We flew to Utah for a summer vacation. This was our "hot" ride for the week....
We visited the
Oquirrh Mountain Temple and went to the Open House. For some reason I can't find my pictures from our visit. It was beautiful and a really great experience for all of us, especially Jacob and Kelley. It's amazing to stand there and be able to see 4 Temples (well, the SLC Temple's there somewhere between those buildings downtown!) at the same time!
On Thursday, we went to Park City to spend the day. The kids got all day passes to ride the zip line and go down the slides. The weather was perfect up there. I love the Utah mountains! No pictures, not sure where they are...The day ended by a guy (and all his family and friends and all of us gawking at them) proposing to his girlfriend. Cute, and she said Yes!!
The next day, we went to Lagoon. Always a fun place to go...They have the fastest carousel I've ever seen before, therefore the blurry picture. I took several pictures and believe it or not this is the best one! The look on Nixon's face tells it all...not really too thrilled about the whole situation...it was so fast it was a little scary for him. Good thing he had a seat belt on!
Jacob and Kelley wanted to fly.....
This ride gives a new meaning to "Wicked". First, you shoot (at a high speed) out of a tunnel. Next, you go straight up, then, as science tells us, what goes up must go STRAIGHT down...and then the roller coaster goes on and on....BTW "single rider" is the way to go on this ride!
What teenagers do for their nephews!
The day ended with some time spent in "Lagoon A Beach" (those clever Utahn's!) No pictures. There was already too much visual pollution going on...
Saturday was the Snow family reunion. There was alot of talking, story telling, reminiscing, and catching-up going on....
Activities for all ages....
An Eagle project....
Activities for the Teenagers....(can't talk about it!)
Entertainment by some wonderfully talented cousins!
Cleaning corn for dinner. Gotta love fresh, Utah corn...yummy! Dinner was great too!
All in celebration of the Rulon & Marion Snow Family!
We took off the next day to Yellowstone! It's beautiful, but not quite the same as Kreston & I remembered from our childhood. Remember when the bears would come right up to your car and beg for food or in Kreston's case, eat lemondrops off your car? That doesn't happen anymore. We didn't see any bears. We did see some Elk, an Eagle, a Bison (really close up but my picture is bad...) and a herd of Bison way off in the distance. We did see some amazing scenery....
Hot pots....
Old Faithful....
Waterfalls.....
Since we didn't get the "bear experience" at Yellowstone we spent the day here.... (thanks Sherwood & Lori for telling us about it....)
It's a compound where they have different animals wandering around. You drive your car ("slowly & with the windows up at all times") through the area and view the animals.
We saw...
Mountain sheep, Bison, Elk and this very rare White Elk (no it's NOT albino...it's a rarity of nature).
A Moose (Rumpelstiltskin) "Stilts" for short. He was huge. I tried to get him to turn toward me and asked Kreston to kinda prod him to move but instead of moving toward me he moved toward Kreston....I guess you had to be there but it was hilarious....
One of the Bison....
Yeah! BEARS!!!! I have so many pictures....there were Grizzly, Black, & Brown Bears. They were just wandering around, sleeping, "chasing us", & posing (all in my collection of pictures but won't post them here). We actually decided to "feed the bears". You ride around the compound in this truck with tall sides and throw out the food for the Elk and the Bears. The Bears enjoyed stale bread, twinkies, and jelly donuts (I guess Yogi & BooBoo really did like Peanut butter & Jelly sandwiches in those picnic baskets...can't even tell you how many times we heard Kreston's imitation of Yogi...do kids even know who they are anymore?...or care!) Sorry but the Bears were really cute....
Standing up on the side of the truck....
Sitting up (when you threw the food at them they'd catch it in their mouth...talented too!)
Here we are in the truck at the end of our journey....
The whole time we were in Utah, Jacob kept saying he wanted to go to one of our favorite restaurants in Utah. We never made it to Provo where it is located. BUT thanks to two iphones we found out that they have a new location in Salt Lake City. So, on our way to the airport we stopped in for lunch....
If you've never experienced a Brazilian Grill before...there's an amazing salad bar including soups, hot entrees, Brazilian treats (bread balls & deep fried bananas), and on and on. The staff brings the various cuts of meat (& grilled pineapple...our family's fav) on long swords to your table. They cut off part of the meat and you use your tongs to take it and put it on your plate. There's a small dowel that is painted red on one end (signalling you're finished) yellow in the middle (telling them you're resting for the moment) and green on the other end (meaning bring it on!). You place the dowel in the position you want during the course of the meal.
Nixon enjoyed himself but got a little mixed up on the use of the utensils...he used the tongs to eat...
And cracked this guy up! One of our cute servers...
And Jacob with a clean plate? what's up with that? Must have been one of his many "clean" plates.
I have to admit we all enjoyed it!!! Thanks Jacob for your persistence in getting to Tucanos (and for your iphone).
Some happy travellers waiting for their "ride" and cheesing it up for the camera! A fun vacation for all! Thanks Kreston for the itinerary!
I finished the Halloween quilt we made in our Quilt Group last month! I sort of took some liberties with the original pattern (see an amazing example here)and made up my own. I used my machine to "blanket stitch" around the legs and shoes. After a few tries with the lettering I traded the lettering to something bigger (thanks steph!). With the help of some tools (reading glasses, large-eyed needles, and some pliers to help pull the pearl cotton through) I stitched the letters using the "blanket stitch" by hand. I decided to quilt it by machine and the idea came to me to quilt a spider web for the background (you might have to look at the picture closer). I'm really quite happy with the way it turned out! Can't wait to display it with my other Halloween decorations!
