Museum of Ancient Life

This is a very belated post, but I had lots of pictures to go through and other things on my list to do. While we were on our trip to Idaho/Utah we went to the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point just south of SLC. ( You can read more about it here http://www.thanksgivingpoint.com/visit/museum_of_ancient_life/about/museum_facts.html ). It was one of the only times we got our camera out while we were on the road (which is sad, because we should have made more of an effort to get more pictures). So here are some highlights from our visit. The first thing we did was attend the 3D movie about dinosaurs--Jace was glued to the screen, but Dallon was a little scared and covered his eyes a few times. Then we headed through the exhibits.

You could build your own dinosaur with different heads, legs, tails and horns/spikes. Very fun, and the boys were really into it.

What a masterpiece!

Both boys seemed to really enjoy the minatures and hands-on exhibits, but who can blame them!

Jace assembling a model skeleton (the best he could, I had a hard time with it!).

Model skeleton assembly table, we worked at it for a while before we all gave up and went on to other easier things :)

Jace loves dinosaurs, and especially liked the real-looking statues they had there.

Dallon showing us how his teeth look like the ones on display...

The Utah Raptor--scary! I didn't know that they never put the real bones on display at museums (not even in cases). Everything you see is a cast of what they have in archival storage.

Bianca came with us, and she seemed not too impressed by the museum. But she was a trooper and attracted quite a lot of attention.

In front of the museum we took a chance to take some pictures of eachother before we went inside.

Other than the museum, we did some other activities while traveling. We visited another 4 Paws family who is waiting for their training date in December. They live in Lehi, UT and we met through the 4 Paws yahoo group. They were a wonderful family, and I'm so glad we got to meet them! We plan to go back for another visit when we are in UT for Kaylee's wedding in June.

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We stayed a couple of nights at the Red Lion in Pocatello, which turned out to be great fun. We had Jeremy and Liz Branson's family and Colton and Whitney come over and swim with us. Dallon and Jace had too much fun, and were wiped out after more than 3 hours in the pool! We also all picked up a stomach virus while there (as did most everyone else in Pocatello it seemed!). That cut back on a lot of our play time, but we survived and were all feeling better before we headed to Utah. We visited lots of family and friends and stayed busy. We didn't get to do everything we wanted, so when we go back for Kaylee's wedding we'll get to see more family and maybe do a little more playing--and with a new baby too!

Birthdays and Babies

So our little Jace is 3! I can't believe how fast it went. I am looking forward to the end of his terrible 2s (and probably 3s) but I'm doing my best to try to enjoy it while I can. He is such a charming little man, even with all the attitude. He can't seem to part with his cowboy hat lately--but that's fine with me, its cute and someday it will be too small.We had some cake and ice cream and some gifts for Jace on Saturday before his birthday. Chris' mom and dad drove over from Forest Grove and spent the night on Saturday. He must have blown out his "fire" at least a dozen times, then he bent over and took a big lick out of the icing on one side.
He got some fun gifts and immediately wanted to open them.

And Dallon was a big help when Jace wasn't staying on task with the unwrapping! They both had fun playing with new toys.

Dallon has suddenly become obsessed with Transformers. I'm not sure why. When I went to the store to get Jace's bday present, I saw a transformers jacket and pants on clearance in a size Dallon could wear. He wore it everyday for the next 4 days! I guess we'll have to get some more transformers things.

I am now over 30 weeks along, and on Monday I had an ultrasound to check for fluid levels (because I had a strange loss of fluids several weeks ago) and to check the size of the very large Conner growing inside me. Fluid levels were good, and Conner is in the 85th percentile for his gestational age. If I go all the way to 40 weeks with him, he will be well over 9lbs!!!! I have had lots of contractions already--all day every day regardless of what my activities are--so I'm hoping that means he'll be coming early and not so large! Jace was 16 days early and weighed 7lbs 10oz, Conner is measuring bigger than Jace did. I'm trying not to stress too much about it. The great news is that Conner is very active and healthy and I am feeling ok with only minor discomforts like heartburn, soreness, and sleeplessness. My blood pressure is low (sometimes a little too low), my blood sugar is great, I'm not gaining too much or too little weight, and generally my prenatal visits are boring--which is a good thing. I took a few pictures of my big belly, I realized I didn't have any from the last 2.