I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking the kids to scout camp. I want there to be a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.
~Marjorie Pay Hinckley~

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Salt Lake Vacation Day 1

We did a mini vacation this year to Salt Lake and surrounding areas. We actually bought the Salt Lake Connect Pass, which was such a great value. Almost everything we did the first three days was included in the connect pass. We spent $175 to get the passes for our entire family, but had we done each of the attractions separately, it would have cost us around $335. So it was worth it.

Our first stop was the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point. We have been there a few times before, but my kids absolutely love it. I lave how museums are so hands on these days. Kids learn so much by doing! If you know my Kaden at all, you know he is a Dinosaur fanatic, so he had a blast. But all the kids really liked it. Brennen and Tyson's favorite part had to be the erosion pools, which is basically a big sandbox with water. They could have stayed there all day. I had to laugh at Brennen because there were some Teenagers playing in the water and trying to dam it up and make it overflow, so the little kids didn't have very much dirt. Brennen kept knocking their dams over so he could play with the dirt.

We went to Chuck E Cheese for lunch. This unfortunately was not included in the connect pass. We take our kids there once a year and that is all we can tolerate. But the kids love it. They all loved meeting Chuck E, especially the younger boys. And Tyson hit the ticket jackpot, winning as many tickets as the other three kids put together, so he got to get even more junky toys than everyone else. Oh well, it's the experience I guess.

After lunch we went to the aquarium in Sandy. It is actually a nice little aquarium, but my kids are used to the aquariums on the coast, which are much bigger, so I think they were a little disappointed. But it was a nice little place. I dared Kaden to touch a ray at the touch pools and told him I would give him a quarter. He was so funny, he touched it for like a millisecond, but he did touch it. Brennen and Tyson just tried to catch all the fish, and girlie Aubree wouldn't even go near to the touch pool, especially after a ray splashed everyone.
Tuesday night my kids slept over at Aunt Shannon's while Bruce and I went to the American Idol concert (I'll post about that later). Aunt Shannon is the funnest Aunt! She took them to a splash park in Herriman and they had so much fun! Then she ordered them pizza for dinner. We are so grateful to have great family to help us out!

1 comment:

  1. That is a really awesome museum! Sooo much better than the ones I grew up with.

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