Hardware Ranch

Last weekend we made the drive up to Hardware Ranch in Hyrum. It's about two hours from our house, and part the drive is through a winding canyon road. I thought Isaac was going to get carsick because he got that glassy look in his eyes and was asking why the road kept going back and forth. But we finally made it and went up to the museum to buy our tickets for the sleigh ride out to see the elk. It's a small museum, but they had all kinds of native Utah animal skins and skulls. Perfect for a 3 year old boy. There was this stuffed mountain lion that he wasn't too sure of though. He thought it was a real at first, but then he was okay with it.

The Clydesdale horses that pulled the sleigh were HUGE. The driver told us that together they weighed more than 4200 lbs. Wow. I'm pretty sure that's more than my car weighs. It's no wonder these big animals can pull a sled with about 15 people on it.

So we hopped on the sled and they took us out to the elk. There was probably about 200 or 300 elk out there. It was really neat to see them so close up. Isaac was concerned that he was going to get pooped on. I have no idea where he got that. But I assured him that if we stayed in the sled that we would be safe from the elk poo.

Go Utes!

Last Friday we went to the parade for the University of Utah football team in Salt Lake. As you may or may not know, the Utes won the Sugar Bowl a few weeks back and so the city decided to have a parade for them. It wasn't a very long parade, but it was fun to go cheer on our team.

The players walked along the parade route signing autographs and giving high fives. Isaac thought he was soooo cool and talked about how he gave fives to the Go Utes Football Players for days. I have a cute video of him but I took it sideways with my camera and I can't figure out how to post it the right way. If anyone knows, help me out!

Christmas

Yeah, I know I'm really late posting this but I'm late for everything else, so no one should really be all that surprised.

We had a great Christmas! On Christmas Eve we had dinner with Greg's family at his Grandma's house. Grandma Carr always makes such good food, so I was looking forward to going to her house. After dinner we all dressed up in our assigned roles and acted out the Christmas story of Jesus' birth. Isaac was Joseph, Greg was the donkey, and I was a shepherd. It's kind of a fun way to teach the grandkids why we celebrate Christmas. Greg's dad read the story from the Bible while the rest of us acted it out. We acted beautifully. I was really surprised when the nominees for the Golden Globes came out recently and we weren't named. I'm sure it was a mistake. Oh well, we'll just have to try harder next year. Here we are in our manger scene.

After Greg's family, we headed on over to my parents' house. My family has a tradition of breaking a pinata on Christmas Eve. I don't even remember where it started, but we have been doing it for years. Greg was in charge of getting the pinata. Could he have picked out an uglier one? Prolly not. Isaac loved whacking away at it.

I did pretty well myself.

But it was my mom who ultimately killed it. Here's my crazy family with various pieces of the dead pinata on our heads.

We headed on home to set out cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for his reindeer. Christmas morning I woke Isaac up at 6:30. I know, I know. WHY would I wake my kid up? Well we had a busy day ahead of us with family, and I wanted to make sure we had enough time to do our own little family thing. Santa did pretty good for Isaac.

The only thing he asked for was a Hot Wheels race track. He got it! He was so excited. Santa also brought him clothes, a robot, a case to store his Hot Wheels cars in, a guitar, a motorcycle, and a few other little gifts. Greg and I both got new shoes and clothes. Greg got some tools, a case for an autographed basketball he has, and he and Isaac got boxing gloves. They are always pretending to box, so Santa decided they should have the proper equipment.

After we opened gifts at our house we went to my parent's house, then to Greg's parent's and then to my Grandparents. (See, I told you we had a busy day.) Our families were so generous and spoiled us all. It's fun to see so many of our family all in one day.

We got home later that evening, and it had started to snow. Two hours later we had almost a foot! It has been snowing almost every day since. It's getting a little old.

Update

I know, I know. It's been a long time since I've updated my blog. But between me getting the flu last week (still not feeling 100%), Isaac getting sick again, and me being so busy at work that the last thing I want to do when I get home is to get on the computer, I keep putting off writing anything new. But, as I wait for another load of laundry to finish up I'll post some things we've been up to.

We have 3 fireplaces in our house. 2 are gas, but the third is a good old fashioned wood burning fireplace. Since Greg has a job in the moulding industry, scraps of wood are never in short supply. So about once or twice a week we have been building fires in our fireplace and making smores, roasting marshmallows, etc. We've been having a blast.

Also, it finally looks like Christmas here. I wouldn't mind if the warmer temperatures had stuck around for a little longer, but I will admit I do like the look of snow. Greg and Isaac went and played in the snow and took the sled down the front yard earlier in the week.

They later built a jump for the sled, but the memory card in my camera couldn't hold anything else on it. So I didn't get any good pictures of it.

Greg found a gingerbread house kit at Costco. We had a really good time decorating it. And while it's not the prettiest house on the block, it sure is the most colorful. It looks like a candy store exploded on it.

Some Discoveries

Isaac has been sick for a few days with croup. It has not been fun at all. Poor kid wakes up in the night coughing so hard he can't stop and has a hard time breathing. It's a little scary to say the least. We took him to InstaCare on Sunday, and they gave him some steroids to help open up his airways and that's helped a little.

The thing is that he has only been sick a handful of times. These past few days I have made a few discoveries:

1. Greg cannot handle throw up. If he hears someone throw up, sees someone throw up, or smells throw up, he himself will throw up.

2. Isaac is BOSSY when he's sick. I just laid him down for a nap, and he told me, "go out of here, Mom, I need to go to sleep." Okay!

3. Greg is a better stay at home parent that I am. He stayed home from work with Isaac yesterday, and cleaned the house and did all but about 2 loads of laundry. Yes! Thank you Greg! Also, Greg had to leave for a few hours last night and Isaac sat by the window waiting for him to come home. They must have had a really good time yesterday.

4. My sister thinks that gout and croup are the same illness. Okay, maybe not really but she kept saying that Isaac had gout. He he, you know I love you, Mel.

Hopefully Isaac will get feeling better soon. He's been pretty mopey and I miss my fun little guy.

Family Pictures

We went and had our family pictures taken a few weeks ago. I was a little worried about how they were going to turn out, because about a half hour into it Isaac was done. He decided it would be more fun to play in the dirt and run around in the leaves. Can you blame the kid though? When I got the CD from the photographer, however, I was really pleased. She did a great job. She has 5 kids of her own so she worked really well with Isaac. After we were done, she told me that she took over 300 pictures! Here's some of my favorites:

Halloween Report

I've seen this same entry popping up on everyone else's blog. Here's some pictures of our Halloween.

We carved a pumpkin a few days before. Greg's dad grew this pumpkin in his backyard, so props to him. It was huge. We asked Isaac what he wanted to carve in it, and he told us he wanted an octopus. The kid couldn't think of something easy, like a cool jack-o-lantern face or a ghost. He insisted on a octopus. So I left it up to Greg, because I am artistically challenged. Ever the handyman, he decided to use his dremel tool to carve it. I was really impressed with how it turned out.

Isaac decided months ago that he wanted to be a "Go Utes" (translation: University of Utah) football player for Halloween. I thought, simple. I've seen U of U football jerseys at Wal-Mart, I can throw something together. It'll be easy. HA! Not so. I went to pretty much every Wal-Mart in the Salt Lake Valley looking for one of those jerseys. I found plenty on line, but I wasn't going to pay $50 or more for a football jersey. Anyway, I ended up finding a Tampa Bay Buccaneers uniform online for a *somewhat* reasonable price and he loved it. From the day UPS delivered it he wore that helmet non stop. I even have a picture of him in only the helmet and undies, but I will spare him the future embarrassment and not post it. I'll save it for a day when he's older and I need something for blackmail.

Anyway, here he is in his Bucks uniform. He had a blast trick or treating, and asked the next morning if he could go again.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Saturday morning he dumped his candy out and started putting it in matching piles. I couldn't resist taking a picture. Although I will admit that I did help him match them all up.