Category: Around & About

Free Monthly Activities

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Did you know that you could fill all of your Saturdays every month with FREE activities for kids? There are lots of ways to keep busy and have fun all without paying one penny!

Here are some ideas:

1st Saturday of the Month — “Books 2 Movies,” Park City Library

On the first Saturday of every month, the Park City Library (1255 Park Avenue, near Main Street) shows free screenings of kids movies that have been adapted from books. We went to see “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (a Roald Dahl book) a couple months ago.

2nd Saturday of the Month — “Family Art Saturdays,” Utah Museum of Contemporary Art or UMOCA

The UMOCA downtown (previously known to me as the Salt Lake Art Center, where I used to volunteer in high school) has Family Art Saturdays on every 2nd Saturday of the month from 2-4pm. We went last month and did a stamping/sticker-making project and toured the exhibitions.

Theo placing a wish on Yoko Ono’s WISH TREE.
Placing stickers all over the museum, as part of Family Art Saturday.

3rd Saturday of the month — “Third Saturdays,” Utah Museum of Fine Art

I’ve written about the UMFA on here a couple times before but wanted to mention again that every 3rd Saturday of the month from 1-4pm they have free admission and kids crafts, that coincide with a current exhibition.

Ongoing Saturdays of the month —

I’ve previously written on here about the kids cooking classes available at Williams-Sonoma, which run weekly on Saturday mornings.

Also check the Utah Film Center’s schedule for their year-round Tumbleweeds screenings around the state which are always free.

Cooking Lessons for Chef Theo

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The store doesn’t open to the public until 10am so the class is private until regular store opening hours.

For Theo’s last birthday, we threw a cooking themed party where the kids made treats (ice cream and gummies) and everyone had a blast. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that our local Williams-Sonoma store offered free cooking classes for kids. I had been to their adult cooking class before and learned a lot about Italian pastas and sauces (incidentally, one of the most genius kid food recipes I’ve ever heard was from this class: Cook up some rigatoni [wide tubes], cut string cheese into thin strips the length of the pasta, stuff the string cheese pieces into the pasta, cover with sauce and bake!).

The store still offers the adult classes, but they also started offering kids classes as well. The teacher of these classes is named Patsy and she started these here in Salt Lake City and the corporate office heard about it and started expanding to other areas!

A W-S teacher (not Patsy) showing Theo how to hand whip some whipped cream.

We went to the Baking 101 class yesterday and Theo learned how to grease and flour a baking dish, make whipped cream by hand, sift flour, and whip egg whites until they formed peaks. Spread throughout the class is the use of tools that are handily sold at the store, but there is no pressure to purchase anything. However, parents get a discount if they do decide to shop after the class!

Shaking flour around the bread loaf pan to prevent sticking.

Details for the class (at the Trolley Square location in Salt Lake City, ):

Dates: Saturdays from 9:30-10:30 am
Register: To hold a spot, call the store at 801-359-0459
Ages 4+
Cost: FREE

Here are the upcoming topics:

March 8 — All About Strawberries
March 15 — Chop & Slice It!
March 22 — Let’s Stir Fry!
March 29 — Easter Egg Decorating
April 5 — Lemonade Day
April 12 — Easter Cookie Decorating
April 26 — Making Fresh Pasta

A Day at the Capitol

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Feeling civic-minded today, the day of the State of the Union address by President Obama, Theo and I visited the Utah State Capitol to participate in “Democracy Day.” In particular, we were there in support of bills promoting preschool education for all children in Utah. A giant “Chutes & Ladders” board game was laid out in the main rotunda of the building and the kids could play the game. The ladders represented achievements and the chutes represented detractions in the lives of Utah children. I was interviewed by three reporters from local news networks, so we’ll have to see if I got any screen time during the evening news tonight (edit: I did; see below!).

We also spent some time in the public galleries of the House of Representatives, where we could see the chambers where laws were made. They were not in session when we visited (the afternoons are spent in sub-committee meetings) but Theo insisted on staying to watch the one or two representatives who were working at their stations. We were also lucky that two school groups came in on a field trip while we were there and we got to eavesdrop on the teachers’ presentations (always in awe of teachers!).

The state Capitol is truly a beautiful building and I hold a lot of reverence for it. I may not always (okay, hardly ever) agree with what is decided upon within its walls, but am grateful to be part of a democracy.

*UPDATE — NEWS COVERAGE*

Here is a snippet of an interview I gave on ABC4 News:

http://eplayer.clipsyndicate.com/embed/iframe?aspect_ratio=3×2&auto_start=0&pf_id=9207&rel=3&show_title=0&va_id=4912181&volume=8&windows=1

Here is an article in the Deseret News about the event:

Video from local station, Fox13 News.

Consolidated coverage on this event on a Voices for Utah Children curated page — including a shout out to this blog!

UMFA, F Yeah! Part 2

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I have previously posted about my love for the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA), but I just went again yesterday and found another secret gem: the gift shop!

Now, I know art museum gift shops are a “thing,” and I do love them, but I was pleasantly surprised by how diverse and child-oriented the store at the UMFA was. The products available were curated with such care and I found books and toys there that I had never seen before. I wanted to buy almost everything.

Love the Asian-American children’s books available.

I spoke to the store clerk and learned that the Store Supervisor, Carol Bigelow, recently started buying for the store and is the mother of four sons herself. Thus, the particular attention to children’s items. Of course, the other offerings there are lovely as well, but I now have another store to add to my list of go-to shops for kids (hmm, idea for another blog post percolating…).

And, if you are a member of the UMFA you get 10% off everything in the store. Check it out!

Ice Castles — They’re a Thing and They’re Incredible

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Three years ago we went to visit the Ice Castles in Midway and they were insane. Whatever I was expecting, they totally met those expectations and then some. I was so sad when for the past few years I’d Google them and they were off in another area of the country doing their thing, but not here in Utah. This year they are back!
And not only are they back, Amazon Local is having a deal with discounted tickets for the next 11 days (date of this post is Dec. 11, 2013). Regular price is $10 per person (children under 3 are free) and the Amazon deal is two people for $12 or four people for $24.
The Ice Castles won’t be ready until after Christmas (they approximate they’ll be ready around the first week of January, 2014), so now we all have something fun to look forward to after the festivities of the holidays are over.
Theo was too young to remember them last time (age 2) but he is going to go nuts when we go this year. Can’t wait!
P.S. If you live in SLC like we do and want to make an “Eastern Utah Expedition” outing out of it, stop by Dairy Keen in Heber for a meal. They have a train that goes around the restaurant and kid-friendly (i.e. hamburger/shake diner-type) food.

Kids & Seniors

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Today we stopped by Emeritus Senior Living, the residence of my grandmother-in-law, and Theo’s great-grandmother (sidenote: when Theo was born he had 3 living great-grandmothers [out of 4] which I thought was pretty special). We were there with other moms and kids and passed out treats and sang Christmas carols.
We were only there for an hour, and it was full of chaos and kids running around; background noise for those of us who live with young children day-in and day-out, but so much entertainment for those who are past those phases of life.
I also always bring our little dog, Poe, with us when we visit Emeritus because he is such a classic therapy dog. He is super tolerant of people holding him and petting him and he is so small and cute like a stuffed animal that he is never intimidating. Animals really are magic, sometimes.
Spanning 4 generations…
This was our first Christmas outing, but we’ve done similar events the previous two Halloweens. Same basic idea: sugary treats, cute kids, a few songs, cute dog.
Halloween 2013 – Theo the Chef preparing his treats
Halloween 2012 – Inaugural Emeritus group visit.
This is one of those activities that is so simple, but so meaningful for those who get to receive the gift of the company of energetic little bodies full of life. Cost: virtually none, just the cost of the goodies you bring. Time: 30 minutes, 1 hour max. (both the kids and the seniors get tired). Reward: Lots of feel-good vibes and positive inter-generational relationships strengthened.

Chuck E. Please!

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Every parent has a time in their life when they say something they never would have imagined they would ever say. My time has come:

I like going to Chuck E. Cheese.

Today I took the car to Costco to get our tires rotated and was faced with a 3-hour wait. There is a CEC (you know I’m hooked when I start abbreviating) across the street from Costco so I decided we could wait it out there.

The picture above was taken at 1:00pm on a Monday afternoon. There were two other children in the entire place other than Theo. We ordered a pizza, I ate from the salad bar (won’t make that mistake again) and Theo was entranced by their animatronic Chuck E. Cheese robot.
My caveats regarding a successful CEC outing include:
— Near deserted conditions. You get to play whatever game you want without waiting and there aren’t a million kids with a billion germs all over the place.
— Brand new location. Our CEC is spotless and clean because it’s only been open for a few months. Once wear-and-tear sets in, we’ll have to abandon and find another, younger, newer, more attractive version. Facts of life.
— Timing it right so that you arrive right after the technicians test all the machines and leave trails of free tickets streaming out for the taking. No better lesson to teach your kids than maximum value for minimal effort and cost.
Downside: all that effort and ticket-earning grants you the privilege of choosing between all sorts of useless junk that a knick-knack averse person such as myself can’t stand. But a visit to CEC is about the journey, not the destination.

Thumbs up, indeed, Chuck E. Cheese. I can’t believe you won me over.

Sweetest Tomatoes

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Even before Theo was born, we would occasionally eat at Sweet Tomatoes, braving the hordes of families and noisy children for some semi-healthy buffet gorging. After Theo started eating solids, Sweet Tomatoes became our go-to kid-friendly place to eat.

The salad bar aspect was great to introduce Theo to different foods when he was a baby: banana squash, peas, corn. Which all gave way to mac ‘n cheese, pizza and soft-serve ice cream when he became a picky toddler. The restaurant layout forces you to choose from the salad bar first before you can be tempted by their other delicious hot foods.

A trick: they will charge you extra if you take a protein (grilled chicken, etc) to add to your salad. Skip the protein in the salad bar and get the yummy white breast meat from their chicken and noodle soup (minus the broth and noodles, of course) and add that for (free) protein.

Now, as a parent, being able to take your kid to a place where they can be messy and noisy and still get a decent meal is a huge win. Save Forage for a date night; take the kids to Sweet Tomatoes.

*Note: When I was organizing the Milk+Bookies book drive last year, I reached out to several local restaurants and stores to solicit food donations. Sweet Tomatoes was incredibly generous and gracious and gave us a huge amount of chocolate chip cookies and bottles of milk. Extra gold star.