November and Utah Trip

November flew by! So did the first half of December actually. I can't believe Christmas is less than 2 weeks away. In November Russell turned 18 months old and he is definitely starting to act more like a 2 year old than a 1 year old now. He's still a sweetheart but he is soo curious and at times a little mischievous. You'll see what I mean. P.S. Excuse the quality of my iphone pictures. He's too fast for me to take the time to go grab my camera most of the time!

Doesn't this look like a mischievous grin?

Got this bouncy ball for $1.50 at Walmart-he loves it.

It started to get cold...

But he still wants to be outside as much as possible. He doesn't seem to care about being cold most of the time. He's not a Florida kid...yet.

He's really taken an interest in climbing everything. The only thing he hasn't tried to do yet is climb out of his crib and I'm definitely grateful for that!

But this is a little out of control. Ricardo sent me this picture and said he went upstairs for 2 minutes and came back to this. Any tips? :)

We went to the aquarium with friends and Russell was mesmerized by the first fish tank we saw. He couldn't believe there were hundreds more. 

We went to DC one weekend and traded babysitting with my sister. Here's Russell with his cousins. Look at those grins-I must be good at bedtime stories.

Russell and I went to Utah for Thanksgiving/my Grandma's 80th birthday celebration. We spent the first part of our trip getting ready for the big party and it went really well. Most of the extended family came and my grandma loved it. We spent the rest of the trip shopping, visiting family, and prepping/eating Thanksgiving dinner. We definitely missed Ricardo but we had fun seeing family we hadn't seen in awhile and I enjoyed going back to my alma mater BYU for a day!

I think this is Santa's chair at the mall but he wasn't there yet.

Bean Museum at BYU. I had never been before. Russell loved seeing all the animals.

Boxes are probably his favorite toys. Uncle Trent is fun too.

Someone wanted to escape at the Christmas tree festival.

Father and son.

Shopping with his Grandma and Great-Grandma. 

We went to a basketball game at the University of Utah (for my dad) and at first Russell was enthralled but he soon became much more fascinated in climbing the steps of the arena. We all took turns chasing him.

My dad and I ran at Turkey 5K on Thanksgiving morning. He is so much faster than me but he ran at my pace the whole race. He's running another marathon today so our 5K was literally a walk in the park. Russell really wanted to be in the picture too. 

Christmas lights on Thanksgiving night. Russell kept walking around saying "Wow,wow,wow." 

My grandpa was very crafty (in a good way) and made a lot of things out of wood for his backyard, which all of us grandkids loved. It was fun to see Russell enjoying these things. Here he is on a swing my Grandpa made many many years ago.

          He loves this little bridge too. It is the perfect size for him.

We went to this awesome childrens museum in Ogden with my brother and had a great time. One of the best things about Utah is how cheap everything is. It cost less than $15 total for the three of us to go and a similar museum here in Pennsylvania would be at least $20 each. It was a lot of fun too. Here's Russell riding a mechanical horse.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was going to the Ogden LDS temple which was recently renovated. It is so beautiful inside and out. Such a special place. For anyone reading this who has questions about what a Mormon temple is-this site has some good info. https://www.lds.org/church/temples/why-we-build-temples/blessings-of-the-temple?lang=eng. 

Not pictured but other fun things we did: saw the almost finished Payson UT temple and the under construction Provo City Center Temple, ate at Kneader's, had Farr's ice cream in Ogden, and played speed scrabble with my parents. I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting. We had a great trip and Russell did pretty well on the long flights. Ricardo had Thanksgiving dinner at a friend's house in Delaware and then we flew back on black Friday to spend the weekend together before Ricardo's hibernation for finals. He has three left and then it really will feel like Christmas!