utah trip

Earlier this year we found out that my sister Kara was going to be in Salt Lake during Harper's spring break, so we thought that was a good excuse to head up there for a week.

When we got to my Mom's house, my grandparents were there so we got to spend a little time with them.  My Grandma got on the floor and played cars with Jonah for about an hour.  He was in heaven.

Since I wasn't going to be able to spend much time with my brother and his wife since they both work and Chase goes to school, we met them for breakfast at Kneader's.  I love that place.

my Mom and Harper

Kelly

Makay and Chase

Afterward we were able to go to the brand new Natural History Museum at the University of Utah.  It is GORGEOUS and I highly recommend it.  So do the kids.

She was having fun even though you can't tell

digging for dinosaur bones

Jonah was in awe of the dinosaurs 

he is such a ham

but so cute 

My Mom got the kids some glow sticks from the gift shop

On Friday we drove down to Provo to pick up my sister from her dorm.  She lives in the new Heritage dorms and they are SO MUCH nicer than the old Heritage dorms.  The kids picked out some new hats from the BYU Bookstore and have been wearing them constantly.

 On Saturday the kids' cousins came over for an Easter egg hunt and some egg dying.

and some cupcakes too

When I booked the trip I didn't realize that we would be there for Easter Sunday, but the kids had fun going to Grandma's ward in their new Easter clothes.  Someone didn't cooperate for a photo.

We miss everyone and wish we lived closer, thank goodness for facetime and skype!

easter egg hunt

The week before Easter several wards in our stake had an Easter egg hunt at the ball field behind our chapel.

Since it is a ball field, there are not many place to actually hide the eggs, so the egg hunting took approximately 3 minutes.  It was still fun though.

 Especially the eating candy part.

more biking

We have been trying to go place to let the kids ride their bikes more often.  Harper is still a little scared and there are always lots of tears, even though she usually ends up doing really well and she is generally glad that we went.

Jonah likes to ride is bike but he needs more practice.  He gets a little frustrated that he can't really glide on the bike.

Here is Harper after some tears.  She is getting better, it's just so hard to get practice when we have to lug the bikes all the way over to the busy park.

little superman

Earlier Jonah told me, "I need my cape to save the day!"

Later, crying after falling down while running around the house, "I didn't save the day."

Petersen Automotive Museum

On Saturday we drove over to the Petersen Automotive Museum.  Since Tom has been really busy at work lately, we have been trying to do more activities so that we make sure that he gets some quality family time.

The museum was fun, though Jonah was disappointed that he didn't get to climb in the cars.

The big highlight of the museum was seeing the batmobile and costume from one of the Batman movies.  Jonah was in awe.

 The top floor of the museum is a kids area.

 They have a ramp where you can race Hotwheels.

The kids were thrilled that we let them pick out a little car in the giftshop at the end of the museum.  They haven't slept without them all week.

Harper singing

We tried to visit the Petersen Automotive Museum on Saturday.  We did not know that the 2013 Bacon Festival was in progress on the roof of the museum and there was no parking for blocks in any direction, so we ended up driving around for a while.  Here is Harper singing while we drove around looking for parking.


Harper singing from Erica Jackman on Vimeo.

New bikes

Our kids get a little bike deprived.  We don't have a yard and our street is a giant hill with a horrendously bumpy sidewalk, so it takes a lot of effort to have bike riding time.  We have a tricycle that Harper has outgrown and that Jonah has yet to grow into, so we decided that our kids needed some new bikes to motivate us.

We have had limited success finding places to ride their bikes (other than the church parking lot, which is kind of a hill itself) so we decided to take them with us when we went to visit Tom's parents last weekend.

The kids loved being able to ride around in their cul-de-sac.  When we got back they wanted to know if they could ride their bikes on our street.  No way!

Harper has tipped her bike a couple of times and is a little nervous about riding it.  But as long as she goes pretty slow and never goes anywhere near a hill, she is happy.

We got Jonah a balance bike.  He is a little short for his age (Harper was at this age too) so this way he doesn't have peddles that he needs to reach.  He is quite pleased.

The dogs came out to watch the biking.

Jonah may be a little short, but his head definitely isn't small.  We had to buy him a helmet for the 5+ year olds.  It is the only size that would fit on his head, but it doesn't quite fit right (you can see here that it is sliding back).

We have since discovered a park with a great trail for biking so hopefully these will get lots of use :)

Christmas in Utah

After a long, long drive from LA, which included an overnight stop in Vegas, we made it to my Mom's house.   It was a very cold and snowy.    

The kids were very excited to open more presents.

Jonah wore his normal breakfast attire (PJ shirt and a diaper) and added his new Batman boots to the ensemble.

 We rode a carousel.

 The kids played iPad games with Grandma.

We had a yummy breakfast at the Original Pancake House.  These next two are my favorite photos from the trip.

Jonah is a real character and it turns out that this is amplified by having a larger audience.  

It was colder in Utah than we had planned, so we did a little winter shopping (thank goodness for clearance sales!).  I found this jacket for Jonah.  It has a little wolf on the front and little wolf ears on the top.  Every time he wore it he insisted on being called "Wolfie."

 So fun to see these guys.  It was totally worth the trip just to spend time with them.

 It was wonderful to have some help from my sisters.  Harper and Jonah love their aunts!

We got to see my Grandparents.  This is my maternal grandfather and one of the people I most admire in the whole world.

Not the best picture, but this is my maternal Grandmother, Harper, and my Mom.  These three ladies are amazing.

One of the highlights of the trip (other than seeing family) was to ride the Frontrunner Train.  Jonah still talke about getting to ride a train.

We rode downtown to check out the new mall and temple square.  We also spent some time in the Children's area of the Church History Museum.

And this is my cute sister Kelly with her boyfriend.  He is leaving on his mission next month.

We were sad to leave, but happy to be home.  Especially because it got much colder in Utah after we left!