The Rogers Family Does Utah Part 5

On Tuesday the weather was at it's worst, Claire's cold was at it's worst, and we were ready to go home. It was our last full day in Utah and it rained most of the day, leaving snow-capped mountains by Wednesday morning.
We got everything packed away, Nathanael and I made our trip to the dinosaur museum, and then we said goodbye to our little yellow house in Provo. I had scheduled a couple of tours for us up in the SL area. Our first one was Mrs. Cavanaugh's Chocolates. The tour wasn't much of a tour. We watched a couple of boring videos and listened to a boring guide, who didn't want Claire to have a chocolate caramel because she might make a mess. But, we got a couple samples and then bought a ridiculous amount of candy. There wasn't much being made that day except for some nut clusters being made by hand by a little old lady. And apparently they don't have to wear gloves. Sorry, that's gross.

Claire was pretty much over vacationing, but we had another stop to make. Next we headed to Great Harvest Bread Company for a free tour. It was awesome. The girl was so sweet and made the tour so fun for the kids. I think the thing they remember most from what she taught them about baking bread is that the bread rises because of yeast farts. The boys got to roll dough into whatever shapes they wanted, they got to see how they are baked, and they got to take them home after they were baked. They were also shown all the equipment and ingredients used at the store. And finally, we each got a giant cookie and a fresh loaf of their bread.

We stayed the night with the Andersons, giving the boys their first sleepover. Sam, Nathanael, and Jack all slept on the floor in their front room. It was very late when they finally went to bed. I questioned whether they would ever fall asleep! 

Our trip back home the next morning was pretty nightmarish. It started off well; the flight from SLC to Pheonix (I think) wasn't full, so Claire got her own seat. It was all downhill from there. We had a layover in Pheonix and were then to stop in Chicago where we would not be changing planes. It was naptime when we got on the plane in Pheonix and Claire was having a hard time settled down to go to sleep. We had given her benadryl hoping it would help her feel better since she was sick and help her sleep. What we think it did instead was make her overly tired without assisting in going to sleep. For what felt like an eternity, but was probably half an hour, she writhed around on my shoulder and lap, screaming and crying before finally giving in to sleep. The one saving grace was that she had nearly completely lost her voice from her cold, so at least it was somewhat muted. Then, because of bad weather we couldn't land in Chicago and then we ran too low on fuel, resulting in our flight being redirected to Indianapolis to refuel. At some point Claire had another writhing, screaming, crying episode that lasted about the same amount of time as the first. And we finally made it back to our home at nearly 3 AM. 

 This little girl had never been happier to be back home.

The Rogers Family Does Utah Part 4

On Father's Day it was downright chilly and we were headed to Park City. We have a lot of really great memories, from our days living in Utah, of spending weekends in Park City with some really great friends whose family had a condo there. We had gone there, this day, to ride the Alpine Slide and the Alpine Coaster. Sam was just barely too tall to ride the Alpine Slide as a passenger. He and I rode the lift up together and then went down the slide at the same time, right beside each other. I had been down for quite some time before he finally appeared on the track. He was not impressed with how slowly his cart moved.

The Alpine Coaster was pretty awesome. You get to ride the little car all the way from the bottom to the top, then all of a sudden it turns a bend and you start racing back down. There is a lever on the car to control the speed and it is suggested that you go at top speed, which is what we did. We all enjoyed it very much. Except Claire who, although she did her very best sitting in her stroller all day waiting in line to do nothing, had grown quite tired of her situation. Plus she had come down with a very nasty cold. 

On the way back to Provo, we took Guardsman Pass. It was pretty incredible and we even made a little stop so that the boys could get out and touch some snow. 

Monday we drove up to SLC to meander around Temple Square. I think we were all running out of steam, so we only roamed aimlessly about, but Nathanael did show particular interest in some of the videos in the visitors' center. Then we took Donna out to lunch for her birthday. 

The Rogers Family Does Utah Part 3

A lot of our time was spent just hanging out at BYU. We made several visits to the bookstore, perusing all the Mormony stuff that can be bought there. Sam bought a couple of books that I tried to convince him to just check out at the library back home, both of which he finished reading before we ever left Utah. Nathanael bought candy and a BYU Pez dispenser. Paul and I managed to put down 2 pounds of fudge from the bookstore and had to restrict ourselves from buying one more pound.

On Friday and Saturday, Sam had basketball camp at BYU for a few hours in the morning. We trucked up there as a family to hang out while Sam learned absolutely nothing new or beneficial about the game. Two years ago when we vacationed in Utah and included a sports camp for Sam in our itinerary, Paul took Nathanael to run around the track in the Smith Fieldhouse and bought him ice cream from a vending machine. That is Nathanael's best and most-noted memory from that vacation. So, he was looking forward to doing that again and planned on using his own money for the vending machines. He is such a sweet big brother (sometimes) and is so good about sharing things with her.

Friday night Paul took the boys to the planetarium show while Claire and I just sat outside and soaked up the beauty. Oh, how my heart longs to live there when I'm surrounded by those beautiful mountains! However, I did not love how my hair felt the whole time we were there! Ugh, I hate me in a picture when my hair is in a ponytail! Whether the water was too soft to properly wash my hair or some other factor that I do not know, my hair was so staticky and dirty-feeling that I had to wear a pony every day. I'm a big fan of a ponytail, but not when I'm trying to be in a picture.

On our last day in Utah, just before heading up to SLC, Nathanael decided we needed to go through the Museum of Paleontology on campus. I think he wanted to check on the sloth's hand. Sam wasn't interested in going, so Nathanael and I headed up there to make the quickest run through a museum in the history of museum visits. I couldn't even get him to pose with any skeletons for a picture. But he was plenty happy to take one of me. We did verify that all is well with the sloth.

 
Now to resume the chronological summary.... On Friday, between camp and the planetarium, we had our first successful adventure in geocaching. This was not something we had tried before and we had made our first attempt while in Payson Canyon on Thursday. Let's just say things didn't go so well. We used our phones as a compass, perhaps mistake #1. This particular cache seemed, as best we could tell, to be located in a field full of thigh-high grass/weeds, perhaps mistake #2. I had on shorts and flip-flops, mistake #3. But I was determined. So, the boys and I set off into the field, while Paul, who thought better of the idea, stayed in the van with Claire. He tried to dissuade me by suggesting I was going to be covered in chigger bites, but seeing that I would not be deterred, suggested it was probably under a far off tree. I, believing he is correct in all things, set off for the tree. After getting half-way to the tree, dodging all sizes of cow pies and beginning to get nervous about what could be lurking in the brush, I decided we should turn back. We were trudging back to the van at a pretty good pace, I was warning the boys to follow my path, when all of a sudden I nearly stepped right on a snake, with my flip-flops. To say I was in a pretty rotten mood for a while after that would be putting it nicely.
But on Friday we found a couple of caches right in Provo and the boys thought it was pretty cool. Sam was particularly tickled by a sticker that he found inside one of them. It was a very hot day, which I prefer to the cold weather that followed for the rest of our time on vacation. But the geocache we were hunting in Rock Canyon required a short hike and we were dying for water when we were finished!

Saturday we drove up to Syracuse to visit friends, the Andersons. They have 4 kids similar ages to ours and they had a great time playing together. It was such a fun visit! The kids jumped on the trampoline with a sprinkler underneath, which I was just certain was going to result in broken bones. Then they put together a magic show to preform for our entertainment. TJ grilled delicious steaks for us and little Andi shared her mashed potatoes with Claire. It was such a lovely afternoon.