Dinosaurs and Trains

Last week we got a couple days of springtime and decided to make the most of it.  It's pretty weird looking back at these photos of  8 days ago when it was in the upper 60's and then looking at the snow outside my window!

The kids and I explored the Eccles Dinosaur Museum and had so much fun learning together about dinosaurs.  I think one of my favorite things about motherhood is that I get to experience the excitement of learning and discovery with my cute kids who are all at such fun ages right now.  They're all old enough to get things and have great questions but young enough to still be thoroughly excited.

The kids loved pretending the huge dinosaur replicas were coming to life.

And they liked reading the plaques about each dinosaur on display - great having all the kids able to read now and really talk about what interests them and what their favorite facts were that they learned.  Most of these dinosaurs actually lived in this area and it was fun to imagine what the world was like back then.

The sunshine felt so wonderful!  I sat on a bench with my face turned to the sun while the kids enjoyed the playground at the museum.  Maybe I've been a bit down because I've been lacking that vitamin D the sun provides.  Wow, does the sun feel good!

Then we wandered down 25th Street, got yummy samples at Great Harvest, and decided to visit all the cool trains at the old train station.  The kids were so full of imagination and excitement as they climbed all over the trains and acted out little plays involving train robberies and train crashes.

I think my great grandpa Howard was watching from Heaven with a smile.  He used to be a train engineer and took great pride in operating massive steam locomotives like the one above.

The kids were so excited when they saw that the "driving room" of the engine was open and it was fun to tell them what little I know about my great grandpa and his trains.  Grandpa Howard would have known just what to do with all those knobs and faucets.

The diesel engines were pretty awesome too.  Plus you could climb up on top of them and pretend you were in one of those movies where people are running around on top of moving trains.

The sun and the fun and the putting aside of work for a while was so wonderful for me.  What a joy it is to be a mother of such fun, curious, imaginative, sweet kids!