Tuesday: My sister Sarah (and the youngest of the three siblings in our family) turned 19!! We spent a good chunk of the day over at my grandparents home in Salt Lake. We had lunch with them and chatted while the kids played. We also took a little field trip to the Salt Lake Cemetery to see Pres. Hinckley's grave, along with many of the other past prophets. I wish I had a camera while we were there - in addition to the gravesites, we saw a bunch of beautiful deer on the grounds. Emma called them llamas as first - I thought that was pretty odd! During our visit to my grandparents home we also tried on a beautiful Native American headdress. It made for some fun pictures! My grandma on my mom's side is 1/4 Chinook - so that would make me 1/16! Anyway, her home is filled with Native American artifacts and such; it's seriously like a museum!
Tuesday evening we had cake and ice cream and sang Happy Birthday to our dear Sarah. She also opened presents of course! Fun, fun, fun! After all that, we exchanged Valentines. This turned out to be really great! I assigned everyone the task of putting together 6 valentines to give to each member of the family. So, we each had our little baggies with our names on them and we gave out our valentines. It was really amusing because everyone's valentines were so different and original - some homemade, others purchased, but all were heartfelt and fun. I wanted to be sure we did this for Emma's sake since we wouldn't be home to do all the valentine activities with Emma's many little friends.
Wednesday: Wednesday was super snowy - it didn't really hit until around lunch-time, but it was like a blizzard outside with a ton of snow and a lot of wind, so the snow looked like it was coming in sideways. Anyway, we stayed home all day and Ben ended up having a crazy time getting home from the hospital. If I would have realized how bad the freeways were,
I would have told him to spend the night at the hospital. He had a late shift that night and didn't get off until 8, but he was on the road for 3 hours traveling from Provo to Sandy - so ridiculous! He actually read his book all the way home - that's how slow he was going. I was so relieved that he didn't ever run out of gas and that he was able to get home safely. Well, the next day was actually lovely and the remains of the storm were evident in the huge mountains of snow in the front yard! That required some serious shoveling!
Thursday: Valentines Day was sooo awesome!! I was particularly spoiled this year by my dear hubby. He sent me to the spa in the afternoon to get a facial and my hair treated and styled. It was so rejuvenating. When he came home from work he presented me with some beautiful flowers. They are so lovely and it seems like they will last a good long while. I just took the picture of them this morning and there are still 3 more of the gorgeous white flowers that are still to bloom. How wonderful! For our date (thanks to Sarah for babysitting for us!!) we went to see a Ballet West performance of Cinderella. Before going I honestly thought that it might get a little boring in parts, but it was extremely entertaining and amazing! These people are so talented. I was telling Ben afterwards that I wish I had a talent like that. I was so impressed by the performance. We also went to a late dinner at Benihanas, which was located right next to Capitol Theater (how convenient!). The evening was just great. I love you Ben!Saturday: Emma turned 3!!! Honestly, I feel like she's been 3 for a while now - so I'm just glad that she finally had her birthday and that I can officially call her 3 years old. Although, now she's no longer free at Disneyland!! Oh nooooo! ;) Well, we had a special treat to be able to spend the day with Ben's parents who came into town for the weekend. Emma shares her birthday with her Uncle Peter, so it was a day of birthday celebrating! We met up for lunch at Gateway and then went to the Children's Museum there. We took Emma there a little over a year ago when we were in town for Thanksgiving and she liked it quite a bit, but now that she's a little older, she enjoyed it soooo much more. She's much more imaginative and into creative play so the pretend grocery store and farm and house, etc were all right up her ally. It was a great time! Me, Ben, Emma, Becca, Peter, Lacy, Carol and Clyde attended the outing and it was hard to tell who was having more fun - the kids or the adults! This month the museum is hosting a Sesame Street exhibit on the body and it was really great. We were all quite impressed - there was a lot to do and it was all just so cute! They also had some rather funny parts - including a sneezing nose that drips "mucus" on you and a poop machine! We all got a kick out of that! After the children's museum we did some quick shopping and Ben's parents, the kids, and I enjoyed a ride in a heated horse-drawn carriage. So fun! After our Gateway outing, we went to my family's house to visit, eat cake, and open presents. Emma got very spoiled by her grandparents and received all sorts of fun stuff. In the evening we went out to dinner and to a movie (without the kiddos)- we saw Spiderwick Chronicles, which we all quite enjoyed. I've never read the books, but now I want to!





































