20 Questions

We just started playing this game in the car when we can't find any "regular songs" (not Christmas songs) on the radio. Our first category was Animal, and Ikey asked the following questions:
Is it a mammal?
Does it live in the zoo?
Those seemed like really smart questions for a brand-new-four-year-old to come up with.

The next category was Person. Ikey's questions were:
Does he celebrate Christmas? (A nod to our Jewish friends)
What color is her car?

I told Ikey to choose an animal, but he said, "I am thinking of a boat."
Me: Is it bigger than our SUV?
Ikey: Way bigger! Like as big a cruise ship.
Me: Do people go on it?
Ikey: Yes! People like kind of live on it and cruise around.
Me: Is it a cruise ship?
Ikey: Correct! Good guess!

Ski Lesson!

Isaac is asking Kenny a question. I think Isaac asked him questions for two hours. Kenny said Ikey did a great job and was "very pleasant" so good job buddy!

It was so cold, in the teens the whole time, and snowing and blowing pretty strongly by the end of his lesson, but Ikey is impervious to cold. He didn't complain for a second. Four more lessons to go!

Ski Lesson Movies - Part 1: http://youtu.be/ao7-VUvd_zM
Part 2: http://youtu.be/wSkMpusM_mU
Part 3: http://youtu.be/sGQjx-2MvjQ This one is my favorite! He looks like a little person riding the magic carpet by himself.

Downtown Field Trip

Can you see the Capitol behind the kids? This was the first day in weeks that you could even see your hand in front of your face. The air quality in the valley is not very good during the winter. 

Miss George gave us a friendly personal tour of the observation deck on the 26th floor of the Church Office Building on Temple Square. I had been telling the kids that it's the tallest building in Utah, but it turns out that the Wells Fargo building is two feet taller. We'll have to go look at that, but I'm not sure we'll get such a cheerful tour guide.

We ate a delicious meal at The Pantry at The Lion House. Our dining room used to be the vegetable cellar. We had two desserts and only one vegetable.

 

We had a nice tour of The Beehive House from ladies from Germany and Latvia. The kids loved the women. Ikey said, "You're being so polite!"

 
Ikey told the tour guides that he is a railfan (it's part of his regular introduction) so they pointed out this banister with a locomotive and a train track. Ikey said it's "a really old Trax."

 

We stopped at the beautiful new OC Tanner building in the old Hansen Planetarium building. We looked for amber and were hoping to see a piece with an insect in it, but they don't sell amber...but can I interest you in a Rolex? Yes, you can.

 

We checked out the Social Hall museum and the tunnel under State Street. It was snowing by the time we left our downtown field trip, so we pretended it was Christmas the whole way home.

Cedar Valley

Grandma Rainey's mother's parents were from Cedar Fort which is on the west side of Utah Lake. We've heard a lot of fun stories about Cedar Valley, so we packed up Grandma Rainey and went to see ourselves. We stopped for a quick look at Utah's veterans cemetery at Camp Williams which was pretty and peaceful. We drove around the snowy roads of the little town of Cedar Fort to see where Grandpa Cook's house was, but it's gone. We saw lots of uncles' houses and a cool old rock wall and the old school that is going to be remodeled soon. We saw the Hacking home where the kids' Great-Great-Grandmother grew up.
Past Cedar Fort is Fairfield and Camp Floyd Stagecoach Inn State Park. There was a big (the biggest at the time, just before the Civil War) camp of US soldiers at Camp Floyd to try to deal with
"The Mormon Problem" (it's complicated so you'll have to look it up). The state park has a little museum and a restored home/hotel. Mark Twain stayed here!

 
 
 
 
Grandma Rainey is a very friendly person, and she talked the ranger into showing us a restored school house in Fairfield. It was really cool!

 

We had lunch at the bar at Porter's Place on Lehi Main Street. The kids liked sitting on tractor seats.

We went to Hutchings Museum on Lehi Main Street. It's an old-fashioned museum full of minerals and rocks and gems, lots of arrowheads, and an old jail cell (Ikey liked that!).

It was a great day out in the cold with a wonderful tour guide, Grandma Rainey!

Round Valley Hike

The air in the valley has been so gunky since the inversion started at Christmas, we just couldn't take it anymore. It drove us so crazy in 2010, we sold our house and tried to move out of the valley, but only made it to Holladay. We decided to head up to Round Valley in Park City to get out of it for a few hours this time.

Ikey is usually a good hiker, but since there was a sled, he rode the whole time. Jovie hiked around a lot.

 

 

We saw a lot of skiers and dogs and the dad and the kids sledded down the hill to the car. It was a nice break out in cleaner air.

Practice Run

Ikey starts ski lessons next week, so we made a practice run to the Canyons to see how long it takes and how hard it will be to get there. It was stressful enough to get two kids safely through the parking lot and up the Cabriolet (even with no gear, two adults, good weather...) that I came right home to see if the Grandmas can watch Jovie during lessons for a while until I figure it out. We hiked on the "trail above Pete's house" after we left the resort.

Happy New Year!

We went to brunch at the Kanshepolsky/Gotshalk home with the Baskins. The kids had fun playing and we had good food. It's so nice to have fun friends!
I made "hoppin' john" and french bread and met Grandma and Grandpa Faucheux, Dallin, and the Wans in Lehi for a traditional New Year meal. We played Scrabble (Popa had a 45 point word- is that a record?) and unless I did the math wrong (totally possible), Dallin beat us all.  Happy New Year!