Utah Trip: Part III - Dinosaurs, playgrounds, arcade and aquarium

 

On Tuesday we met up with Melissa and the girls at the Odgen dinosaur museum. We'd come during June of 2020 when only the outdoor portion was open, so we checked out the indoor portion this time. There were some animatronic dinos at the beginning, and Melissa pointed out some rocks that look like food.

Here's Allison roaring like a dinosaur in front of the big fossils. It was only about 28 degrees up in that canyon, so we bundled up the kids as much as we could before heading outdoors

The playground had been closed in 2020, so we still played on it, in spite of it being completely covered in snow and ice.

Later in the afternoon we met up with mom and dad at a fun (but expensive) indoor play area. We all liked this giant pink slide!

I knew the kids wouldn't want to eat much while they were busy having fun, so we bought them a few snacks from the snack bar and mom stayed with them while dad and I went over to Costa Vida for lunch.

After eating I went into the structure and joined them.

The kids insisted I climb up this thing, which was VERY difficult, but I made it (and then said I wasn't doing it again). At least the giant slides were much more enjoyable.

Normally I think these rolling slides are super uncomfortable and have never understood why the kids like them, but this little vehicle you rode down on made it super fun.

The kids got a cat, mouse, and dog from one of those play until you win machines. Allison got the dog, and Tyler got the "Tom and Jerry" as he called them.

We finished up with me joining the kids on the motorbikes downstairs before heading back to Mike's for dinner.

The next morning Allison made Lego creations and both kids played some more on the snow slope.

Later that afternoon we returned for some bowling and 1/2 price arcade games. Unfortunately we could only get two of the hungry hungry hippos to work. The kids were hoping to do it with their cousins.

My kids definitely had a preference for carnival games at the arcade as opposed to the video games their cousins played.

They played on the moving car and did a little air hockey before they found this fun fishing game. Tyler hit a big jackpot and the mega jackpot and earned nearly 1,000 tickets on his very last game of the day!

Melissa had suggested meeting up at the Church history museum. I thought that was a little odd considering the ages of her girls, but she assured me there was a children's section they like going to. You have to walk through the main museum before making it to the children's area. My kids showed some interest in the interactive displays while hers, as I suspected, just wanted to go play.

And I can't blame them. It's like a mini children's museum but church themed. I loved Allison going up to the pulpit pretending to give a talk in General Conference.

Tyler really liked these temple puzzle blocks while Allison liked "the prophet said to plant a garden" display. They didn't want to leave and asked if they could come back again sometime. 

The next day it snowed again all morning, but in the afternoon we went down to Draper to go to the aquarium with Jinks cousins. We'd hoped to do the new virtual reality experience they have, but we hadn't realized it was outside and closes when the weather is bad. We'll have to try it again some other trip. If I'd known I would have done this on Tuesday, the only day we didn't get snow that week.

But we still had fun in the aquarium. Here they are doing coin rolling and rope bridge crossing.

And seeing some jellyfish and penguins.

We also found a play area we hadn't realized existed. I believe they were building it when we were here last time several years ago. 

We then saw a few more fish before heading out to get some lunch at Sam's Club then up north so Oscar and I could make our temple appointment at the Bountiful temple. 

With Friday came the return of even more snow. You can see the snow slope had started melting only to be fully covered again the next morning. We took a chill day playing games with granny and going to Grandma Flinders birthday party in the evening. Grandma Flinders is consoling Allison in these pictures because she's sad to be at a restaurant with food she doesn't like (it was a Mexican restaurant). We got to celebrate grandma and see a lot of extended Flinders family who hadn't realized we were in town. 

The next morning we watched the first session of General Conference while the kids played conference bingo with jellybeans. Allison didn't last long. 

After the 1st session we drove down to West Jordan. It was finally a nice enough day for Mike to teach us all how to play pickleball. After our game we went to mom and dad's house to watch the 2nd session of General Conference. Our family arrived before mom and dad, so I took Allison over to their apartment playground for a little play time. Once they got home we watched conference then went over to the Wild West Jordan park. They played for about an hour before we got dinner at the nearby Pizza Pie Cafe.

Unfortunately the fun zip lines were closed, but they still had fun on the slides and this playground elevator. 

The next morning we had some breakfast and enjoyed some cuteness of kids playing with grandpa before we left.

We took the Wyoming route this time, which is the quickest but also the most boring way. Fortunately it was safe to travel on the day we left. Throughout the week we saw several days that large parts of I-80 were closed, another reason we are unlikely to drive to Utah again at this time of year. It was below freezing and a little snowy through all of Wyoming then was over 70 degrees and sunny once we made it to northern Colorado. We stopped at a McDonald's for lunch but otherwise only stopped for an occasional bathroom break or to get gas. We recorded conference on xfinity and were able to listen to the first session during the drive and watch the final session at home. I find recording it and downloading it once you have good service is the most efficient way to do it. Much better than streaming.