as a shovel.

Probalby one of my favorite parts: Two large T-Rex dinos next to each other. You'd just have to be there, it really was quite a treat.

After we spent a few hours at Thanksgving Point, we drove to our hotel in South Jordyn. One of the first things we did was head for the pool. I had bought Jordyn a few new things just for this special occasion.

First, I bought her her very first swimsuit. I saw it at the store and just couldn't pass it up. She looks so stinkin' cute in it!

Then I bought a baby floatation device that I thought would be perfect, but as you can see, she didn't want to stay in it longer than 3 seconds. She was so wiggly and loved to kick in the water that she just wanted someone to hold her the whole time.

Uriah got some water wings for this trip. I discovered what a little fish he is. He could keep himself afloat and actually swim around all by himself with those water wings. He really surprised me!

Me and Jordyn, having a good time. This was one of the moments I could actually get Jordyn to hold still long enough to take a picture. We had a great time.

Okay, now to the good stuff. On Saturday morning we got up and left the hotel to drive to Heber, Utah. It was a beautiful drive. Heber is nestled in the Utah mountains and everything was green and gorgeous. If  I ever got the urge to move away and live somewhere in the mountains,  Heber would be the place. It is surrounded on all sides by beautiful green mountains. After stopping to get some snacks, we finally came to Heber Valley Railroad and guess who we saw?

Thomas the tank engine!

Uriah couldn't believe his eyes. He was SO excited to see Thomas, and his excitement really showed. Unfortunately, we still had about 3 hours before our train ride, but thankfully there were lots of other things to do.

There was the Imagination Station...

...and getting temporary tattoos...

...and getting pictures taken with Sir Toppham Hatt...

...and playing with the performing musician...

...and getting to look at all the old engines in the rail yard!

Finally, it was our turn to ride Thomas. We were all excited to see Thomas pull into the station and to give our tickets to the conductor. We could hear Thomas' shrill whistle as we pulled out of the station, and waved to everybody who was waiting for their turn to ride.

Uriah said bye-bye to the people standing outside the station. It had been a long day and he was ready to finally get a turn to ride Thomas.

After about 4 hours of fun it was time to say goodybe. As we were walking away with all of our memories and goodies, Uriah said, "I so glad I see Thomas!" I smiled and thought my heart was going to burst. I was so happy that we all had a good time and that Uriah could tell everybody about the fun things he did when we got home. It is a weekend I will never forget, and one that I hope we can share with others for a long time.

Video: Us playing in the pool. Jordyn was pretty brave. She just walks right off the edge of the pool.

Playing in the sand/water table at Thanksgiving Point.

Thomas the Train leaving the station.

Thomas the Train coming into the station.

Making Time

Things have slowed down, incredibly, at work since the end of the semester. As much as I hate to say it, I pretty much get paid to sit and do nothing...all summer. So, by the time I get home I just can't sit down and do more nothing. I HAVE to do SOMETHING! I recently discovered that this need to work (since I can't do it at my paid job) is a good thing and resulted in me having all the chores done and the entire house clean before the weekend, which meant that I didn't have to spend my whole day Saturday cleaning. The weather was beautiful and the day was sunny, so we took the kiddos to G&G's to play while the hubs and I went to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. After that, we met the kids at Ross Park and let them finish having their fun before we went home. The kids hadn't slept all day, so they were 100% asleep when we got home, and for the first time in what felt like forever, I finally went into my "office" and started some scrapbooking. It was wonderful! How much I miss doing that. I realized that it had been a long time since I had taken a moment to do something that I wanted to do. I hope I can keep doing some scrapping at least once a week. I read about a neat idea on the internet and decided that I needed to organize all of my scrapbooking stuff.

So, I bought a $5 shoe organizer at Wal Mart and separated my scrappin' stuff into that. I can see everything I have now and I love it!

These are the pages I was able to work on once I got everything organized:

I still have a ton more pictures to scrap and even more on my computer that I need to print and get working on. I am about 2 1/2 years behind in pictures for Uriah and obviously about 1 1/2 years behind on pictures for Jordyn. If I am able to do 5 pages a week, hopefully I will catch up some day!

At the beginning of May, my brother graduated from the Law Enforcement program. The ceremony was formal but felt informal because the speakers pretty much said anything they wanted and they all joked and talked about the fun things they did in the program and what it means to be an officer. My brother got a special Sharp Shooter award for shooting 90% while he was in the program.

 My brother posing for me after he received his certificate.

My brother and his beautiful wife after the graduation ceremony.

I am very happy for my brother and I hope he continues to do things that make him happy.

When we moved into our new apartment less than a year ago we quickly learned that we couldn't sleep with our windows open on certain nights because the sprinklers were partly aimed directly at our windows. We asked the apartment manager to alter them so they didn't spray into our windows but I don't think there was anything they could do. As a result, our windows looked like this:

I felt like our room always looked dull because the sun couldn't shine through like it was supposed to. The window was ugly and made me feel like my bedroom was ugly. So one day Jared decided to go to a local cleaning store and find something to cure those nasty hard water windows and...

TA DA!

Windows we can see through! It really made a huge difference and I am so thankful that Jared was willing to go around and clean all the windows in our apartment.

Well, this Saturday is the big day we have been waiting for 3 months for! The DAY OUT WITH THOMAS is this weekend and I am so excited to take Uriah and show him a real Thomas the train. We will get to ride in a coach pulled by Thomas and there will be games and fun things to do all day. We are planning on leaving early Friday to go to Utah and hang out with some friends and go to Thanksgiving Point. That is, assuming I don't have to go in and serve for jury duty. Yup, about two weeks ago I got a letter saying that I had been called for jury duty. It started last week and I didn't have to go in, but now I am worried that I will have to go in on Friday and be stuck there all day when we should be traveling to Utah. I guess we will have to see and let the chips fall where they may. No matter what, I will DEFINITELY have a lot of pictures to show when we get back!



Spring, Spring, Spring

I must admit, I'm just tickled pink that the weather is starting to warm up. April really was a nasty month, giving us maybe one warm day a week and then snowing or raining or blowing on us. I don't think it made it above the 50s at all the whole month. In fact, I'd be surprised if it made it above 50 more than twice. But now, we have had 4 beautiful days of sunshine in a row, and it just seems to make everything so much better! 

April was also a very hectic month. I think I had something going on every weekend. There are a lot of birthdays on my side of the family in April so I was making some cakes. One weekend I had a friend's baby shower to go to. At the end of April, Jared and I had a choir concert which required two dress rehearsals and two night concerts, and then the day after that (Easter Sunday) I sang at church with my sister. Needless to say, I was ready to be done with performing for at least a few weeks (^_^) 

However, one weekend in April my sister decided it would be fun to rent a few lanes at the college bowling alley and so we went and had a great time bowling, munching on snacks and listening to the jukebox. Uriah and Jordyn absolutely loved bowling, but Jordyn loved it so much that we were constantly getting her out of the way so people could bowl.

Mommy is helping Uriah throw his ball. He thought it was really funny and would clap after he had thrown the ball. He didn't even care if it knocked over any pins. Of course, that's not the point when you're almost 3 year old.

     Jordyn is waiting for everyone to get their shoes on and pick out balls so that she can "help" someone bowl. We didn't really think she would want to be that involved, but boy were we wrong. We eventually added her name to the list of players for the second game so that she could have her own turn instead of sharing with others.

Uriah got pretty hungry from all the ball throwing and decided he needed to have something to snack on. Good thing there was a snack machine just down the hall. After he got his chips, he wasn't really much into playing.

Jordyn was confined to a chair for a few minutes. She was constantly trying to grab the balls in the ball return and getting in peoples' way, so we had to make her sit until it was her turn. You can see her giving me the stink-eye.

Uncle TJ was pretty good at keeping her calm when it wasn't her turn. He could throw her high up in the air or tickle her. Jordyn just thinks he is one of the most interesting people in the world.

We decided to see if feeding Jordyn would calm her down. As you can tell from the nice brown stain on her shirt, she really isn't into drinking soda. Thank goodness I don't have to worry about her mooching off of me when I'm drinking one.   She is eagerly awaiting her next turn. 



 Aunt Lindsay was there to help Jordyn when it was her turn. Jordyn would get so excited that she just got to stand up there with everyone else. She couldn't hardly hold the ball by herself, but she didn't care. She was just glad she wasn't being carried away from all the action for a minute.



Jordyn and her cute pink ball. She loved holding it and trying to carry it around. 

Jordyn watching her ball go down the lane, and aunt Lindsay trying to keep her from running after it.

Aunt Lindsay trying to calmly explain to Jordyn that it isn't her turn now. Try telling a 1 1/2 year old that she can't do something, and she will try to find a way around you!

See? She sneaked around us and found the ball return and is trying to get her pink ball out to play with.

Now it's aunt Tiffany's turn to try to control the bowling monster.  Jordyn was not very happy and was trying to slip through Tiff's arms. Although, it does look like she could be celebrating too. Woo! 

Uriah throwing the pink ball down the lane. For some reason he thought that his legs needed to collapse after every throw. Maybe he thought sitting was part of the game. The lanes were pretty slick though, and he did fall down a few times from not being careful about where he walked. He sure is a funny little guy.

My cute little baby Jordyn. She had so much fun bowling and was very ready to take a nap after it was all said and done. I hope we get to do something like that again soon.

For Easter Sunday, after we had all been to church we got together at grandma's house to eat some goodies and have an easter egg hunt. This was Jordyn's first real hunt, where she could actually walk around and pick up the eggs herself. She was very excited to get started, and she loved having her little bunny basket with her.

Jordyn was ready to take off. She could already see the eggs in the grass and  probably thought she
could get them all. We had to hold Uriah back so Jordyn could get a head start.

Uriah was a pretty good egg hunter and even found a few camouflage eggs. He loved running around looking for the eggs. There were a whole bunch of them

Daddy decided he needed to help Uriah find some eggs. As you can see, some of the eggs were unreachable to little ones, like the one on the window sill there right in front of Jared. We got to pick him up and let him grab that one and stick it in his basket.

Jordyn wasn't very good at keeping her basket upright, so grandma decided to carry it for her. Then Jordyn could pick up the eggs and drop them in her basket without worrying about them spilling all over.

Oooh look, another one! Jordyn has a pretty good amount by now, but still wants to keep hunting.

Jordyn putting another egg in her basket.

Yup, this is a good one.

Jordyn and her basket full of eggs. It just couldn't hold much more than that! She was very excited to go inside and open them up to see what goodies they contained.

Uriah was very pleased with himself. After his bunny basket became overflowed with eggs, he decided it would be best to stash the rest  of the eggs he found in his hood. As you can see, he has a basket AND a  hood full of eggs.

While mommy and daddy had to perform at two concerts, Uriah and Jordyn had to find someone to take care of them. One night, aunt Lindsay and uncle TJ took the kids and had lots of fun with them. They went to a local park that has a greenway walk and Uriah got to push Jordyn around in the stroller through the entire park. It took them a little while, but every time someone tried to help Uriah push the stroller he would say, "No! Uriah do it!" I don't think Jordyn minded who pushed her!

They got to see duckies and geese in the river by the path. Uriah loves all kinds of animals, but apparently he didn't want to do anything but push the stroller.

You can see how pleased Uriah is with himself, that he is pushing the stroller without help. He sure is growing up. Both of my babies are growing up. I am so glad that they play well together and that they get along, and that they are also both very easygoing. What a lucky mother I am!

After the adventure at the park, they got to go back to the Allen house and make some brownies. Jordyn just decided she couldn't wait for them to bake and dug right in to the batter. I just think this is one of the best pictures of her. My beautiful baby has adorable blue eyes and the best smile. I am so thankful that she smiles almost all the time. She certainly keeps me happy, even when I'm feeling blue.

Well, that's pretty much the last month in a nut shell. We are very excited for summer to start. The spring semester is over and now we can start enjoying summer. The kids will get to stay home instead of going to daycare and I know they will enjoy the time they get to spend with daddy. I will start going to work at 7:30 next week and getting off at 4, which I love because it feels like I have so much more time at the end of the day to do things. We have a lot of exciting things coming up over the next few months that I can't wait to write about.