Staycation Day 2

Day I will say of all days started out a little rough.

Mostly due to the fact of a poor nights sleep the night before.

I don't know what it is but I do not sleep well in hotel rooms, the kids did fine, great even, no problems with any of them.  But Eric and I tossed and turned all night long....leaving both of us a bit oh grumpy the next morning and just a titch on edge with our very excited kids.

But as we discussed our plans for the day excitement creeped in and we found ourselves more and more enthusiastic for our day.

We decided to head down to Draper to visit the brand new aquarium we had both heard so much about.

The Living Planet Aquarium.

It was a pretty awesome place, so well done, and even though it was so so so busy because of course it's brand new and a Saturday but I still felt we were able to see and do all we wanted to for the day.

Here we are headed in to see the penguins (mine and Luke's personal favorites).

Yup they were cute.

And I loved watching Luke in settings like this.

He is our animal/nature loving boy.

He would get himself situated in a spot and just sit and stare for sometimes ten fifteen minutes.

By this point Lance and K were begging to move onto the next attraction and we would have to drag Loubird on out of there.

Bad picture but I am a sucker for any photo op!

This was fun....see Luke and Katelynn's heads in that bubble there.

You can go in this little tunnel and it seems like you are right there among the sea life.

Of course you had to be about 3 ft tall to be able to fit in there, but they loved it.

I also really like the rainforest setting.

Maybe it had something to do with all the awesome light everywhere making great photo taking opportunities.

This was a fun little bridge you could walk across....Lance and Luke had already crossed by this point but here is Eric and K making their way over.

Wish it wasn't blurry but she was delighted!

It was a great way to spend the morning and afternoon.

By about 3:00 after a good four hours spent there we called it a day and headed off into the next phase of the trip.

And honestly we needed this impromptu moment in a park to regroup ourselves after a fun but chaotic and very crowded morning.

A park trip was the answer.

Of course that was until K stepped in mud and then fell covering her pants.

Caroline puked sweet potatoes and then I ran out of diapers....so yeah failed park trip.

We yelled to the kids to come on so we could go find a nearby store for Zout to clean the pants, diapers for the babe and donuts for our nerves:)

And headed back to the hotel again to change and get ready for dinner.

Oh and Princess play time of course.

I tell you what some of our best hours were spent in the hotel room.

After that we walked on over to gateway which was directly behind our hotel.

We window shopped a bit more and made our way over to California Pizza kitchen for dinner.

The kids were such little angels for this night and we had just a glimpse of what it will be like as they get older and less crazy when going out in public.

Good night.

And back to the hotel for our nightly swim.

Heaven, these kids were in heaven.

Caroline and I would watch for about 45 minutes or so and then we would head back to the room, get her in the tub and ready for bed right in time for the troops to return and head to the showers.

Family movie night was how we ended night 2.

Sigh.....it was such a fun trip.

And we still had one more full day of fun!

Staycation Day 1

I feel like we have a really really good summer.

We filled it with so many good things, Eric's Korea trip, me and the kids to Island Park, loads of swim days, Lagoon, baseball, swim lessons, park dates, Cherry Hill, Wicked, county fairs, cousin dates but what we were lacking was good family time with all six of us together just us.  We didn't really want to go out of town this year to any exciting destination but there was so many cool places we have been wanting to visit in our own home state of Utah.

Staycation was the perfect little get away to round out a really great summer!

So on a Thursday morning we packed up our little family for a weekend trip to Salt Lake City.  We booked two nights in the Hyatt in downtown Salt Lake and filled three full days to the brim with some really fun family activities.

 I think it was truly the highlight of our summer.

Now that's not to say it was relaxing or that we didn't get on each other's nerves, there was moments of grumpy children and grumpy parents.  But looking back at these picture I smile from ear to ear cause it was just so good to be with these five that I love so much,  and have fun together.

We intended to leave our house after an early lunch that Thursday morning.  It's about an hour and a half drive from our home to SLC.  The kids were so excited at the prospect of staying in a hotel with a swimming pool and ice buckets.  It was so cute to hear them chatting away the whole time saying "I am so happy we are going on our "trip".  Eric and I would smile at each other every time we would hear them talking excitedly to each other.

After a mandatory stop while passing through Bountiful at Swig.  A few sugar cookies and dirty diet cokes later we arrived at our hotel.  So glad this day we didn't plan much because wow those kids had a grand old time playing around the hotel room for a good few hours.  We love the Hyatt Place because it comes with two queen beds and a pullout bed.  We put the boys in the pullout, K in a queen and Eric and I in a queen next to the window with Squish in her pack and play.  Perfect and it will be really perfect when our two little ladies can share a bed just like their brothers.

There is the pull out bed/couch the boys claimed as theirs!

Lots of lots of time was spent exploring the hotel room.

We finally convinced them there was fun to be had elsewhere and we had better head on our way for the rest of our adventures.

We headed to City Creek to do some shopping.

But first always a stop at the fountains.  Now of course the kids were not a fan of shopping but they were willing to be good participants because they were promised a trip to the Disney Store afterwards.

Not before Elsa the Ice Queen did her magic of course!

Sometime in there we ended up at the food court which is a win win for everybody.

Kids had Chic-Fil-A.

Eric and I had mexican, The Red Iguana.

Such a happy camper she was, so content to be along for the joy ride.

Miss K and the mannequins sharing a dance together in Gap.

And this would be after the much anticipated Disney Store trip and yes they are all carrying bags, such suckers we are for those kids.

Eric's brother has a new very very expensive men's clothing store just outside of City Creek.

So we stopped by to see the new place.....

And Eric tried talking me into an $800.00 jacket.

To which I told the professor to think again.

Back on the rack it went.

Afterwards we did something I have always wanted to do but never really have done.

Wander around the streets of SLC.

I know that sounds crazy, but there is so much to see, and so much beauty to take in.

And we really had nowhere to be....so we wandered.....and it was glorious.

We stopped for ice cream somewhere along the way and ended up within shouting distance of the Salt Lake temple.

At golden hour.......

Finally the kids started in with their whining, apparently they were not enjoying being wanderlust quite like their dad and I were.  They had big plans for the hotel pool.....and a movie night in bed.

That rounded out Day 1, Day 2 was even better......

Ten on Ten: August 2014

Ten photos taken over ten hours on the tenth of the month.......

Bath time.

Time for the Sabbath.

Oh my heart.

This is what I like to call "are we there yet?"

He was happy:)

Everything tastes better on a grill and outside.

You can feel it in the air summer time winding down.

Golden hour.

And this is what I like to call payback.

You won't smile for me, I will post silly pictures of you.

Sunday on the tenth is always an extra blessing.

It was a lovely day.