Outings

We've been doing some fun things lately!

I got a pass to the Living Aquarium (because who wants to see a dead one? Har har - that one's for you, Dad.) Jason enjoyed the commotion of the busload of elementary school kids, making it difficult to get a decent picture. But here ya go. (And I promise, in real life, he doesn't have Martha Washington style hair.)

Peering into a small aquarium nestled in the climbable "coral" rocks.

 We went with some friends, but due to Jason's flurry of activity, we didn't get any pictures with them.

 He hardly even cared about seeing sharks, a sea turtle, penguins, octopuses, squids, piranhas, or sting rays that you could touch. He only wanted to splash the water that the sting rays were in and run free among the coral. It was fun though.

A couple weeks later, my old MTC comp, Heather, offered to take us to Discovery Gateway - a kids museum at the Gateway Mall, in SLC. She has a membership and can take a few other people with it. I'd never even been to the Gateway Mall before, so I was excited to see what it was like. The verdict: Sooo cool.

Jason had THE. TIME. OF. HIS. LIFE. I don't think he's laughed so much in all his two years. We met at Heather's and then she drove us all in her new minivan. Jason was SO excited. Whenever we drive anyway, all I hear the whole time is, "BIG truck! BIG van! Construction truck! Front-end loader! Tower!" etc, etc, etc. And often he'll say repeatedly, "Jason go in big van!" So when he finally did get to go in a van, he was so happy. Which is actually how I was able to leave the Discovery without too much of a fight - he was excited to go in the van again.

Wind-tunnel tubes and balls:

He was actually afraid to stick his hand in this wind tunnel in order to push the ball through.

But Cami wasn't! (She's a little older than Jason, though.)

He LOVED the water works area:

And even touched the life-size horse in the farm area!

Just a little video of some of the other areas they have.

They even have a life-sized helicopter! (or as Jason would say "helapotter.")

The Gateway Mall is also home to the only Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream store in UT. And we were lucky enough to go on the one day a year that they give away one free scoop of ice cream per customer! We headed over about 10 min before they opened their doors at noon and were the first people in line! I think they even took a picture. And that may or may not have been Jason's first experience with ice cream. At least a whole scoop to himself. He got strawberry. He kept saying "Iz cooooold." :D We ate ice cream and lunch outside in the wind and sun. It was such a fun day!