Art City Days 2012
Sunday, June 10, 2012 - Posted by Sunny - 0 comments
We had so much fun last year that we had to do it again. We began our Art City day celebrations with the children's parade. The day before we started into bike decorating. Hyrum was MUCH more involved and vocal about his bike decorations so I didn't have as much creative licence as I did last year. Noah was involved but he didn't have as many ideas so that was more interesting.
The day of the parade we got there right at starting time then had to unload and get ourselves together

So we picked up the parade at the end. Partly because Noah is fairly new to the whole bike thing and he takes his time.
Those little legs get tired since they can't quite reach the pedals so he walks it while he sits on it. Hyrum didn't have that restriction and left us in the dust
The boys started the parade together

But after the first straight away Noah was done with the bike.

Leaving me to pull it along the parade route...not comfortable to do with an infant on your chest.

One of the few times he actually sat on the bike again he noticed this

And was done with the parade altogether. I plead with him to get on the bike as he cried. And then I saw Hyrum wipe out on his bike a ways a head in the parade route. I was torn. I ended up attending to my younger one while keeping an eye on my older one who wasn't hurt (thanks to his "armor" ) and was being helped by an older gentleman walking in the parade as well. It is times like these that a mother needs the kindness of strangers.

The rest of the parade Hyrum would ride ahead then either ride back towards us or ditch the bike and walk towards us then go ahead again.
He really is fast on that bike. As long as he has those training wheels tight.

Then we had the snow cones ( they were fooled by the blue banana flavor and refused to finish it )

And they got their ribbons.

Proof that Elijah was here.

Then we headed to the park that Noah was denied playing at. (What kind of mother do you think I am)

They had a good time

Saturday we hit Art City days hard. We woke up at the crack of dawn to go to the balloon launch. And were treated to donuts and juice ( which the boys loved ) and watched the balloons fill with air.

I even convinced Hyrum to go up and feel the material.

One finally lifted off

We got some candy but not a ball to turn in for a prize. Hyrum was bummed but we promised him another chance when the next balloon took off.
Strange thing was that the next one didn't take off, in fact none of them took off. I guess there was a wind storm coming and didn't want to take the chance. At least we saw them inflate.

Maybe next year we'll have the complete experience.
On the way home we scouted out the best place to watch the grand parade. We found one place and even left our blanket there but upon running the parade route toward home we found another one...a BETTER one. 

 Eli sat smiling at me while we sat in the shade and the other boys ran home for something.
He even napped while we waited for the parade to begin.


(Ahh the beauty of a baby who will take a pacifier.)

 Can't tell you just how perfect this little spot was.

 It was in the shade the whole time and there weren't many kids around so any candy coming our direction went right for my boys and it was near the beginning of the parade route so they were candy happy. :)
And not only that but we had a fantastic view of the Springville Museum of Art.

So, funny story that I've been meaning to record on this blog for some time. The mascot for Springville High School is the Red Devil (I know..right?) Now there is a lot of school pride around here and you can see the logo everywhere. This is what it looks like
Outside the local greenhouse they had a Red Devil plant hanger outside for sale.( It was either the first or second summer we were here)  As we pulled in Hyrum said "No cats allowed"  I was confused and was looking all around for a sign that said that no cats were allowed inside. I questioned him and he repeated "No cats allowed"  Then I realized that he was looking at the plant hanger with the logo on it. I can't see it without thinking "No cats allowed" now!

 After the parade was over we piled into the car and headed home.  Almost no traffic either by the way.  We are definitely remembering that spot.

 The couch proved too much for Derek
And Noah
It had been an early morning. But after we'd all had a rest we headed out to the fair.  We bought a good amount of tickets ( we thought) and set out for the rides. First up was this thing that I never know what to call. 

This was Noah's first year doing anything at the fair and he was all over it.
Next up was the Super Slide. A perennial favorite. Dad did the honors this year with Noah and Hyrum slid solo. Then they wanted to do the jeeps. 
Noah wasn't quite tall enough but since his brother was going to be with him they fudged on the height requirement and sat them in the back together

Noah loved it. So much so that he wanted to do it again for his next and final ride.  
Hyrum wanted to do the slide again instead so that left Noah to do it alone. He was undeterred and sat in his seat gripping the wheel as two other older boys jumped in the front seat and they got underway.
It only took one or two times around the track bouncing and sliding around in the back seat for Noah to be DONE!  He wailed the rest of the ride.  My heart ached to jump the fence and rescue him but there was nothing I could do.  The boys in front BLESS THEIR HEARTS were so worried about Noah.  They tried to talk to him and calm him but he was inconsolable. They looked at me pleading to tell them what to do. 
I will forever love those boys for being so concerned about Noah.  ( for weeks after whenever I saw boys that even looked like them I wanted to hug them)

 After that our tickets were spent and we had to leave. We went to a little park just outside the fair grounds.  Noah was NOT happy. Despite his unfortunate final ride choice he was not done.  He sat with Dad on a bench at the edge of the playground gazing back at the fair.
Hyrum tried to convince him that the playground was fun
and ultimately he did get him to play a bit. (You can't tell it by any of these pictures but it was really windy)
Then of course Dad hits it out of the park with the swings and "out of control" underdogs. All's well that ends well.


Bugging out of the Air Show
Saturday, May 26, 2012 - Posted by Sunny - 1 comments

We went up to the Warriors over the Wasatch Air show in Ogden about a hour and a half away from home to kick off Memorial Day weekend. They were anticipating possibly 500,000 people coming to it. We were going up with our friends the Mejias and we wanted to get good seats together so we wanted to be there when the gates opened at 8:00. That would mean an EARLY morning for us so we decided to make it an event and use some of Derek's points to get a hotel room up in Layton.

After dinner at Burger King, where we played musical kids taking each of them to the bathroom on separate emergencies, we left there for the rest of our trip later than we were planning. As we made our way along the Wasatch front Derek gasped remembering that he was going to bring some software to his cousin Kelly on the way up. I told him that it was in the car and we were right at the exit so we got off to bring it to him. When we called we discovered that it was a mini family reunion of sorts going on so we stayed and visited for a little while and the older boys played as the little one was passed around to meet his family. Sadly no pictures were taken.

As soon as we got into the hotel room Hyrum was stripping down to get his swimsuit on. I'd forgotten Noah's swim suit but remembered a swim diaper so he was rather scantily clad but he fit right in with the rest of the swimmers there. unfortunately.


I was a little nervous about swimming with three boys so I opted to just hang with Elijah poolside and have Derek get in the pool with the other boys and then he could send any wayward boys to me if he needed to.

Hyrum has been nervous about being in the pool without being held even with his life jacket on but this time he was all about doggy paddling around solo, which was good, considering. Noah of course had no fear of just jumping right in with his swimmies. ( we really out to get him something a little more secure at some point)


Both boys had a blast and Derek handled the two of them quite well, although I guess Noah fell in while running along side the pool once. I didn't see it but we need to teach that boy a little pool safety I suppose.

The next day bright and early we were off to the show. It was only going to be in the 50s that day with a chance of rain so we bundled up. We were on base about 15 minutes after they opened the gates and we had fairly close parking. After we found our seats, which were very good, all the the boys minus Eli went off to look at the stationary planes around the area.




(Apparently Hyrum needed to use the bathroom)




(It began to loose it's allure after awhile)
They had a lot of fun

They came back when the show started with all kinds of goodies; plastic planes, cars, stickers, posters of fighter jets and spaceships. So much fun.

The plastic planes were probably the favorites. As the real planes were doing their fly bys and dog fights there was a bit of dog fighting going on down on the blanket.



Have I mentioned how well these boys like to be with each other. I swear they are practically family.


As the show went on it started to sprinkle and then it would stop. We bundled the boys on the chair together to keep them warm.


Then it started again but this time instead of stopping it started to rain harder and the wind started to blow hard. We had two adult rain coats and one child's one so we had to get creative.


It was about this time Derek asked me at what point we call it. I told him I didn't know and he went looking for some hot chocolate to warm us up.

I figured Elijah was ok cozy in the car seat under the shade canopy despite the rain, until I saw pools of water forming on it. I knew that there was only so much water canvas could contain so I threw the front part of my raincoat over the stroller and stood there trying to block the wind and rain as it soaked my pants. Then came the thunder and the rain started coming down harder. I was ready to call it then but Derek was gone and I couldn't figure any way of getting all of my boys to shelter by myself. Then the announcer came on over the loud speaker and told everyone to take cover in the hangars they'd opened to the public since there was lightning in the area. That's when I started to panic a little. When Derek got back all I said was "Let's go"

So we did.

( This doesn't even capture the misery)

Derek and I were drenched and cold. We stripped our outer layers off, turned on the heat full blast and talked about big cups of hot cocoa all the way home. We heard when we got home that after a few hours they started the show again and finished it for the faithful crowd.


We were kind of sad to have missed it, it was a good time...until the rain...maybe we'll try it again in two years. But this year...we had to bug out.