Discovery Gateway in SLC

We've been to the Discovery Gateway museum in Salt Lake City several times over the years, but never before with a tiny toddler. (Oh my goodness...did I just call my baby a toddler?) It was lots of fun watching Melissa play and have fun!

The first stop was to play with the balls. We could have stayed there all day if I hadn't felt like making sure Melissa tried all the exhibits.

 Melissa discovered (get it, "discovered," ha ha!) that it's a lot of fun to climb in the ball bin!

 I definitely think we've got a future race car driver on our hands! And if she looks at all the other drivers with those big beautiful eyes of hers, they are bound to pull over and let her pass. :)

 Playing with water is always lots of fun, although Melissa wasn't interested in staying with the water for too long. By the time we got there she had picked up on the fact that there was lots and lots of fun things to do and play all around her.

 Morgan and Brynne mostly went around and did their own things. Last time we went I stuck with Brynne, and Morgan went off on her own a bit. Kind of weird to let them both go off on their own and have a baby to stay with...

Brynne did come play with Melissa in the farm area for a short while. Brynne got a sheep outfit for Melissa and a cow outfit for herself to dress up in. I don't think I'd mind being a farmer if my farm animals were always this cute:

 Brynne spent a lot of her time creating cartoon illustrations and creating short videos. She also went to see the helicopter, did the weather news, and a few other fun things. I sneaked a picture of her playing music on the huge xylophone:

 Morgan spent most of her time playing balls and building things.

Today I am really grateful for free passes to places where kids can learn while having a really fun time!

Spring Break Part 2: Desert Museum

On Friday, Lo took us to the Desert Museum. It was actually really more like a zoo. I kept being amazed at the animals we'd see because you don't even realize the exhibits are out there when you look -- it's all in natural habitat. Very amazing! Here is a picture of Morgan and Brynne with the javelina statues in front of the museum (admittedly taken on the way back out; hence, the souvenirs -- thanks Lo!)
Here's Morgan posing to show off the view from the museum. Beautiful! (The view and the girl!)

We got a picture of Brynne with the view also. Believe it or not the museum is behind her. All you can see is the desert with various plants, but there are all kinds of animals out there in enclosed natural habitats (see some pictures below).

The museum had brochures that the kids could take around with them. The brochures had pages on which you could get stamps of footprints from various animals as you walked around the museum The girls were very happy to discover a section on dinosaurs. They spent a good 15 minutes digging for dinosaur bones.

I got some pretty good pictures (in my own opinion) of some of the animals. I've included a few for you to see. The first one of the hummingbird in the nest was actually taken by Lo because I couldn't figure out how to turn off my flash.

We were at the museum for more than six hours (including a delicious lunch break) and still didn't see everything. The girls really wanted to go see the rest (and Brynne wanted to get all the prints in her book that she could), but I was having to take turns carrying them by then so we decided it was time to head home. I was very surprised that we had been there as long as we had. I really enjoyed the day there!

Bean Museum with the Farmer Cousins & Brynne's New Talent

My sister Alyson came to visit with her five boys on Wednesday. Her kids had Spring Break, and decided to spend a night with us. Amazingly, the boys all found something in our "girl-laden" playroom to play with while Aly and I relaxed and visited for a little while. Then we loaded everyone up and headed to the Bean Museum on the BYU campus.

Adam and I didn't make this picture, but here's everyone else: Isaac, Aly, Brynne, Alex, Cayden, Drew, and Morgan:
Brynne wanted me to take her picture with the cute "Lady Bugs." If you enlarge the picture, you can tell that those cute lady bugs are clearly marked as "Japanese Beetles". :)

Here are Aly's youngest twins -- Adam and Isaac -- standing by the elephant. These boys are very, very cute; but they're also very fast! (Good news, though, the worst thing that happened was that the antelope almost got knocked over; and it turns out the alarm in the elevator works great!) :)

After looking around at all the exhibits, the older cousins plopped down on a bench to watch a movie about dolphins. Although they look less than thrilled in this picture, they did have a good time. They especially liked getting to see the tarantula and getting to touch the live snake.

We got home just in time to put on a movie for the kids while we hurried to make dinner. Then we went to the swimming pool in Provo. The kids had tons of fun swimming, and Brynne discovered that she can actually swim! Prior to this visit, she would sometimes put her face in for a few seconds and could "doggie paddle" for about 8-10 feet; but this time she put on the goggles, got on her tummy, put her face in the water, and actually kicked and paddled her arms a few times. Oh the joys! :)

Amazingly, we had the kids all asleep within 45 minutes of arriving back at our house. Can you guess what Aly and I did with our free time before we needed to go to bed ourselves? We sat on the couch and read!! Oh yes, you know you're close with your sister when you can just sit down and pull out some good books without having to feel guilty about not visiting. Life is good! :)

The Discovery Museum

My sister Alyson invited Brynne and me to join her and her two youngest, Adam and Isaac, at the Discovery Museum in Salt Lake City this morning. The biggest accomplishment is that I found my way there. It's in the Gateway Mall, which I have heard of but have never ever been to or even realized where it was exactly. Anyway, we had a ton of fun and could have stayed for lots longer if we hadn't had to be back for when Morgan got home from school. (Is it just me, or was that paragraph way weird in how I worded everything? Oh well. I'm way too tired to worry about it...) Here's Brynne with Isaac (and Adam in front of them kinda hidden) in the helicopter.

I watched for almost 10 minutes as Brynne used this spoon to fill up a little bucket with water.
She played in the water area for quite a while. I wasn't really surprised though. Water and sand are two things this girl could play in forever!
She took a break from the water long enough to go for a spin in this car. Her arms appear to be in motion because she was making really big motions to spin the wheel as fast as she could -- good thing there's still many years before she'll be out on the road in a real car! Brynne got brave and tried the climbing wall. She actually loves climbing up, but then she "freaks out" and needs help getting down. I don't think she was too happy when I made her hang on long enough for me to get a picture.
And in case you're wondering what Brynne looks like after a long day...