Spring Break

This week was spring break. Unfortunately is was rainy and cold for the first four days of the week. We did attend some fun library activities, and we went to the Imagine Nation children's museum in Bristol. The kids loved the museum! There was lots to do, and everyone found a favorite thing to do. Emi loved pretending in the store/kitchen/restaurant, Clara loved the climbing wall and jungle gym, and James loved the sandbox and water table. I loved that everyone was happily entertained!!

James also enjoyed the woodworking room at the museum. I love this shot....it's so boy!

Clara on the slide

The kids also had fun pretending to be news reporters....they enjoyed seeing themselves on "tv"



I think mother nature knew that I just couldn't handle one more day of cold, drizzly, depressing weather, because Friday was lovely and Sat. and Sun. were simply fantastic with 90 degree temperatures and blue skies. The weekend brought an ice cream outing to J. Fosters with some of our favorite "CT grandparents", a Saturday bike ride on the trail and the first BBQ party of the season with great friends. Hooray for spring break :)

Daffodils

After a very long Connecticut winter, there is nothing more welcoming than the first signs of spring. After church today, we went on a drive up to Litchfield to see the daffodils. It was beautiful! The rolling hills, the ancient stone walls, the lake and thousands of daffodils!

Utah Trip

(Sorry, this is a lengthy post!)

We just returned from a whirlwind trip to Utah. We went for General Conference and for my birthday. It was so much fun, but the time went by sooo quickly! Although we were only there four days, we were able to see a lot of family and friends. It was wonderful!

All of my children LOVE to travel. Seriously, they ask me every single day when our "next trip on the airplane" will be. Clara was especially excited for this trip because it was the first time she was able to use her rolling barbie luggage. (She got it for Christmas). She looked so cute rolling this around the airport!

We got a tip about a great place for kids in North Salt Lake.......The Kangaroo Zoo. (Thanks Alan and Lindsay) It's a giant warehouse that's filled with inflatable jump toys! The kids bounced, climbed and slid to their hearts content. To make it even better, my cousin Laurie and my dear friend Stephanie came with their kids to join in the fun. It was awesome!

On Friday, after running some morning errands, we decided to try our luck and see if Grandpa Monson or Grandma Ann happened to be in their offices. Seeing as it was the day before conference, and both of them were swamped with meetings, it was a total miracle that we caught both of them! We always love to visit Grandpa Monsons office. The kids love to twirl in the big chair, and Grandpa loves to show them the treasures of his office. This time we saw (and heard) his actual bugle - yes, like a trumpet, from when he was in the third grade! Next, onto the YW offices. The presidency was having a lunch break in Sister Dalton's office, so we were able to catch my Mom. Sister Dalton had Emi and Clara try on a beautiful crown (see pic). She said "the thing I love about this crown, is that it's small and delicate, so in order to keep it from falling when you wear it, you have to stand tall and walk like princess!" It was true! She also had Emi, Clara and James stand at her office window, which overlooks the SLC temple, and they sang "I Love to See the Temple."

We spent two nights in Fruit Heights staying with Brent, Angela, Tag and Talmage. (Jim's brother and fam) Brent and Ang graciously offered to watch our kids while Jim and I went to conference. James was in heaven. Not only does this Steele household have an adorable dog, but they have awesome boy toys!!!! Jim and I drove up to the house after Sat. morning session to see James driving down the street in this tractor! He loves tractors! The kids loved spending time with their cousins and Jim and I loved staying up until 2 o'clock in the morning talking with Brent and Ang!


On our return trip, we were sitting on the runway in SLC and we heard this announcement "We seem to have a small mechanical problem, the wing de-icer gauge is broken. We can't fly to Detroit as planned, because it's snowing there, so we're going to fly this plane to Minneapolis instead" WHAT!? Not only is the plane broken (didn't a plane just crash last month due to ice on the wings?), but now they're flying us to a completely different city and we'll miss our connecting flight to Connecticut! To make a long story a bit shorter, we had to spend the night at a hotel in Minneapolis and catch a plane to CT the next morning. Oh, the joys of traveling! Highlights of this little diversion? Emi: Loved the 'volcano cookie sundae' dessert at Chili's that night. She's still talking about how delicious it was. James: Got to sleep in a 'big bed' at the hotel. And best of all, James: Got to 'ride a motorcycle'. There's a Harley-Davidson shop at the Minneapolis airport!