Travelin' in Utah July 13-17

We drove down to Idaho on Saturday July 13th. It was a good drive with stops at some nice rest areas. We joined Robin and her kids for dinner that evening. She made us yummy tator tot casserole.  We had a good time hanging put with Robin, Zach, Elizabeth and Quinn.  They have infectious laughs and find lots of things to laugh about.  Dinner was a lot of fun.

We had a yummy breakfast at Robin's in the morning and loaded the car for the drive to Kaysville.  On the way down we had a need for a potty stop.  Our only option at the time was a gas station with a label in the window welcoming us to the middle of nowhere.  It was posted pretty clearly inside that restroom were for paying guests only, so I treated the kids to ice creams that we ate sitting in the dusty parking lot.

We made it to Grammy's without any problems but not quite in time to join her for church.  Instead, we settled in and fell asleep on her sofas while the kids broke out the toys she had brought out for them.

Sunday evening I had some of my favorite high school people over for a mini reunion. Our official 20 year reunion is next month but none of us really wanted to go.  So we emailed each other and set up a reunion with some of the people we did want to see.  I made some gluten free chocolate brownies with extra chocolate chips and fresh raspberries. They were delicious.  We had me, Erin Ford Findlay, Lori Hollist Auger, and Ann Baker Romero.  It was great to just sit and talk.  I could see why these were the friends I chose to spend my time with all through high school.  I definitely think we should do more of these mini reunions!

We stayed at Grammy's until Thursday evening.  We went swimming in the swim spa pretty much every day.  We also visited a few museums.  I took the kids to the Natural History Museum at the University of Utah on Tuesday the 16th.  It was a really nice museum.  We started by climbing all the way to the fifth floor. There, you can go out on the roof and learn about weather and water conservation.  There is also a room about Native American history and current relationship with American society.  We worked our way down through geological information and archeology and then to the dinosaur exhibit.  There were a lot of kid-friendly activities and the displays were all really well done.  It was a great museum.

On Wednesday we took a hike into the mountains behind the parents' house.  We had decided it was time to spread the ashes of the dog the parents had that died just after my mission. Yes, that was 14 years ago.  Her ashes have been in a box on the fireplace since then.  On Sunday when we were waiting for the parents to return from church, Becca picked up the wooden box of dog ashes and, shaking it, asked why Grammy kept a box of rice with the kid toys on the fireplace.  We decided it was time to move the dog on.  The plan had always been to scatter the ashes on the Vita Course, or nature trail. But the boys who frequently went up there never managed to remember to take the boxed dog. So, Wednesday morning the 5 Killpacks and Grandad put on their socks and shoes and headed up the mountain.  We walked to the creek and found a shady spot by the bridge.  That was where we put Cricket's remains. Then, Kip and the kids played in the creek, building up a little dam to increase the depth of the water they were playing in.  Anna and I got mosquito bites on our legs that bugged us the rest of the trip.  And eventually we headed back down the mountainside.

On Thursday Grammy and Grandad treated us with a trip to the Treehouse children's museum in Ogden.  It's another great museum option.  There were enough things to do that we weren't able to get it all done in the two hours of free parking we had available.  The highlight was when the staff hosted play staring the kids.  It was a version of Blanca Flore.  William got to be the prince.  He did an excellent job projecting his lines just like Elizabeth Moreno taught him for the school talent show.  Anna got to be one of the 7 bandits and also did well.  Becca really wanted to be a Bandit but enjoyed the play anyway.

After the museum, Grandad took us to the union station Grill.  We had a yummy lunch and then got to look at the trains on display outside.  They had a train car that had carried the olympic torch for the winter olympics in Salt Lake in 2002.

Plumper Pumpkin Patch, Oct 10, 2012

Becca had her preschool field trip to the pumpkin patch on Wednesday. It was at Plumper Pumpkin Patch, which is the same farm we've been going to since William was in preschool at Young Learner's. I have pictures of him helping push the manual pumpkin seed planter and checking out the milking area from when the farm used to have dairy cows.

Becca and I got to the farm a little after 9:00 am. The weather was uncharacteristically perfect. I think I've been to that farm on at least 4 other field trips and I don't believe we've had good weather on any of them. This Tuesday morning the sun was shining, the weather was cool but not super cold, and everyone was ready for fun. There were a lot of people there. We found a teacher from Becca's class and learned that today's field trip was the free-range kind. We could wander wherever we liked, do a hay maze, slide on the various slides, ride the hay ride, and pick a pumpkin. Becca was strangely unenthusiastic about all of it except the part where she got to pick a pumpkin.

We met a few of her friends, but she refused to go into the hay maze with them, or smile for a picture. All she wanted was her pumpkin. I decided that maybe we should just take off and go to a card-making party I had accidentally signed up for at the same time, but before we left, I asked if she wanted to do the hay ride. This was the first thing other than the pumpkin she got excited about. She definitely wanted a hay ride.

The hay ride consisted of a tractor attached to a covered trailer with hay seats around the outside and a row along the middle. There were two tractors running. One was attached to a trailer all made of wood with a peaked wooden roof. The other had a trailer that looked like a covered wagon with similar seating arrangement but much more decoration. It had bright yellow and orange ribbons and bouquets of dried flowers. Both were doing a circuit of the farm so that each one stopped and loaded,or unloaded about every 5 minutes. The line to get one was very long. We got in with Jenny Gennings and Angelise and started our wait. Becca was a trooper! We must have stood there for at least 30 minutes but she didn't complain at all. We watched each wagon unload and load and the line shrink a little bit until finally we got our turn.

The less-decorated wagon took us on our loop. We went around the barn and stopped by the Christmas trees. The driver told us about the three kinds--Douglas firs with their needles growing all around the branches, Grand firs with needles on opposite sides of the branch, and Noble firs with needles pointing up. He told us about the train hundreds of feet below the farm in an underground tunnel and how the farm got electricity before anyone else in the area because the train had it in the tunnel and gave it to the farm for the right to go under their land. I've heard it enough times, I could almost give the speech. Then we went up to the pumpkin shooters. They showed us the trebuchets and the air cannons and the slingshots for people to shoot little pumpkins at UofO and OSU signs. Then we went down the hill, past the field where we could get our free pumpkin (not really free because we paid $6 each to come), and back to the drop-off. We hopped off the wagon and headed to pick out our pumpkins. There were a lot of nice looking pumpkins of varying sizes. None were huge, of course, because this was the lot of complimentary pumpkins, but there were some that Becca couldn't pick up easily. We found a few that I liked a lot, two bigger ones, and I thought we were done. But Becca changed her mind. She decided she wanted something different. Instead of the plump, round, medium-sized, regular-looking pumpkin, she wanted something unique. She chose a small, oddly shaped little one with a lot of character. I thought it was pretty cool. She drew a face on with her markers. We'll go over it with sharpies and I think it will be perfect!

Pioneer Day, July24, 2011

Our stake did a Pioneer Day celebration at a local farm. There was lots of good, pioneer-style food. Oh, and shaved ice. I'm not sure pioneers had that. But we enjoyed it.

The kids did a pioneer parade. William joined, even though he'd chosen not to wear pioneer clothes. He was Anna's moral support. The marched around the barn at least 10 times.

Thank goodness for lots of water!

Becca was a super cute pioneer with her daddy!

Lakeview Farms Pumpkin Patch

Since there was no school on Friday and it's that lovely time of year when pumpkins are big and leaves are turning colors, we decided to go with our friends the Istooks to the Pumpkin Patch. We drove out to North Plains and wend to Lakeview Farms because we love their little train around the field and boat across the lake. Becca wouldn't go near the lake, so she and I rode the train to the patch and back.

I got this picture of her while waiting for the boat to deliver the rest of our crew.

When the boat arrived we went into the field and picked out the best pumpkins ever. We really liked the warty ones this year. I can't wait to carve them...

After getting our pumpkins picked out, we climbed with them onto the train and rode back. The kids had a blast. It wasn't too cold and it wasn't raining. It was a perfect day for the pumpkin patch!

Magic Kingdom, 2011

 

I spent the night before our Magic Kingdom visit planning what things I wanted to do with the kids. When we arrived, we headed straight for Fantasyland and started the fun. Kip took William and cousin Preston to do their first rides and I took the girls on Small World. They both enjoyed it, in spite of Becca's nervousness in the line.

 

After Tea Cups and the Carousel (a major hit), we watched Mickey's Philharmagic. Yet again, it was too scary for Becca. Why do they have to make everything scary? If they kept these shows simple and didn't throw in all the drama and bad-guys my kids would like them a lot more.

 

We finished Fantasyland with a final round of Tea Cups. I did the super-spinny cup with William, Anna, and Preston (whom we adopted for the day), while Kip did the slower, gentler cup with Becca. We met the cousins and did a kid trade-off for Space Mountain and I realized that I actually do kind of like rollercoasters.

 

After lunch in Tomorrowland and a ride on the magic carpets, we headed to the Buzz Lightyear ride with the rest of the family. While Kip and I rode Splash Mountain on our fastpasses later that day, Uncle Tyler talked William into riding Thunder Mountain Railroad for a dollar. He almost enjoyed it--he said it got scary in the middle when it was dark.

 

The girls loved all the princessy things to see and were especially cute at this little sitting spot outside the castle.


We ended up leaving at 8:30, just before the night's parade. The kids were tired and I was satisfied that I had done all the things I really wanted to do.

Hollywood Studios, April 30th, 2011

 

On the 1st day of our 4-day pass, we all went to Hollywood Studios. We headed to the reputed best ride there first, Toy Story Mania. The wait was about 40 minutes and Becca for some reason was not at all happy about being in line. She must have had some bad memories from our visits to theme parks in previous years because she just didn't want to do the ride.

 

Abby and Anna weren't at all worried about it.

 

And even Max held up OK. But Becca hated the line and hated the ride. The rest of us thought it was pretty fun. We enjoyed shooting up the targets and spinning to the next area. Becca wanted nothing to do with any other rides after that. So we dragged her into the Little Mermaid show. She hated that too. Too dark and too much time spent on the Sea Witch. She wasn't very impressed with the whole theme park idea. All our kids voted to just head back to the hotel at that point and we finally gave in and did it.

Florida, April 29th, 2011

The Killpack family reunion for 2011 was a trip to Disney World in Orlando. We decided to try out the option of taking a red-eye and getting there with time to settle in before our first day of hitting the park. We put the kids to bed at 8pm then went in and woke them up at 11 to head to the airport for our 1am flight. The goal was for them to stay drowsy on the way and to fall back asleep in flight. It didn't happen. All three kids were too wired on the first flight to sleep much. And Kip and I couldn't get comfortable. The second flight, the kids may have slept a little. I was too tired to stay awake, so I'm not sure. In any case, by the time we reached Orlando, got in a line for a bus to the hotel, waited for our room to be ready and finally got inside, we were all exhausted.

 

We all took about 2 hours of a nap piled on top of the covers because it was just too much work to even pull them down.

 

When we woke up Chad, Angie, Abby, and Max had arrived from Ft Lauderdale and Grandma and Tasha had gotten there from Utah. We all got on another Disney bus and headed to Downtown Disney, ready for the fun to begin.

 

The kids begged me to let them ride the carousel. At $2 a piece, I didn't want to do it, but I folded. So they got one ride. But no more!

 

St Patrick's Day 2011

 

 

I decided to celebrate St Patrick's Day this year with some green food items. After William got home from school, the kids got to eat green frosted cupcakes (store bought - I mean, I'm only willing to do so much!) for snack. Then, for dinner we had Green French Toast. I thought it was pretty cute. I was afraid the kids wouldn't go for it, but they actually had fun with it.

Kip's Birthday 2011

 

Somehow this is the only picture from Kip's birthday. I made the cake. Kip frosted it. It was devil's food with chocolate chips added and chocolate frosting. He said it was good, but I couldn't eat it because of the fact that it was made almost entirely of ingredients I'm allergic to. I made myself something else to eat - I can't remember what at the moment...

Kip had a good birthday. He got Dominion Prosperity, which we haven't been able to play yet because he's working like a maniac every night and weekend and on Sundays church is later so we don't have our lazy afternoons anymore. He also got a rocket and the kids can't wait for nice weather (and Dad not to be working weekends) so they can go launch it in the field by the school. Grandma got the bishop to give him the Grilled Cheese Sandwich at his Sunday morning meeting. It was really nice. (wink, wink)

So, I think he had a good birthday. I feel bad about the state of that cake, but as long as it tasted good, that's what matters, right?

Snow Day

We had a lovely time on Thursday. It had snowed just enough to cover most of the yard and school was closed. It was cold, but not freezing, and beautifully sunny. Not like regular Portland weather at all.


I took the girls out to play in the snow. They thought it was excellent to come right up to me and throw snowballs in my face while I tried to take their pictures. We trampled all the snow in the back yard, then headed to the front.


Anna used a Winnie-the-Pooh shovel to clear the slush off the driveway. Becca got out the sand toys and we filled them with snow and made snow-shapes and a snow-castle.


When Becca's hands got too cold we headed inside.

Becca's Dance Class

Becca and Anna are taking dance classes at the rec center right now. They both love them. Becca has been a little hesitant to participate in hers unless I participate with her. The teacher said that was just fine if some of the kids had their moms dance with them. There were about 3 of us the first week. The second week there were only 2, me and one other mom. The third week there were at least 30 parents sitting on the bench at the back of the classroom and just me dancing with the 15 kids in front of them all. I was a little self-conscious. I'm not as flexible as the teacher and sometimes not as coordinated as the 3-year-olds. This last week I convinced her to let me take pictures while she danced. We'll see if that works again next time we go.

 

Becca Birthday Party

Becca had a little birthday party on the 29th of January. We had 3 friends over and played Hullabaloo and Bingo. Then, we broke out the cupcakes. We must be out of practice because we forgot to put the candles on until after she had eaten off all the frosting. Then we had to stick 3 candles into the naked brown cake.

 

Daddy helped her blow them out and she ate a little more of the cupcake for fun.

 

The friends who made it to the party were Jack, Rachel, and Claire. She loved the gifts they gave her.