Mini Family Vacation

This trip was looong overdue. Come to think of it, we haven't done a family trip in ages. I've gone north a few times in the last year, but it's always been without Leif. And besides the family reunion last summer, I really can't think of another family trip we've taken since we've lived in Utah.

Anyway, we had a lovely trip. We left Wednesday afternoon, swam at the hot springs, stopped at Walmart to get the pillow pets I promised the kids for the trip if they filled out their sticker charts, and ate at Sizzler in Provo before getting to Uncle Kent & Aunt Linda's house late. In case you didn't know, Sizzler is awesome. We feel like it's a highly overlooked establishment. We all ate for $25 and the food was fabulous. I ran 6 miles Thursday morning in the hills near the Provo temple, Leif & the kids played in Rock Canyon park for a few minutes, Kent & Linda made us yummy waffles, and we got ready to go for the day. We decided last minute to go to the Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy, and I'm so glad we did. The kids loved it, we loved it, and I'm sure the penguins were glad we came. They were my favorite exhibit by far.

From there, we headed through Parleys Canyon towards Heber City and decided to explore a little around Jordanelle lake because the kids were sleeping and we had some time to kill. We got to the Heber Valley Railroad station way too early and had 3 hours to burn through before our Thomas the train excursion. They had all kinds of activities: bubbles, sidewalk chalk, magician, Pied Piper of Percussion music show, tattoos, storytime/Thomas videos, mini golf, train tables, cotton candy, hay maze, Sir Topham Hat, balloons, and more. FINALLY it was our turn to board the super slow train--round-trip travel time was 25 minutes. Then we took pictures with Thomas and were off to Pizza Hut. We had another slow morning Friday before stopping in Spanish Fork to visit Uncle Dave who fed us lunch and took us out to shoot Leif's new pistol.

I drove home while Leif and the kids slept, and we stopped in Cedar for Leif to do some work before rolling in to Hurricane around 6 or 7 Friday night. I made some spaghetti, and Chet & Erin slept at our house so Leif and I could go run the Midnight 5k in St. George with Nicole & Callin. I was so tired! Which is probably why it was such a hard race for me, but I came out OK: 3rd overall female (just like last year!). I hate that I always beat myself up about my performance, but it was killing me that I knew I could have taken 1st. You can't win them all, or something lame. But we had fun, the four of us, and Bernan & Brittney came to support, so that was nice. For the record, I didn't like running on the old airport runway like I thought I would. Those are some long straight-aways! Especially in the dark.

Nice view of Meadow hot springs,  if you've never been there.

Or if you have, I guess.

Hi, Mom

Paige & Mel

Future diver. He calls those his "gobbles."

The long walk to/from the water.

Paige almost stepped on this guy and I screamed, even though it was "just a blow snake."

Stingray petting

Life's simple pleasures.

Matchy-matchy tattoos.

He thought this was great and proclaimed himself the winner repeatedly.

Meeting Sir Topham Hat

A red balloon sword. Can't beat that.

And a bear for the happy girl.

Chillin' with the conductor

Don't look at my homeless hair, just look at the rest of them. They all look adorable.

Love Paige's face.

Out the window shot: classic.

I need to practice. Badly.

She stepped in a huge cow pie, hence the nakedness.

We love Uncle Dave.

Pre-race

The fan club.

Post-race silliness.

It was late. We were silly.