Tomlin's Go Ice Skating...

New years eve we had passes for the SLCeve event downtown.  This event is basically a huge party with a variety of activities for all ages at various locations downtown.  All within a few blocks of one another.  Tracks runs free downtown that night (may even be every weekend night actually) so you basically hop on and ride from location to location to check it all out.  We stayed close to the Gateway mall the majority of the time as this is where all the kid friendly stuff was taking place.  Unfortunately for us, we weren't really aware that the kid new years countdown ended at 7pm and that the insane amount of people would really limit what the kids could participate in.  Face painting line was a minimum of an hour long... just for some amateurs to paint a firework on their face?  Crazy.  The room with the light bright and glowing mega blocks was so small that the kids (and adults) were feeling very crowded and anxious to get out of there. We did spend a fair amount of time at Discovery Gateway, but even that place was a crazy disaster.  What it boils down to is that by the time 7pm rolled around and the kid stuff fizzled out we were left with two very antsy kids who had yet had their fill of fun for the night.  We decided to check out the movies playing at Clark Planetarium as they were playing about every half hour to 45 min, and they went late into the night.  These movies just so happened to be included in our passes.  Unfortunately for us again, it wasn't made known at the time of purchase that these tickets were limited and that you had to reserve your movie ahead of time. This meant we didn't get to see a movie either.  My mom purchased the tickets and at this point she was very frustrated at the waste of money they were.  All they did for us really was get us into discovery gateway for the kids to drop one plastic ball into the air lifting thing, play in the water with some broken boats, color on a color wheel with some already used paper, and make a party hat with minimal supplies.  Eventually we did venture down to temple square.  We enjoyed an exciting first time ride on the trax train and wandered around enjoying the Christmas light display.  We even were able to catch a little mini-concert as we were warming our toes in one of the buildings there at temple square.  New Years eve really wasn't a total bust.  We enjoyed one another's company very much and in the end it turned out to be a pretty enjoyable experience.  Wasted money aside.  

That night though, what my kids really wanted to do was to go to the Galivan Center and ice skate out on their outdoor rink.  I knew after already having been allowed to do very little with our tickets due to crowd that if we were to attempt the ice skating the kids would just be let down again.  It wasn't worth it to fight the cold (15 degrees mind you) any longer to show up and the rink be at full capacity as I knew it would be.  So instead we wrapped up the night early, headed back to our car on trax, and arrived home just before 11pm with two kids that were already zonked out for the night.  

Because they had to miss out on the ice skating that night I decided that this weekend I would take them to an indoor rink not to far from our house.  I unfortunately woke that morning feeling under the weather, but pushed through and took them anyway.  They didn't know what we were doing, I only informed them I had a surprise.  They spent the morning Saturday trying to guess what their surprise was.  At different points in the morning both kids expressed that they hoped we were going ice skating.  Little did they know they guessed right, but they didn't really think that a mom with a cough would take them to the cold.

We headed out to the ice skating rink, where Grammy and Uncle Bronson were going to meet us.  The kids didn't know they were coming either.  

Upon arriving we were greeted by a huge billboard of a speed skater.  Immediately they knew that we were indeed going ice skating.  While Brenna was jumping up and down in the back seat screaming "THANK YOU MOMMY!" over and over agian, Sam thanked me with a big kiss!

It's good to know your kids appreciate your efforts and there is no better way to express that than with some loves for Mommy.

The kids had so much fun.  Brenna just hopped right on that ice and took off on her own, circling that rink over and over and over again.  Sam remained a bit timid and just couldn't get his balance so I rented him a little walker to assist him and after that he took off just like his sissy.  Eventually he got brave enough, with a little boosted confidence, and ventured out without the walker and did remarkably well.  They both thought that their pre-fall twist, turns, and tumbles were real ice skating tricks and that it was pretty cool they could do tricks without even trying. HA! We spent a good couple hours skating.  Neither of the kids wanted to leave and both suggested that we come back again the next day.  This is definitely a repeat activity for our family, only next time I will insist that Dad join us.

Who else wants to join us?

It was a great weekend.  Today Bill took the kids to the gun show with his Dad (Grandpa T.), while I am stuck in bed with a miserable cough, headache, and itching ears.  The invisible heavyweight that is sitting on my chest is welcome to leave anytime (preferably NOW!)