I is for Island, Ikea, and Ice Cream

This week I had planned to go ice skating but my dad talked me out of it and into going to Antelope Island instead. Neither of us had been (and he has lived in Utah for most of his life) so I decided it was a good idea, as long as he came along. Any outing with my Dad is bonus enough to do it. It was much more of a drive than I realized (how far is Layton anyway?) but it gave me a chance to discuss books with my dad and for Davis, shocker to take a nap in the car at 11 in the morning. They sure keep me guessing. I was so busy chatting that I forgot to stop for gas even though my low gas light came on just after I picked my dad up in Lehi. So . . .once we finally got to the island we didn't do a lot of driving around for fear of having to hike back to the mainland for gas. Instead we hiked up a little rocky point overlooking the lake.

Strong Carter
Davis and the scenery--they say Antelope Island has some of the oldest rocks in the world!
Davis at the top of the little peak and Grandpa's hand, the only proof he was there
Carter too, then we hiked back down to the beach. The bubs were quite excited that we were going to an island as they were sure there would be treasure and an X somewhere and thrilled to be going to the beach but couldn't figure out where the sand or waves were. I guess my attempts to hype the trip weren't very helpful. In place of sand we found this:
Just tons and tons of the stuff which upon closer inspection we decided was brine shrimp. Either dead ones or maybe they molt?? Weirdest thing, there was SO much of it.
And a few live ones swirling around in the "tide pools" as well. We spent an hour and half climbing and exploring and throwing rocks (watching Grandpa skip some) and that was about as good as it gets for my kiddos. We saw a few buffalo too and then headed back (before we ran out of gas, whew!) and picked up some yummy lunch on the way. Thanks Dad!

Then this afternoon Reva and I took all of our boys to Ikea. What a cheater way to do I! :) We dropped the boys off at the playland and then had a leisurely lunch and shopped. Fabulous! And in case you were dying to know, here is what 4 4 year olds look like in 1 Ikea cart:

And here they are showing off their ice cream, they were chanting, I is for Ice Cream!
If it sticks with them, it was worth it. I have to say I am enjoying our little field trips and I think the monkeys are too.

Some other notable items from the week. Davis displayed his engineer side the other night. He found a picture frame from Las Vegas and apparently is just in love with it. So much that he really wanted to have it hanging in his room. He tried a variety of methods to accomplish this but he finally worked out this one:

The pic doesn't show it well, but he found a musical triangle, hung it on his doorknob and then hung the photo frames stand on the triangle. Not a big deal, but Lowell and I thought it was pretty clever.

Carter also shared with us his artistic side with this little beauty:

That's me in case you were wondering, can't you see the hair? The down side is that this is about 2 feet tall on Carter's wall and was joined by skillful representations of trees and roller coasters, or so Carter told me they were. Most have been scrubbed off now but C man has thrown a fit and doesn't want Mommy erased. We're going to be painting soon so I guess it can wait a little while.

Today we also had A and A over for preschool and during circle time we talked about bones and did a bone puzzle. Here is how Davis compares to the puzzle, pretty close actually. And here are my boys with the skull pieces as masks (which later they taped to their faces and played pirates???)

Other than that I did an unfortunate amount of shopping this week. I just found such good sales, hard to turn it down. Hoping to knock out my Christmas shopping early this year. Lowell did a bit of shopping as well and picked up an early present for himself, a 50" plasma TV to replace our big screen downstairs that has been on the fritz. Boys and their TVs. He's thrilled and I still don't get why we needed a new one but oh well. Now we can wii in style I guess. I also made Lyndsie's yummy bread recipe and it turned out so great. I made one portion into wheat apple cinnamon rolls. Hearty and delicious and if you ignore the incredible cream cheese frosting on top, even good for you. Mmmmm I made them up for Baby Jonny's blessing on Sunday, we're very excited, I'll post some pics soon. Loves!