Auf Wiedersehen Cooking Class!

Today was the last day of Miles' summer cooking class.  It did not end up being what I'd hoped it would have been.  24 toddler/preschoolers in a cooking class is unmanageable, especially when younger screaming siblings are brought, and when moms send in 7-or-8-or-9-year-olds to supervise a couple of 2-or-3-or-4-year-olds.  Also, almost every week, the "Toddler Cooking Class" projects involved using a hot griddle.  Not age appropriate.  Last week was a good week, only 2 kids touched the griddle and got burned.  I'd hoped that Miles would be more eating adventurous and thought that maybe if he made the food, he'd eat it.  Nope.  Nothing.  Well, okay, a couple of licks of frosting, and today he licked some ice cream.  But, was it a good class for Miles?  I'd have to say that it was good for him.  He looked forward to going each week.  Today, he and the little boy next to him interacted quite a bit.  He got to break open eggs (which I don't let him do at home).  He touched all sorts of "squishy" things that didn't appeal to him.  So, he had some personal growth. 

Today's menu was "Hocus Pocus Buns", Snake Hotdogs, and Baggie Shakes.  Miles enjoyed rolling out the bread dough.  He liked cutting the hotdog and the processed cheese.  He wasn't interested in making a milkshake, and instead, he drank the milk and licked the ice cream.  As he does every week, Miles wanted me to take his picture as he cooked.  I told him I would only if he'd look at the camera.  He actually did.  So while the pictures are a bit dorky, at least he's looking at the camera.  Yea for the end of "cooking class."

Rolling out the dough

Almost looking at the camera.  Check out his Snake Dog!

Looking at the Camera!  Hocus Pocus Buns and the Snake Dog.

Is This Not The Stupidest Looking Thing Ever?

Seriously.  This appeared on Friday.  Did I mention that I think this thing is RIDICULOUS?  It's got a dorky early 90's type of frame and motorcycle width wheels.  It weighs 34 pounds.  Lighter is better, right?  Then why would anyone buy this?  Moreover, it's a "snow bike", so why would anyone want this for year-round use?  Whatever.  It's not mine.  I didn't choose it.  I didn't pay for it.  I don't have to ride it.  It just looks so stupid.  I do not understand the appeal.

Camping

Ever since last year's disastrous Fathers & Sons camp-out with Miles last year, Miles has wanted to go camping again.  One of his favorite books is Franklin's Sleepover.  In that book, Franklin invites his friend Bear over for sleepover.  They plan to make a tent out of a tablecloth and sleep in the living room.  They have a campfire and roast marshmallows.  Then, after alleviating Bear of his fears, they sleep.  All summer long, Miles has been asking to sleep in a tent, but then chickens out and says, "Miles sleep in Miles' bed."  Last night, Miles agreed to sleep in a tent set up in the upstairs family room.  Once the tent was set up, he excitedly ran and got his pillow and climbed inside.  Convincing him to use a sleeping bag took some effort, but soon he agreed to climb in one.  And there he stayed.

He invited a few friends to join him in the tent... Batman, Spiderman, and Curious George. 

Now my only complaint about the sleepover was the condition of the tent.  Evidently, last time this particular tent was used, it was put away damp.  The tent bag was unzipped, and even before the tent was removed, my hypersensitive nose could smell moldy-mildew.  Nasty.  Evidently the smell didn't bother anyone else as the camp-out was undeterred.  I insisted that the windows be open all night, and yet, I could still smell the mildew.  Such a gross smell.  Morning came and I opened every window as wide open as possible.  I have multiple box fans running in the house to encourage a faster air exchange.  I've sprayed Fabreeze.  The tent was removed from the house as soon as it was vacated. However, I can still mildew... Yuck.

San Jose Children's Museum

Taking only one child on a trip was a breeze- we only had to come up with things to do that would appeal to a 4-year old.  One of my sisters suggested that we take Miles to the San Jose Children's Museum, so we did.  Miles had a great time.  Not only did he enjoy their regular displays/exhibits of a fire engine, an ambulance, the water/balls play area, the stop lights, and washers-that-spiral-around, and everything else,

Big "Kids" playing too!

but he was stoked to discover that there was a Curious George special exhibit.

The exhibit had 8 or so activities that were based on episodes of the PBS Curious George series.   While I thought the coolest thing in the Curious George exhibit was the wind machines that could be pointed at things that could spin (or at other people), Miles loved the mini-golf area and the "bunnies". 

For three hours, Miles played and played and discovered and explored until we told him we had to leave because we wanted to minimize the amount of time we sat in traffic.  It was a great day (and ended with a park visit after getting back to Grandma's).

Miles' New BFF

Until last week, had someone asked, I would have said that Miles' BFF was me, or Nolan, or his Daddy.  Last week, someone new filled that role.  Miles loves my dad.  Miles and Grandpa were busy together on our California trip.  Together they made 11 park visits in 3.5 days.  In one day alone, they visited 6 different parks.  Grandpa didn't sit back and just watch Miles, he played too. 

Each night, Miles would fall asleep fast, then sleep and sleep and sleep.  Grandpa wore him out!  I accompanied them on 3 park visits.  On the last park visit, Miles was walking next to Grandpa and he reached up and took Grandpa's hand.  Such a sweet image.

Mommy and Miles Adventure

Last week, Miles and I went to California, just the two of us.  There's a new-to-the-area airline servicing Provo to Oakland so we decided to try it out.  I love flying out of Provo.  It takes 20 minutes to get to the airport.  Parking is $3.50 per day and incredibly close to the "terminal" (so no shuttle needed- or even offered!).  There are essentially no lines or crowds because there's only one flight coming or going at a time.  The airport bathrooms are exceptionally cleans and stocked with amenities... lotion, hairspray, etc. To board the plane, you walk outside and up a portable jet way.  The plane parks in an area that has a 6" yellow line painted around it accompanied by the words "Secure Area".  Inbound flights claim luggage from a carport.  It's very low-key and "quaint", as I heard the Provo airport described by as fellow passenger. 

The Provo airport was the highlight of the travel portion of our trip.  The "new-to-the-area" airline we flew was Allegiant, or as I prefer to call it, "Getto Air".  I knew ahead of time that Allegiant is the ultimate "no frills" airlines, and for a short flight to the Bay Area for a low fare, I was fine with that, in theory.  We paid $300 total for 2 round trip tickets.  That's about the price of one RT ticket on Southwest so I got a good deal.  That $300 included paying $26 to have a piece of carry on luggage and about $75 in seat selection fees.  I packed 3 days of clothes for me and Miles in the carry on.  I paid for seat selection because if you don't Allegiant gets to choose your seats for you and they love to split up groups traveling together.  Now, I highly doubted that they would split up me and a 4-year-old, but that wasn't a risk I was willing to take. 

The inbound flight from Oakland arrived early and we boarded on time.  Miles and I were sitting in the second row of seats right behind the bulkhead.  We stowed our stuff under the seat in front of us then waited for everyone else to board. The people sitting in front of us in the bulkhead arrived and had a cow because our stuff was under their seat and they needed that area for their items.  They didn't want to use the overhead bin and felt that we should.  I stood my ground and didn't relinquish the space.  Towards the end of boarding a mom with 2 little children, maybe 5 and 3 years old, were boarding and the flight attendant asked them where they were sitting.  They were each in a different row.  So my theory that Allegiant wouldn't split up a parent and a young child was debunked.

So, why do I refer to Allegiant as "Ghetto Air"?  First, their flight attendants were the most unprofessional group I've ever encountered.  Mr. Attendant was sporting the "I hate to shave" look and was wearing a smock that looked like something you'd find at Jiffy Lube.  His hair was a greasy mess too.  His front-of-the-cabin partner had Little Orphan Annie hair, but brown, and a big fake flower stuck just off center of her forehead.  She was dressed up too- in a T-shirt.  Their casualness continued as they told dirty jokes.  They shouted back and forth with the flightdeck as we taxied down the runway.  Once we were airborne, Mr. Attendant seemed to think it was his responsibility to get the entire plane drunk as he incessantly pushed adding a "double" to your morning Bloody Mary or Screwdriver (both of which are loaded with "vitamin C").  Did you know Allegiant Air doesn't offer coffee?  There's nothing free on board (which I knew ahead of time so I was prepared).  The seats on Allegiant do not recline at all.  There's no air conditioning on board.  The toilets were navy blue (which freaked Miles out for some reason).  Allegiant apparently doesn't hire their own gate and ticketing agents.  In Oakland (which is considered a "focus city" for Allegiant with 13 destinations from there), the ticketing and gate employees were Oakland Airport employees, not Allegiant.  This, to me, explains the reputation Allegiant has for horrible customer service (because why would the airport employees care about making Allegiant passengers happy when they- the employees- aren't Allegiant employees). 

I've read many, many reviews of delayed flights, flights cancelled after hours and hours of delays, customer service agents on the phone who were rude, people annoyed at what "no frills" really means, etc., and while I didn't have any real issues with Allegiant, I'm not one of their cheerleaders.  I would really prefer to never fly Allegiant again, I'd probably fly them again for a short flight if the price stays right.  But flying them to Hawaii?  Never.

Usually I Love my Dishwasher...

...but Saturday morning wasn't one of those days. 

Friday night, just before going to bed,  I thought about starting the dishwasher, but I decided to wait until Saturday morning.  I got up Saturday, started the dishwasher, then sat down in front of the computer and started to go through my morning routine of site checking... email, facebook, blogs, etc.  I was nearly through when I heard water pouring onto the kitchen floor.  I ran over and saw water pouring out of the sink cabinet and all over the wood floor.  I grabbed all the dish towels and threw them on the growing puddle, then opened the cabinet to see what the problem was.  Somehow, the dishwasher drain hose had disconnected from the disposal so the water had no where to go but into the cabinet and onto the floor.  I grabbed a stockpot and shoved the drain hose into it, then started to clean up the lake on my kitchen floor.  Once the lake dried up, it was repair time (which took 15 seconds- screwdriver and hose clamp were all that were required).  Then it was "sit and wait" time to see how damaged the floor was.  How much water seeped between the boards and how buckled would the floor be?  Sunday morning told the tale- there's wood swelling and some buckling that is noticeable when you run your foot over the floor, but not to the eye.  Darn!  So, here it is Tuesday and the floor seems to be the same.  In time, I'm willing to bet it will flatten and be fine.  I'm just glad that I decided not to run the dishwasher Friday night because, most probably, the lake would have sat on the floor overnight and caused severe damage.

The Planetarium

On Tuesday when we went to Discovery Gateway, Miles had to use the bathroom really, really bad.  The planetarium is right across the street from the Trax stop, so we hurried inside so he could "go" before meeting up with Amy.  It took some convincing and promising to get Miles out of the planetarium.  The planetarium has a huge Rube Goldberg-like machine.  Miles was fascinated watching the balls go "everywhere".  However, the plan for Tuesday was Discovery Gateway and not the planetarium.  I told him we'd come back and he could watch the balls "another day."  Today was the "another day." 

Another FrontRunner train ride took us back up to Salt Lake (this time without Amy).  Miles excitedly went into the planetarium and spent the next 2 1/2 hours staring at the amazing machine-contraption-thing.  He was mesmerized.  He took a quick look at the other things in the planetarium, but it was the "balls" that interested him.

 Fun sculpture at the Salt Lake Central Station!

Discovery Gateway

On Monday, Miles and I took the train to Salt Lake to go to Discovery Gateway, also known as the Children's Museum.  We were greeted at the Orem Station by "Safety Buffalo" who reminded us that "Trains are really BIG".

We got offFrontRunner in SLC and met up with Amy who decided to come play with us.  I think Discovery Gateway needs to be renamed to something along the lines of "fun place to play for a young child because we took the world and scaled it down to his/her size".  Miles loved it!  He loved the balls that got sucked up tubes and spit out elsewhere.  He loved the water table.  Those were his favorites.  He also liked driving a jeep and filling it up with gas, grocery shopping, rock climbing, horse riding, farm animal costume wearing (okay, he really didn't like that, but he did it to humor me), helicopter "flying", jumbo-sized tinkertoy playing, construction site building, cartoon drawing, and hurricane simulator experiencing. 

Miles was not ready to leave when it was time to go.  However, when we got home, he was so tired that he spent the rest of the night plopped on the floor. 

Take My Picture

Where ever we are, Miles asks me to take his picture which is strange because he hates having his picture taken.  On Monday afternoon, we went to the BYU art museum.  They have a really odd exhibit right now; the kind that reinforces my "I don't understand modern art" opinion.  Miles wanted his picture taken by many of the pieces-

by the "large jewels

 
by the "old lady"

by the collection of polaroid pictures of the artist partially eating 1,000 marshmallows and the half-eaten marshmallows

by the "grandpa and grandma"

by the UFO lights

and by the jars (my favorite picture, thanks to Miles' pose)

Seriously, this exhibit was... different.  I need someone to explain to me why the video clip that was being played in the museum is considered "art".
Anyone?  Anyone?  Whatever.  I don't get it.

Miles' Cooking Class, week 3

Miles gets excited on Monday mornings when I tell him that he has cooking class after swim class.  I don't know why he get excited because he doesn't do anything at cooking class.  This week, for some reason, the appropriate thing to for a bunch of preschoolers to make was fried cheeseburgers.  As if I'm going to let Miles use a griddle.  The kids were given a baggie with hamburger and seasoning in it and were told to squish it up.  Then they were supposed to shape the meat into 2 patties (and I was supposed to let Miles handle raw meat?), then cook it on a griddle.  Well, Miles touched the baggie, but I did the rest.  In the end, he was really proud of "his" cheeseburgers, but of course, wouldn't eat them.

Old Town and a Park

We had two-thirds of a day available to spend in Albuquerque on the day our flight left.  We started the day seeing the Albuquerque Temple.  It's kinda unique in that it's brownish instead of the typical white.

Then we headed into Old Town to see Albuquerque circa 1740.  It's loaded with touristy shops.

In addition to the shops, there is a rattlesnake museum.  I hate snakes, but as a mom of boys, sometimes I have to endure "boy" activities.  In addition to snakes, the museum had a collection of anything and everything that had anything to do with snakes.  Miles found the display case containing bowling balls named after snakes and demanded that he needed the key so he could go bowling.

In the museum, my hands were feeling gross.  I went into the restroom to wash them, but changed my mind.
Horrifying!

We found a sculpture garden in Old Town and the big boys forgot to respect the art.

Jonathan was feeling a bit silly...

After Old Town, we went and got lunch/dinner.  The one thing I wanted to do in Albuquerque was eat some good sopapillas.  I'd spent a while researching who had the best sopapillas and so we went to Monroe's.  The food was fine, but the sopapillas were divine!

After lunch/dinner, we had about an hour to burn before we needed to head to the airport.  Miles had been a good sport being dragged around from place to place, so we took him to a city park.  Smart Albuquerqueian park people had a canopy installed over the playground so that it was shaded.  While I enjoyed sitting the shade, all the boys had fun playing.

All too soon it was airport time.  We had an uneventful flight back to Utah, got off the plane and were greeted by 100+ degree heat. Ugh.  Good trip.  Good times.  Good memories.

Sandia Peak

Scattered along the highway between Roswell and Albuquerque are towns that are essentially abandoned... boarded-up-house next to boarded-up-house next to occupied home next to boarded-up-house next to boarded-up-house next to boarded-up-house, etc. yet the speed limit still drops from 70 mph to 35 mph.  It killed me!

Back in Albuquerque, we decided to take the tram to the top of Sandia Peak.  From Sandia Peak, 9% of New Mexico is visible (strange bragging fact).  It also provides a vantage point that illustrates just how brown New Mexico is.  New Mexico is experiencing extreme drought which has caused the mountains to be declared "closed".  On Sandia Peak, we were told that if we stepped off the decks or boardwalks, we could be fined $500.  There is no hiking, rock climbing, etc. allowed on the mountain due to extreme fire danger.

The view was amazing.

Miles has never been one for having his picture taken.  He does everything possible to avoid looking at the camera.  Something has changed though- he's started asking me to take his picture (while still avoiding looking at the camera unless tricked into doing so).  Below is the first picture he ever asked me to take of him.  He was very excited to see a vending machine!

I had a little fun with the awesome zoom on my camera.  I love the way the wings on the insect look (second picture).

Roswell, New Mexico

Roswell was our "basecamp" for the rural part of the trip.  It's a 6 miles long city that takes forever to drive through.  Roswell embraces and thrives on the alleged UFO crash that happened outside the city limits back in 1947 (coincidently, that would be 66 years ago today).  The alien/UFO story drives Roswell's economy as is evidenced by storefronts and signage in the city.

Well, I guess a town has to make money somehow...  I was content to skip the UFO museum, but was out voted, and far too much time was spent in that building.  Eventually, Nolan, Miles, and I found a place to sit and utilize our electronic devices while those more inclined to be "believers" read the info and admired the hokey displays. 

More Roswell (exciting) pictures...

Such a strange town... another checkmark on the "been there, done that" list!