Summer Trip to Utah!

We went to Utah for Claire's birthday at the end of June, and stayed through the 4th of July! We had so much fun and did so many things I'm having a hard time trying to decide which picutes not to put in the blog. We went to quite a few parks, a waterslide, Hoogle Zoo, This Is The Place Pioneer Park, Temple Square, The Planetarium, a hike up Big Cottonwood Canyon, a tour of the Sweet's Candy shop, we rode on trax, went and saw the movies WALLE, and Get Smart, ate out at some great restraunts, went shoping, and of course spent tonz of time just hanging out with family. Here are some of the pictures I narrowed it down to.

We went on a hike up Big Cottonwood Canyon at the Brighton ski resort with my family. It was a really easy hike with a boardwalk almost the entire way around the lake. It was perfect for little kids, and it was so beautiful! I love the Utah mountains! I miss them. Here is Claire, Will and Shawn starting out the hike.

Grandpa Smith (my dad) and Will hiking together!

Slip and Sliding at Grandma Houston's home. Shawn's mom bought a Slip and Slide for the kids to play on, and they loved it! This is Cassie sliding, and Will and David excited to be splashed!

Thanks to Trisha, the girls were able to have a sleepover with matching pj's! Trisha made these cute night gowns for Liddy, Cassie, and Claire. Claire was so excited to sleep over at her cousins home! I think she would've stayed at their home for a few days without missing us. Thank you Trish for letting Claire stay over even in the midst of selling your home! I think this was one of Claire's highlights!

Will's highlight was anything to do with water. We went to Liberty Park with Shawn's family one afternoon, and they had a spray park there that Will LOVED, if you can't tell by the pictures! He was soaked the minute we got there.


Claire, Will and Shawn at Hogle Zoo!

Shawn, Will, Uncle Eric (my brother) and Claire on a hike!
We went on a Trax ride (mass transit in Utah) with my family to downtown Salt Lake. Claire and Will loved it! They were so excited to be riding a train! What a great way to get around too! It was so fast. I haden't ridden on it for a few years, but I was impressed again. I wish they would get something like it here in Washington. Maybe one day years in the future.
While we were downtown we stopped at the Planetarium and the kids got to pretend they were on the moon and mars. I love the planetarium because everything is free unless you see a movie, but they have so much to do there you don't even need to see an IMAX movie, although I'm sure they are good too.

We went on a Sweets Candy tour with Shawn's mom. It was so much fun even though we had to wear those funny hair nets. It was really interesting to see how the candy is made. Shawn kept having these really difficult engineer questions for our poor tour guide. It was a really cool tour, and it was completely free. We got samples along the way and a bag of taffy at the end. The kids even loved it (who wouldn't with candy being passed out). After the tour we of course raided thier gift shop and bought way too much candy!

Our trip to downtown Salt Lake. Claire loved seeing the Temple were mommy and daddy were married.

I was surprised that we could walk on the stairs of the temple. The last time I walked on the temple stairs was the day Shawn and I got married. It was fun to walk down them again 8 years later with two kids!

The boys! Will, Gavin, David at West Jordan Park.
Will going down a slide at Classic Waterpark!

Cousins at Classic Waterpark! Will loved the kiddie slides and pool even with the silly tube they made him wear, and Claire surprised us and loved the big fast slides! I think it helped to have Cassie and Liddy there. She went down with me a few times and Shawn a few times and Cassie a few times and then she tried to go down by herself once, but lost her mat on the way down and ended up coming down backwards. She said she wasn't scared, but didn't want to try it by herself anymore, so she went with us the rest of the time, but she was so brave and had so much fun going down the slides. She didn't want to stop.

This is a picture of the kids at Pioneer Park pretending to be pioneers. We went here with my family, and it was so much fun with so much to do. We could've spent an entire day here. They have a whole village set up with different crafts, and activities. In this picture the kids got to pretend to do laundry the way the pioneers did. They are ironing, and it looks like they are doing a good job! Maybe I'll put them to work at home! Other things we did at Pioneer park: horse rides (Claire loved of course - Will wasn't sure about his horse), we made arrowhead necklaces, saw Brigham Youngs home, went on a train ride, and went on a wagon ride!