Heber City

For our final day in Utah we stayed close to my Parents home in Heber City. Right after lunch we headed to the Aquatic center for some swimming. My cousin Lisa and kids joined us for the Day. The kids all had a blast swimming and it was so nice that it was indoors. Nathan would have stayed there all day and really didn't want to leave even when everyone else had had enough. He spent almost all of his time in the deep lap pool swimming and learning to dive. I am sure he would love swim team but I just have a hard time committing to a summer sport when most of our weekends are filled up already. I wish they would run it from August to Sept when school was back in and are weekends were more open.
This Aquatic center had a great splash area and shallow pool for the younger kids. Everyone really had fun with cousins, swimming splashing, being mermaids, and diving.

 I am so glad that Lisa and her kids came to swim with us. One of the best parts about my parents moving to Utah is that I get to see family more often then I have over the past few years.
                                                      

the next morning we got up early, loaded up the car and started the 12hr drive home. The boys all did surprisingly well. We made plenty of stops, adding about 4hrs to our travel time. But we only had one melt down by Brady at dinnertime, because he didn't like the options. But he finally decided a sandwich was ok, and everyone else was happy to take a longer break and sit down for some pizza and arcade games.

We had such a great trip to Utah and as years allow we think we will make this a  regular part of our summers.

Timpanogos Caves

A couple weeks before we headed to Utah, Nathan asked if we could do that hike to the caves that his cousins Aidan and Liam had done. My mom was able to reserve us a hike time for Wednesday morning. We first made a stop to drop Colin off with Cameo and Jeremy and pick up Logan. I knew that the hike would be too much for Colin and I really didn't want to carry him the whole way. The boys had a great time on the hike. Which wasn't so bad because most of the way up was in the shade. We made it in plenty of time for our scheduled tour of the Caves. The Caves were much more amazing then I remembered them as a child. Our tour guide/ranger was just awesome and really made the whole tour about the kids discovering the wonders of the cave. The kids asked lots of questions and he took all the time they wanted in each area. It was pretty amazing. After the tour we had to make our way down the trail back to the parking lot. In some ways going down was easier and harder all at the same time. It was definitely hotter by then and the downward slope was hard on my knees but the kids breezed down no problem.
After the Cave we stopped for lunch at my favorite Utah place, Zupas. Then we went to Provo to visit my Grandma.We had a great visit. The kids asked if we could take her out to dinner at their new favorite place to eat, Chuckorama. The boys just love being able to go pick whatever they want to eat. Colin must have been hungry because he ate 3 plates worth of Watermelon and 2 slices of pizza!
It was a fun filled exhausting day!

                                                                Starting up the trail.

                                                              Water breaks.

   Touching a piece of stone like found inside the cave. There is no touching inside the cave because the oils from our skins change the stone. So this one gives the kids a chance to see what the stones from inside would feel like.

                                                  The Heart of Timpanogos.

                                             Ranger Mac with Nathan, Logan, and Brady.

Museum of Ancient Life

Tuesday we went to Thanksgiving Point and went to the Museum of Ancient Life. This activity was requested by Nathan because he currently is into dinosaurs and even talks about being a Paleontologist. We were lucky enough to be joined by my friend  Kristy from College and her kids and my SIL with her kids. The kids all had a great time checking out all the exhibits. Well all of them except Colin who was pretty much petrified of the giant dinosaur bones the entire time. He didn't warm up to the idea until the very end when everyone was digging in the fossil pits.

After the the museum we ate lunch and then headed over to my cousin Lisa's home. They were scheduled for irrigation and the kids had a great time cooling off in the water. It reminded me of when I was Nathan's age and also played in the irrigation water at the same house during the summers we visited Utah.