Pedals!

We've been trying to help Ian learn to pedal his tricycle for awhile, but it just hasn't clicked. He just couldn't get it. Today, just like yesterday, I tried to get him to move his feet on the pedals. And he took off! I don't know if he's been sneaking off in the middle of the night to practice or what, but all of a sudden he could do it! He was so proud of himself too.

From Salt Lake City

Planetarium

We went back to the planetarium and for another train ride yesterday. I think Ian's favorite thing about Salt Lake City is the light rail system. I wonder how many people ride the train like a major tourist attraction. :)

Had a low-key evening just doing some cleaning while the kids played outside. Maybe we're getting boring. I think it's just because we've been here for awhile and we've seen most of the 'big' things, so now when we're tired we don't push ourselves to go out. Probably a good thing in the long run, but I think it makes our blog a bit duller.

We've really been enjoying our time on the road. It still feels like we must be cheating somehow to be able to do all this while Jeremy is working!

Hot air balloon show

Yesterday we went to a hot air balloon and kite festival at a state park near here. It was Antelope Island, which is actually an island in the Great Salt Lake. There were only five balloons and a few kites, but the bands were actually pretty good and there were a lot of inflatable rides set up. Both kids really enjoyed themselves. We got back kind of late, hence no posting last night.

Here's the stage and a few kites off to the right

From Salt Lake City

They had quite a vendor assortment-Navajo tacos and Thai food in this one, and jamba juice on the other side

From Salt Lake City

Ian on one of the obstacle courses

From Salt Lake City

The giant slide was Ian's favorite

From Salt Lake City

Rinnah really liked the bounce house. She even got brave and stood up and tried to jump! Sorry for the lousy picture, but there was mesh on all sides.

From Salt Lake City

Having a good time, messy face and all

From Salt Lake City

A few of the balloons

From Salt Lake City

Sunset on the island

From Salt Lake City

Ian diving headfirst over one of the obstacle courses

From Salt Lake City

Today Jeremy was off work, so we went back to the planetarium and rode the light rail again. Then tonight I took Ian to the park. We've instituted a new reward system for staying in bed at naps and bedtimes, and he earns stars toward "special mommy time" or "special daddy time", which is one on one time. Tonight was his special mommy time, so just Ian and I went to the park and played baseball. He is really liking this reward thing and we are thrilled to not spend two hours putting him back in bed anymore. I think we might be on to something here.

Saturday

We had several big ideas about what to do today. Unfortunately, most of the ideas were outside and it was threatening to rain, and also we had some cranky kids. We spent a good part of the day trying to get naps for them. By the time that was over and everyone ate, we decided to just try again tomorrow. We did go out to a park to try to take a few pictures. Mostly a disaster, and Rinnah took a tumble down the steps and got a big bruise on her forehead. At least I got two shots I like:

From Salt Lake City

From Salt Lake City

Museums and more museums

This morning we went back to the frog museum, as Ian calls it. The Natural History museum still has the frog exhibit, so we went back there. It's so nice with the membership to be able to just come by for an hour or so and then leave, and not worry about spending a fortune to do that regularly.

Tonight we went back to the Treehouse Museum that we had tried to visit last weekend. I'm glad we did. The kids really had a nice time. We stayed later than we should have since traffic delayed us on the way, but it was worth it.

Rinnah enjoying the fire dog

From Salt Lake City

From Salt Lake City

Once again, the train table was a huge hit with Ian

From Salt Lake City

Practicing drawing

From Salt Lake City

From Salt Lake City

A better day

Rinnah slept better last night (or else we were just too tired to hear her waking up!) and has been acting much better this morning, so we're optimistic that maybe we're over the worst of the teething for now.

Jeremy took the kids this afternoon so I could have another big organization day. Since we've been here for a few months now and have a pretty good idea of what we get to often and what we don't, I feel like I'm finally ready to get everything settled. Plus, in a few weeks we'll be meeting up with my mom and shortly after that we head down to see Jeremy's parents, so I know there will be a lot more visiting and a lot less cleaning time then.

The last major project still is figuring out what to do for a new bed for Ian and how we can bunk him over Rinnah and/or some storage for books.

Picnic

I obviously spoke too soon last night. I was all curled up in bed just after 9 and Rinnah started to fuss. To make a long story short, we finally got her settled around 3:30am. We are so exhausted today! She's been pretty fussy the last few days, but this was by far the worst. This morning she was just screaming, inconsolable. We're pretty sure this is the culprit:

From Salt Lake City

Her first top tooth. She is not dealing all that well with it and neither are we. We're giving her tylenol and motrin, but those just don't always seem to take the edge off for her. It was kind of depressing to take the pic and realize how far we still have to go with just this one tooth. And it's only the 3rd tooth to even break through. At this rate she'll be teething until she's 3. Sigh.

We left this morning with the sole purpose of getting out of the house-to go somewhere, ANYwhere, just to try to get the kids in a better mood. We wound up at the planetarium. They had the coolest Newton ball structure thing I've seen yet-two stories tall and with gobs and gobs of different things in it. Ian was also surprisingly interested in the pendulum, which knocked over a little metal marker every few minutes to show its progress.

After that we did Ian's favorite thing-we rode the commuter lite rail. There's a free zone downtown and one of the stops is just outside the planetarium, so we spent 20 minutes riding to the end of the free zone and back. Ian was thrilled, especially since we got to ride forwards AND backwards. Unfortunately, no pictures of that since I was traveling as light as possible.

This evening we took advantage of the cooler weather (80s instead of 90s) and packed a picnic, then went to a park about a mile away. It's a nice walk that we've sort of stumbled on by accident, with a mostly paved trail along a river. We went out there and had dinner and let the kids play for awhile.

Rinnah practicing her Vulcan salute

From Salt Lake City

From Salt Lake City

From Salt Lake City