Utah trip 2011 part 2

The month has just gotten away from me and I'm finally doing the 2nd part of our Utah trip.  I have a couple of other new things to blog about also but those will be for a different post.

So on the day we left to come home from Utah we managed to go several places:  The Pie Pizzeria, The Planetarium, and the Church History Museum.  Of course this time we had the kids and took them to see the kid stuff.

Here's our first stop at the underground Pie Pizzeria restaurant.

They have the biggest pizza we've ever seen!

 Looks like they were enjoying their pizza.

 My brother Stillman and his wife Michelle (and kids) joined us for this outing.  Afterward they headed to take their stuff to the condo while we did our own thing.

At this restaurant the walls are covered with signatures of people who have eaten there so of course the kids wanted to sign their names.

Even Garrett scribbled something.  Not sure if he actually wrote his name or not.

 Now we're at the planetarium.  We just knew when we came in June that we'd have to bring the kids here.

And of course they loved it!

 Now it was their turn to walk on the moon!

 And Nikki on Mars.

3...2...1...Blast off!  To infinity and beyond Garrett!

They had some cool gadgets for sale.  This ball was for show.  It's the kind that expands and retracts by pulling or pushing.

 Riding the trax over to see the church museum now.  The kids loved riding on the "train".

See the excitement on Garrett's face as he looks out the window at everything.

 Their favorite part of the regular museum stuff was the wagon and the ship replicas.

 Sitting below deck in one of the bunks.

And there's the ship....Now time to go up a level and see the fun kids stuff!

 This picture didn't load in the order I wanted it to but it's a rubber fish from Nephi's boat.  Jack just loved it and carried it around for awhile.

 Inside Nephi's boat.

 Going fishing.

Nikki's going to make sure they make it to the Promised Land!

 Now time for a little cultural dancing!  And notice he still has the fish?

 They had this screen they were looking at and would do what the person on the screen was doing to dance.  So fun!

Garrett wasn't really sure what to do so he just watched.

 Riding in a truck full of stuffed animals and puppets.

That bird is going to make them crash!  hehe

 Time for some tortilla tossing into a bucket!  Don't worry, they weren't real tortillas.

And of course they had to have a replica of the gold plates for the kids to see and even feel how heavy they were.  I couldn't even lift it!  Joseph Smith had to be one STRONG man!!

And last but not least we had to take them to see the Angel Moroni statue.  They loved everything but now it was time to go on home to Idaho.  It was a great weekend!

Utah trip 2011 part 1

On August 6th my sweet cousin Alivia was married and sealed for Eternity in the Bountiful, UT Temple.  We were fortunately able to attend and it was a trip worth taking.  Friday the 5th they started with a "Preception" where we dressed casually and basically had a BBQ party at the park.  I even played a couple rounds of tennis with my brother Stillman.  Neither of us had played in years but it was so fun!  We'll be playing again soon  ;)  Then Saturday was the sealing in the late afternoon, which I was thankful for because I needed extra sleep from staying up late the night before playing a video game on the Kinect all about dancing.  That was at my other brother Derek's house where we were staying.  I loved playing that game!  Anyway, I caught a picture of the happy couple after coming out of the temple.

 Cory and Alivia sealed for Eternity!

After the ceremony all the family and friends met at Chuck A Rama's for dinner which we were pleasantly surprised to find out it was being paid for by the groom's family.  We were this close to going to Carl's Jr. or just paying for ourselves at Chuck A Rama's because we didn't know anyone was paying for us.  It was a good thing I knew what Cory's last name was because they asked if we were part of their party.  No way am I going to pass up a free meal, lol.

Sunday we attended church with my brother and family, along with my other brother, sister and their families.  The women in Relief Society thought my sister and I were twins because we both said where we were from at the same time.  We are 5 years apart in age and I'm the youngest.  Funny enough this is not the first time we've been mistaken to be twins!  So funny!  

After a couple hours of relaxing after church we headed out to visit my mom, grandma, aunts, and cousins.  They too were kind enough to provide dinner for us.  It was a nice relaxing time of eating, talking, and playing yard games.  And the kids had fun throwing rocks in the creek.  Here are some pictures:

My 90 year old grandmother, my son Jack, and me watching everyone play.

First they played a couple of tossing games.  One they have to lasso the blue, yellow, or red bar with a rope that has a ball on each end.  I can't remember the name of it.  The other was a washer toss game in boxes.

My sister doing the lasso game.

My niece Katelynn playing around with the bean bag toss game.

Me trying out the washer toss game.

Now time for a little croquet.

The cousins playing in the gravel by the playset.

The kids had fun riding around on the trikes.

Family picture of all that were there that evening out of my brothers and sisters and our kids with my mom in the center.  It was a good time!

More pictures to come soon for the rest of our trip!

Pioneer Day Celebration

Last weekend we celebrated Pioneer Day at the stake center and we combined with another ward.  It turned out to be lots of fun!

 We started with a parade for the kids where they could ride their bike, pull a wagon, or walk.  Those who rode bikes and wagons decorated them.  Then we walked around a couple times in a designated area in the parking lot while everyone else stood on the sidelines and cheered for them.

 After the parade was a dinner of sloppy Joe's, hotdogs, salads, and chips.  Then some of the kids wasted no time in running around the baseball field and kicking up lots of dirt!

Now time for some kid games.  How about a little tug of war!  Go Nikki and Garrett!  I think their team won that time.  This was one of Garrett's favorite games.

Next was a relay game where they fill a cup with water from one bucket and run it down to the other bucket.  First team to reach the line on the bucket wins!  The boys loved this game!

I don't remember what these are called but each of the kids made this spinning toy and Curtis is trying to get it to work.  Those toys aren't easy!

Then there was the clothes pin drop where you have to stand on a chair and try to drop clothes pins into the jar on the grass.  Jack is trying the nose technique that he saw one of the dad's doing, LOL.  It was too funny to watch!

He gave up on the nose technique and went right to the ground.  So much easier this way!

After the kids games the youth started playing volleyball and then the adults played a game of softball, one ward versus the other.  Curtis even got in on it starting out as catcher but then later moving to the outfield, trying to avoid running because of his knees.  But it was fun to watch him play and I wish I would have gotten out there and played too.  I was too chicken to ask to play though, LOL.  I haven't played since I was a Beehive!  This activity turned out to be a lot more fun than I thought.  So glad we went!

Our 9th Wedding Anniversary trip

June 22nd was our 9th wedding anniversary and we had our first weekend vacation away from the kids.  Curtis's sister was kind enough to watch our kids for us.  We were able to fly down to Salt Lake City for free because of our business card reward points and we took the bus and tracks to stay in my grandparent's condo and do things around downtown Salt Lake.  We had a great time!  It was nice to be able to do whatever we wanted whenever we wanted.  Here are some pictures from our trip.

We went to the Clarke Planetarium on Friday after we arrived where all the stuff we saw was free.  This is a picture of a telescope that is in space.

This was a fun contraption that had to do with Newton's law (I think).  It had all these little balls going around inside.  There are little knobs you can pull on the outside to help them do something.  It was big too as you can see!

I got the whole world in my hands!

Curtis is on Mars!

Duh...duh....duh duh....Deedra's first steps on the Moon!

Now a visit to the conference center and a tour.

Beautiful view from the top of the conference center.

Next we went to the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  What a wonderful view!

Sunday afternoon we visited the church museum right across the street from Temple Square.  Imagine having to travel in this instead of our nice comfortable cars.

This is a replica of the lower deck of a ship that pioneers came from England in.  Our family of 5 would have had to share ONE of those beds because there just wasn't room.  And I'm not talking about one whole bunk, but just one of the beds.  Depending on the size of your family you would either get 1 or 2 beds but that's it.

A model of the ship the early saints would travel on to come to America.

The death masks of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.

Gives you an idea how big the Angel Moroni is on top of each temple.

Did you catch us at the last General Conference?  hehe

This model is at one of the visitor's centers on Temple Square and shows you what the inside of the Salt Lake Temple looks like.  We did a Saturday morning session at the temple so we were in some of those rooms but I always wondered what else was in there.  So awesome to see now!

Here's a closer look.

And this was taken from the airplane on our flight home.  I never realized so many crop fields were shaped in circles.  Sure was neat to see.

Well, we didn't get pictures of everything we did.  Here's a quick run down of what I can remember.  Friday the 24th of June we arrived in Salt Lake, looked around at the Gateway Mall, visited the Planetarium, went to the Gateway theater and watched the new X-Men movie, ate at Tuscano's for the first time (a Brazilian restaurant), then back to the condo.  Saturday morning we went through a session at the Salt Lake Temple, ate lunch at the Lion House Pantry Restaurant, toured the Beehive house, toured the Conference Center, went back to the Gateway Mall, ate some delicious pizza at Sborro's, then back to the condo to do some swimming and hot tub on the roof (we were lucky no one else was up there because it was crowded the night before), and then watched one of our movies we brought.  Sunday we went to Sacrament meeting at the Joseph Smith building, came back and watched church programs on TV and napped, did some laundry, then out to see the church history museum.  We tried to surprise my aunt at the conference center who gives tours but they had left before we got there.  We then went to the visitor's centers on Temple Square, and then back to the condo again to pack up.  Monday morning we woke very early (4:50am) to do last minute clean up and get to the bus stop on time so that we wouldn't miss our flight home.  It was a great weekend and great trip!