Duet Recital

This year for the boys' piano recital, their teacher decided to do a duet recital. This meant that the boys played all their songs with someone else. Dax played with some other boys, Mark played with some other boys, and they also played with Mom. Mom even played with three other moms. Everyone did very well, and Mom loved being able to play with her boys. The boys were excited to dress casually for a recital for once.

Mom loved being able to play with her boys. 

Dax was confident on his duet.

Mark also played a song for the audience to participate in.

Mark and JJ practiced a lot together.

Mom realized afterward that she should have smiled more, but she was very focused on this speedy song.

Not sure what Mark is smiling about, but I love this picture of him.

Playing Jingle Bells together was super fun!

Park City

Seth was excited for the treats they left in our room. 

We were recently contacted by a hotel in Park City that wanted us to come and stay. Our weekends were pretty busy with the last baseball tournaments and Mom and Dad's anniversary trip to Manti, but  we figured the first weekend in November should work. The hotel was really generous, offering us two nights stay in two rooms, dinner at their classy restaurant, breakfast, and tickets to a museum downtown and an escape room, but they weren't offering any cash. This meant we'd have to cover our own gas and many of the meals, but we still decided to take the deal. It turned out to be a wonderful stay-cation.

Mark and Dad had their first basketball practice on Friday night, so they brought the car up later that night, while Mom, Seth, and Dax went up and got checked into the hotel. It was really nice, with a game room, snack stop, pool, and exercise room. We spent a bit of time at the snack stop throughout the day, popping in for a can of pop or a brownie after dinner. The rooms were great, too, and since we had two, no one slept on a cot or a foldout couch.

The boys loved the special snack room that we could visit. 

We woke up Saturday morning and got a fairly early start. The breakfast was buffet style, but they had an omelet making station that was delicious. We felt a little bad dining and dashing, and made sure to be extra gracious with our servers because our meal was being comped.

It was a cold morning and there was ice on the cars when we drove to the Olympic Park Museum. We enjoyed walking around looking at all the decorations used in the opening ceremonies. There were also a lot of outfits worn by athletes, and a bunch of video kiosks showing events. There is a second museum in the same building that shows the history of skiing in Utah. It had a lot of interactive displays and games, which kept the boys entertained.

The boys pretended to carry the torch.

Jamaica, we have a bobsled team!  

Dax is an intense snowboarder.

Seth is intense in a scarier way! 

Dax tried the virtual ski jump.

Mark and Dax also got to ride the virtual reality bobsled ride. 

We enjoyed our visit to the Olympic Park.

At around 10 o'clock, Dad and Seth drove down to Lehi for Seth's basketball game while Mom, Mark and Dax went to check out a local park. The park was nice, but it was still chilly around noon, so mostly they walked around and looked rather than spending a lot of time playing. Dad was grabbed at the game by a complete stranger, who insisted that Dad should be in Park City, and not in Lehi. She laughed and said it was okay to take a break from vacation.

The boys were most excited to dunk on the small hoop.

The boys want these pictures in our family book! 

We took a complimentary shuttle downtown for lunch. We ate at a cute little Main Street restaurant that had the most amazing pizza and fries. It had a tiny layout with a soaring roof and vintage pop and beer cans covering the walls. We took our time eating and then took a walk down a little trail past the Shoe Park. Shoes were hanging from the trees above a tiny stream. The park was about a third of an acre, but there were tons of trees and just a little snow on the ground.

We really enjoyed Davanza's.

The pizza slices were HUGE!

The trail was nice. It was paved and ran along the edge of downtown through several tunnels. There were also lots of murals along the tunnels. We passed an instrument station where the boys banged on some instruments made out of wood or old brake rotors. Then we stopped to play at a park that we found along the way. It was a great leisurely pace, just right for this type of vacation.

Seth (and Dax) just wanted to eat snow the entire hike.

But we found some really fun murals.

The boys hate when I take their picture in the sun.

We enjoyed the music park a lot.

There were quite a few different murals along the trail.

We had fun on our easy hike.

We found this Great Blue Heron on Park City Main Street.

Our next stop was for ice cream at a local shop on Main Street. The ice cream was really expensive, but it was all made in the shop, and it was really good. They had a lot of interesting flavors to try. Just next door we visited the Park City Museum, which the hotel paid for. It was a nice history of the area, which started as a silver mining operation, nearly died as a ghost town, and finally became a skiing mecca for the world. The boys enjoyed the interactive displays, but they really enjoyed venturing down into the basement, which was the old jail. We learned about a few criminals and checked out the cells, and then did some fun mining things like blasting TNT and using a jack drill simulator. After the museum, we called the shuttle and headed back to the hotel for dinner.

The boys were grateful for a treat.

We had fun learning about mining in Park City.

The hotel restaurant was really upscale, and when we saw the menu, we knew the boys wouldn't do very well. We were also a little surprised by the prices. We split three entrees including a steak for Mom and Mark, trout and fries for Dax and Seth, and a vegetarian burger for Dad. The food was great, and we only had to pay the tip.

Dax was so excited to eat trout.

We had a fun dinner together!

Saturday ended with the pool. The boys had been dying to get in since we arrived. The pool area was amazing. The pool is built into a courtyard of the hotel with a roof over the top, so it was nice and airy. There was a boys hockey team in the pool when we arrived, but they left after not too long. The boys played for a long time while Mom and Dad worked on the website and promotions that were required for our stay.

On Sunday morning after breakfast at the hotel, we had our final adventure. We had a free trip to a family-friendly Escape Room. It was Park City themed, so we were trying to escape a caved-in Silver Mine before it entirely collapsed. The boys did really well with the puzzles. We let Seth open a lot of the combination locks, and both Dax and Mark were fully involved in the puzzle solving. Of course, we escaped in plenty of time. We got home around noon, which was just in time for Mom to get to choir practice and Dad to get to tithing settlement.

We loved the Escape Room.

Fall Soccer

Fall Soccer was a little chaotic this year. All three boys played on new teams this season, so that was fun and exciting. We also had Fall baseball going on, plus three different trips that affected when Mom and Dad could make it to games, but we did our best!

Mark played with the same coach and same few players that he has been with since he was about 7 years old. We love his coach, and we were grateful that this year we were the middle age instead of the youngest age, even though it still seemed we were one of the smaller teams. Our boys fought well and won about half of their games this season. Everyone had fun playing together. Mark is the leader of this team, and everyone looks to him to take control on the field. We are proud of the good teammate that he is, and the great sport he is, also.

Mark works hard on the soccer field. 

Mark has the best kicks on his team.

We love watching Mark play.

This was a common occurrence on the field. Mark vs. everyone else. 

Mark hustles and has a great attitude.

We ran into Davis, his old buddy from Highland Elementary, at one of his soccer games. 

Dax was finally placed on a team with a good coach. This coach knew all about soccer and Dax enjoyed practices for the first time since Dad coached. He only knew two other kids on the team before beginning the season, but he enjoyed playing with Ryan and Eli again. Dax was a force on the field this season. He is so fast that it is hard for anyone to catch him. Even when he has the ball, he can outrun everyone else. His coach had him play striker almost exclusively because Dax was their number one scorer. He even scored 6 goals in one game. We are proud of the soccer player that Dax has become, and we were happy that he enjoyed soccer so much this season.

We love watching Dax play soccer.

Dax is so speedy!

Dax likes to play goalie, but I think he only played once this season because his coach need him at forward.

Dax works hard on the field, too!

He has some great throw-ins just like his brother Mark.

Dax outran everyone he played this season.

Seth played with his neighbor friends again this year, but this time Dad wasn't the coach. We were so lucky because our neighbor coached the team and he did an amazing job. This was Seth's first year playing with goalies, and it is always a big transition year. Seth played super well. He was a great scorer for his team, and also a great goalie. He had the best goalie kicks! We were glad that Seth could play with his friends, and we were proud of how hard Seth worked on the soccer field.

Seth had some powerful goalie kicks.

Seth was quick out on the field. 

He loved when he got a chance to be the goalie. 

Dad would sit down by the goal to help him at first.

Seth had fun playing soccer.

He has great facial expressions, too!