Ice Castles, Back to Reality, Basketball, Blackmail, COLD

Another crazy week has come and gone.  It was hard getting back to school and into a routine this week, but we seemed to manage somewhat.  Sunday night the kids were exhausted since they had stayed up late the night before to celebrate the new year.  Right after dinner we sat down to watch a show together and before long Sarah had fallen asleep on Aaron.  Noah was fading fast, too.  Aaron didn't mind the snuggles, though.

 Since New Years landed on a Sunday that meant Aaron got Monday off--wahoo!  To celebrate we decided to use our discount passes to the Midway Ice Castles.  Of course you can't go over that way without stopping by 'The Train' aka Dairy Keen in Heber City.  Since G&G T sold the cabin we don't go to Heber very often so the kids (and especially Aaron) miss eating at Dairy Keen.  Of course Aaron and Josh got the Train Burger and had no problems finishing it.  Aaron was nice enough to let me have a small bite, though :).  They are really yummy burgers!

 Matthew was almost too excited by the trains going around the ceiling to eat his food.  Every time it passed over the top of our table Matthew got excited and flappy.  Haha!  He loves his trains!

 After lunch we got to the Ice Castles.  We had never been before and it has been something I have wanted to do for a while so when I saw discount tickets I bought them.  The place didn't disappoint.  It was pretty neat.

 The Ice Castles form ice sculptures from freezing running water along sturdy forms.  It ends up making huge ice formations you can walk through, slide down, look at, etc.  Here's Sarah walking through an archway:

 They even have ice benches throughout you can sit on, however, it made your bum pretty cold.  We are sitting on an ice throne.  You can kind of make out the spikes of the throne behind us:

 It was beautiful.  I was sad there weren't any openings at night because I think seeing them illuminated with lights at night would have been neat.  Nevertheless it was nice to see them in the daylight, too.

 Another ice bench and trust me when I say our bums were COLD!!

 They had ice slides the kids liked going down.  However, Josh was a bit too long to fit comfortably through the chute and down the slide:

 Sarah and Noah were just the right size to fit:

 There was another slide that was wider the kids all tried out, too.  Here's Josh, Sarah who are going down the slide and Noah who is in line:

 Daniel tried his speed racer from on his turn down the slide:

 Matthew only tried it a few times before he was too cold to do it anymore.  I don't blame the poor kid--it was COLD!

 They had another slide that was for adults as well as kids.  To get to it you had to slide through a huge ice cave.  Aaron just went through the ice cave/archway to get to the top of the slide:

 Of course Aaron and I had to race down the slide and I was the big winner!  Wahoo!  I was the one of the right hand side:

 Daniel and Sarah raced:

 There were a few more archways the kids liked going through:

 Here's all five kids looking through a 'window' in one of the ice forms:

 It was a bit eerie standing underneath the huge icicles.

 More exploring:

 You can't get a good feel of the place, but we tried by taking a few panoramic pictures, though:

 Of course Josh made sure he was in both of them....

 Another ice bench:

 We did a few more times down the big slide.  Here's Sarah and Daniel waiting for their turn:

 The ice slides were pretty fun.  Here's all the kids racing:

That night the kids were worn out.  However, Noah always seem to fight bedtime.  I will tuck him, but he doesn't stay.  He seems to have springs on his bum and will immediately come back out because he needs more lubs.  How can I resist that?!  So I let him sit by me and he will sometimes fall asleep.  Everyone must have been tired that night because as Aaron and I were watching a show, before I knew it Aaron was asleep on my shoulder, Noah was asleep on my lap and Sophie was asleep right next to me.  I didn't want to wake them up, but I finally had to move since  I was starting to get really uncomfortable.  Crazy family!

 Noah had his first basketball game this week.  Hmmmm let's just say it was interesting to watch....He looked cute in his uniform (or his costume as he referred to it), though:

Noah was more interested in playing with friends than he was in playing the game.  The coach figured that one out and paired him up to guard another kid that was more interested in friends than the game, too.  Those two just ended up running around in circles around the court while the other players were actually trying to play the game.  Sigh...We got a video of the circle running here:

Part of the boys' chores is to take out the garbage from the garbage cans around the house for garbage day.  Daniel didn't want to look for his own shoes so he just slipped on the closest thing around which happened to be Sarah's purple boots.  I snapped a quick black mail picture before Daniel realized what I was doing--haha!  I kept teasing him saying purple was his color.  He was not amused--haha!

 We have gotten so much snow lately!  This last storm was so bad they had a two hour late start for the school district which doesn't happen very often.  You can see how much snow we got:

 Now the storm has passed it is COLD!!  The kids had piano this morning and as I was driving them around the temperature read -8 degrees.  However, by the time I actually could take a picture of it,
 it had warmed up to -6 degrees.  It is so COLD!!!