Thursday while I took my kids to camps, Emily took her kids to JC Penny for their annual birthday pictures. The kids rode bikes when we all got home and unfortunately Ben and Dylan had a pretty good wreck. Both got scraped up and were pretty sad. Ben was coasting down our hill too fast and Dylan couldn't get out of the way fast enough.
We had Mac and Cheese for lunch and had the kids take naps in the afternoon. Dan had a nice lunch date with his mom and some of his bros. Unfortunately during nap time, Anna decided to go #2 but only called for me quietly and I didn't hear her. I was resting in my room too which resulted in her falling asleep on the toilet. :( Poor thing! And Bethany is a hoot! I told her to make a funny face and the bottom picture is what I got. And she did eventually warm up to Mollie!
Thursday afternoon Ben left for the grandson sleepover! He loves his cousins and grandma and had a blast! (Missing Oliver in this picture.)
It was Disney/Mickey themed this year!
That evening Mickelle and Emily went down to Provo for Emily to get a hair cut from Mickelle's curly stylist. Dan worked late, and mom and dad had a fancy work dinner, which left me with all the kids. They played, we had dinner, and then I put them to bed normal time but most had a hard time falling asleep due to afternoon naps earlier.
Once all the grown ups returned, grandma was prepping more crafts for the kids and I tried to learn how to sew a button hole using my sewing machine but failed miserably.
Friday morning Emily and I were able to do an endowment session at the Bountiful temple! That night Justin surprised his kids by flying in for the weekend!
Back up... after breakfast we packed lunches and headed to This Is The Place Heritage Park. This was a real authentic "Utah" thing to go and experience with Smiths! When we first got there, there was dancing in the street and some of us joined in!
The first house we stopped at had pioneer chores and games.
Then we went to the horse chorale and petting zoo. Bethany was too chicken to ride one.
We stopped by the blacksmith shop, and then the school house where it was recess and they were playing games outside. We ate our picnic lunches then headed over to the barber shop where all the kids got a "shave." We visited the leather shop and the kids got to pound a little piece of leather.
We also saw the bank, pottery shop, shoe shop, printing press, medicine shop, and the candy store (of course). I thankfully got Bethany to take a little snooze in the stroller.
The kids rode the train and panned for gold in a little stream as well. They made Indian arrowhead necklaces and another craft right at the end of our visit.
PHEW! It was a long day there but oh so fun! I definitely want to take my kids here once a year but only on a day when the high temperature is in the low 80s. ;)
We had taco salad that night for dinner and my mom made another craft with the kids. The Smiths stayed up a little later that night waiting for Justin to arrive so they finished watching Lego Batman.
Saturday I ran 5 miles (and only walked .5). We at breakfast in the car and left by 8:15 to drive down to Elberta to tour the church's dairy farm. We drove on the west side of Utah Lake and it was beautiful! We first saw the HUGE piles of feed for the cows. It was a funky fermented corn smell, but very interesting to see how important it is to control the cow's diet to maximize their milk production. Then we saw their computer tracking system where they track the cows' temperature, heart rate and menstrual cycles.
Then we went into the actual milking parlor. It was quite a process to see them clean off the udders, hook them up, and one cow could produce up to 8 gallons of milk in less than 5 minutes sometimes!! They sanitize each of the milking machines each time and also clean the udders when they leave as well. They milk hundreds of cows three times a day!! We also got to see the coral where the baby cows are kept. We saw one birthed just that morning! We also saw the fields and compost piles where they grow the cows' food.
We had taco salad that night for dinner and my mom made another craft with the kids. The Smiths stayed up a little later that night waiting for Justin to arrive so they finished watching Lego Batman.
Saturday I ran 5 miles (and only walked .5). We at breakfast in the car and left by 8:15 to drive down to Elberta to tour the church's dairy farm. We drove on the west side of Utah Lake and it was beautiful! We first saw the HUGE piles of feed for the cows. It was a funky fermented corn smell, but very interesting to see how important it is to control the cow's diet to maximize their milk production. Then we saw their computer tracking system where they track the cows' temperature, heart rate and menstrual cycles.
Then we went into the actual milking parlor. It was quite a process to see them clean off the udders, hook them up, and one cow could produce up to 8 gallons of milk in less than 5 minutes sometimes!! They sanitize each of the milking machines each time and also clean the udders when they leave as well. They milk hundreds of cows three times a day!! We also got to see the coral where the baby cows are kept. We saw one birthed just that morning! We also saw the fields and compost piles where they grow the cows' food.
Such a fascinating process to learn about! I think the kids enjoyed it overall, though it was quite hot and of course stinky. Anna had the hardest time, but perked up once we let her stay in the car for a bit.
We stopped for lunch at Arby's and then planned to head up to hike at Cascade Springs but it was closed due to a wild fire. Instead we drove to Heber and got ice cream at the Dairy Keen. Then we lucked out and ran into a car show (where Ben got to wear the Transformers Bumble Bee helmet)!!
We got back to Bountiful around 5:20 and got pizzas and went and played at Deer Hollow Park with the awesome zip line.
Sunday the Smiths visited some friends and we attended regular church. There were some wonderful talks about Quest! We had a spaghetti dinner that night and after the kids were in bed we played Bananagrams.
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