Snow Trip, Day 1

 

We had our annual trip to the snow last week, and it was awesome. We went up on Monday and came home Wednesday. The boys probably could have stayed longer, but it was just long enough for me. Chloe did a fabulous job. She tolerated the cold and slept great. She didn't even cry in the car, which was a huge improvement over our recent trip to L.A. when she screamed an hour and a half each way.

 

I think this was the first year we had all our own snow gear, although we did borrow a couple of sleds. Every year we just get one or two things, often second-hand.

This was Levi's first real snow trip, since he refused to get out of the car last year. We didn't know how he'd do - he'd either love it or hate it. Turns out he LOVED it! He was super tough and didn't cry, or at least no more than usual. He loved sledding and throwing snowballs and climbing huge mountains of snow. 

 

My boys love it there so much, and they don't understand WHY we would choose to live in a place that never snows. I think visiting snow 2 1/2 hours away is just perfect. At the end of the second day, Brennan said, "I don't think I would want to live where it snows. Every time we go outside we have to put on all this stuff."

We stayed at Shaver Lake Village Hotel, which has an awesome sledding hill right behind the cabins. Their last snow storm had been three days earlier, and there were some bare spots. But there was still plenty of snow to play in. It's always a little scary to plan these trips weeks in advance, not knowing if there will be snow when we get there. 

Dave wore his GoPro sledding and skiing, which helped us relive all the fun at the end of the day. We'd hook it up to the T.V. and all watch it. At some point I'll download it and get some still shots from it, if I can remember how I did it last time.

 

After the sledding came the snowball fight. One of my snow memories when I was little was having a big snowball fight with my dad and siblings. I think I cried. I stay out of it these days - the kids know not to hit mom. After all, I've got a camera.

Luckily no one cried. My boys are tough.

Then they made snowmen. You might recognize this set-up from Calvin and Hobbes:

 

 

 

Happy Valentine's Day

 

We've been doing something fun the past couple of weeks. I saw these cute little $1 mailboxes at Target and bought one for everyone. Then I got a bunch of stickers and ribbons (all on sale at Michaels) and the boys decorated their mailboxes. They insisted I go back and get one for myself and Dave too. Then they got busy writing notes and making valentines for each other. I even bought some candy for them, but the rule was they couldn't put candy in their own mailbox (Levi's the one who needed the rule).

 

Look how cute they all turned out!

I got into it too. I gave them these because they were told at school that everyone would get cotton candy after the fun run fundraiser, but then the machine broke and only a few winners from each grade got it. How disappointing! 

They would get all excited whenever they came home from school and saw their flag up. It's funny, because some of them didn't know what the flag was for! We've never had our own mailbox - just shared with the whole street. Anyway, it was quite successful, and we just might have to make this a new February tradition. Personal notes from your family mean so much more than generic cards from classmates.

La Brea Tar Pits



 

Right smack in the middle of Los Angeles is the most famous ice age tar pit in the world. We were down there for a temple trip a couple weekends ago, so we drove over to check it out.

 

 

 

The museum costs $5 for kids 12 and under, $9 for students, and $12 for adults. It wasn't huge, but there was plenty of cool things to see. It took us about a hour.



 

 

 

The saber-tooth tiger, just one of many extinct animals displayed in the museum. Predators greatly outnumber herbivores at the pits because an animal would get stuck in the tar (which is actually oil), and it would look like easy prey to meat eaters. Then they would get stuck too.

 

I didn't know there used to be camels around here. There were also horses, which is interesting because some people have faulted the Book of Mormon because it mentions horses here. Hmm...
 

I especially liked the woolly mammoths. They were huge! No, there aren't any dinosaurs, since they were long gone by the time the tar pits came along.

The most common animal found is the extinct dire wolf. They have found over 2000 in the pits - here's a display of 400 skulls.

 

And here's a dire wolf skeleton. What's unique about tar pits is that they preserve the bones by completely covering them with the tar, like shellac. So they are the actual bones and not mineralized fossils.
 

They also have what they call a fishbowl lab. They are still uncovering fossils from the tar pits, and we can watch the palaeontologists at work, sorting and preparing their findings for display. I thought this looked lot a rather boring job, but my boys were fascinated.

Levi was especially interested in the animatronics. He was a little concerned that the woolly mammoth would get him, but we assured him it wasn't real. The saber tooth attacking the sloth was pretty awesome too.

 

Just as we were finishing up in the museum, there was an announcement that an outside tour was about to begin. So we did that too. The tour guide was very good and entertaining, and we learned a ton.

 

 Then we walked over to see Pit 91. Apparently they number the excavation sites.

There was a little building overlooking the pit.

 

The colored flags each identify a different animal.

 

We had to watch where we stepped because there were just random puddles of tar oozing up all over. You can see how the leaves and sticks could easily camouflage it to an unsuspecting animal. Dave bore his testimony the next day comparing the tar pits to Satan's sneaky traps. I missed it because I was home with a stomach virus. It's been a sickly month for us - 2 1/2 weeks of a stomach virus followed by a respiratory virus. We were glad everyone was healthy during our 2 days in L.A.!

11 month cuteness

 

We are just a couple weeks away from Chloe's first birthday. When I told Spencer he was walking by this age, he was shocked. Chloe is not ready to walk yet. She gets up onto her hands and knees, but then she gets down on her belly to scoot, and she scoots backwards more than forward.  She will occasionally stand holding onto furniture a little bit, but mostly she's content to sit and play with toys and laugh at her brothers.

 

Would you look at all that hair? We are trying to figure out the whole bangs thing, because currently it is always in her eyes. After a week of cold weather (don't laugh Utah people), we had a beautiful day in the upper 60's. So we went to the park, and it felt wonderful. She spent almost the whole time in the swing. Too bad our baby swing at home broke after Levi.

I love putting her hair in pig tails. She reminds me of a little Hummel, and she actually leaves them in.

 

Chloe is starting to understand more of what we say and answer us with nods and shakes of her head. She says "mama," "dada," "baba" and lots of other happy noises. She also has quite a temper, and she throws her head back when she's upset.

 

She likes to dance to music and shake anything that makes noise. Pill bottles are her favorite when we're shopping, but she screams when I take them away to check out. In fact she gets quite upset when we take anything away from her that she wants, especially when it's something she could choke on.
 

She still loves peek-a-boo and will pull a blanket up and down over her own head to play. She also laughs hysterically when we play Row, Row, Row Your Boat. This really is such a fun age!

Proud Mommy Moment

 

We had some excitement recently when Tyler AND Dallin both won the American Legion Speech Contest for their school and received $60 each. They were given a topic to write about, and each class in grades 3-5 chose 2 students to perform their speech via Skype to judges 3 1/2 hours away. Tyler was in the contest last year, but he didn't win. Some of us really thought he should have won, so we were particularly happy to see him do it this year! He was very nervous last year and didn't look up much (almost no one looks up at all - they just read the whole thing). But this year he was AWESOME, looked up a ton, and spoke with great intonation and excitement. I was so impressed!

 

I am not exaggerating when I say that Dallin looked forward to this opportunity for a whole year. He LOVES to perform in plays, give talks in church and oral reports in school, and bear his testimony in church every single month. His speech was fabulous, and his execution was superb. He had the whole audience laughing and cheering. This was back in December.

Two winners were selected from each grade, and they were invited, along with their families, to an awards dinner in January. After dinner they gave their speeches again. In case you were wondering about their topics, the third graders had to choose 4 symbols to represent themselves. Dallin chose a chef's hat (because he loves to cook), a stage (he loves to perform), a quill pen (he likes to read and write) and a house (he enjoys spending time with his family).

 

And they both did great again. Tyler's grade had to choose 3 symbols to represent the future of America. He chose a flaming torch (America will continue to be a land of liberty), a light bulb (for new ideas and inventions in science and technology), and the sun (for new sources of energy).

 

Then they received medals, certificates, and their checks for $60. They still haven't decided how they want to spend it. It's more money than they've ever had!

Riverbed

As I mentioned earlier, we went to the Salinas Riverbed a few days after Christmas. Dave had to work, so it was just me and the kids.

My boys love to go there because they like to look for stuff. They are sure that one day they will find an arrowhead or some cool fossil, and that is because they know people who have.

They didn't find anything cool this time, (Spencer reminded me that he did find a big tooth, which he thought was cool; plus they have found other things in the past, such as an old railroad nail and oar), but they all managed to find a stick they couldn't live without. What is it about little boys and sticks?

Dallin had fun whittling a stick with his new pocket knife.

There's Levi's sad eye, with a laceration and bruising from the tub accident and goopiness from the RSV. He was surprisingly happy, all things considered.

 He especially liked throwing rocks into the water. Another little boy obsession.

Which progresses to skipping rocks - it never gets old.

After we were there awhile, a shady looking shirtless guy appeared out of no where and asked us if we'd found any fish. It was too cold not to be wearing a shirt, so that was odd. We decided it was time to leave.

There was sadness in the car when I made them leave their sticks and rocks there, but at least Spencer got a water sample to look at under his new microscope.