The First Ever Barton Family Read-a-thon!

So it was Sonny Pie's turn to choose our family night activity tonight. He came up with a surprisingly popular idea---a read-a-thon! He had everyone put on their pajamas and get their blankets before he even told anyone what we were doing. He made some chocolate chip cookies and everyone got a good book to read.

When he told us what we were doing everyone was so excited. Silly Guy was literally bouncing up and down on his seat he was so excited.

What a fun activity!

Some thought on concert attire

Tonight Juice & I and my mother and sisters are going to the Utah Symphony. We're all very excited! Someone has asked what the attire should be for the evening and as I was discussing this with Juice she taught(or reminded---I'm not sure which) me something that I think is important.

She used to be upset with us because we insisted that she get dressed up for interviews with the bishop. We told her that he would get dressed up in his suit to interview her and she should respect that and get dressed up also.

She told me that going to a concert is like a bishop's interview--the performers get dressed in their nice clothes to come perform and it shows respect for their effort and practice and work to dress up to go watch them perform. As a performer I have always thought it is important to dress up for concerts whether performing or listening, but I never put it into words or thoughts quite so clearly.

Thanks Juice for your insights!

Spring Break/Moab--Rock Art!

At my insistence we went to find some ancient petroglyphs that are available to be seen near Moab. They were really cool. Everyone thought so. I don't know why it was so hard to convince them that we wanted to see them. It really is interesting to think about what the people who made these drawing may have been depicting. Some of them are obvious, like animals, but others you have to wonder about. I put some of our thoughts on some of these pictures.

Spring Break/Moab--part 2

Here we are under Delicate Arch which is sooo amazing. I've seen a thousand pictures of it but the real thing is so awe inspiring!

Cutie loved having his picture taken everywhere we went so here is his hiker pose.

What Superstar loved the most(and the rest of them) was climbing on the rocks everywhere we went. It was so fun that most of the hikes and arches we could walk right up to and under and climb around on the rocks. This was one of the most relaxing, unbusy, fun vacations we've ever been on!

Spring Break/Moab!

We had the best vacation during spring break this year. We went to Moab, UT and camped for four nights. It was pretty cold at night this early in the year, but it was so fun! We spent three whole days hiking in Arches National Park. When we were planning this trip I really thought we would have to find other stuff to do---and there is a lot of other stuff around there--- but the kids LOVED Arches.

We spent the first two days going on all the hikes and seeing all of the amazing landscape there.

Then the third day when we asked the kids what they wanted to do they very excitedly asked to go back on several of the hikes again so that's we spent the third day doing.

The pictures really cannot do justice to the amazing landscape there.

It was funny how everyone had to touch every gigantic rock we stood next to. We told them they now have a lot of 'pet rocks'