Day by Day

As our faithful blog readers know, most of our days and weeks are pretty normal and simple.  This week was spectacular and we decided to take you through it day by day.  Put your seat belts on . . . here we go!

Monday: School and then an evening at the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point.  Always a good time and one of mommy's favorite adventures.  We had a hard time limiting our pictures for this evening.  Enjoy!

Rolling down the big hills.

Beautiful flowers everywhere!

The amazing waterfalls.

Tulip boys.

More amazing tulips - they are everywhere.

Daddy and the boys.

Not only do I look as good as a flower - I think I smell as good as them too.

Mommy and the boys.

Really - you can't even imagine the flowers unless you see them for yourself.



 And Sam with the flowers. We had a lovely dinner on the lawns.  The weather was perfect.  And it was lovely all the way around.

 Tuesday:  T-Ball.  Nothing better than a great night playing ball.  Check out Sam's great hit.

 And here I am playing first base.

 Wednesday:  Art class for Mason and shopping and the playground for Sam.

Thursday: More T-Ball.  Sam and I play games at exactly the same time this year.  And our fields are sometimes pretty far apart.  So the camera doesn't always make it over to my games.  Here's Sam with another great hit.

Friday:  A few errands and some stair sliding.  Good times!

Saturday:  An amazing day with an all-day trip to the Trilobite Quarry in Delta.  

This really is one of our MOST favorite things!  You can't even understand how fun it is until you are there doing it.  We drive to this big quarry up in the mountains and get our hammers and buckets and head out into the shale mounds.  You pick a spot and just start digging around, cracking open rocks.  And you find little dinosaur bugs (trilobites) everywhere.

Even Sam was a great and successful trilobite hunter.

Here's dad doing some digging.

And me with another great "bug" find.

And a family picture.  We had a picnic lunch at the quarry and then after a visit to our favorite rock shop in Delta, a nice drive home.  Ahhh - now that's a great day!

 Sunday:  Church and then a great art project with dad.  He invented this great sand art technique.  Now I'm ready for my art fair this week.

See, I told you it was a great week!  Now, we need some sleep!

Sam Alert:  Hey everyone - Sam here.  I'm loving T-Ball . . . such a great sport!  I'm always smiling and doing my very best.

 Posing for my team pictures.

 And me at the quarry.  My little tummy kept growling so I finally talked mommy into giving me some lunch, but oh man, is digging for trilobites fun!!! 

 Sam out - have a great week!

The Signs of Spring

There are always certain signs of spring that we see every year.  We saw some of the sure signs of spring this week . . . which tells us that spring is here.

First  - the bugs are out.  In this case - the mouse.  This one hopped right onto my nose and wouldn't let go.

Second  - lists of things to do.  Mommy is a "list person".  She always has a list (or two or three or more) going to keep track of what she needs to be doing.  I decided to make my own list of things to do on my Saturday (yesterday).  Here it is:

In  case you can't read my writing:

List of things to do for Mason and Sam on Saturday

1. Wake up

2. Have breakfast

3. Get dressed

4. Go outside

5. Get big and little basketballs

6. Play don't get run over (by the lawn mower)

7. Have fun

We did a pretty good job of doing the things on our list.

Here we are playing - I'm the ball return guy.

Third - sprinkler fixing.  Getting the sprinklers up and running is a sure sign of spring.  We only had one major break in a line this year.  But, the hole dad had to dig ended up being much longer than in this picture.

Fourth: T-Ball.  We've come to love playing T-ball.  Our season started this week with our first practice.  I'm a California Angel. 

 And Sam is an Oakland A's. 

Fifth  - birthdays.  Spring is a time for a lot of birthdays around our house.  Uncle Noley's was last week. This week was Grandpa L's.  We got to go out to dinner and have a good visit.

 Other things - we enjoyed some great outdoor times this week as well.  We had some great weather.  Here we are having some T-ball practice in the backyard. 

Sam Alert:  Hey y'all - I'm loving the T-ball.  In fact, I decided that I like it even better than soccer - - - - no one tries to take the ball away from me.  And I get a turn every time. 

And I'm loving the good weather - I would spend my whole life outside if I could!  Have a great week.

Sam out!

Spring Break Fun

Now that's how you spend a Spring Break. We decided to have a stay-cation for our spring break this year. Daddy's spring break was last week and ours was this week - so mommy took the week off and we played and played and played.

We started with a day at This Is The Place Heritage Park. It is baby animal season. Not everything was up and running (like it is farther in to the warm weather season) and that was a little disappointing, but we still had a lot of fun. Of course, we rode the "train" around the park at least a few times.

And then there were the pony rides.And the petting corral. There were a few new babies - goats and lambs to pet.

And these super cute little pot bellied pigs. This one was a thirsty little guy.

Here's Sam lecturing this baby goat. He/She kept trying to get out of the gates and then it would cry and cry for its mommy. Sam was watching it telling it to stay inside with its mom. It worked (at least while we were inside).

And this goat kept trying to eat my hat.

Oh - so cute and cuddly.

And then we happened upon feeding time for the baby lambs. They were hungry little guys and gals.

There were also baby rabbits and chicks and ducks to hold.

After another train ride (or two) around the park, we did some pioneer chores - - laundry.

And plowing - this was surprisingly difficult!

The next day was a whopper of a great day. We started with a Trax (commuter light rail) ride from our house clear up to the University of Utah. Then we hopped on a bus (University shuttle bus) which took us right to the front door of the new Utah Museum of Natural History. We spent the day there wandering, learning, and exploring. It was fabulous!

It a museum all about things from/in Utah, from Utah dinosaurs to other animals, peoples, and lands.

And the glass floors were super cool! A little scary at first, but ultimately really cool!

We got to dig for dinosaur bones.

And see Utah dinosaurs.

Here we are with a wall full of different Ceratop skulls - most of them are above us.

We put together a puzzle of a dinosaur skull - I was ultra-determined to do this!

Here we are exploring some Native American ruins.

And we put together the parts of a cell.

Here we are up on the observatory deck - look at that view. Beautiful!

We deserve a rest after a very full day. We re-traced our route back home . . . . another bus and another train. Nothing could be better!

We made some time the next day for playing at a local park that we hardly ever get to go to. Good times!

Nothing better than a good slide!

From there, we spent a day at home playing (so mommy could get some work done), and then we went to a bouncy place the last day (no camera, mom forgot). It was a great week! We only kind of missed our teachers and friends at school. We're back at it next week - how quickly time flies!

Sam Alert: Hey everyone - Sam here. Let's see - how do I sum up this week. Super fun . . . . and my new most common phrase - "I'm OK". Let's see, I recently fell into an old brittle plastic bucket which shattered and cut up my face and arms - nothing serious, but some good blood was spilled. Then I was wrestling with Mason and ran lip first in to his wooden bed - cut lip which is now big and fat. And at the park this week, I fell off one of the landings right on to my head - no injuries, "I'm OK". That's me - - - out there, doing it, no fear!!!

Enjoy a few cute pictures of me from this week. First up - me at the old school house at the Pioneer park. See my name up in the top left corner of the chalk board - the teacher was so proud!

And here I am playing in our sandbox - note the great hat. I'm finally big enough to not tip over as I try to work our digger. It really was a fun week. I missed my teachers though - I'm excited to get back to school this week. Have a great week everybody!