Spring Vacation!

We took our kids for their first trip to Utah. Ethan got Baptized the first week of March and I thought it would be so fun to take him to Temple Square, and many of the other great things there are to do in SLC. So we figured out how to make it work ($ wise) and went for it. My wonderful Aunt and Uncle put up with us! We also got to visit one of my great friends and Larry's Brother Lance while we were out there. I will post a few of our outings so you can see some of the fun we had! Thank goodness for TV's and head phones!!! I don't know how our parents handled 14 hour car rides..... oh wait it is all coming back to me. "DO YOU WANT ME TO PULL THIS CAR OVER!" Luckily we didn't have any complaining or much fighting in the car. If there was an argument it was over which movie to put in but even those were very short lived! They really traveled well. This is our boys in Heaven! They are both in love with Dinosaurs. Brock a little more then Ethan. Brock eats, sleeps, and breathes dinos! This museum was a must. We all really liked it! I was amazed at how many there were! It was really cool.

I just loved this picture of Larry feeding Amelia to the Utahraptor! He did it to the rest of the kids she just made the best face!

I think this may be showing us Brock's future! He was in heaven in the dino dig! He had so much fun there he could have spent the rest of the day! I can imagine him on a real dino dig some day!

Right next to the Dino Museum there was Farm Country. Which was heaven for the girls. Hayden loved all the animals! She would squeal and get so excited each time she saw an animal. Amelia loved the pony rides and would have stayed there all week. But we got her a tiny stuffed pony at the gift shop that she quickly named Chocolate chip. They didn't part the rest of the week. (She even woke me crying in the night one night because she couldn't find her, she was only in the sheets!)We went to This is the Place. It was so cute when we were walking around the pioneer village Brock said, "Mom this is cool! I thought it was going to be boring!" I was glad that we went even though they weren't open for activities! But we could still look around at everything!

We took the kids to walk around the temple. While we walked around we ran into some friends that use to live in our ward here in Monmouth that now live in my parents ward in Prineville! How crazy is that! It had snowed that morning! It ended up being really beautiful that afternoon! But we were all in awe of the beauty of the temple! I never stop being amazed at the sacrifice made to build this beautiful House of the Lord! I also got to go inside this temple for the first time on this trip and could hardly believe the beauty inside! And I walked where Jesus walked that day!This was one of the highlights for Ethan. He was so excited to see the big organ! He really wanted to get closer but they were getting everything ready for YW conference so we couldn't get very close. He still thought it was pretty amazing!

I was looking forward to this part with my kids. I knew they would love to see the statue of Christ. The walk up to it they were so quiet and kept saying were going in to Heaven. It was so sweet!

We saw this statue of Joseph Smith just before we went to see the movie about him. I wasn't sure how much of the movie the kids would get but it definitely left a mark on our boys! I know that even thought they are 8 and 6 (almost) they felt the spirit and could see what an amazing man Joseph Smith was. They had lots to say about it, and lots of questions. But it opened it up for us to explain a lot and they came away with more knowledge then I thought they would.

When in SLC you gotta take a picture here! I think it is required! We watched a bride and groom go first and while we were waiting we bumped into a Sister from our ward who is serving a mission there in the Church office building! What a small world it really is!

We had a great time and traveled well. I am so glad that we went and I know the kids are too!