$2 Tuesdays!

In August our Thanksgiving Point has $2 Tuesdays where every attraction or venue or whatever you call it is only $2 to get in.  Since the regular price to get into the Dinosuar Museum would run our family a whopping $42, and that doesn't even include Lance, I choose to take them when it only costs me $10.  It's a little crowded and Brady says you can't really "enjoy" everything.  I think it's just right, a little stressful for me trying to keep track of everyone, but mostly fine. 

Mia and Chloe wanted to be stabbed by the claws.

Chloe's playing in the cave.

Now they're all in the cave.

Brady refused to show his face in the cave.

Mia's roaring, Chloe's posing.

Now she's roaring.

Brady's doing some serious riding.

Digging for dinosaur bones.

Isaac's feet touched the sand and then he wanted nothing to do with it.  He was happy just to watch them.

This year I let them stop at the gift shop on the way out.  Usually I run past that as fast as possible.  A souvenir flat penny is good enough since they lose it anyway.  I remembered I had some money in my purse from Easter from their grandparents from a couple of years ago.  We were at Disneyland at the time so it kind of slipped my mind.  Brady picked an egg that you had to "excavate" to get the baby dinosaur out of.  He got it out that night.  I didn't take a picture of that mess.  He cleaned up most of it, but it was that nasty red clay-like dirt so it managed to get everywhere.  Chloe picked a heart-shaped pink crystal necklace.  Tyler picked a water wiggly thing that has already found the garbage because of some massive leaking.  Isaac got a noisemaker tube thing.  Mia was very indecisive and wanted the most expensive things there but finally settled on a glow in the dark dinosaur that you could also paint.

Outside they had to have their pictures taken at a few different spots.

Afterwards we stopped at Del Taco for some tacos since it was Taco Nite!  Only $15 and we went to the museum and had dinner, I'd say that was a pretty good night.  (That doesn't count their souvenirs, since it was their money anyway.)

Idaho

We spent about a week in Idaho in July.  My sister has lived up there for a few years and has a pool.  We hadn't ever been there when it was warm enought to swim in it though.  I haven't gotten my kids into swim lessons yet, so I figured a few days in the pool should make me feel a little better about my laziness.  (Although swim lessons here are always packed and hard to get into unless you're on the ball, which I have not been this summer.)  So here's a rundown of what we did.  The kids played Barbies.  I believe they are operating some sort of hair salon in this picture.  Notice the beauty chair and scissors.  The hair dryer was a foot or so away.  Mia was also playing dress up in her cousins clothes that are too small for her.  The pants are still a little big for Mia which explains the extremely low jeans.

  These two look guilty of something, but I'm pretty sure they weren't up to anything.

My kids enjoyed playing my sister's piano,

especially Chloe.  I should really get her into lessons.  She loves music and dancing. 

We went bowling which was quit the adventure.  I think this is only the second time my little kids have ever been bowling.  We had a great time though.

This is Mia's "I'm so cool pose" after she knocked down a few pins.

This is how she did it.

This is Brady's "I'm such a stud I have to pretend I know what I'm doing at all times and I just barely missed those other pins" pose.

Chloe's turn.

Bowling always reminds me of middle school.  We'd walk to the bowling alley every day for a week during PE.  I'm pretty sure I haven't improved at all since then.  I was trying to let Isaac help me bowl this time.  He just wanted to kick the ball down the lane though.  Then he got mad when I didn't let him and just wanted to pout. 

We went swimming of course.  At first the kids had their arm floaties on all the time.  Eventually they played in the water without them a lot of the time. 

Tyler's doing some sort of face on purpose here.

The last day we were there, the 6 six year olds started jumping off the big rock into the deep end all by themselves, with their floaties on of course.  That was fun for all them.  Sitting by the pool for hours on end gave me a new appreciation for my mom.  My grandparents had a pool when we were growing up and she'd take us over there for a couple of hours at least a few days a week.  I don't know how she managed to get everything done with kids to feed and babies napping.  We sure had a lot of fun doing that though. 

The first couple of days Isaac didn't want too much to do with the water.  The third day I slowly worked him into it and now he loves it.  He just about fell asleep floating around in the baby float one day.  (Don't worry, I was standing right next to him the entire time.)  Now he wants to be just like the big kids.

The kids ate a lot of popsicles too.  It was close to 100 degrees almost every day.

It was so nice to have a pool and popsicles to keep us cooled off.

I also got to go see one of my friends from college.  He just had his first book published (Open Adoption, Open Heart) and will probably have more.  He's adopted two children.  His first book is about his amazing experience with his first adoption.  If you know anyone who's been touched by adoption, or anyone curious about adoption and especially open adoption, it's an excellent book.  He's also been writing some true short stories.  One of them called Mystery Date is about how we met.  It's a good story.  It was fun to see him and meet his wife and kids.

Now I know a couple of famous people.  (Another good friend of mine, Jenni Southworth Thomas,  has released 3 cd's that she's composed, not to mention she scored the music for a short film that won a gold medal at the Park City Music Film Festival.  And she just got two nominations for the Hollywood Music in Media Awards. One for "Best Contemporary Orchestral/Instrumental" for the song Illumination. The other is for "Best Score: Indie, Documentary, Short" for the Minuet Score.  Pretty impressive, huh.)

After being on vacation for a week, we came home and got back to reality, which mostly includes lots of messes.  This is my table after letting my kids do some watercoloring.  It's kind of hard to tell, but a lot of this is still soaking wet. 

They ended up with a lot of brown since they used up three different paint trays.

Mia and Chloe got invited to a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese's.  That left me alone with the boys for a couple of hours.  We headed to Trafalga to do some miniature golf.  We played the indoor course and one of the outdoor courses.  The indoor course is all black lit, that's why this is so dark.  Shortly after this picture, Tyler got a blister on his foot and was pretty miserable until we got him a bandaid.  This was taken before all of the tears.  It wasn't pretty after that.

Brady played pretty well.  He doesn't like to smile for pictures anymore.

Isaac had fun carrying the ball around and dropping it in the hole.  He wasn't too happy at the last hole when the ball didn't come back out though.  A long, long time ago, Lance and I played this course on a date.  On the last hole, if you got a hole in one, you got a free game next time you came.  I got a hole in one that night.  We never went back for my free game though.

When we played the outside course, Tyler had to pee.  He'd already been pee no less than half an hour before.  And of course we were midway through the course.  It was hot and I was ready to be done so I was not in the mood to take him back inside.  There's wasn't anyone around, (besides the hundreds of cars going by on the freeway but I'm pretty sure they couldn't see him) so I let him pee on a little tree.  Mother of the Year Award. 

The boys had fun and the girls had fun.  I'm pretty sure I was sweating buckets.  We'll just forget about that and say everyone had fun.

July

Tyler had a little run in with a hornet a while ago.  It got him right above his eyelashes on his right eye.  I was at Young Womens and my brother was over watching the kids.  After it happened, Tyler fell asleep for about an hour.  It wasn't swollen when he went to sleep, but when he woke up, it was definitely swollen. 

It looked even worse the next day.  Both eyes were almost swollen shut.  He hardly complained at all though.  Maybe that's because we went to the carnival.  More on that in a minute.

Each day it slowly looked better.  Lance was pretty worried about it, so I called the doctor Friday to see if they thought I should bring him in.  The nurse said since the swelling was in both eyes they needed to make sure it wasn't infected or anything.  (I'm going to quit calling to see if I should come in to the doctor's office.  They always tell me to come in for one reason or another.)  The doctor said the swelling was just an extreme reaction to the sting and since there's nowhere for the swelling to go, it ends up looking really bad.  Had it been an allergic reaction, he would have developed hives or tingling or numbnesss or swelling around his mouth. 

By Saturday night it started to look more normal.

Back to the carnival.  Everyone had lots of fun.

The one in the middle is not very excited to go on the Fireball or "Ring of Fire" as my kids call it.

Isaac enjoyed his ride on the train.

Mia, Chloe and their cousin went on Fireball by themselves.  I thought they'd be so freaked out the wouldn't go again.

They turned right around and went right back on it!

We finished our trip with snowcones

It's probably a good thing I got Isaac a blue one to match his shirt.  He thoroughly enjoyed it!

Here's my most recent belly picture.  It was taken mid-July so I'm about 33 weeks pregnant.  Try to ignore the dirty mirror.  It seems no matter how often I clean them, one of my children also tries to "clean" them or just manages to spread soap or toothpaste all over them.  It's amazing how helpful they can be.  And as you can see, Mia insisted on being in the picture.  I've definitely gotten bigger compared to my previous shot.

I'm trying to ignore the weight gain.  Let's just say I'm on track to gain my most ever.  I'm also probably the biggest I've ever been.  And I still have 4 weeks to go!  I guess that's what happens on your fifth pregnancy. 

Earlier this month, Brady managed to put together a nice message for everyone.  He's getting creative these days.

Isaac has grown very attached to Lance lately.  He has a hard time letting him leave to go to the shop.  He gives him a nice pouty face and tries to convince him to stay with hugs and snuggles.

A couple of days after the carnival we had a "family reunion."  My oldest brother was down from Montana and my sister came down from Idaho.  The rest of us live fairly close.  Seven out of nine is pretty good though.  I look ginormous next to my sisters.  That's what I get for being six inches taller and pregnant!  I should have traded places with my mom so I could be among those more my size.

The cousins had fun playing together.

We got them all together for a picture of course.  Amazingly, all 19 (out of 28) of them are looking at the camera and only Isaac isn't smiling.

This is their silly faces.  Some got a little more into it than others.

Two days after the reunion we went up to my sister's house in Idaho for almost a week.  She has a pool so my kids were very excited to spend some time at her house.  I'll save that for my next post.