Family Vacation Day 4- Fourth of July Festivities at Grandma's

The Fourth of July at Grandma's house!

It always means redneck tubing, a cookout, and of course fireworks!

The kids had a lot of fun until Peter got spilled out on the black top! 

We called it quits after that!

What Andrew looked like after tubing!

We stopped in Blackfoot and let the kids buy fireworks! 

They had a lot of fun shooting them off and seeing everything go boom!

Julia wore this dress last year and it went all the way down to her feet! I think she grew this year!

My mom made these yummy treats!

The perfect way to end a vacation!

With a BANG!!

Family Vacation Day 4- Soda Springs

Soda Springs

Home of the Man-Made Geyser!

I can remember coming here as a child and my mom making me taste the soda water! It was disgusting! But I remember it! This lasted longer then Old Faithful and was almost as cool!

I would have thought it would be hot to walk on but I guess it wasn't! The kids had a blast running all over it!

We then drove over to Hooper Springs where there was once a world famous bathing pools. People would come and soak in the water and be healed from their cares. We bottled some of it and tried to have the kids taste it! The boys wouldn't but Anthony, Julia, and I did. It had a metallic taste but it still fizzed like I remember it. 

This is what Julia thought of the water!

(If you can't tell, she is spitting the water out!)

We then loaded up one more time for the last leg of our trip!

Family Vacation Day 3- Dinosaur National Monument

On the third day of our vacation (July 3) we drove for what seemed like forever to Vernal, Utah to the Dinosaur National Monument.  We drove through tons of little towns that were surrounded by oil dykes. It was another hot day, hence all the red faces. 

Here's what part of the monument. You could see the bones really close up! 

Even get to touch some of them! The kids thought that was pretty awesome! I thought it was  really cool too! The kids got bored pretty fast since there wasn't a lot of activities to do besides touch the bones. 

Some of the scenery outside the building

They had a tram that would take you from the vistors center to the monument. We had to sit and wait our turn. It was intersting to hear all the different languages around us. Never would have thought of Utah as international stop! 

On the tram

Outside the Visitor center

We then hit the road again. 

We drove through Flaming Gorge, in a rainstorm, I might add, to get to Evanston, WY where we planned on spending the night.  On the way, we passed some giant windmills and almost got in an accident when a truck had lost a tire but they hadn't cleared the lane yet. We  felt very blessed as we ate pizza that night and swam in the pool!

Family Vacation Day 2-Heber Girls Camp

We got up early and traveled to Heber the next morning where the rest of Anthony's family was camping out. This year for the family reunion they decided to go to the Heber Family Girls Camp. We missed the first day  but made it there just after breakfast. We all had lunch and then went to the obstacle coarse and learned about working together. 

This activity we had to swing every member of the family across the without their feet touching. The kids were easy and I will have to say that I have no upper body strength and after 3 attempts, a blessing happened. Turtles appeared that let me walk across their backs! I was so embarrassed! 

We then went on to the next activity where we had to build a board bridge. It was lots harder! 

Then it was our turn for the zipline! Peter and Anthony were the only brave ones! 

The sandpit were all the kids played while they waited for our turn to be over on the zipline. 

We then went back and had dinner and then played games and talked. We opted to stay in a hotel in Heber that night.  We got there really late and most of our kids were asleep before we got there. It's hard to carry in kids and bags! 

Family Vacation-2013 -Day 1- The Great Salt Lake

This year for our family vacation we decided that it would be fun to go see the Great Salt Lake and let the kids wade in it and experience it all. It was something that I could remember doing with my parents when I was little and wanted them to have that same experience.  We left the house around 8 or 9. 

Antelope Island

 This is what Matthew thought of Antelope Island! The sulfur smell was strong!  We got to the beach and saw that it was going to be about a quarter of mile hike to the water. The thermometer read around 100 but we figured we had come all that way and had paid the entrance fee for the park that we were going to make a break for it. We changed the kids clothes because we didn't want theirs getting ruined and Anthony changed and we started our trek. The sand burned our feet as we walked down the hill of sand and across the beach. Families with kids were coming back up and the kids were all crying. The closer we got to the water the more brine files there were. Peter and Andrew were going crazy and running around screaming and crying because the files were sticking to them. We finally got everyone in the water where the files weren't so thick and we all had fun splashing and catching shrimp until the salt from the water starting hurting our legs. We had little scratches from other summer adventures and the salt was getting in it.  We started back up the hill and everyone was crying because of the flies. And then we reached the hill and the sand began burning our feet! By the time we got to the van, everyone was miserable and crying! Awesome start to our family vacation!

We them decided to go to Temple Square. We wondered around and saw the Christ statue and looked at the gardens and the replica of the temple in the visitor center. 

Matthew had to go to the bathroom so we entertained ourselves. 

We were able to go up close to the temple, which I have never done either. A nice senior missionary took our family photo. 

We then walked over to City Creek and got some dinner at the Mcdonalds and let the kids play in this awesome playground. 

We then went back to our hotel and did some swimming in our hotel.