Coldest spell over! My mom can't believe she survived -18deg! Past few days were really bone-chillingly cold. Hopefully from now on it'll get warmer, cos it seems that the days are getting longer now.

Today Dh finally received his credit card and hence we can rent a car! hooray. we got a Dodge 2L fr Budget Rentals for a week, which is quite cheap, under US$200. But just so happen they didn't have a 2L and so we got a free upgrade to a Ford Taurus (3L) car! wow, it was spacious and the boot space was huge. besides a whole lot of shopping, it could still accommodate the kids' stroller.

I haven't heard of Dodge before, but it is very common here. Even the toy cars given by others to ds are Dodge vehicles. Anyway the secondhand car we bought is a Dodge Neon, which is lying in the garage.

We set off at 8.30am, and took our first trip to downtown SLC, to show my mom ard just before she leaves tmr. We planned to walk ard more actually but it was -11deg. So we basically toured in the car, and saw the Mormon's Temple Square, the mountains, a lot of container trains etc.

We also went to dh's school, met his classmates, sat in his workshop and saw him do some work. The kids were mesmerised. I guess boys naturally like woodwork.

After that, (11am) mom, kids and I headed for The Gateway for lunch, leaving dh to his classes and work. The Gateway is one of the largest malls. BUt it is open air, as in, it is not like Jurong Point, or Taka, where there are enclosed areas you can walk ard to window shop. Here, if you window shop, it means you are walking along the streets in the icy wind and freezing temp. So we walked by Body Shop, Gap, Abercrombie and Fitch, Old Navy, etc. all the famous brands in Spore, where I would certainly have stopped to browse, but not here. I was too cold to want to shop. So we headed straight for the food court, where is was very welcomingly warm. Good thing it had a small play corner so we let the kids stay inside for as long as they wanted and we took our time to eat lunch and warm up.

Then we saw this Discovery Gateway, which is something like our Science Centre or Discovery Centre. So since we had a lot of time to spare before dh ends school and pick us up, we bought tickets and entered. Of course, it was nice and warm inside too, impt thing. So I actually gave up shopping and spent the entire afternoon watching the kids play.

Although the play areas and exhibits are not as scienc-y as Spore Science Centre, it offered a chance for kids to role play many familiar professions. Which i think is super great fun.

Titus enjoyed himself so much my mom bought him and Justus a year's unlimited membership, as an early bday present for them. It cost them about US$50. So if I bring them there 3 more times, it'd be more than worth it already. Maybe I'd just follow dh to school once every week then head for Discovery. It'd be a good way to exhaust the kids while letting them have fun and learn something along the way. Otherwise I'd also be racking my brains everyday trying to think of new ways to occupy their time.

In case you were wondering why there are so many pics of ds1, it's cos ds2 took a short nap. :-) And for the above shots, ds1 hated to get into costumes, and I managed to persuade him to do so by promising I would too. haha. and he took that photo for me! quite well-composed! haha

So later ds2 woke and was up and about, making up for lost time. :-)