A Tale of Two Cities

Jennifer and I spent the weekend in Vegas without the kids and had a great time. Saw Love (music of The Beatles by Cirque du Soleil), pretended we knew what we were doing at the hotel's spa, and ate great food. I am VERY appreciative of family that will watch our kids so we can get away, and for a wife who loves to travel.

We stayed at The Venetian where they have a recreated Venice's Grand Canal which runs through their shopping area. The pictures below show Jennifer in front of a genuine Venetian canal (during on trip there in '05) and the Vegas look-a-like -- can you tell the difference? :-)

Quote of the day

We took the kids to tour the State Capitol today -- I think they enjoyed it, but only becuase we hit Benihana afterwards (Jacob loves sushi). The quote of the day came on the ride home when Nathan whacked Jacob on the head:

Nathan: (whacking sound)
Jacob: "Nathan! Stop hitting me on the head with the car!"
Nathan: "Jacob! It's not a car -- it's a TRAIN!"

Ski clip

In the last week The Canyons has recieved over 40" of new snow. Here is a video clip of the kids skiing there yesterday...

Powder

Took the kids skiing today in 8 inches of new powder. It was awesome-- Anna led us through the trees to create a new run she named "The Dutton Run." Jacob showed off his skills in the terrain park. My kids rock.

The Rockstars

This weekend we rented a condo in Park City with some friends of ours. The place was great -- the best parts were they had all the "Rock Band" gear, and they were walking distance to the ski slopes. I love Jacob and Anna's expression in the picture above.

At the top of the mountain we found a foot of fresh powder. Other highlights of the trip include getting ice cream on Main Street, de-thawing in the hot tub and introducing our friends to the Ticket to Ride game.

Big day for the twins

Jacob and Anna recently turned 8 years old, which in our church means they are old enough to get baptized. Today was the day of the big event, and it was very special for them and for all of us. Thanks to all the family members who attended.

And I can't believe how old they look in this picture.

Skiing today

Last week we received a tremendous amount of snow. Anna asked Santa Claus for a White Christmas, and he delivered with record-breaking snow on Christmas Day. The skies cleared today and we spent a fantastic day skiing in Park City -- blue skies, relatively "warm" weather. I love living in Utah.

Turning 8

Before we do the Christmas blog posts, I wanted to document Jacob and Anna's 8th b-day. We had quite the bash -- took 20 kids to an indoor "bounce house" (~50 trampolines linked together + inflatable thingamajigs). The kids had a blast, and only one had an injury that drew blood. That's Jacob in the white shirt trying to impress his friends with his jumping "skills"....

Anna is excited about joining the Achievement Days group. Jennifer hosted a party for the girls last week where they had a fancy dinner and learned about manners. I guess they all tried to be funny using formal language (that's Anna in the middle on the left).

And then there is Nathan...the dude does not care what he's doing as long as he's laughing. Jacob got a Nerf gun for his birthday that has literally provided hours of entertainment for Nathan (shoot the bullet, make dad fetch, repeat).

Going large

We decided to go large on the Chritmas tree this year. It's not every year that we'll have almost all of our family on both sides in town for parts of Christmas.

Disneyland Trip

For Thanksgiving we headed to So Cal to visit family and spend a few days at Disneyland. We stayed at the Grand Californian, which is fantastic. Hotel guests get into the park an hour early, and by the time the big crowds arrive it's time to head back to the hotel pool and get recharged for an evening park visit. The highlights include getting soaked on the water rides (Jacob and Anna SCREAM in anticipation), the new Toy Story ride, California Screamer, pin trading, Nathan chipping his tooth on Dumbo (yep --walked into an ear), chillin' with cousins/siblings/grandparents, and riding Tower of Terror with Jacob over and over again until the park closed. I love the fact that our kids want to go on every ride -- even Nathan was ticked that he could not go on the big roller coaster.

Halloween 2008

This year for Halloween we had a cow, astronaut and Glinda (from the play Wicked). Mike and Jen passed on costumes this year because Mike had knee surgery on 10/30 (his leg is wrapped up so the kids thought he was a partial mummy). To maximize candy flow this year we attended a "trunk or treat" at the church -- you can hit a lot more cars in a parking lot than walking door to door. :-)

Nathan is progressing up the toy food chain. He used to be fascinated with Tigger, then he moved to Cars, and now he LOVES trains. Train books, Thomas the Train, throwing train cars at his brother and sister....etc. Here he is riding his train (oh, and this is why I hate Costco :-) ).

Check the calendar before hiking

Today we planned to hike to Silver Lake in American Fork Canyon. The area is beautiful this time of year...the picture below is from the start of the trail with Mt Timp in the background.

The problem? We get to the trailhead and find lots of people walking around in orange suits carrying guns. Apparently this is "Deer Hunt Weekend" -- so, if you hike and some ten year old with a rifle thinks you resemble an animal, you're toast. The hunters assured us we'd be safe so long as we were covered in orange, which we weren't, so we cut our hike short.

Seeing the sea of orange gave us another idea -- pumpkins. So, we headed out to find a pumpkin patch.

First Snow

We woke up this morning to find several inches of snow on the ground. Ski season must be coming! The video below shows the kids playing in the backyard.

Fall Colors

The American Fork Canyon is spectacular when the Fall colors come out. These are a couple of pix from this weekend.

Getting lost in the mountains

Yesterday Jacob, Anna, Nathan and Mike went on a hike while Jennifer did some girly thing. We headed up American Fork Canyon and ended up having a much larger adventure than we had bargained for. Our one hour hike turned into a 3 hour sojourn into the wilderness. Here's an explanation in Anna and Jacob's own words.

From Anna -
We were first having fun before we got lost. We saw really pretty leaves because they were changing colors. Some people on horses told us the way to go, and they were wrong. The signs were not right, and we got lost. I was afraid we were going to spend the night in wilderness. I asked daddy if we could say a prayer, and we stopped and had a prayer. And then a bike rider came and told us it was only 1 mile to the road. Today I am so sore. Next time we need to bring a map if we never been there before.

From Jacob -
When we went on a hike I started out as the fastest and did not see the horse "do do" until I stepped in it. When we got lost the horse people told us the wrong way to go. Anna kept on complaining and kept saying "what if a bird comes and takes me away, or a bear comes to eat me." I was scared because we only had 1 melted cookie left. I had a bike chain weapon that I found on the ground. After the biker showed us the right way we had to walk through streams, and I just ran through them. I loved the adventure.

So there you have it. Anna's advice is sound -- next time we'll bring a map. :-)