Jam Packed Weekend of Fun, Fun, Fun!

Our weekend began very early Friday morning with a long car drive up to Ogden UT...  long enough that we needed to stop for gas before arriving - this was a little hard on the kids, but I like to pretend that they are good little travelers and I read my book completely ignorant of the fact that they are elbowing each other and fighting over who is touching whom...  Luckily when we stopped for gas we took a short break and walked around Cabela's...  for those of you who have never visited this mecca of camping/hunting/fishing supplies - you must know that it is virtually filled with taxidermy... although it was a little freaky when we happened upon an animatronic hunter amongst the taxidermy... of course Q told the kids it was just another example of taxidermy.   It's like Disneyland for avid campers - as is evidenced by the parking direction signs, the multiple entrance doors, and the postcards... really - postcards, I'm not about to send a card that says "Having a great time overpaying for road trip snacks - wish you were here!"

Next we made it to the Treehouse Children's Museum in Ogden - I've been trying to get up there for the past year and finally we made it work - it's a huge children's museum and worth the trip... T claimed to not have much fun, but there he is hangin' with Abe, looking to be enjoying himself anyway!  T's favorite part of the museum was the music area (easily the loudest area), though he was hoping for a little more in the science department... he might just be getting too old for children's museums?  W liked all the little areas where he could display his artistic talents.  P was digging the building blocks... the boys all did a contest together and although their tower was only the second highest theirs was free standing whilst the winning tower had to be held up by human hands...  I'm going to over-rule the museum staff and claim victory for the boys in this one!

H also really loved the art - especially the "art garden" where she made a lovely spooky card for halloween.  

M was totally in her element during the entire visit - 

we had to beg and plead to get her to take a break just to use the restroom.  As her fave she picked the firetruck, then the "tea party with Daddy in the White Bunny House", then... everything else.  and aside from a few tears when a younger child left angry red welts on her arm when he decided it was his turn to drive the fire truck and a close call when another child threw ABC blocks over the school house wall... she couldn't have been happier.  Her first words upon leaving the museum?  "Can we go to this place again?"... before she had even done her seatbelt!

No pictures of the Arby's lunch - but I do have to mention how disgusting "Mac 'n Cheezers" look...  and how silly it is that we adults bribe our children with "you'll get a treat if you finish your food..."  Here honey, have a few over-processed pieces of something that used to resemble chicken and if you eat it all you can have some refined sugar and fats as dessert!

Then we dropped off the kids... big thanks go out to Q's parents for putting up with our lovelies!

After Checking in to our B&B - The Hines Mansion in Provo, UT 

- we took a stroll around town.  I recently (yesterday) heard Provo referred to by Glen Beck... he said that it made Stepford look sane - well Glen - not THIS part of Provo.  I wonder, when Q and I were first married, did we realize that we lived in a dump... in the worst part of town?  It's certainly a lot dingier than I remember!  We did take the opportunity to finally walk through the "new" library (new to me at least).  That's the library in the picture by the way - the mansion is below... well, our room at least. We also took in a play at the Covey Arts Center that replaced the old library...  it was a whim and we didn't know anything about the play...  and frankly after watching "The Turn of The Screw" I'm still left wondering what it was all about...  if you've seen it and have any insight - feel free to share!

The B&B - well... okay, the bed was as high as my waist - and 

the breakfast was delicious... although I was a little disappointed that the little bowl of yummy fruit was mixed with poisonous fruit like cantaloupe.  Granted - nobody at the B&B was aware of my allergy - but having the entire bowl spoiled was a little sad.  The room we stayed in 

was "the library" although the only book there was the little guest book that everyone was supposed to sign.  I usually skip reading these because frankly - I'm always afraid that I'll find that I know a bunch of the other people who slept there!

At least now I can say I've slept in a library... 

The door to the bathroom was pretty cool as well :)

Saturday morning after checkout we made some quick stops to pick up forgotten items (have I EVER remembered everything?) like contact solution and hair gel... speaking of hair gel...  we're walking through the hair care aisle and I reach for a bottle of hair gel - but it's a broken bottle (I didn't do it!) and there's gel gushing everywhere... Q dipped his fingers in quickly and then did his hair while I grabbed a different bottle to purchase.  Is this shoplifting?

The ladies luncheon was yummy and fun - no pictures, sorry... I forgot my camera.  I really should have ordered something else though... far too many healthy veggies in that Cashew Chicken!!  (yes, you can say I told you so now)

The Craft is also photo-less... I was in charge of having everyone make cutesy hair bows for their little girls/nieces and it was a smashing success.  And if any female relation of mine gets on here and claims otherwise - they are dead wrong :)    LC and Megz posted photos if you don't believe me!

Next up would be the Halloween Party - an annual 

tradition that is the highlight of the season...  Just think somewhere between Chaos and Heaven...  Having given up on the game of musical chairs (it got really expensive what with all those broken folding chairs every year) we enjoyed some tamer games - and ESPECIALLY enjoyed Uncle D's very scary mission ghost-story with its multiple forays into doctrinal discussions...   If you look closely you can see W sitting with a skunk on his back (about 4 o'clock) - P as the classy vampire 2 to his right (looking straight at the camera) - and at 10:00 my cute little Stinkerbell and her sister Dorothy...   our wonderful teenage T is not pictured, but he was not far off sporting HIS costume... which consisted of a name tag which read "Hello, my name is C..."  His cousin C was pretty impressed :)

Sunday morning was slightly lazy - aside from 

getting all 6 adults and 11 children in the house ready to go to church!  My camera battery was suffering greatly by this point so there's no cute picture of newly blessed baby C in his chubby adorable-ness.  There is however this picture of the family quickly jumping for the food table where Aunty A had to request that the kids only take one dessert apiece (right before her own son took 3...)!  Little N standing there in the foreground is sporting a little hair bow from the craft (I think)...  

So that's it, my weekend in a nutshell... I'm sure everyone feels closer to me now :)

We're always happy when we get to spend lots of family time and enjoy all cousins/uncles/aunts - and then we're happy to come home and take a deep breath... until this weekend :)