Spring Break Trip to Utah

After staying at Sarah's house in September when I flew out to Utah to attend Spencer's wedding, I decided that this would be the perfect place to spend our Spring Break this school year since Ron's school district's had scheduled his Spring Break for the week before.  Between Sarah's huge house with an indoor pool and hot tub and its location in the woods above the Sundance Ski Resort, I just knew that this would be a perfect place for the five us of to spend the week.  After suggesting this to Sarah (who has begging me to visit with my kids for years), she whole heartedly agreed and a plan was made.  After waiting seven months, the time finally came and the kids and I packed up and piled in my minivan and headed out on the 14 hour road trip from Puyallup to Sundance which is twice as long as the longest drive I have ever made with my children alone (as Priest Lake is only 7 to 8 hours away).  Luckily, we were able to stop both directions in Boise to spend the night with Carrie, my close friend from my mission who I haven't seen in five years.  This helped break up this incredibly long drive and was a well needed break for all of us.  So, in addition to the four days that we spent on the road, we spent five, funfilled days in Utah.  Although we did not have the sunny, Spring weather that I had hoped for, we enjoyed two different snow storms while up at Sundance (two inches fell on Monday night and six inches fell on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning) and made the most out of it.  The kids and I went on a daily outing all five days in addition to seeing a few family and friends while we were there.  The kids also thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Sarah making fairy gardens and making beaded necklaces and bracelets with her.  In addition, Ella loved playing the piano with Sarah every day and Logan loved spending countless hours playing with Sarah's son, Josh, who is the same age as him.  And although we didn't get to spend as much time outside as I had hoped due to the cold and wild winter weather that came while we were there, I really felt like we made the most out of our time and enjoyed our Spring Break in Utah.

We arrived at Carrie's house in Boise on Saturday, April 9th, around 7 p.m.  She treated us to BBQ hamburgers for dinner and the kids enjoyed playing in the hot tub with Carrie's youngest child, Naomi, that evening.

As we were driving into Utah Valley on Sunday, April 10th, we stopped in South Jordan to spend the afternoon and eat dinner with our good friends, the Florences, who used to live up the hill from us and who sadly moved August 2020.

Since the Florences live in the same neighborhood as the temple where Spencer and Hannah were sealed this past September, I made a quick detour there to show the kids where they were married.  He is a picture of them in front of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple.  We then drove to Sundance and arrived there at 8 p.m. at night.  After unpacking our car and getting settled, the kids and I all crashed for a good night's sleep.

On Monday, April 11th, Sarah agreed to let Josh skip school to spend the day with us.  I drove the kids down to the Bridal Veil Falls trailhead at the bottom of Provo Canyon.  Although it was quite chilly, I managed to convince the kids to go on a short hike with me to the bottom of the falls.

Logan, Emmett, and Josh walking down the trail.

The kids playing in the stream at the base of the waterfall.

A group shot of all five children at the bottom of the falls.

Sweet Emmett walking back to the car.

Another group photo atop a boulder before finishing the hike.

While I made lunch for all of the children, they enjoyed playing in the indoor pool and soaking in the hot tub on the deck with amazing scenery all around them.

Logan, Ella, and Emmett soaking away.

Lia, Ella, and Emmett playing in the hot tub with one of Sarah's dogs at their side.

Ella discovered Sarah's piano the first morning we were there and played on it multiple times a day all week long.  Sarah was so nice to play duets with her both on the piano and on her violin.

Sarah had us all make personal-sized pizzas for dinner Monday night with homemade pizza dough.  It was so delicious and the kids had so much fun making them.

Here is Emmett spreading the pizza sauce on his pizza dough.

On Tuesday morning, April 12th, Sarah introduced all of the children to her amazing jewelry making corner in the loft upstairs.  She let all of them choose almost anything they wanted to use to make their necklaces and bracelets.  Here are Lia and Emmett working on Sarah's side of the table.

Ella and Logan beading away on the other side of the table.

We then left about 10:30 (after the two inches of snow had melted enough that I felt safe driving down the steep and windy roads in Sarah's neighborhood) to head down to Provo to spend the new few hours at my alma mater, BYU.

After walking the kids through the two buildings where I spent the most amount of time during my BYU days (the JKHB and the library), we finished off in the Wilkinson Center to peruse the bookstore.  I was surprised to see that they have added a fun, children's area complete with a slide down a miniature version of the "Y mountain.."  Here is Ella getting ready to come down the slide.

Ella and Emmett posing next to the Y mountain.

We then met up with Kelsey, my one niece who is studying at BYU, and treated her to lunch at the Cougareat.  It's hard to believe that next year there will be FIVE of my nieces and nephews at the Y, but this year Kelsey is the only student there in the cousin department.  We had so much fun visiting with her!

After lunch, Kelsey walked us down to the Eyring Science Center where she has the majority of her classes to see the crystal collection and the dinosaur bones.  Here are the kids posing with Kelsey before saying goodbye to her.

Aunt Beese with Kelsey.

We then headed back up to Sundance for Emmett to take his afternoon nap while Sarah took the kids back down to the valley to go shopping at two of her favorite nurseries.  Since Sarah has gone crazy with making fairy gardens in the past few years, she promised all three older kids that they would have the chance to make their own to bring home with us.  All three of them had such a good time picking out plants and accessories to put in their gardens.

Sarah's house has an amazing loft room on the top level with a swing attached to the ceiling that Emmett and Ella loved playing in all week long.  Logan tucked Emmett into his special blanket with his head on his pillow on Tuesday evening and I just had to take a picture of this darling site!

The snow started falling again on Tuesday evening and fell on and off through Wednesday afternoon.  As a result, we woke up to about six inches of snow on April 13th.  We had to reschedule our plans to go to Salt Lake City until Friday since the roads getting in and out of Sarah's neighborhood were way too slippery for my front-wheel van to drive while covered in snow.

:Luckily, Sarah had enough snow clothes to outfit all five of us so that we could go out and play in the snow.  We spent a funfilled morning and afternoon (after Emmett's nap) sledding in her yard that is full of steep hills and woods.  It was such a fun and unexpected surprise to get a snow play day on our Spring Break vacation!

Lia and Emmett getting ready to sled down the hill.

Logan and Ella walking back up the hill with their sleds.

Ella flying down the hill on her sled.

Emmy and me getting ready to go down!

Logan coming down towards me!

Sweet Emmy giving me a smile.

The boys making snow angels.

The view of Emmett walking down Sarah's road covered in fresh snow.

After playing in the snow, the kids and I had the best time soaking in Sarah's hot tub while the snow was still falling down on us.  This was so much fun as I have only had the chance to go hot tubbing in the snow one other time in my life when I was a child on a family trip to Leavenworth.

On Thursday, April 14th, Sarah decided to keep Josh home from school again so that the two of them could join us for an outing to Heber City.  We enjoyed taking the kids on the beautiful drive up the canyon and through the quaint town of Midway before stopping for lunch at the famous burger and shake restaurant, Dairy Keen.

Emmy loved eating his chocolate shake that he shared with Logan.

Since the restaurant is train themed, Emmett was in heaven and had fun sitting on the trains outside after we were done eating.

The kids riding on some other trains in the outside eating area.

During Emmett's nap time, I drove down to Orem to visit one of my college roommates, also named Sarah, who I haven't seen in 15 years.  I then came home to join the family for dinner and then led the kids in coloring Easter eggs as I knew that we wouldn't have time to do this at home this year.

Although snow was on the forecast again for early Friday morning, I was so relieved to wake on April 15th to find zero snow on the ground.  This meant that we could stick with our SLC plans which was important to me as I really wanted to take the kids up to see Temple Square for the first times in their lives (excluding Lia who had been there when she was 1.5 years old, but obviously didn't remember a thing).  After driving through rain and hail on the way into Salt Lake City, we were so happy to see that the crazy weather had stopped by the time we parked the car in an underground parking lot and emerged back outside.  We first went on a tour through the Beehive House where Brigham Young and two other prophets of the church, Lorenzo Snow and Joseph F. Smith, also lived while serving as prophet of our church.  Here are the children standing in front of the door to Brigham Young's bedroom.

The children outside of the Beehive House after the completion of the tour.

Although we knew that the SLC Temple is currently being renovated, we had no idea how covered in scaffolding it would be!  With the spires removed, it is basically unrecognizable at this point which was a bit of a bummer since this is my children's first time seeing it in person.  Here they are standing in front of a viewing area where you can look in at the renovations taking place.

Luckily, the section of Temple Square with the Assembly Hall and the Tabernacle were still untouched and beautiful.  I enjoyed showing the kids around this area and admiring all of the spring flowers.

The kids in front of the organ pipes in the Tabernacle.

We wandered across the street to take a peak inside the massive Conference Center.  The kids couldn't get over how huge it is!  We then walked back over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building to eat lunch at the only operating restaurant in Temple Square right now called The Navoo.  We were all a bit hangry, so it felt great to be able to sit down and eat lunch in this charming cafe inside such a historic building.

After we were finished with lunch, we headed back to the car to drive over to see my good friend, Melissa, who I met during my study abroad in Jerusalem 26 years ago.  I hadn't seen her since I visited Utah 11 years ago when Lia was 1.5 years old, so it was so fun to see her and her grown girls and visit their house that they are remodeling.  Since Melissa lives right up against the mountains in SLC, we took the scenic drive on Interstate 80 back to Sundance and drove through the mountains through Park City.

After packing up Saturday morning, we headed out around 9:30 on April 16th to start the long drive home.  Just like our drive into Utah Valley, we made another stop on our way out to visit a second family from Puyallup who had moved during the pandemic.  We made the detour to Eagle Mountain to see the Webbs and their beautiful new home that they moved into last summer.  After vising with them for about an hour, we got back in the car and made the six hour drive back to Boise to spend the evening with my friend, Carrie, and her family.  I was so grateful again to be able to break up this long drive and stop over for the night.

Although I told the kids weeks ago that we would be celebrating Easter a week late this year, we woke up to join Carrie's family for a delicious Easter breakfast of homemade Swedish pancakes and sausage on April 17th.  We then packed back up again and headed out at 10 a.m. to make the eight hour drive back to Puyallup.  Here is a group picture that we managed to get with Carrie and one of our her four kids, Gabe.

As we were driving from Carrie's house to the freeway, we just had to stop to get a picture of Emmett with one of the many Emmett signs that we saw on our drive into the Boise area last week.  I had totally forgotten that Ron had discovered this 3.5 years ago when he drove to Boise to buy his beautiful Suburban.  We all had thought that this was such a crazy coincidence as Ron had already named his Suburban "Big Emmett" before purchasing it since this was the reward I promised him he could have if I was ever to get pregnant with "Little Emmett.."

A close-up of the sign.  I just love how this town's name is spelled the exact same way as our son's name.  And a funny story to record before I finish this post....after pointing out several Emmett signs to Emmett while driving though Southern Idaho and also showing him several Logan signs while driving through Northern Utah, Emmett asked when he we get to see Lia's and Ella's signs.  It had never dawned on me that we would see two of our four children's names on several freeway signs on the drive between Puyallup to Provo.  But thanks to Emmett, I will never forget that again!  

After a second long drive day, I was so relieved to pull into our driveway at 5:40 local time.  I was so grateful that my car (that had several problems this fall) functioned properly the entire time and that we never encountered any danger or accidents or heavy snow on the roads during this entire road trip.  Although I am so glad that my kids and I were able to go on this big road trip alone, I was so happy to be safely back home again! 

Lia's Night Out with Olivia Rodrigo!

After Olivia Rodrigo released her first album, Sour, last Spring, Lia quickly fell in love with her after being introduced to her songs by Alyssa, Lia's good friend.  I found this to be most appropriate since Lia and Alyssa grew up loving to play American Girl Dolls together and Oliva played the American Girl of the Year 2015, Grace Thomas, in the movie made by AGD.  So, Olivia had already been a part of our family for several years.  With the exception of her having a bit of a potty mouth, I loved watching these two girls enjoy her songs and was amazed at how this young, 18-year old girl become an overnight sensation.  In less than a year, she went from releasing her first album as a teenager to winning three Grammys last Sunday.  Her first year in the music industry has really been quite remarkable. 

With all of that said, I promised Lia that I would take her to see Olivia in concert if she ever came to Seattle.  In addition, I talked to Alyssa's mom, Sheri, and asked her if she and her daughter would want to join Lia and me to go to Olivia's concert if she ever came to town.  Within a matter of months, her first tour was announced and Seattle was the second city on the list!  

Keeping it a secret, Alyssa's mom bought four tickets for us the minute the presale began which was a lucky thing as her tickets sold out before the regular sale even started.  I paid Sheri for the tickets and managed to keep it a secret for 2.5 months until I gifted Lia these tickets for her 14th birthday.  Needless to say, Lia was so excited! To keep a long story short, several unpredictable things happened during the few weeks leading up to the concert that  ended up with another girl from church buying Sheri's ticket and Alyssa's dad offering to take my place and buy my ticket the day before the concert.  As crazy as it was to not be going to this concert with Lia, I was very grateful that Alyssa's dad stepped in to take the girls on this nine hour adventure.  He picked them up at 2:30 yesterday afternoon to drive them into Seattle in order for them to get in line hours in advance to try to get decent seats for this general admission venue as none of the tickets available for purchase were for assigned seats.  After waiting in line for 3.5 hours, the doors opened and the four of them were able to snag four seats in the small section of the theater with stadium seating.  They then waiting almost two more hours before Olivia came out on stage and performed for a short 1 hour and 10 minutes.  Since she has only released one albums, she only had 11 songs of her own to sing, plus two cover songs.  The three girls had the time of their lives listening to this favorite pop star of theirs and thoroughly enjoyed spending this evening together.  And as much as I hated to miss out on this event, I was so grateful to climb into bed at 9:30 and barely woke up for one minute to say 'hello' to Lia when she got home at almost 11:30 that night!

The "Sour" tour sign that hung from the WaMu Theater.

Alyssa showing off her "Sour" themed nails that she painted in honor of the concert.

Alyssa, Emerald, and Lia with the WaMu Theater in the background.

The girls waiting in line with hundreds of other fans.

They made it!  The girls posing inside the theater before the concert began.

Logan Loses His First Molar!

After weeks and weeks of Logan wiggling his first loose molar tooth, he managed to give it one final yank last night while laying on his bed reading before bedtime.  He told me that it was only connected to his gum in one little area and so he got brave enough to give it a tug strong enough to pull it out.  He came downstairs while I was still cleaning up for the night and proudly showed me his tooth.  After admiring Logan's first molar with him, I reminded him to put it in a little baggie and place it under his pillow.  Only one of his three boy tooth fairies was able to make the flight over to our house last night to give him his $2 and leave behind a little note.  Although Logan was less interested in the note as he has been in the past (sigh, he's growing up), he was happy about the $2.  Before I know it, this growing boy of mine will be losing molars left and right and getting ready to have braces put on his teeth.  I know that I've said this before, but it's all going soooo fast!

Ella's Beanie Boo Birthday Party!

Today we wrapped up Ella's 8th birthday celebrations with her Beanie Boo-themed party with her friends. Since I hosted this same kind of themed birthday party for Lia six years ago, I was able to reuse almost everything from decorations to craft supplies to game ideas.  As a result,  I only had to spend a few hours preparing for it in comparison to Lia's party where I had to make everything from scratch which was such a blessing for me.  All of Ella's little friends showed up today at 2 p.m. and, for the next  two hours, Ron and Lia helped me lead them in a few activities, crafts, and games before we watched Ella open her gifts and blow out her birthday candles before the girls enjoyed eating cake and ice cream.  Although rain was in the forecast for the afternoon, it held off long enough to allow the girls to play outside for the last few minutes of the party before their parents picked them.  Ella had such a great time being with her friends and was just bursting with excitement and happiness throughout the entire party.  It was so fun to watch her having such a great time and being the center of attention for a few hours.  Happy Birthday, Ella! 

Ella standing on the porch next to the the Beanie Boo wreath I made six years ago and the "Welcome" sign she drew on our white board a few days ago.

A close-up of our darling, birthday girl.

Our kitchen table all decked out and ready to go in the colors of turquoise, pink, and lavender with lots and lots of polka dots.

A close-up of the main table.  My mom helped me sew little, polka dot pillows for all of the girls' stuffed animals to sit on using the leftover fabric and stuffing that I still had from Lia's birthday party all these years later.

The Beanie Boo cake that I made for the party that was an exact duplicate of Lia's cake.

The Beanie Boo themed "Happy Birthday" banner on the fireplace.

As the girls arrived, we had them color Beanie Boo pictures around a table in the family room.  Here is the group coloring together.

Ella and her two friends from church, Amelia and Madelyn, coloring their pictures.

After everyone arrived, we had the girls do two different crafts--beading necklaces and decorating party hats for their stuffed animals.

A group picture of all the girls with their stuffies all dressed up for the party.

After craft time, Lia led the girls in a few rounds of Beanie Boo Bingo.

Ella and her good friend, Ainsley, waiting for Lia to call the next Beanie Boo name to look for on their cards.

We then had the girls play three rounds of drop the little Beanie Boo in the glass jar.  Here is Ella's best friend and next door neighbor, Poppy, dropping the Beanie Boo while standing on the floor.

After having the girls do the same thing while standing on a small stool, we moved them up to a taller stool for the final round.  Here is Ella getting ready to drop the Beanie Boo from the highest level.

Lastly, we played several rounds of "Hot Beanie Boo" (instead of "Hot Potato").  

Ella passing the little stuffed animal to her school friend, Elif.

After the games, Ella finally had the chance to open up her gifts.  She received many wonderful presents that were perfect for her!  Here she is showing off the two, elephant-shaped Pop Its from Ainsley.  Since elephants are Ella's favorite animal, Ainsley gave her several different elephant gifts that Ella loved!

Since Ella doesn't own any Squishmallow stuffed animals, she was thrilled two get two different ones from two of her friends.  Here is Ella hugging the bunny Squishmallow from her other best friend, Elise.

Ella showing off the awesome jewelry making kit from her friend, Amelia.

Ella hugging the massive, fish Squishmallow from her friend, Audrina, who has been in the same preschool, Kindergarten, and 2nd grade class with her.

Ella and Poppy posing together with the incredible Disney castle sign that Poppy's dad cut out of metal for Ella right before the party started!  It is so amazing and looks so professional!

After Ella was done opening gifts, the girls were finally able to sit around the table to sing "Happy Birthday" to Ella and eat cake and ice cream.  Here is Ella standing next to her cake with the candles all lit.

Ella enjoying her cake with all of her friends at her side.

Audrina, Amelia, and Poppy eating away.

Genesis, Aubrielle, Elise, and Elif at the end of the table.

Ainsley and Madelyn.

One last group shot of all of the girls eating dessert before the party ended.

Lia's Spring Choir Concert

For the second time this school year, we went to Lia's school last night to listen to her sing in her Spring Choir Concert.  After attending the Christmas concert in December, we learned our lesson and so Ron and Ella saved us seats in the cafeteria an hour before the concert started after dropping Lia off at her choir class.  As a result, we enjoyed watching all of the singing groups perform from our fabulous seats on the front row.  Since Lia's choir group is the most advanced, they performed last and luckily Emmett was able to sit quietly for almost an hour before her group came on the stage.  They sang three songs including "Lean on Me" and "Pure Imagination" from the Willy Wonka movie which we all thoroughly enjoyed hearing.  Lia really does have a beautiful singing voice and I am so grateful for the opportunity that she has had this year to take choir in addition to drama thanks to being able to waive her PE class.  However, next year, she only has room in her schedule for one elective and drama won out again, so this might be her second to last choir concert that we attend for the long run.  Time will only tell...

Lia singing from the front row of her Soprano section next to her good friend, Layla, who she met this year in choir.

Lia smiling for me after the concert was over.