Utah Trip: Thanksgiving 2018 - Part II

Last time we were in Utah we took the kids to play at High Jump, an inflatable bounce house in West Jordan. As we were arriving at 10am I found out a Zumba class was just finishing up. You pay $6 for the class and your kids can play for free while you workout! This trip I wanted to make sure to take advantage of it. I got a great workout in while mom and dad watched the kids and Oscar went for a run outside. The instructor gave us an extra long workout since the usual Thursday class was cancelled for Thanksgiving, so Oscar took some pics and video with Tyler while they waited for me to finish up.

Afterwards mom and dad stayed with the kids while Oscar and I went to the Jordan River temple. When we came back the kids played outside before we met up with my friends Pam and Rebecca at Leatherby's. Oscar took the kids shopping and back home while Rebecca and I saw the movie "Crimes of Grindlewald."

Our travel passport with our local children's museum used to get us free admission into all areas of Thanksgiving Point, but now it's only valid at the Museum of Curiosity. We found that out on Monday when we tried to take the kids to the Museum of Ancient life so Allison could see some skeleton dinosaurs (she's going through a huge dinosaur phase right now). We can still go as guests with mom and dad's grandparent pass, so we went to the museum of curiosity that day and waited until Wednesday when we could go to the other venues with the Jinks kids on their day off school. Mom needed to prep for Thanksgiving, but dad tagged along.

Allison LOVED this starbridge tunnel. She ran laps around it at least 20 times.

She was also very excited to see skeleton dinosaurs. She still talks about it one month later. She has a toy dinosaur skeleton which she keeps telling us is "for the museum."

There was a neat play area with toy dinosaurs, water, and sand. All of the kids spent a good chunk of time here. It was lovely seeing all 5 cousins so thoroughly entertained burying dinosaurs in the sand and building dams and ravines.

There was a high area that little kids like Allison can climb up into so they can reach the sand and dinosaurs more easily. They made the entrance small enough that big kids can't get into it. It was even a little tight for Tyler. He didn't care much for it, though, since he wanted to stay by Ethan.

Eventually we dragged them away and saw the rest of the museum. The girl cousins looked super cute sitting on a dinosaur.

We finished up by digging for dinosaur bones before walking over to Farm Country.

Museum members all get free pony rides at Farm Country up until they're 13 years old. Allison was in heaven!

Ty enjoyed it too, but he was concerned that the extra pony would be sad he didn't have a rider.

After that we all went on a hay ride.

And we finished up by feeding the animals with the 3 quarters I had in my wallet. Next time I'll make sure to get more bags of feed because all the kids really enjoyed it. Tyler especially liked when a goat licked up the food off his hands.

Utah Trip: Thanksgiving 2018 - Part I

For the first time in 12 years we made it back to Utah to celebrate Thanksgiving with our families. We usually plan our Utah trips when the weather is warmer and there's unlikely to be ice on the roads, but now that we've got a child in public school we have to do our best to vacation around school breaks. Tyler's school district takes the entire week of Thanksgiving off for parent teacher conferences during those first three days of the week. Tyler's teacher was okay with scheduling his conference after we returned, so as soon as Tyler was out of school on Friday we hopped in the car and started our long drive.

Fortunately we only had to make it to Richland, WA that night where we stayed with some friends (who conveniently had a panda pillow pet for Allison just like the one she sleeps on at home!). Along the way we stopped for dinner at a Burger King in Yakima. The play area has really big steps meant for 4 years and up, but Allison figured out how to climb them by using the net.

Unfortunately Tyler was sick the next morning. He went to bed far too late and woke up very congested and miserable. We let him have a hot shower to help his sinuses, which he enjoyed so much we had to drag him away after nearly an hour. We didn't start the rest of our drive until after 10am, which was much later than we'd originally planned on.

Tyler napped at the start of the drive but was still hot and miserable when he woke up. We stopped in Baker City, OR to give him a break from the drive and to pick up some medicine. We tried to go to Sumpter Junction for lunch, but since the wait was long we let the kids watch their fun train set before taking them to a Mexican restaurant. Allison actually ate a decent amount of the Mexican rice! It's the first time I've ever seen her eat any rice besides plain white.

We thought we'd need to stop and play in Boise, but the kids were doing reasonably well with their Kindles and we were already running pretty late, so we kept on going. Kindles and headphones make roadtripping after dark much easier! We did need to get dinner, though, so we stopped at an A&W on the Utah/Idaho border before finishing off the drive to grandma and grandpa Hunt's house in Layton. We got in around 10pm and Tyler enjoyed some snuggles with grandpa before completely zonking out. It was in the mid 20's when we got out of the car, which is a temperature we hadn't experienced in a LONG time!

Tyler was feeling much better in the morning, so we went to church with the Hunts before heading out to Mike's house in West Jordan. Tyler played video games with his cousins while Allison napped on her rainbow bed. She woke up energized and ready to play so I dragged Ethan and Tyler away from their games and told them to go play outside.

They played until nearly dark! It was cold but sunny, so they came in and out a lot.

We went back up to Layton that evening and played with some more cousins in the morning before heading out to the Museum of Curiosity at Thanksgiving point. Oscar followed around Tyler while I went with Allison. She wore me out!

After the kids were good and worn out we took them back to Mike's house and picked up a pizza. Allison fell asleep on the drive, but she woke up when we arrived and said she wanted pizza. She took barely a bite in two minutes then slumped over and fell off the chair onto the floor. Clearly she was more tired than hungry, which you wouldn't have known from her screaming when I suggested she get a nap before eating lunch.

After finding out we were going to travel to Utah during November, I wanted to find out if there would be any Christmas lights available while we were there. I was delighted to see that Luminaria at the Ashton Gardens had it's opening night the Monday before Thanksgiving. Rebecca and I drove down to see it and met up with Rachael for dinner afterwards. It was gorgeous!

The rest of the family went to see "The Grinch," which was my kids' first movie in a theater ever. Allison did better than I expected thanks to vast amounts of popcorn.

At the beginning of Luminaria we were greeted by a lovely lightshow.

We were blown away! It was well worh the cost.

Flora made of lights and fauna made of plants!

We could see a reindeer made of lights in the distant but didn't realize how huge it was until we got much closer. You can see from the real reindeer that it's about 4 times bigger.

Allison would have loved this carousel of lights, but she would have been sad that she couldn't climb on it.

There's a gorgeous nativity at the bottom of the hill near where the main Luminaria tree sits.

Next we toured the Light of the World Garden. I was able to see it in the daytime last April, but it was totally new for Rebecca. She was absolutely captivated!

I was thrilled to find the First Vision this time! Somehow we missed it on our first tour and could only see it from a distance.

Rachael was already at the restaurant waiting for us, so we went up the other side of the hill as quick as we could. During the year this is a pretty man-made waterfall. It was neat how they turned it into a waterfall of lights with reindeer.