Temple Square

We picked one of the coldest days in December to head to Temple Square with some friends. Sarah was invited to a 'late-over' with a friend, so she didn't join us. Kinda a bummer because I don't have a cool night-time picture of her at Temple Square. Oh well.

We tried to check out the food court at the new City Creek Center. MAJOR disappointment. 1 place was open-McDonalds. So the kids got McDonalds for dinner. It was cold, but a fun trip overall.

Winter Program

First graders at Bountiful Elementary held a Winter Program. The three first grade classes sang lots of cute songs and were dressed in red, green and white. They did such a good job and Sarah LOVED all the songs they sang.

The kids' made the wall decorations-cute reindeer. Sarah's is up there....hmm, the in the middle of those three is hers. Luckily the phone kept Sophie entertained. And Jimmy helped keep B entertained. (cell phone picture) Then we went back to Sarah's class to see her graham cracker house, a present and a Christmas card. I love first grade! Sarah has an AMAZING teacher this year and is learning SO much!

Red Rock Preview

College football season ends. Womens College Gymnastic season begins!

The University of Utahs' Red Rocks gymnastic team held their preview night in December. Its like an intersquad meet. It was open seating and CARL is amazing to save us some seats. We sat REAL close to the bars event and enjoyed watching the Red Rocks compete and perform. There is some TALENT here....Could it be the year for a national championship? Maybe. Lets first conquer the PAC-12,

Cell phone pic of Nansy after her bars routine. After the meet, there was team autographs. We got team autographs on posters and trading cards. Its fun to see the gymnasts up close. We have our personal favorites, so it was fun to say "hi" to them. GO UTES!

Nansy and Stephanie

CoLo

I know them by name....too bad they don't know me by name. Why am I not facebook friends with each of them? geez.

The Great December Windstorm

So many thoughts race to my mind as I think about the Great Windstorm of December. Lets see if I can get it down without sounding too scatter-brained!

KSL: Hurricane-force winds wreaked havoc in northern Utah on Thursday, blowing over semitrailers, toppling trees, downing power lines, forcing the closures of more than a dozen schools and creating extensive property damage across Davis and Weber counties.

Our Thursday morning (December 1st) began when Jimmy & I woke up to wind blowing outside. Blowing-what a weak word. Gusting. Swelling. Huffing and puffing winds from the east. Old windows & east facing bedroom equated to NOT MUCH SLEEP. Will the kids wake up? Did we leave anything out that could blow away? Was the roof going to blow off? Will a window break in? Were any branches going to fall down? Fall on the house? Fall on the vehicles?

Oh-that CURSED carport canopy in the back. We have NO garage and plenty of JUNK (can I blame heredity?) We haD a carport canopy in our backyard to hold our garage things-some camping supplies, the grill, bikes, kids' toys, lawnmower, tools, coolers, old tile, and MORE. That bloody thing was man-handled by the wind storm! Much of the time from 2am till 11am was spent worrying about that STUPID thing. Really. Was it going to blow away? What can we anchor it to so it won't go anywhere? It got ripped and bent. TRASHED. I finally took down the stupid thing while Jimmy was at work. The damage was done. The thing was gone. So I didn't have to worry about it flying away even more, I took down what I could until Jimmy got home to figure out what to do next.

Salt Lake barely had a breeze. Business as normal for folks there. But not in Bountiful or Davis County.

By 6 am, our power went out. I started texting my friends to see if their power is out and if we were still having exercise group at the church. No exercise group. Too scared to go outside. Slowly everyone around us lost power. again-NOT wanting to go out, many of us were not sending our kids to school. Okay kids, get dressed. Have some breakfast. Lets play some games and puzzles. I listened to the radio for any updates. My friend in Woods Cross had heat, power, and cable TV. We went down to her house to play and hang out while she went to work. Here is my first picture from our adventure out. I can see this house out my kitchen window. I think the tree got the gas line to their house.

We stayed at my friends house most of Thursday. We enjoyed dinner with them-good MOVE. I heard the fast food places were PACKED. If you had power, you had business! I was VERY thankful we could hang out there. Thanks M&L

We slept at Jimmy's parents house Thursday night. No school Friday. No power to part of the schools in the district and damage to schools.

Friday, Jimmy went to work, and I adventured out with the kids. I heard the cemetery had a lot of trees down, so we went to check it out. A guy was nice to take our picture together next to this tree. We walked around. wOw. Check this out. CRAZY!

Grandpa Burns' grave is fine! Road is blocked north of his headstone.

Finally Friday afternoon we got the carport canopy JUNK covered with a tarp and got things tucked in. Here are the sides of the canopy laid out. After being out of the house for so long, we were READY to just be home. Even without power, nothing feels like home. I think the house got a little colder than this.

With the help of my father-in-law, we got the generator running and ran an extension cord down to the furnace and got the furnace some POWER. POWER=HEAT. We played many games of Connect 4 and slept in our house! We kept the heat up to 70 degrees until the gas ran out of the generator at 1am.
Ashley enjoyed cold oatmeal next to a heater in the kitchen.


Saturday. I was DONE. I had enough of this situation. People around us were getting power. But WE didn't have power. It was like their Christmas lights were mocking us. I was stuck in this mess, trying to take care of my kids. We were checking on Aunt Mary, making sure she was holding up okay. We needed groceries. It was just a stressful situation that I didn't have control over. I was an emotional wreck by now. What mattered is that my family was safe, protected, warm and fed. Yes. We were safe, protected, warm, fed, and even had plumbing. But I was D*O*N*E! Done with this little game of no power. I wanted to get back into our routine and not worry about this. Plus my phone was not holding a charge, dying. It was wore out and that was a major frustration!


Luckily I was able to drop the kids off at a birthday party in Woods Cross. I needed the break and I was able to go to the Rec center to exercise. ahh. Much better. After I had my little break, we returned home to hear a power company was down the street repairing the damaged power line. I went down to take a picture. I didn't know where the power line was broken, but soon found out. Follow that truck!

Thank you Murray City Power guys. Thanks for repairing the damaged power line.

55 1/2 hours of NO power. Shoot. The stuff in the fridge is GONE. Freezer-most of it is bad. Throw it out.

Sunday morning was the Great Clean Up. It was a miracle everyone wanted to be a part of. Church was cancelled. People went out to clean up the downed trees and debris as another wind storm was threatening to come in Sunday night.

The city opened up the dump and trucks, trucks, trucks, and trailers were out all day Sunday cleaning up the city. It was exciting to see. Jimmy, his dad, and his brother went out and worked. It was a miracle. There was more than moving trees going on. It was people helping people. People came together to help.

(I enjoyed doing laundry and being HOME!)

Sometime, I will have to add the story of Jimmy getting his truck stuck at the city dump. He couldn't get his truck out of 4-wheel drive Low and he got stuck in some mud. He was not alone when this happened. He had a truck full of other guys in the ward with him.....I heard there is picture of this experience! The Sunday wind storm fizzled out. Nothing really happened.

I am glad we are through that experience. Days following, you could see National Guard vehicles aiding in the cleanup. You can still see tree stubs in the ground. Its much better now it is in the past.....

The kids made up the missed day of school.

I got a new cell phone (that charges-faster than the other one).

We had no real property damage-besides the stupid canopy.

150 Million Years to cover

I got FREE tickets to the opening day of the Natural History Museum of Utah in November. I was curious to check it out because I went to the old one when Ashley was in preschool. I had a full load of kids (my 2 plus 3 others) but I didn't let that stop me from going! I enlisted my dad to join in on the adventure with me! It was WORTH all the effort to go! LOVED, LOVED IT. Its really neat---if you have visitors coming to Utah, this is worth your time and money to take them! (how can i get my school aged kids there for a field trip? I better do some research)

LOVED LOVED it! Here is the website. http://www.nhmu.utah.edu/

Beautiful building. GREAT for kids. Really educational!Here are some of the hands on exhibits they had for the kids.

So many exhibits to touch and teach the kids about the sky, Native Americans in Utah, life, land, first peoples, gem and minerals, the Great Salt Lake, and past worlds. With short attention spans, we did whatever the kids wanted. We could spend HOURS there!

archaeological dig site

There were some skeletal reconstructions on display under glass, under the floor. The kids were REAL nervous about walking on this display. It was funny!

You could go in and out of the museum at certain points to continuing your learning, but we just stayed inside.
Charlie inside a dinosaur footprint.

Our Backyard Exhibit

The kids and ME. THEY are NOT all mine! Papa Jack

My picture of the outside of the building. It was just such a pretty building. Something this nice is perfect to be near the University of Utah! Come on! GO Utes.

There is a trail around/near the museum, so next time we will have to check out the stuff outside of it. Even the parking lot had some educational info to get you ready for the awesome experience you will have!

Lunch in the 'burban then head home!

I am looking ahead in the year to see if I can go for free again! BUT we will go there-even if I have to pay....

LOVED this place. GO TO THE MUSEUM!

Last home Utah Football Game 0f 2011

Last home Utah Football game was after Thanksgiving versus the Colorado Buffalo's-BTW embarrassing LOSS! Never trust a kicker.

But senior day is always exciting and being in our seats before kick off is a favorite of mine. It was COLD again. Layer up!

This football game was memorable (like the last home game) because one of the football players got hurt and was taken off in an ambulance. Offensive lineman Sam Brenner suffered a neck injury. It was just interesting. It was a 10 minute delay. Its the first time we've been at a football game and the ambulance came on the field.

Brenner left Friday’s game with a neck injury, but exams at University Hospital showed there were no broken bones and he had full motion. Brenner was expected to recover in time to play in Utah’s bowl game.

Utah's loss meant no happy post game pictures of Jimmy & I.

But I did search the stadium for cool stadium cups soda was sold in.

Utah Football Game

I am always happy when I get to go to a Utah Football Game with Jimmy! Finding a babysitter for 4 hours for 4 kids isn't always the easiest thing or cheapest. This home game in November versus UCLA was interesting. It was cold and snowy before the game, but during the game the snow stopped.

Look at the picture-the lines on the football field are being cleared. Why is that so fun to me? I don't know. Maybe it makes me feel tough like a NFL football fan. Why does Green Bay Packers or Chicago Bears come to mind? Oh yeah, they have THOSE games where it is COLD and SNOWY.

I think we had the advantage against these boys from California. Welcome to Utah.

Always happy to see a Utah victory!