McKenna just brought me a picture that she drew. On the top it had her name. The first time that she has written it all alone. She has been practicing it the last couple of days. I think she did a terrific job.
Oh yeah I also was able to get a hold of a doctor and made an appointment for Jona. It is at an outpatient clinic and amazingly enough it will be on March 12th. I could hardly believe that when she told me the date. So we wait for the appointment and then go from there.
Okay I found some better pictures of the cool sculptures outside Abravanel Hall go here to see the daytime photo and here to see the night time photo.
Well we did it. We made it up to downtown Salt Lake City yesterday to experience the Olympics. It was fun but very tiring. There was a lot of walking involved and the kids held up wonderfully considering everywhere we went. The first thing we did was head up to Olympic Stadium to get pics of the Olympic Cauldron. The news did a story about how it has become a tourist site...duh! Maybe this hasn't happened other places because the Olympic stadium has been closer to other venues but here the stadium is up away from Olympic Square so you have to go out of your way to see it. I got a shot of each of the kids on Ty's shoulder with the cauldron in the background. After we were done seeing the flame we took a lunch break since we didn't get to downtown until around lunchtime. After lunch we went back downtown and started our walking. We ran into Smokey Bear on our way to the Church Office Building. McKenna and George both got snapshots with him but Jona told us that he had already seen him at school so he didn't want to get his picture taken with him. We also saw the monster from Monster.com across the street from us but the kids weren't too keen on meeting up with him. We made it up to the Church Office Building and took pics of the big ice skater that they have draped on it then we headed down to Abravanel Hall where they have a hands on exhibition of some of Steinway's more famous piano's on display as part of the Olympic Arts Festival. I got pictures of the Rhapsody in Blue piano (well part of it) and of another one that was pretty colorful but as one man that was standing next to me put it "I'm glad that's not in my living room." LOL! They also had these really cool sculptures of the sun and the moon outside Abravanel Hall that are made out of what looks like, blown glass. (If you go to the hands on exhibition link they have some video where you can see the sculptures behind the reporter.) Then we had to decide if we wanted to wait in line (2 hours) to get into Olympic Square or if we wanted to go and see the dancing waters fountain at the Gateway shopping center. We opted for the dancing waters. We had to walk forever to get there. Unfortunately we were not aware of the free tram rides that are available until we were coming back from the fountain. The fountain was so much fun. They have water that shoots up out of holes in the ground in the shape of the Olympic Snowflake that is the symbol of the games. The kids loved it. McKenna and George wanted to get in the water. There were actually people who were walking into the area where the water shoots up to get their picture taken. I also heard on the news that someone proposed marriage there in the middle of the fountain sometime last week. Then we took the free tram up to Washington Square and walked around for a bit. We looked at some hats or t-shirts for the kids but they were a little pricey so I think we will settle for some pins. Saw the beginning of a dance group there at Washington square and then we decided it was time to head home. We were all very tired but it was fun. We had wanted to go to the Coca-Cola tent but never made it there. On the way back down to get on Trax we walked past the Japan House and Korea House. Jona and McKenna stood in front of the Japan House and got their picture taken. There were some athletes in there chatting but I don't think we could have go in. All in all we had a great time. Like I said at the first the kids held up amazingly well. They enjoyed the Trax ride in and home as much as anything else. There are a couple of things that we missed that I wanted to take them to...a copy of the Declaration of Independence is on display up at the State Capitol and the flag that was found (unharmed) from the Challenger disaster along with other space memorabilia is on display at the Joseph Smith Memorial building. Fortunately those are both in town until mid-March so we can take the kids up next month.
Well that's my Olympic update for now. Ty and I are thinking about going back up (just us two) on Friday night to see if we can get into Olympic Square. I just got back from the dentist this morning. I broke a back tooth and had to have a crown put on. My mouth is just returning to normal.
