Second Christmas
Ice Castles
Provo City Center Temple Open House
Norman Rockwell Exhibit at BYU
Tiffany's baby's blessing (Noah)
Lots of family time and fun!
Second Christmas for Gail and kids. We didn't get to see them in December OR January, so exchanged gifts in February. Close enough.
Saturday morning, we headed down to Provo and saw the Norman Rockwell exhibit. It was the closing day, very crowded, but very worth it to me. I wish I could have read every single note next to every single painting, because on the ones I read, I learned so much--about the process, the models, the reasons, the results. It was very amazing and entertaining. And here we are on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post! We are famous. Mr. Rockwell did over 200 of those. What an artist. It wasn't just slap some paint down. He worked hard at his illustrations and will live on as a very big part of Americana, I believe. I enjoyed the short film about his life and works, as well.
After Norman Rockwell (and it was shorted than I'd wanted just because there were kids, and I've certainly been THERE before! Museums + children = Shorter visit.), we all ate lunch at the BYU Creamery on 9th. Long wait, good food, WONDERFUL Ice Cream. mmmmm.
This is hoar frost on Robert's front tree. Long, icy fingers of frost covered all the trees. I wish I could have gotten a better photo as it was quite beautiful. And cold. Brrr. It's so foggy in the valleys up here!
We headed over to Robert and Janet's house after lunch. Tiffany and her baby Noah were there, so we had a nice visit with them. Robert and Janet were busy, busy cleaning and preparing for the houseful of people they were expecting to host and feed on Sunday after the baby blessing. The guys eventually headed downstairs to watch BYU Basketball on Saturday afternoon, and I headed to JoAnn craft to buy 70% off fleece and flannel for the bunches of babies being born during this coming year in Mike's family (grand nieces' babies). I think there's at least five or six that we counted so far.
Seth came down from Rock Springs for Saturday only. He attended the art exhibit with us, and the Ice Castles, and in between they got dressed in Sunday attire and headed over to the Provo City Center Temple open house, but the wait for a tour was three hours. Pass.
We had tickets for the Ice Castles final day at 5 pm, so headed up to Midway just after 4 and met with Nick and Kaylee there. It is truly beautiful what they have created with water!
Look up! We did get dripped on quite a bit. The temps were thawing, thus the reason for it being the final day.
It was Soooooo crowded! There were lines to go down a couple of ice slides. The wait was at least 30 minutes, possibly longer, so we did not stand in line for those, but wandered around to see what we could see with NO lines. And we saw plenty. I am glad I bought the tickets a month ago, or I might have thought more about spending more time and getting my money's worth. ha.
You can kind of see how tall they are in the distance. I liked the "knobs" on the top of this particular tower.
Rachel's hands were not really inside that glove--more like up in her sleeve somewhere--so when Gail tried to hand her a little Princess button and Rachel tried to get it, she could not and her expression of frustration and disgust was kind of cute. Thus the giggles below.
Kaylee and Nick had gone back home after the Rockwell exhibit. Rachel needed a nap and she naps well in the car, but returning to Midway in a rush of the afternoon resulted in Kaylee running off without her coat. She managed to keep warm with lots of layers, including a baby blanket from the car.
Kind of a nice perspective of how much ice is around us.
One of the skinny spots we slipped through. I believe they named it "Slot Canyon," appropriately.
Interesting formations, top and bottom. Just use your imagination.
Gail taking a picture. We see a lot of that. I'm glad she did and I hope she shares some!
There was a fountain in the center entry area.
There were trees set up to line the path of the down hill ice-block slide. They just paved a path down the side of a hill (with sides to keep you in) with large solid ice pavers--about 3 feet by 4 feet. Looked fun, but not worth that kind of wait in the cold.
As it got dark, the lighting was more visible. There was also music piped throughout some of the areas.
Whew. We were tired. Seth headed home to Rock Springs and the rest of us headed to Kearns. Sweet Kaylee whipped up a batch of soup for dinner (Good ol' Bear Creek!) to warm us up and then we got to play games. Except were were kind of tired and the next day was Church at 11, baths in the morning, early meetings for Nick, breakfast for a mob. Kaylee is a marvelous hostess. We ate really well and had the nicest guest room for ourselves.
I didn't take any photos on Sunday, but we dashed right after (11am to 2 pm) Church with Nick and Kaylee to Provo and got there in time for Noah's 3p.m. baby blessing at Robert and Janet's church. They had it in the Young Women's Room and the room was pretty full! Robert did a very nice job with the blessing, and Janet, as per her normal style, hosted a marvelous luncheon for 35 people--all family and close friends. I'm so glad Tiffany was here for a visit and blessed her baby. It was fun to see Brittney and Eric Autrey and their cute kids, too. Jonny got to play with them. Rachel had fun playing with toys, too. Kaylee didn't enjoy the cat-ness very much. She's never been around cats and didn't realize they bothered her. When we all got back from Provo, Mike got in a Power Nap and the he and I, along with Berenice, headed over to Gayela's house to visit her for a bit Sunday evening. She lives quite a ways from Nick and Kaylee's house now. It used to be within a few miles, but is much farther now. She's recuperating from yet another surgery to repair injuries from her August accident. The latest was a bone graft to help heal some bones that weren't healing properly in her wrist.
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| Sunday Morning Breakfast |
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Monday morning we all went down to Provo. Well, not ALL of us. Nick had to work, Kaylee had already been to the Open House, so Gail and kids and Me, Mike and his Mom went. We met at Robert and Janet's and headed over to the temple. The underground parking area was big, the rest of the huge underground parking was the staging for the lines. LINES. Lines like at Disneyland.
Charles Schmalz (Janet's Dad) said, "Have your got your E-Ticket?" Remember A though E tickets in Disneyland, long time ago? Robert said, "It's the Temple--it's your ticket for Eternity."
Long, long lines in an icy cold parking garage. It is a nice new parking garage and it is painted all white and it has tall ceilings, so it's okay for a parking garage. And they had those gas heaters set up here and there. But, OH, the lines!!! Robert had obtained tickets, but there was still a wait. We got a wheel chair for Berenice, for even after parking at the absolute closest parking spot, it was a lot of walking for her to just get to the place to begin to stand in the line. I'm glad they had wheel chairs available. She stayed in it for the whole tour and it helped a LOT. I don't think she could have made it otherwise. And it was Robert who thought of it, bless his heart. And Gail called us in the parking garage as we followed them in and suggested the Handicapped parking. We hadn't thought of that, either.
Berenice and Mike waited ahead of us near a heater and the rest of us wound through the lines like cattle. We saw the film, we toured the gorgeous building, we went through the exhibits, we took a couple of photos near the fountain and in the gazebo with a Christus statue, and then we went back to Roberts for Lunch. It was a really nice open house. But, honestly, I had not expected so many crowds of people!
After Lunch, it was time to head back to Cedar City. We were in rain and fog and frozen fog and flits of snow the whole time we were gone. Salt Lake's inversion is real and we missed our Southern Sunshine!!! We made a stop for petrol, for Krispy Kreme donuts (for Eric, who had to stay home for work and orchestra commitments), for our favorite granola at WINCO, then home! Uneventful drive home, in spite of
incredible fatigue on both our parts, so I drove to Scipio and then Mike drove the rest of the way home to Cedar. I think we got home around 3:30 pm to find all well.
I will post other photos as Gail and others share them with me.
