Thanksgiving Point and Salt Lake City

We met our friends the Ericksen's at Thanksgiving Point one afternoon.  It was pretty crowded but we still had fun.  I didn't get many pictures from the visit though.

We spent a lot of time doing art in this room.

Finally a group picture of everyone.  It was a really fun visit.

Then we went for ice cream!  What could be better?

The next day we went to the Salt Lake Cemetery to see my grandma's headstone.  This is the headstone for my great Grandma.  Her middle name was Claire!

The kids with another relative.  She was a pioneer that crossed the plains.

My Grandma's headstone.

There are three generations in this picture: my mom, me, and my kids (plus two of Natalie's)

The kids with President Hinckley's headstone.

Grant by President Grant!

After lunch we went to Liberty Park and the Tracy Aviary.  We saw a bird show and they get you to donate to the Aviary by letting you come up to give the birds the money.

This bird was so proud to show everyone his capture.  He was walking back and forth across his cage with the mouse.

Liberty Park has this great area outside with water and small rivers that the kids just loved.  We could have stayed much longer, but it started to thunder and rain.

Andrew and Danny rode in a paddle boat on the lake.

And finally, it was time to go home.  We were sad to leave, but we had a great time!

I took this picture of the mountains with the salt flats in front as we drove out of town.  I love the reflection of the mountains in the water.

Big Cottonwood Canyon

Breakfast on the patio with cousins!

On Sunday after church we decided to head up Big Cottonwood Canyon.  We ended up stopping at Solitude ski resort to see if we could find a treat.  We found an ice cream shop and the resort was mostly empty.  However, they did have quite the set up for Frisbee golf.  You could take the chair lift up and then play gold on the way down.  We didn't play, but we watched some people play and took some pictures of the beautiful scenery.

Those are the different hotels/resorts you can stay at.  I'm sure it is busier in the winter.

We were almost at the end of the road so we decided to see what else was up the canyon.  The road ends at Brighton ski resort and Silver Lake.  It turned out to be a beautiful place with really easy flat hiking trails.  We walked around the lake, but I wish we had time to do more. 

I love this picture because of the amazing reflection in the water and the kids are actually all smiling!

Part of the trail was on board walks and part was a dirt path.  It was a great hike.

This was the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

4th of July (bike ride and fireworks part 2)

On the actual forth of July the kids wanted to do another bike ride, and since Pete was off work he joined us.  We had a caravan of 4 cars with bikes stuffed into every corner to get us to the hills.  We were one adult bike short so I decided to walk up. It was quite the show getting everyone arranged and situated on bikes and with helmets.  This area was about 15 minutes from Natalie's house.

And they're off.  Natalie has a bike for Mateo in her backpack because he can't ride up the hill, but likes to ride down.

After a short ride, they had to cross a small stream, so everyone was walking across.

Getting momentum again was a challenge but soon they were all headed up hill.

Then Mackenzie decided it was too hard, so Erik put her on his back and I pushed her bike up the rest of the way.  I don't know how he did this.

The trail and some wildflowers.

Finally to the top!

Group photo.

Family photos, not sure why Grant is mad in ours.

The ride up was hard for the small kids, but they loved flying down the mountain on the way down.  They totally beat me down the hill and I was running.  I didn't realize quite how dirty I was until after I took of my shoes and socks.

We had a great BBQ dinner and then waited for the fireworks on the front porch. 

More sparklers.

The kids loved seeing and doing the fireworks.  This just might be a great tradition.