Our Mini Vacation

We decided to have a "Staycation" during Ryan's 2 weeks off from classes. Part of the plan included a trip up to Hill AFB in order to get Alexander up to date on his shots (Benjamin wasn't due for any until next year, but then they said he could get them. He was excited to be getting more than his brother -- 4 -- until he got on the table and then he freaked out) and fill a couple prescriptions for me. It made sense to stay at the FamCamp for $5 a night and make it a mini vacation.
Ryan needed to exchange shoes his parents bought him for his birthday and the nearest store location was in SLC. The boys and I waited for him at the Olympic Legacy Plaza Snowflake Fountain, but the boys weren't very interested in getting wet. What they really wanted to do was ride the escalator which they did with daddy when he got back.

We were going to stop at the Natural History museum on the U of U campus, but it took us 4 hours to get out of our apartment so we didn't have a lot of time and we thought a visit to Temple Square was more important.
Benjamin and Alexander really enjoyed running along the flower beds and it was hard to convince them to do anything else.

The new model of the temple in the South Visitor Center is really neat and Benjamin spent quite a while looking at it. He was also amazed it took 40 years to build the temple.
Ryan and the boys rode the escalator in the North Visitor Center 20+ times. Benjamin was really excited he was a "big boy" because he wasn't scared to ride it by himself. Benjamin and I did sit and listen to the narrative at the Christus Statue, but he was antsy to join daddy and Alexander on the escalator. We didn't look at any of the exhibits in the basement and Benjamin now says we need to go back to Temple Square to see them after watching a few of the "Year on Temple Square" videos on the Friend website (lds.org).
The family photo was an afterthought. I'm not sure where Alexander's shoes are... he usually refuses to wear them.
The FamCamp at Hill only had 3 tent spaces so we didn't have a water spigot, barbecue grill, or picnic table. I had planned for us to roast hot dogs the first night and then have grilled ham and cheese sandwiches the second night. We ended up warming our hot dogs in the microwave at the mini-mart and eating them on the picnic table outside. Ryan was a bit grumpy about "feeling like a hobo" so we went to Red Robin the second night and used the rest of a gift certificate Ryan's parents had given us.

I told Ryan we didn't need to bother moving the pine cones out from under our tent when we were setting it up. I won't ever suggest that again. It would have been okay except the cap on our air mattress is broken and I popped the super glue seal that was holding it together because I thought it was leaking and tried to tighten it. Luckily Ryan was able to make another run to the mini-mart and buy more super glue and duct tape which fixed the problem.

Benjamin did great sleeping in his own tent although Alexander threw a fit when it was time for daddy to read to Benjamin and he couldn't join them.
The Hill Aerospace Museum had a great unadvertised kids area. We could have spent ALL day in there.
Benjamin and Alexander aren't into dress-up. I couldn't convince them to put helmets on and take a picture with me.
There were ~10 flight simulator with rudder pedals and all and that was a hit. It was crazy how rustic Omaha looked in the simulation.

Benjamin hurt his knee and was limping around after the Aerospace museum. At first I was worried it was a reaction to the shots. We are not very sympathetic parents b/c we kept making him walk on it. I'm grateful he was fine by the next morning.
There is a really nice children's museum in Ogden (but not quite as good as the Lincoln Children's museum) and it had free admission for military families until Labor day.

Alexander wouldn't wear the cowboy hat until he saw Benjamin wearing one. It didn't last long for either of them.
Ryan dreaming.
Benjamin was fascinated by the hole punch shapes. He wanted "millions" of cut out airplanes. I made a bookmark for him with all the cut outs.
I'm amazed Alexander wasn't covered in ink after his possession of the stamp pad. He seemed fairly unsupervised! (Daddy?)
They had participatory story time, but Benjamin is too reserved to volunteer. The story was about "Emperor Bag of Rice". Ryan thought calling him "Emperor Bag of Doughnuts" made for a better story.
That tower could have made for an interesting game of Jenga. We didn't get a good photo of it, but the boys spent a lot of time in the train table area. Ryan also read all of "Spirited Away" to Benjamin and he sat through the whole 30+ minutes of it and was really excited to tell me the plot afterward.