What to do in Utah County?

Utah County is, unsurprisingly, a fairly family-friendly place. Plenty of free (F) and lower-cost ($) activities abound, with a few higher-priced places ($$) thrown in for good measure. Enjoy!

• Crandall Historical Printing Museum   ($)
• Downtown Provo
• Excellent education stop. Working Gutenberg Press, pioneer presses, and linotype. 
• Thanksgiving Point  ($$)
• Near Lehi, north county 
• Gorgeous gardens, Museum of Ancient Life (dinosaurs), Museum of Natural Curiosity (children's discovery-type), good food, IMAX theater.
• BYU Campus  (F)
• Provo
• Bean Museum 
• Museum of Art 
• Museum of Paleontology 
• Nostalgia for Alumni 
• Plenty of places to eat
• Hike the "Y"    (F)
• Provo, East Bench
• 2.2 miles round trip
• Steep, full sun
• Gorgeous views
• Hike Battle Creek Falls  (F)
• East of Pleasant Grove
• 1.2 miles round trip
• Easy
• Perfect for young children
• Forest, waterfall, playing in the stream
• Fish Salem Pond ($, fishing license)
• Salem, south county
• Pretty, fun urban pond
• Fishing license information
• Provo Beach Resort ($ - $$)
• Provo, near Provo Canyon
• Laser Tag, Flowrider, Carousel, Arcade, Mini Croquet, Bowling, Food
• Fun, especially for older kids
• Bridal Veil Falls (F)
• Provo Canyon
• Scenic river path, boulder climbing, waterfall, picnicking
• Timpanogos Cave ($)
• American Fork Canyon
• Buy tickets ahead of time!
• 3 miles round trip
• No strollers or wheelchairs
• Excellent cave tour, gorgeous views, picnicking
• Seven Peaks Water Resort ($$)
• Provo
• Large water park with rides, wave pool, lazy river, food, tube rentals
• Especially good for older kids with good swimming skills
• Discovery or Castle Park (also known as Manila Park) (F)
• Pleasant Grove
• Fun park for ages 4-12, large wooden castle with slides, swings, climbing, etc
• Hang time ($)
• Orem
• Indoor trampoline park
• Trafalga Lehi ($)
• Lehi
• Laser tag, go-karts, rides, mini-golf, carousel

Christmas Creep

(Yes, I know it's only September.)

(But I love getting ready for Christmas.)

Last Christmas, my mother-in-law was culling her Christmas decorations, and asked if I wanted a two-foot-tall painted nutcracker from Costco.  Without knowing what he looked like, but thinking ahead to the larger house we were about to move into, I agreed.  After all, if I didn't end up using him, I could take him over to DI just as easy as she could.

I forgot to take a "before" picture, but the box will do, right?

As you can see, he's a very nice nutcracker, but not really in my style or color scheme.  After looking around Pinterest (oh, that time suck), I decided to try to change him up.  (After all, if I messed up, I wasn't really out much but my time and a little paint.)

First thing I did was rip the poor thing's hair off.  It wasn't as easy as I hoped, but with a disposable razor (really), tweezers, and coarse sandpaper, I got most of it off.  Then I pried the "jewels" off his crown with a paring knife.  (I'm very professional here.)

Out in the garage, I sprayed him with first primer, and then three thin coats of "Champagne Mist" metallic spray paint.  (Okay, one of the coats was a little too thick, and I got some drips that had to be sanded away.)

After leaving him to dry thoroughly, I brought him back inside and painted gold on certain parts--the crown, the epaulettes, cuffs, and parts of the staff.  Parts of the epaulettes, crown, and staff are also coated with glitter (messy but pretty).  Finally, I glued the "jewels" back on, and added some extra "bling" stickers from the bargain bin at Michael's. 

I think he turned out pretty posh, don't you?

Art Project

 

It's been a long time since I've been able to devote time to painting.  It's hard, when you have small children, to pull out all your watercolors or acrylics, brushes, water, paper towels, etc. Not to mention, trying to have more than five minutes of uninterrupted time, or being able to leave your canvas for a few minutes without a child picking up a paintbrush and "helping". 

But in the past year, I've felt the pull to create again.  I've started playing with my watercolors again (man, I've lost just about any technique I ever had), "electronic paint" programs on the tablet, and--the easiest--my acrylics. 

Recently, while searching for Halloween costume tutorials online, I found a pretty canvas of a stylized blossom, complete with tutorial.  I liked the look, the clean lines, the slightly off-center nature.  I didn't love the idea of having to cut out millions of "petals", nor did I have any pretty colored papers.  And because I was hoping to put it in my upstairs bathroom, paper (covered with Modge-Podge or not), didn't seem like the best idea.

So I decided to make something that looked the same, but with paints instead of paper.

It was really easy!  I started out with two 10x14 stretched canvases, and painted them the background color I wanted.  While they dried completely, I took cardstock and cut out ONE petal, the size and shape I wanted.  After deciding where I wanted the middle of the "blossom" to be, I used a child-sized cup to lightly draw a circle there.  Then I used my petal template to draw the petals, starting around the cup circle and then radiating out.  Then I grabbed the paints I wanted to use and started painting!  I painted about six to eight petals of the same color at a time, staggering the color around the blossom.  Most every petal needed more than one coat, and some (the gold) took three.  And then I took a little tiny brush and patterned some of them, just for fun.

It was easy, but it was pretty time-consuming.  I just listened to my audiobook (David McCullough's bio of Harry Truman), though, sat with my back to the open window, with rain-scented breezes blowing in, and had a marvelous time. 

(And of course I hopped up every twenty-thirty minutes to help my two youngest. But they are old enough to listen when Momma threatens them with dire things if they so much as THINK about touching.)

Anyway, I love the way they turned out!

Family History, Rainy Style

My Grandma Pace (my mother's mother) is visiting from Las Vegas. She's staying with us (hooray!) and, since she couldn't sleep in the spare 'oom (she doesn't do stairs), or in Mema's bed (Mema uses a stepstool to get in and out of her bed, it's so high), she is sleeping in the upstairs bedroom on our side.

(This is the reason I have been MIA lately.  We haven't been using that room as a bedroom, for all it has a bed.  We've been using it as an "office", which is just a polite way of saying it has been the "I-don't-know-where-to-put-this-right-now, so-I'll dump-it-here" room.  It was a disaster.  So I spent two--yes, two full days--cleaning it and organizing it, which lead me to trying to organize the storage room, which led to the rest of the house being neglected.  With five kids, you can guess what the rest of the house ended up looking like.  Sigh.  There has been a LOT of cleaning around here the last three days.  I'm tired.)

It is so fun to have Grandma here, though it confuses my younger kids a lot.  Yummy isn't sure how I can have a Grandma, too, but she's okay with this nice white-haired lady all the same.  Hebs is confused about what to call Grandma, but has settled into calling her "Grandma-Great" pretty well.

Today, Mom and Grandma (and Grandma's sister Aunt Verona) went to make the rounds of the cemeteries and old homesteads of their families.  I followed with my two youngest, in our van, because I wanted to go with them, but needed to be home before school got out.

Grandma and Aunt Verona grew up in the Kamas/Peoa/Rockport area of Utah, east of Park City and Heber.  We got to see the Peoa house, where Grandma was born, the Peoa cemetery, where Grandma's mother and father, and grandmother and grandfather, are buried.  And we parked on the side of the Rockport Reservoir, hiked up a (steep, muddy) hill, and climbed a barbed wire fence to take pictures and GPS locations of the old pioneer graves high on the hill.  My ancestors, the Seymours, are buried in the furthest cluster of graves to the south.  (And no, Grandma and Aunt Verona didn't climb up to the Rockport graves.  Just Mema, the kids, and I.)

The kids had a pretty good time, especially with the bribe of mini donuts at the beginning and McDonald's in Heber at the end.  And I had a good time.  I love family history!

 Up on the northern hill above Rockport, showing the very empty lake in the background. (Whenever I say, "Smile!", Yummy poses.  She's a hoot.)

In front of the one of the Seymour headstones. 

It is starting to rain now, so the kids were ready to get back down to the car. 

 Hebs was pleased with Heber City.  Wonder why?

Pathos

I drove up to Sandy tonight to drop Em off at her cousin's slumber party, and while I was there my sister Telima and I decided to go out for an hour or so.  We window-shopped and had frozen yogurt, and had a marvelous time.

When I got home at 10pm, I found this waiting for me on my bed.  

Here's the writing a little closer, so you can read it.

I especially love the little teary sad faces.  Oh, that boy of mine! I love him tons and tons.

*The elaborate figure is a "boss", as in the final battle of a level on a video game.  This is what Gee draws, all the time.  I love them. Sometimes they are spiky, sometimes they are volcanoes, too, but always they have a little man in their head, who controls the "boss", like a robot.  It's awesome.

New House Tour: Living Room/Entry

Here is my (far overdue) photo tour of my new house.  Weekly (I hope), I'll have a post up about a different room, and my hopes/vision/dreams/pie-in-the-sky for that space.  You know, if I had all the money in the world.  

The first room you see when you come in my front door is the living room/entry way. Bradley has a way with plants that I completely lack, so that's his job.  And I'll have to see if I can't get a better picture of my front door glass, because I love it. 

To the right is the living room.  The door in the corner is to Mema's side of the house.  The curtains are from IKEA, and all the furniture in the room belongs to Mema. It was in her formal living room in the house in Las Vegas.  The sofas are about 26 years old, and, sadly, showing their age.  It would be nice to get some new ones, but...$$$$.  We'll be waiting on that one.

The lamps and end tables are pretty inexpensive.  The lamps used to be this hideous orange-brown color, but we spray painted them oil-rubbed bronze, got some new shades, and now they look pretty good.  Flimsy, though, so eventually we'll need to replace them, too. We have plans to recover the blue seat on that chair with something either neutral or green or (possibly) red.

The Grandfather clock is a true grandfather clock, in that my grandfather (Mema's dad) made it.  It also doesn't work, but I don't think it stopped, short, never to go again, when he passed away.  We are contemplating fixing it, but, once again, $$.

  

View of the entry from inside the living room.  The guest closet is the door on the left.  That three part painting was a gift from a dear gentleman in our Spanish Fork ward.  Isn't it amazing???  I love it soooo much, and the fact that it is from a friend makes it even better.

You can see it better here.

And here is the hallway into the family room, which will be for another day.  

We have pictures up on the wall, and curtains and all, and I don't think the room looks bad at all, but it's a little (lot) bland.  I'd love to spice it up, and I've been brainstorming and pinning up a storm with ideas.

For the main make-over, we would love to board-and-batten the living room, like in this picture, to within three feet(ish) of the ceiling.  The boards and crown molding would be a soft white, and the top un-wainscoted part would be a soft green.

Here's a little mood board of some of my ideas:

(Click to embiggenify.)

1. Burgess Green, for the walls
2. Or maybe Russell Green, instead
3. Board and batten picture, small
4. I like this traditional style of couch, making it not the focal point, but more of a neutral background.  Probably along the same wall as the long couch is currently on.
5. & 6. Instead of a love seat, maybe two arm chairs on the window wall, with a table in between.
7. & 8. Or maybe instead of an end table, one of these cute ceramic garden stools.
9. For the entryway wall, under the aspen painting
10, 13, 14. Inspiration for paintings to lean on the wainscoting.
11.  The aspen painting
12.  Gorgeous bright red stars for a splash of color, hanging down in the window.
15, 16, 17.  Throw pillows for the couch.  I've already got one of 15 ($11 at Walmart!), and another one ordered.
18. & 19.  Tiffany/Mission-style table lamps.  I haven't found one in cast-iron black, with is what I'd want, or brushed nickel.
20.  To hang down in the entryway.  So pretty!

Well, someday some of this might happen.  We'll see.  I love to dream and wish, and this way, if I ever see something similar at a thrift shop, I can nab it!

A Couple Few Things

• Dinner tonight was really yummy--Lemon-Paprika Roast Salmon.  We had it over brown rice and really loved it.  I bought the thinner (frozen) fillets, and it only took about 12 minutes to cook.  Easy and healthy and good...success!
• I'm working on something, that I thought I'd have finished for today's post.  But I'm not done yet, so you get to wait.  Heh heh.  It's not really that exciting.
• My Zee is going to wake me up at seven tomorrow morning so I can run around the park track with him three times.  So I'm going to bed now instead of working on the aforementioned project.

Good night!