Sun, Water Fun, and Shaved Ice... Just what our Easter needed! Part 2

I know I didn't give much detail to the whole nephew buried in quicksand story on day one of our trip.  The reason being was because Sister Steph really did save the day earning her bragging rights in all places, not just as "favorite" Aunt to the young one who's life she saved.  She's the better story teller anyway, I knew my role on this day and stood behind the lens documenting this great story for her.  I don't mean to be unsympathetic, but when everything was all said and done... one couldn't help but laugh at the situation poor Ayden (as appose to how I've been spelling it... it's NOT Aiden) found himself in.  As Sister Steph makes reference to... who would ever think you would find yourself in a pirate like situation where having watched mythbusters would come in handy when saving a boy's life?  Without further ado, I suggest you just go read for yourself at Sister Steph's Blog The Circus HERE.   

It's all in the wiggle. 

Anyway, on to day two.  We woke far too early than I would have liked after the night we had with poor Sam and his swimmer's ear.  Mom and Dad were in a rush to get out the door as Dad had a singing gig he had to do at a local rest home.  Apparently they (him and his brother's) are a BIG DEAL around that place.  They go play there weekly.  The elderly folk love them, and they too must love the elderly folk as they do all this out of the kindness of their hearts.  These brother's (The Eldredge Brother's) are quite talented.  Prior to Mom and Dad heading out the door, Dad spent a good half hour or so warming up.  Brenna was quick to find her place right beside her Grandpa as he sang some fun songs for her.  She loves to listen to him play guitar and sing.  She could sit and listen for hours and I as a mom love to watch her just gaze upon him while he sings. The love she has for that man is so apparent in those moments.  You can see it in her eyes, those are the moments she will one day grow to cherish.  I love that.  

After Mom and Dad left, we got some breakfast in us and got ready for the day.  We didn't have any set plans aside from me heading out for some much needed shopping. We had traveled down to St. George without having done any Easter shopping and here it was day before Easter and we had nothing to give the kids.  I knew what was on the agenda for my day, which meant that Bill had to occupy the kids while I went shopping.  Bill decided to take the kids up to a little reservoir not far from the parents place so Sam could try out his fly fishing pole that he has yet to use since he got it for his birthday nearly a year ago.  Both kids were excited to go fishing, which is good cause fishing is not my strong suit and didn't mind missing out on that "fun". 

Dad requested that I make ribs for dinner so I threw them in the oven then met up with Mom in town to do some shopping.  We were quick.  I hate Walmart and the crowds in St. George were insane.  I don't like crowds either.  I didn't want to be shopping so I rushed through Walmart, poor mom having to remind me to slow down.  I forget one doesn't always function like a 30 year old.  

We were back home in a little over an hour and was surprised to see Bill back with the kids already.  Apparently the biting wasn't all that great and the kids got board fast.  

Mom suggested that we head out to a park that was all the rave in St. George at the moment.  We showed up only to find it extremely crowded due to an Art Festival taking place.  That didn't matter we got out, listened to the live music, and walked around admiring some of the local art.  There is quite the water set up there too.  The kids couldn't wait to submerge themselves in that ice cold water.  

When we were headed to the park, we notice that the shaved ice shack was already up and running.  Dad has a weakness for black cherry shaved ice so we knew if we mentioned that the joint was already open he would insist on stopping by for a cool down.  We weren't disappointed.  Dad did suggest we stop on our way back to the house for some delicious shaved ice.  Why don't these places just stay open year round?  I would so pick one

 up in the dead of winter.  They are so good.    

I've decided that someone needs to open one in Magna that stays open all winter.  I won't be doing that though cause that would mean I would have to run it in the dead of winter and I'm just now willing to sit out in the cold.  Someone else can do it though.  I'll let them. 

We had a bit of a late dinner, which resulted in having to dye Easter eggs late and an even later bedtime than I had hoped for.  

The kids crashed fast once they made it to bed and I was able to play Easter bunny and make it to bed before midnight myself. 

Sun, Water Fun, and Shaved Ice... Just what our Easter needed! Part 1

It's no secret that spring has sprung and with it the spring fever slowly begins to fade as we are teased with those few warm, sun soaking, days that come scattered among those cloudy, thundering, raining, days.  

I'm okay with rain... So long is it doesn't freeze into that white stuff.  

(not even going to say it's name... It's like a curse word in my house)

Unfortunately, those few (and I mean very few) warm days have not been enough to ease my irritability caused by lack of sunshine and being cooped up in-doors since OCTOBER!

Six months is just TOO much!  

I decided, though we spent Easter with Bill's family last year meaning this year was reserved for my family, we needed to get away.  Sorry to my dear family, but my sanity depended on it.  So for the second year in a row we headed south.  Last year we camped out with Sister Steph and her Circus at Sand Hollow (HERE and HERE).

It was great fun, but lets just face it... I'm just not a good camper.  Granted if we had the set up Sister Steph has, camping might not be all too bad, but we don't so we have to tent it.  Me and tents aren't friends.  Rather than tenting it out at Sand Hollow, we decided to stay in the comfort of my in-laws house instead which is close enough to still enjoy the beach, water, and sand with the family who spent their Easter camping out.  

We headed down early Friday morning and hit the parents house just before noon.  We quickly scarfed down some lunch and headed back to the road to visit our family at Sand Hollow.  Sister Steph didn't have her whole Circus with her this time around, but Sister McKell was up there with her beau and two of her youngsters along with some friends who had a couple kids.  My kids were content in playing with them and excited to hit the beach running. They immediately stripped down to their suits and soaked in the sun.

My girly girl quickly transformed to not so girly as she dug in the mud with a slew of boys.  It was her and a bunch of boys... that didn't even phase her.  She fit right it... muddy face and all.  In all honesty I think she may have been enjoying getting dirty far more than any of those boys.  Sam enjoyed digging in the mud with them for a great while too, but eventually just wandered off on his own really soaking in the heat.  We were in Heaven. 

Okay, not heaven... I hope that in heaven we don't have to deal with sand in not so desirable places, but you get the idea.  We were where we SO DESPERATELY needed to be at that moment.  

Sanity, semi-restored.

We sat for a few hours and enjoyed the company of some wonderful people... Bill and our nephew Bryce went for a ride in the dunes in West's four wheeler, not the most successful trip out, but at the very least Bryce was left with smiles and I believe the words "Lets do that again!" did come from his mouth.  The rest I will leave up to the others to spill.  I'm still just clinging to the good (that there was enjoyment) of that ride... the rest I will not speak of.  Simply because may husband my not forgive me.

Sister Steph however... is free to speak. ;)

While we all sat and enjoyed conversation... the kids were a short distance away enjoying all the wonderful things the beach and water had to offer.  This included burying each other in the sand. 

This burying each other in the sand business also took a not so good turn like the four wheeling had, only us parents were completely oblivious to the severity of the sand burying situation. 

Our first problem was relying on the information from a not so urgent five year old (Sam) who walked up to us and simply said...

"Aiden is stuck."

To which Sister McKell quickly replied "Oh, yeah he loves getting buried!" 

To this Sam gave a simple shrug and walked away continuing to enjoy his time there at the beach.  

It was later discovered that Sam's little announcement of Aiden being stuck was truly meant to be urgent.  As in, maybe an adult should go help him get unstuck.  Turns out the kids had buried Aiden a bit to close to the water which meant that the hole he was buried in acted much like quick sand.  The more he moved... the more he sunk.  My little Brenna and another kid stuck by his side the entire time committed to digging him out without having to impose upon the adults fun and coming in between the conversation time we were having.  Once it was realized that Aiden truly needed help... the adults pulled together in getting him out.  While I on the other hand, grabbed my camera and started to photograph it.  I'll allow Sister Steph to tell the story of how she became the heroin and saved this boy's life.  After all she is the master story teller...  I will offer up these few pictures of the moment though...

This boy is REALLY stuck

Poor boy defeated by the sand...

Sister Steph saved the day!

Needless to say it was a very eventful day.  

Two guys were left feeling a little defeated, but that's ok cause Sister Steph made it all better with a card game with those two defeated guys...

And in all reality, we truly enjoyed being out there in the sun and with our family.  Our family is just one of a kind and I wouldn't trade them for anything.  

We left there shortly after this card game ended and headed back to the parents house for some much needed rest.  Mom made us a DELICIOUS Chili Verde for dinner and after the kids piled into the hot tub cause apparently they hadn't had enough water yet.  

Day One of our little mini-vacation was a success... though the first night was a little rough.  Sam woke up screaming from a dead sleep at about 11pm.  He had apparently acquired swimmers ear and was in dire pain for a good couple hours. I tried to console him back to sleep, rocking him, rubbing his head, but the second he would fall back asleep he was awake within seconds crying again from the pain.  I was left to head out into town at 1am to get some ear drops and pain medicine.

I was pooped.

My Friday started just before 5am and I didn't get settled into bed for sleep until 2am.  

It didn't matter though cause I knew I got to wake up to another day full of sun, warmth, and family.

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!)