Park City Weekend - Day#1

We decided to spent Labor Day weekend up in Park City this year at the Marriott Mountainside Resort.  We've stayed at this place before and loved it.  We took off work early today (Friday) and picked up a rental car.  Jen's parents were flying into town tomorrow and we decided we wanted to have one vehicle that everyone could fit in for our Park City weekend adventure.  We scored a pretty good deal on a Ford Expedition rental...here it is!

We only live about 45 minutes from Park City.  Lucky for us the fall colors had already started to bloom so it was an even more beautiful drive.  We checked in and got settled in our 1 bedroom villa.  You can tell your kids like the new digs when they start doing things like this....yes, Logan is laying in between the couch cushions.

Time to start exploring the place...we spent a good chunk of time at the kids activity center.  Huge bean bag chairs, movies and video games going, lots of toys to play with...

They even had an ice cream making activity that we were able to participate.  Zach and Logan were able to 'shake' and 'make' their own ice cream!

Now what kid (and parent) doesn't like that?

Lagoon

Today we hit up Lagoon!  Our gracious neighbors invited us to go with them.  Herriman city employees received a half off discount from tickets today...so we were able to go as 'guests'.  Can't beat that!  Zach and Logan were super excited because they got to hang out all day with Haley and Sydney (our neighbor 'girls')!

Once we got through the gates and dropped our stuff off at the pavilion Zach was dying to go on the Bambora roller coaster.  He remembered that roller coaster from last year.

We had to hit up all the other kid favorite rides too...

The kid bumper cards I think were the biggest hit.  They rode on these for about a half an hour.  There was absolutely no waiting line...so the kids literally walked off and then walked immediately back on the ride!

Lagoon also has this HUGE Ferris wheel - we've never seen it work until this visit!  The kids did pretty good on this ride, none of them were frightened by the extreme height.

If they could survive the Ferris wheel, we knew they could handle the 'bucket' ride across the park!!

Once the sun started to disappear, we knew it was time to head home.  No naps for our kids today...and yes they were getting cranky!

I don't even think we really made it out of the Lagoon parking lot before our kids passed out in the back seat of the car!

Great day at Lagoon!!!  Thanks neighbors!

IM Flash Summer Beach Bash

Every time we drive on the freeway by Cowabunga Bay the kids always ask if they can go. We always say, "someday". This year instead of having an open house at work for families, they decided to rent out Cowabunga Bay....so we finally went to Cowabunga Bay!

We were quite impressed with the place.  There is a whole separate littler kids area, a beach style walk in pool that attaches to a lazy river...and of course the 'big' slides with lots of water guns, and dumping buckets to pour on people as they are going down the slides!

I think we will be back!

Road Trip - Day #6

HOME!!  Today we are driving HOME!!  We left Jackson, Wyoming and made our way through Logan, Utah.  We drove by the LDS temple.

We were getting a kick out of all the places with the name Logan in it...we had to take pictures :)

We stopped for lunch in Logan at Chick-a-fila and then headed straight home....it is nice to finally be home!

Road Trip - Day #5

Today our drive consisted of going from North Yellowstone to Jackson, Wyoming.  We planned on spending all the day driving through Yellowstone Park.  The kids were excited to see 'animals'.   Our first stop was at some falls....

We had been driving for about an hour and we saw our first 'animal'....it was a chipmunk eating his lunch!

 The whole park was pretty....definitely more green in the northern part of Yellowstone.

Then we happened to see a group of people all pointing in one direct and when we looked, we say a Momma bear with two baby cubs!  Our pictures only captured one of the cubs....but still pretty sweet!

 As we drove to the southern part of Yellowstone, the road followed the river so there were plenty of water falls to see along the way.  We were so scared the kids would fall over the side!

Then came the most awesome part of the day.  We were driving down the road and Jen said, "I think there was a buffalo we just passed taking a nap...either that or a very big log".  So we turned the car around to take a peek.  Sure enough it was a buffalo taking a nap!  We were probably 100 yards away from him....we felt pretty cool.  More cars saw what we were doing so they also stopped by the side of the road and got out and took a peek of our lone lounging buffalo.

Then as we continued down the road the cars were all stopped.  We couldn't figure out why, until this buffalo walked right NEXT to our car!  It was on Zach's side of the car.  We rolled down his window so he could see the buffalo - as it walked by Zach said, "He is a nice buffalo!"

This part of the road apparently was buffalo city...they were EVERYWHERE!

Buffalo also have to chase their kids around too!

We made our way to the 'stinky pots'...at least that is what the kids called them. They like seeing the dirty, bubbly water.

This one had a buffalo next to it, they apparently like taking naps near them!

On our way out of South Yellowstone through the Tetons we stopped to take a break near this part of the river.  The boys liked walking through all greenery...it was like a maze!

We stayed the night in Jackson.  Logan actually fell asleep again in the car right before we got to the hotel...but he ended up sleeping through out the entire night!  Wahoo!!!!!  Dustin and Zach made a late night run to the hotel pool :)

Road Trip - Day #4

Today's agenda was to drive from Great Falls, Montana to the entrance of North Yellowstone.  We decided to sleep in as long as the kids would let us.  Then we hit up the pool at the hotel.  Dustin had fond memories of this hotel while he was in high school - they would have all their proms here.  They have a huge indoor atrium and indoor pool.  Our hotel room had a sliding glass door that opened up right to the pool.  We had fun in the pool and hot tub until it was time to get ready to check out.

There were a few melt downs during the drive today.  Both kids were FIGHTING their naps.  We were only about 45 minutes from where our hotel was at and we stumbled upon this mining store.  So we stopped and decided to buy a bag of rocks to pan for some gems.  The kids actually enjoyed it more than we expected.  They liked being able to 'wash' the rocks and use tweezers.

Our haul was actually pretty good.  The store where we bought the bag of rocks went through our findings and categorized them.  We had about 20 carats of gems that were of no quality to make into jewelry and about 20 carats of gems that were pretty good!

After about an hour we hopped back into the car...and what happened when we were only 5 minutes from our hotel?  Both boys fell asleep.  Sigh....now what?

Well.....we just decided to start driving through parts of North Yellowstone!  We had about 2.5 hours before the sun was going to set.  Dustin and Jen were able to drive through most of Mammoth Hot Springs area and snap a few cool pictures before the kids woke up.

One of the first things we saw when we entered the park were some mountain goats!  The zoom lens on Jen's DSLR camera came in handy!

Then as we entered the Mammoth Hot Springs Visitor Center area there were tons of Elk just lounging on the grass between buildings.

A shot from the Mammoth Hot Springs lower area....

At this point the kids were both starting to wake up and were CRANKY!  We knew it was getting close to dinnertime...so we headed back to the visitors area.  We figured the kids could see the Elk (assuming they were still there) and we would get some dinner.  The Elk were still there and the kids thought it was super cool.

Jen saw this sign and was going to have the kids pose like wild tigers and take a picture....but before she could ask, the kids did this all on their own.  Yup, they were cranky, tired AND hungry!

Logan perked up immediately with a glass of cold water.  He loved that the cup had a bear on it....so he smiled for this picture.

Zach on the other hand was hard to please - period.  Yes, that was his face when his hot dog arrived.  He asked for a hot dog...but apparently didn't want to eat.

We trekked back to the North Yellowstone entrance and checked into our hotel.  We were staying at a hotel right on the river and had a nice front door view.  The kids thought the place was pretty cool...

We survived another day.