I'll Take It

I think I'm going to like it here. Yesterday, it was 102 degrees outside. That is the kind of number that usual makes me unusually surly, but I found myself in a surprisingly good mood all day. I think it may have something to do with having an air-conditioning unit that actually works. It stays cool inside! Wonder of wonders. Most of it, though, is probably due to having family nearby.

After nine straight years of not living a hop, skip and a jump next to any of our family, I discovered why living near parents, siblings, in-laws is so high on so many peoples' lists.

We decided to escape out house and the heat by going to the dinosaur museum (more accurately, the Museum of Ancient Life) at Thanksgiving Point and I called Sarah to see if she was interested in coming. There is always that awkwardness between the two of us, because we are both pleasers, to say the right thing. She didn't want to let me down, but it finally came out that she didn't, in fact, want to spend her day at a museum. Then the glorious moment happened. She asked, "Do you want me to keep Henry?"

Hallelujah!

Honestly, it hadn't crossed my mind to leave him at home. He's just part of the family and any plan for the day also takes into consideration the necessary mood required to follow him around as he wanders away, watch him touch and possibly break things he shouldn't, listen as he makes more noise than allowed and other totally appropriate eighteen month-old behavior. But, to suddenly have freedom from that, for a couple of hours, was thrilling. The pleaser part of me tried to make sure I wasn't abusing her, and stranding her with Big H, but she assured me that she was fine and wouldn't mind spending the day with him at all.

We left Sarah and Henry here and drove to Lehi where we proceeded to purchase the family pass at Thanksgiving Point. I hope we get our money's worth. I have a feeling that I'm going to be a sucker for more than one family pass around here. I think the business scheme is to make a daily admission seem unaffordable and a family season pass affordable enough to pay for itself if the entire family merely goes twice. That deal seemed hard to pass up so we are now card carrying members of the Thanksgiving Point family. Woot!

We began our adventure by watching one of the two 3D movies about dinosaurs they have on their mega-screen. We all loved it. I have never watched a 3D movie before and they are really fun. The one we saw starts with a space scene describing, in scientific terms, how the earth might have began and I felt like I was actually sitting there in space with meteors and stars all around me. Irreverent as it may seem, I couldn't help but think that another film dealing with space and the beginning of the earth could benefit from that really cool 3D technology and mega-screen. But, I suppose if we had to wear 3D glasses, our strangeness would just be interpreted as that much stranger. Still though, very cool effect. All of us jumped a time or two when a large dinosaur opened its jaws right at us.

Us in our cool 3D glasses

The museum itself is world class. I think it is just as well cone as the Museum of Natural History in DC. Their hands on exhibits are readily available and both Seth and Sam were excited about ancient history and science by the end. We'll definitely be making a return trip.

Before going inside

Jay is one of those dads that kids love. Our kids certainly do. I'm fairly certain I wouldn't crawl through the kid hole unless one of my kids were screaming inside or someone had taken off with my purse.

The museum had several different computer stations set up for more learning.

I love watching Seth discover.

Freakishly large pre-historic shark. Egads.

Another hands-on area. The kids took brushes and brushed away sand to find fossils.

Sammy shows up the enormous pre-historic fish. If you can call that a fish.

The erosion exhibit. Sammy could have spent hours here.

We were looking forward to trying out one of the supposed gluten-free restaurants here in the city and went to Famous Dave's, a BBQ place. Very unfortunately, when we requested gluten-free menu items, they replied that nothing was guaranteed and they no longer provided a list. Jay, thinking safety first, couldn't order anything and I sat there and ate my beef brisket with haste and guilt.

At least the boys got a turn taking a picture with one of their NASCAR heroes - Jeff Gordon.

Seth's turn

We came home and Jay went and discovered a great store here called Against the Grain. Everything in the store is gluten free. The owner's daughter has Celiac and possesses the kind of personality to make a difference so started a business that applied all of the research she has done about the best brands and companies that make gluten-free food. No more reading labels and wondering if this particular company's "natural flavors" or "modified food starch" could be trusted or not. Jay even bought some bread that tasted good! It's soft! And sweet! It's also four dollars a loaf but what the heck...it's bread!

Later that evening, Sarah and I went to see a girly movie. I chose it, making my decision to see something that I knew jay would never want to see, even as a rental. We saw the movie Evening and it was quite possibly one of the stupidest movies I've ever seen. What a travesty to have Claire Danes, Glen Close, Toni Collette, and Meryl Streep all sign on to do such a plotless, pointless, purposeless film. It was just under two hours long and it honestly felt like five. The only thing that kept my mood up were the giggles that started to pass between Sarah and I as each ridiculous death scene started again. If I wanted to torture myself, I'd watch it again and count how many times the two daughters of the woman dying woke her up from her sleep to ask if she was alright to just say, "Go back to sleep, Mom. You need your rest." Well then...just let the poor lady sleep!! Crimeny!

I needed to run to Wal-Mart after the movie to get stuff for Sunday dinner. Apparently, so does everyone else in Utah. 9:30 at night is NOT a good time to run in for a quick item. It didn't help that a recent shipment had come in and they had unloaded all of their boxes into the aisles. I needed a ham and could not find one. Finally, Sarah spotted them in one of those middle bin-like freezers but the problem was the multitude of boxes that completely shut that particular freezer in. Undeterred, I shimmied and squeezed between some boxes, climbed up on the edge of the freezer and found my ham! And yes, the effort made it all the more enjoyable while eating it today.

The lengths I had to go to get that ham!

If this was a typical weekend day, I'll take it. It probably isn't but I think the future looks bright.