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.