Utah Trip Part 3

Week 3 started out with dropping James off with my little sister and catching a movie. We saw Edge of Tomorrow. Definitely one you should see. After the movie, we met up with 3 of my friends for lunch and enjoyed their company for a bit.

The 13th we did the church thing and stuff.

James pulled out daddy's old hot wheels tracks.

Monday the 14th, we headed up the Salt Lake to spend a few days. We had a nice lunch at the Blue Lemon. Tracy went up to the UGS to do some work while James and I hung around city creek. James and a ton of fun in all the fountains. Once Tracy was done we checked into our hotel and cooked up dinner. Got to love hotels with kitchens! 

James and the fountains. (Sorry bad lighting.)

Tuesday, Tracy had work to do at the Natural History Museum of Utah. James and I got the privilege of going into the collections and through the museum at no cost. We spent the morning enjoying the museum. We had lunch at The Pi. Love their pizza. Tracy went back to the museum and James and I went back to the hotel to relax. That night after dinner we walked down to Trax and rode over to Gateway. I was hoping James would play in the fountain there, but he only wanted to watch.

Carrie the collections manager showed James some Stegosaurus plates and bones.
She also showed him Allosaur claws and teeth. He got to hold one of the teeth.

His favorite thing out of the whole museum this time was the ants.
We had to check them out a couple of times.

He did love the dino dig.

And the water with the plastic bugs.

Here he's showing me the teeth on those skulls.

Riding Trax.

Wednesday, Tracy did more work at the museum till about 2. While he was gone James requested to ride the train again. So we walked down to the station and got on Trax. We ended up at the Planetarium for a bit. Then went back to the hotel for lunch and picked up Tracy from the museum. Fed him lunch. We had plans with a friend, but they had something come up. We just chilled in the hotel till after dinner, when we took a walk through Temple Square and City Creek. My little brother works that the Nordstrom at City Creek and I convinced him to come over to our hotel after he got off work for some leftover pizza and ice cream. It was nice to visit with him and that he helped us eat our food. 

Watching the trains.

James wanted to play in the splash pad.

Tracy got some really great pictures of James, so sorry for a James overload.

Thursday we checked out of our hotel and spent the rest of the morning at the zoo. We loved going there when we lived in Salt Lake, so it brought back fun memories. We also enjoyed all the recent additions. They have Lions now. Totally awesome! While we were at the tiger, he was in the water when suddenly he tried to attack a guy. It was crazy. Good thing for strong glass. The guy thought maybe the tiger didn't like his sunglasses. We watched the bird show too. James thought having the birds fly over your head was great.

That evening Tracy and I left James with his grandparents and attended a session at the Manti temple. We love that temple and it was great to visit where we were married. Such a great evening.

Friday was our original departure date, but a change of plans made it so we stayed till Sunday. Saturday we left James with grandparents again and went to a movie. This time we saw Godzilla. Then met James, grandparents and Tracy's brother at Brick Oven for dinner. Tracy's parents were soaking up as much family all togetherness as they could while we were in Utah. So of course they would treat us all to dinner one last time.

Sunday we attended part of church, packed up our stuff and headed to St. George for the night.

Monday we drove the rest of the way home. I'd like to say it was with out any incidents, but we did witness a truck carrying explosives fly off the freeway because his front tire blow just outside of Las Vegas.. It was a bit scary. However no one was hurt and the driver walked away. The rest of the trip went smoothly. We arrived home in the early evening. It is so nice to be home. 3 weeks away is a long time.

Utah Trip Part 2

The second week of our trip was much more exciting and adventurous than our first week.

This week started out with heading up to American Fork to spend a little time with some of my family. Since we were up that way we decided to also go to a Bees game which also had the added bonus of fireworks after the game. First spent some time at my mom's before the game, though no one was home. We drove up to Sandy and caught the Trax train to the ball park. The game was a lot of fun. The Bees even won! And the fireworks were awesome. James thought they were scary and hid under his blanket the whole time. Good thing he had his blankie. (Did I mention before we left his precious blanket and had to have it shipped to us? Glad we had left a key with someone to check on our apartment and get our mail.)

James loved riding Trax.

Love the view of the mountains from the ballpark.

Sunday the 6th we attended church with my mom.Then visited my oldest sister and her family and finalized plans for Moab later that week. We then headed back to Nephi (Tracy's parents' house; our home base for the time spent in Utah).

Monday, we hung around home base. Tracy embarked on a task that is still left unfinished. Putting together one of his old Lego sets. Now the Legos at his mom's house were separated by colors in bins, so this task became challenging and took over his parents dinning room table. But it was fun for my boys to work on Legos. James sure had a blast.

Tuesday afternoon, we headed off to Moab for a few days. Tracy's cousin and his family met us there. We did some grocery shopping and enjoyed a delicious steak dinner.

Wednesday morning we took the two jeeps out on a trail called Fins 'N Things. It was a little scary at time for me, but after it was over it was actually lots of fun. James said he loved driving on the big rocks. Then we returned to our house rental for lunch and to wait the arrival of my sister and her family. Once they arrived we took them on a short Jeep trail called the Little Lions Back. It was pretty fun now that I was use to it. My sister was really scared and James hated the heights of the lions back. We also went and played in the Green River for the rest of the afternoon. At one point there became a diving contest. Then we had dinner and just about all of us got hook a show called Treehouse Builders.

Fins n' Things Pictures and videos:

We got mostly video of Tracy's cousin's Jeep on our camera and he took video of our Jeep on his.

Here a just a few of the ones from our camera:

These last two we left our marks.

Then this one is of the Little Lions Back.

 Fun in the River:

The start of the diving contest. 

Pay attention to the end when the other guy there shows them up in the back ground.

Thursday we packed up the cars and headed out on a dirt road, Kane Springs Rd. The overlooks we stopped at provided some great views. One of them were of Dead Horse Point. Afterwards we stopped at a park for some lunch. Then my sister and her family had to start heading back home. We with Tracy's cousin stopped in at the Arches Visitor Center. They then started on home and we drove around the park. James fell asleep and because of it being too hot for him to hike we just did a car tour. I at least got to see some of the sights of the park for the first time. Next time we'll have to for sure do some hikes. We also went back into Moab and walked around downtown and had dinner. Then headed back to Nephi.

At the first over look stop. There was a cliff so we each had a kid.

Tracy likes to take pictures of our jeep.

This was at the second overlook.
I believe that is Dead Horse point in the background.

The boys all started collecting rocks.

And our jeep.

Cute James.

The sign at the overlook stop.

Tracy's cousin and family.

Petroglyphs.

Arches Pictures:

The awesome double arch.

Delicate Arch.

I'm holding delicate arch.

The secret dirt road to see the arch with out having to walk to the view points. :)

We always have to get a picture at the signs.
James was sleeping in the car, so he missed out.

Friday we hung around Nephi and recovered from our Moab trip.

Stay tuned for Part 3.

Utah Trip Part 1

This is the first post of several about our Utah trip. Going to try to stay as on top of posting the events as possible. So far we've been having lots of fun.

Week 1, Part 1:

We left Riverside Friday June 27th. We would have gone straight from Davis to Utah but we had to return to Riverside for Tracy to do Jury duty, which he ended up not having to go in at all the whole week. So the day we left, we all piled into the car, pets and all and headed out. The plan was to get to St. George by 3. We ended up hitting traffic in the middle of nowhere Nevada between Las Vegas and Mesquite. Our car started to overheat, so we had to pull off the freeway to a gas station to cool down. Several others were also pulling off to refuel themselves and their cars. Our poor kitties were over heating too. Eventually we did arrive in St. George. I think around 6 or 7. Met up with Tracy's parents who now have a trailer there and had dinner at their new motor home lot. We left the cats with Tracy's parents and  we spent the night at Tracy's cousin's condo. The following day we drove the rest of the way to Nephi.

James and Grandpa watching TV at the Condo.

Sunday the 29th we did the normal Sunday stuff: went to church, had a nice family dinner, ect.

Monday Tracy and his cousin left to go do some field work in the Circle Cliffs. I dropped Tracy off that morning at his cousin's. Afterwards James and I enjoyed a lunch date at Wendy's then a shopping trip to Walmart. One the way back to Nephi we stopped by my sister Melissa's house to see her newest addition. James had fun playing with his cousin for a few hours. That evening we did some errands with Grandma and then played outside till bedtime.

Sporting his new sunglasses he got while we ran errands.

Tuesday (the 1st of July), James and I tried to find some form of entertainment which ended up in the form of sliding around in the upstairs hall of Grandparent's house and driving (flinging) cars across the floor and more time outside.

He didn't quite figure out how to slide, but had enjoyed it when I pulled him around.

Playing with cars.

He really loves the creek that runs behind grandma's
and grandpa's yard and the waterwheel.

Wednesday James and I went up to Lehi where we had a playdate with a couple of my friends from high school. They each have a boy James's age. It was a ton of fun watching the three boys play and to catch up with old friends. We didn't get any pictures. :( After our playdate James and I visited my little sister, Kellie and got to meet her newest addition. Then met up with my in-laws at their rental in Provo. It happens to be the same house Tracy grew up in and the one we lived in when we were first married.

James in front of Daddy's childhood house.

Thursday, Tracy returned and that was about the most exciting thing that happened that day.

Friday, Independence Day, we did the Tracy's family tradition of hanging out at the Nephi City part for the Independence Day celebration. James wasn't interested in any of the fun kid stuff, so I had to find other ways to entertain him. Good thing I had his back pack full of cars. There were also some performances that he enjoyed watching.
After the morning/afternoon at the park, Tracy started going through some boxes that his parents had in their shed. It was fun to see all the things he had prior to his mission. James inherited some of his old toys. He's pretty excited to play with all his new things.

Playing with cars.

Watching the performers.

"New" old cars.