This year we surprised our boys with a trip to Utah after Christmas. As crazy as it seems we had never been to Utah as a family and wanted to make sure that our boys were able to go up there while we are within driving distance. We left the morning of December 26th. The boys loved driving through the gorge (it's my favorite part of the drive) and then it started to snow as we got into Utah. We are lucky that it wasn't sticking to the roads. The drive was pretty uneventful and the boys were great--except for one bout of carsickness. Henry was sitting in the very back of the van and through up right as we got to St. George. We were able to stop, change his clothes, wipe up the mess and be on our way--after moving him back up to the front of the van.
We stopped for a quick lunch at Burger King in Fillmore.
We had a hotel for the night in Salt Lake City but before we checked in we made a stop at Grandma Fisher's house. It was fun to see her and visit with her for a little bit.
We loaded back up into the car and found our way to the hotel. The boys loved the Christmas decorations and watching the people ice skate on the rink right outside the hotel!
After bringing our stuff up we all bundled up to walk down to Temple Square. The boys were pretty convinced that they wouldn't need any hats or gloves. We insisted though--I'm pretty sure that the temperatures were in the teens! By the time we were down at temple square the boys were so cold partly because they couldn't resist picking up the snow to throw snowballs at each other!
We finally made it with our cold, hungry crew.
Because they were so cold it was easy to convince them to go take a nice warm tour of the conference center with our awesome tourguide--George--who is in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I think the boys enjoyed it despite the fact that they were
starving... which they reminded us of several times. I know they would have loved to walk out on top of the Conference Center but it was closed because of all the snow. Bummer.
There were
so many people walking around that night that we decided to skip seeing the Christus--there was a huge, long line. Instead we headed over to the City Creek Center for dinner. On our way in we saw some dancing waters
with fire. Pretty cool. We finally found the food court and ate dinner. By now we were completely turned around. We got a little lost on our way back to the hotel. We ended up at the wrong hotel but it gave us a chance to warm up by the fire and see the Gonzaga basketball team who was in town to play BYU the next day. We eventually found our way back to the
right hotel--but not without a lot of whining and accusing us of "trying to kill them." I think the little boys were the best sports. Everytime Henry slid on the ice he would exclaim, "I'm a good ice skater!" Luckily most of the time I was holding his hand so he never really fell too hard.
The next morning we decided to head back to Temple Square. It was much more pleasant in the daylight and without so many people! We were able to see the Christus and show the boys around the visitors center.
Next, we headed down to Provo. Not a ton of buildings were open but it was fun to show the boys around. Once again the boys insisted on playing in the snow even though we told them it would only make them colder! William found an awesome icicle.
And they made snow angels by Heritage.
These boys are
always hungry. So our first official stop was to the Wilk to buy lunch. (These are the BYU shirts that I made for them to open Christmas morning as a clue to our trip.)
Lydia isn't in any of the BYU pictures because she slept the entire time we were there... which is good because it was
so cold. But she was wearing her matching BYU shirt as well!
William really wanted to check out the library but it was closed for the holidays. Bummer. We'll have to go back when more things are open.
I wanted to see the new Joseph F. Smith building. It was also closed but the boys had a great time playing "king of the mountain" on the snow hill. Two of the boys slipped pretty hard on the ice! By that time everyone was ready to head back.
William was crying because he was so cold by the time we got back to the Creamery. Everyone managed to enjoy some delicious ice cream though(I got my favorite--Ernestly Chocolate--yum!)
By this time everyone was pretty worn out and we didn't want to end up driving on ice so we decided to forgo the Bean Museum this time (we'll save that and hiking the Y for next time). We did drive the boys past the MTC. They thought it was cool to see the missionaries walking across to the temple. We also drove them past Southridge so they could see where we lived all those years ago.
The drive home was pretty uneventful. The roads were good and some of the boys slept.
Even though there was a lot of whining about the cold and it was a super quick trip I think everyone had a good time! When I asked them, the boys declared that it was "worth it"... even
with all the cold.
