Friday, August 15, 2008

Our Family Weekend

I have so much to write about I don't even know where to begin! Last week we scheduled a long trip to Vegas. Candice and I were going to go up Monday and then Jay, Randall and Laura would meet us for the weekend. Sunday night Jay's grandma Beth died and that changed all of our plans. At first I wanted to arrange a way for me to still go for a few days. One thing I learned from Ethan's early birth is to listen to the little promptings that say, this is not a good time. I got the same feeling this time so I LISTENED. (My water broke in Vegas six weeks before Ethan was due. Everything seemed to be against us going on that trip. I really wanted to go and worked through all of the problems and dismissed the little promptings that I had. After his early scary C-section birth, I realized I probably shouldn't have gone. I guess life is full of these lessons.) Anyway, Laura decided to go with Candice and I was so happy for them that it overcame any sadness I had at missing out. It ended up being a really fun family week for us and I was glad to be here for Jay. We spent a lot of time together all week.

Friday we decided to try out the county fair. It wasn't as exciting for us as the state fair but we still had some fun petting the animals in the petting zoo. Jayden tried to feed them, but the big ones really overwhelmed him so we just dumped the food and went around petting them. There were cute little baby sheep and goats as well as a couple of turtles. Ethan really liked petting them too. He just didn't want the big ones to get too close. Their little merry go round was three dollars a person so we decided to forgo the rides and go to South Town mall instead. We all rode that merry go round for about two bucks total!! :) Then they had fun in the dino land.

Saturday we went to the funeral. Beth had cancer the entire time I knew her. She was often weak and sick and didn't get out much. She was always very nice, but I didn't get to know her that well. It was fun hearing all of the nice things she did when she was younger. I feel I know her much better now. Jay's mom babysat the kids for us so we could go and participate in everything.

Jay had taken monday off and we were determined to make it a fun vacation day! We had such a great time! We ate lunch at Carl's Jr. and Jayden played in their little play area. Then, we went to the Sweet's candy factory here in Salt lake for a tour. It was so interesting seeing how they make the candy. And we got to wear silly hats. (That was Ethan's favorite part. He is obsessed with hats and actually cried when we took it off of him!) We forgot our camera, but we took some pictures in our hats today to capture the moment! (see below) They also let you sample fresh candy off of the line. One of Jay's favorite candies are cinnamon bears. (I HATE them usually :) They gave us chocolate covered cinnamon bears and even I loved them!!! I wish you could buy them that way all the time. Then they gave us a little bag of taffy and we bought some sugar free cinnamon bears for my dad. Anyone who hasn't gone on the tour should go. It is totally free, you just have to call to set up an appt. We took Dad his treat we got for him, and then headed off again.

Our next stop was thanksgiving point to see their dinosaur movie. Technical difficulties caused them to cancel our showing so we had to settle for playing with the toys in the gift shop and reading some of my favorite dinosaur books. The boys didn't seem to mind. And then we got to spend our movie money on fun stuff. Jayden was happy to end up with a "transforming" dinosaur(it turned from an egg to a dinosaur). And Ethan LOVES the books we bought. He read them all the way home. (BTW the books I like are by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague. Most of them talk about manners. They are cleverly written and have the most amazing illustrations! Jay's mom gave us three of them for Christmas last year and I fell in love. Now we have a couple of board book ones. Yeah!) We ended our night at chuck a rama, where we had to leave a little early because Jayden lost his lunch, or I should say, his mac and cheese and punch! Even that couldn't spoil our fun day. Well, I guess you would have to ask Jay, he is the one who had to clean Jayden up, poor guy.
Here we are in our candy factory Hats.
Ethan loved the taffy


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