Days 11-14

Day 11: Last day in Utah!!
Was a whirlwind of activities. One of my favorite of the whole trip involves this little guy:Eli Michael Nelson arrived to this family around the 4th of July. He's a miracle baby who came via an angel of a courageous girl named Katie who was so smart to choose my favorite mission companion Keralyn (and her awesome husband and mission buddy Mike) to be the parents of her baby!

I am over the moon at this eternal family. They are going to be such great parents and I am so thankful that our trip to Utah coincided with his birth and them getting him so that I could take this photo:

And this one too:I just get teary eyed every time I think of it.

In Provo we hit up the BYU bookstore and the obligagatory stop at In & Out Hamburgers (hey I AM a California Girl and while they're building one near me--FINALLY--I had to get me a double double).
Then we made a scenic drive to Denver where we stayed a couple days with our friends Jon and Monica Torpy. It was great to break up the drive home AND to see these friends who used to live in Plano and Allen. For some reason I didn't get my camera out much when we were there. We just hung out, ate some amazing food, and enjoyed some down time. We enjoyed watching Star Trek in their cool media room (and we're pondering our own media room now--thanks Jon for the great ideas!!)

We then long hauled it home from Denver to Allen in one day--a long 13+ hours in the car but we were determined to make it home.

We had a great trip, we survived it and our kids did great! I've wanted a vacation like this for years and am so glad to know we can road trip and not only survive but THRIVE!!

Day 10: Discovery Gateway Children's Museum

(Check out Lindz!!)

Now, I've been to a few Children's museums. Not a lot, but maybe like 5? THIS ONE is hands down the BEST I've ever seen or heard of. It was an out of the park home run! Seriously! We LOVED IT! Here is how much:
And then later that night, I had the supreme opportunity to attend a get together with my mission president and his wife and a handful of missionaries from the great TEXAS HOUSTON MISSION. Not many people were there that I knew, but I got to see President & Sister Mayfield and that was enough for me! (and so was Hna Tiffany Randall Brown)
PS: And a super big thank you to my friends the Christensen's who volunteered to babysit so that Stephen could come with me--probably not his first choice of a date night with his hot wife but a date nonetheless!

Days 9: Temple Square

I'd been anticipating this stop for a bit for obvious reasons. Temple Square is our church's headquarters and has numerous historic monuments and museums with regards to our religion. All this year the children's magazine subscription, The Friend each month has highlighted a different attraction on temple square that can be seen through a child's eyes. I saved all those articles and on our road trip I reviewed them with each of them and we talked about the things we'd see.

WARNING: LOTS OF PICTURESUs in the tabernacle, the famous venue where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings, those pipes behind us are famous!!Us on top of the Conference Center with the Salt Lake Temple in the background.Sam sitting in a chair in the Conference Center.
Kaitlyn sitting in a fancy chair in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.
Lindseyas "Mary" in the Museum of Church History and Art in a children's area.

We also hit the distribution center and Stephen and I hooked ourselves up with new scriptures, and each child chose a picture of Jesus I've since framed for them to put in their room and we got some desperately needed church movies (a Sunday morning must!) And we also went to the Beehive House, the Assembly Hall, both Visitor Centers....

The day was long, the kids were tired. We'd really been asking a lot of them but I felt the spirit of the place and was glad to show my kids where conference happens, where President Monson has his office, etc.

On the way back to our friends' house (wonderful, and amazing eternal friends Jill & Dave Christensen who only originally agreed to 2 nights of the 3 ring circus we bring with us, and who ended up letting us stay 4 nights or something CRAZY like that) we decided to try some famous burrito place called Cafe Rio that I see a lot of my friends rave about on facebook.

I have to be honest, dinner time was rough because baby Matthew was always DONE and didn't make things easy on me. I didn't realize that these burritos needed to be eaten with a knife and fork and were messy to eat, my kids didn't care too much for the quesadillas which were really greasy, I just had a steak burrito and not the prize winning pulled pork. I wasn't that impressed and I'll take my freebird burrito any day over a Cafe Rio one. Just sayin.

Day 8: This is the Place Heritage Park

This was a charming "all day long" activity for our family as well! This park marks the spot where over 160 years ago, Brigham Young arrived in the Salt Lake Valley with Mormon pioneers and recognized it from a vision, declaring "this is the right place, move on." Signaling the arrival to the place where Latter-day Saints could now build a new city and worship free of persecution.

The park has evolved into a pioneer village where you can experience a taste of what life was like back then. And thanks to a cousin who volunteers there, she let me know that Wednesdays are dollar days! SCORE for us on a way cheap day!!

Our first activity of the day was decorating flour sacks.A train type trolley would take us to various parts of the village (one of my MTC companions, Hermana Katie Young lives in the area and came along with us for the morning--she looks fabulous and it was fun to have her meet my family!!)The indian village where we went inside a tee-pee (I never realized how spacious those things can be!! a lot bigger than you'd think)And a very cute activity of panning for gold in the stream. When you found the gold you could take it to the "bank" and trade it in for some candy. Stephen was a super dad and patiently found 3 tiny pieces of fools gold so that each kid could have some candy--WAY TO GO DAD!!Then a train ride around a pond.

A really cool memory for Kaitlyn was visiting this blacksmith's shop. She asked the men a question and for her bravery in asking that question, this kind gentleman took a piece of iron and pounded it into a pretty leaf for her--it's been a cherished treasure ever since. It was amazing to watch the process and so neat for my kids to see it in action--I think Stephen was REALLY impressed by it as well!Lindsey's favorite thing of the day was riding this pony.

And a SUPER COOL thing was this printing press. This very patient man allowed the children to try out the printing press, inking the tablet, pressing the levers and then carefully carrying the wet sheets over to hang and dry! AMAZING!

All in all a wonderful day! Full of things my kids remember and now they have so many things to think about when we talk about our pioneer heritage!

Day 7: The Museum of Natural History at Thanksgiving Point

So our first day "on our own" so to speak took us to this fabulous museum. I knew that Utah had quite a bit of "dinosaur" fun because there have been fossils found in the area. We were going to head to the museum at the University of Utah but on my cousin's recommendation we chose THIS PLACE instead and we're sure glad we did!!We spent ALL DAY there--a total plus since we were staying with friends and didn't want to become unwelcome guests, but I was skeptical that just a museum would hold our attention for that long--this place really did keep us interested all day. Here are some highlights:This was the "create your own dinosaur" with different head, tail and leg options for your dinosaur and this was what we came up with.This was one of my favorite things: the SAND and WATER table! My kids could have spent ALL day here playing in the sand, building dams and mountains and hiding plastic dinosaurs and then finding them.
This was a cute photo-op.We were lucky to be there when the museum was celebrating it's 10th anniversary so we got our faces painted:
There were so many other cool things too, a fossil dig where the kids pretended to be archeologists, a scale to see what kind of dinosaur you were closest to weighing like, plus all the skeletons of the dinosaurs. This place was a hit!

Day 6

PHOTO OF THE DAY!! to see why, read on!

This morning we checked out of the lodge (thankful we'd "paid" to have someone else clean it and do the laundry--thanks Gpa!) and spent the day with the Don Lewis family.

Aaron had heard about the Alpine Slide, a large slide where you have to ride to the top of a mountain on a ski lift and then ride a toboggan type thing down to the bottom. He wanted to do this with his kids. I thought, "sure we'll go along and watch but there is NO WAY were going to get our kids on something like this." Kaitlyn is a bright girl, but new things are overwhelming for her and she tends to shy away from them. And unfortunately because she's the oldest, the others follow her cues. Lindsey (wild woman) would LOVE something like this but I was afraid she'd be too little.

But I didn't voice these concerns out loud I thought I'd give my kids the benefit of seeing it and making their own assessments.So we get there and we take the kids to see the actual slide. THANK GOODNESS for my sis-in-law Summer--she's the BEST!!--Kaitlyn really feels safe with her but not so safe that she'll freak out. Summer was able to explain to her how everything worked and even agreed to go with her and take things at a pace that was good for her. Once Kaitlyn was on board, Sam was in and thankfully we learned that Lindz could go too! AWESOME!!

So tickets were purchased and the crew climbed aboard the ski lift. Again I thought this would cause some concern but it didn't (Lindz a bit once she realized she was going up high and was away from Mom (who stayed down with Matthew) and Dad (who was on the other chair lift with Summer, Kaitlyn & Sam).

On the way down you can control how fast or slow you go (I didn't realize that at first) and I guess Kaitlyn just kept wanting to go faster and faster! I was SHOCKED!! And THRILLED! Kaitlyn needs experiences that push her outside her box, and this was WAY outside that box! Way to go KP!!

Here are Sam & DadAnd Grandpa with Lindsey.

After this, we grabbed a bite to eat and then headed to Bridal Veil Falls. Our thought was that the kids could wade in the water and cool off. We unfortunately were not the only ones with this idea.....So the water fun was okay, the water was cold and my kids had a hard time "warming" up to the idea. But Stephen had other ideas, he wanted to climb up the falls--and he took his kids with him. At first I glance up and see him starting to climb with Sam. I thought, "Oh what a good father-son activity to do--Sam will LOVE that." But then they kept climbing, and climbing and every time I looked they were higher and higher and I was getting NERVOUS. But eventually they stopped (way after I would have liked them to) and came down.
THEN, Kaitlyn still in "out of her box" mode wanted to have her turn to climb so she did it too!

After Bridal Veil Falls we headed to my Dad's favorite place on earth--BYU PROVO campus. I wanted BYU T-shirts for me and my kids, but know what? It was a "holiday" for the 4th and the Bookstore was closed! BOOOOOOO
BUT, we did take a shot of the "Lewis" kids, Me (with my little bundle), my "little brothers" Ben & Aaron. (my sister, Pearl wasn't able to make the trip and we missed her!)

Utah Vacation 2010 Part 1

For those of you who don't know, we just accomplished something GREAT! We survived a 2 week vacation with our kids, driving 22-24 hours each way From Dallas, Texas to Salt Lake City, Utah--and what's more, so did our kids!!
My grandfather Lewis turned 90 on July 5th and for the past few years a reunion celebrating this event has been in the works!! It had been 16 years or so since this many of the Glenn Lewis family gathered (counting babies there were probably 100 of us) and we really had a good time. And since we're not really Utah people and unlike many of our Allen, Texas church friends we DON'T run off to Utah each summer, AND since we were going to make the effort to DRIVE, we were going to make a vacation out of it and see some of the things Utah has to offer. So for the next few posts, I'll be bringing you up to speed on our trip.

Days 1-3 of the trip:
Were really a lot of driving. I'd prepared for the worst and had amassed quite the arsenal of activities for the kids in the car. Sure we had a portable DVD player but I didn't want my kids brains turning to mush so we mixed it up with music, Books on CD, I read "James and the Giant Peach" to them, we colored, etc. We were prepared for the worst, but they amazingly did really great in the car!The first day we left about noon and drove to the New Mexico-Colorado border. And stayed in a REALLY GROSS Super 8 Motel (everything else was full!!) thankfully our stay there was brief. The next day we drove from there to Moab and spent the late afternoon in ARCHES NATIONAL PARK! It was a really cool place!!These rock formations were amazing! All the layers of rock and the way that nature has created these "tunnels" as Lindsey called them!!We spent the next morning in the Park as well driving around and went on a small hike to see this famous arch (it's in the background)Then we got back in the car and drove the rest of the way to Heber City, UT where my grandfather had rented a lodge (a massive house on a couple acres) that would be the gathering point for the weekend reunion. It was a great house that slept 22 on beds alone and was just perfect for our group to meet!!People started arriving on Friday evening but it wasn't until Saturday that the festivities began! Growing up there was a group of us girl cousins that were pretty close. We all lived close enough to each other that we did the church dance circuit hitting a different one each weekend--what good times! It's fun that we're all now grown up and married and many of us have our own kids. Man how 16 years can change things!

Day 5 of the Trip:
Sunday was the official birthday party. We had a church like meeting as a family in the morning and then the special dinner and presentations. We all had done acts of service to total 90 and my cousin bound them in a book to give. And my dad painstakingly made a family tree representing everyone in the family as they were at the time of this reunion (he'd done one probably 25 years ago and it needed a bit of updating=))

All in all the reunion was a blast, my grandfather had the BEST DAYS!! And it was so good to be with him!!

Now for some photos!!The traditional treasure hunt! When I was little my grandfather always led us on treasure hunts. So my Dad did one for the new generation!!Watching fireworks in the front of the house with Grandma and Grandpa Lewis. My cousin's husbands had bought some "illegal" fireworks in Wyoming and were putting on quite the show until the Fire Marshall pulled up and told us to tone it down. But thankfully he didn't take our contraband!! One of the coolest things about this trip was watching my kids interact with my brother Aaron's kids (Grant and Sam are 6 weeks apart and Gracie and Lindz are 4 months apartThis is my dad and the man of honor just before the church meeting. It was so neat for my kids to meet their Great Grandfather--they kept asking me when they'd get to meet him and it was so great. Grandpa has his wits about him still and he knew who I was and that I had a slew of kids and he was so kind to meet them all! And to encourage me on my role as a mom!The 4 babies! In age order nonetheless! oldest is about 10 days older than Matthew, the next about a month behind Matthew and then the youngest was only about a week old--she came early and we didn't even think she'd be born at the time of the reunion but she must have heard there was going to be a party and she didn't want to miss it!! (Notice how one of these babies looks like he's from Texas? We just grow them big here--my aunt says I must produce straight cream!!)And finally, a family photo!! We try and take one 2 times a year, at the 4th of July and at Christmas, this is the best one of the group....there's only so much you can expect with a family of little ones!! Enjoy! (and stay tuned for part 2)