The reason for the trip came on Saturday. The funeral was very nice. Uncle Matt and his company did the service. There were a lot of compliments because he did such a nice job. We were able to see so much family there. I was impressed with how many people made the effort to be there. Of course the kids loved seeing cousins. We started our way home that evening and made it to Cortez, CO. We stayed at one of the worst hotels we have ever been to, but we were safe and didn't get bed bugs so it could have been worse. However, it was memorable, haha! In the end, after the long drive and everything, we were glad we made the trip and enjoyed our time in Utah.
It was a beautiful day. I think Grandpa would have been happy with how everything went.
She was so funny eating those noodles!! There is never a dull moment around Mackenzie!
Our kids had not been to Utah for over 7 years and none of them remembered it, if they were even born. So we decided to take them to temple square and BYU. We were also able to see and visit with a lot of friends and people we hadn't seen in a long time. We didn't take pictures with any of the people unfortunately, but we were able to see the Ropers (Kenney's friend from his undergrad and his family) and the Petersens that used to live in Wellington. The Ropers have 5 girls so we didn't know how the kids would get along, but they had a great time together. It was great to catch up with them and their lives to find out what had been going on with them. I knew the kids would love the Petersen's, and they did. Lydia invited us all back for the summer and the kids were determined to make it happen, haha!
Temple Square
The Salt Lake Temple was still under construction/renovation so we couldn't see much of it, but we made it to the conference center and the church history museum. The kids were amazed at how many temple and church buildings they could see as we drove along the highways and roads. Sometimes I forget how unaware they are that the church is pretty big in other places. They loved the conference center and thought it was cool to see the place they recognized from watching General Conference. We also found out that Elder Utchdorf was filming a video for the church (a training about the new Teaching the Savior's Way video) while we were in the conference center with him. The museum was awesome too; they loved it. We all learned some new things.
Inside the conference center. The kids were truly amazed!
Watching a video clip of prophets speaking
The Christus
A huge mural of Christ visiting the Americas
I love how she is looking at it.
The temple under construction. Watching videos online of the process and what they are doing to reinforce the temple is incredible!
Walking around above the conference center
Watching videos about church history and pioneers
The guns that were used to kill Joseph and Hyrum Smith
John Taylor's watch which we learned did not get his by a bullet to save his life.
We also learned that not all of the Moroni's atop the temples are the same. They vary in height. I think this one was only 10 ft tall, but the tallest one on a temple is 17 feet tall!
And if you thought it was a smooth day, we had plenty of meltdowns!
Walking back to the car, excited about all that they saw.
BYU
The boys were really excited to go visit the campus of BYU and wanted to see the football stadium. It was fun to show them around and remember what it was like to be students. It had been a long time since either Kenney or I had been there.
I don't think they remembered how good In-n-Out was. They were reminded and agreed!
Gotta love the bunny ears
Much better!
We wouldn't let them run on the field, but they were still impressed! I think this is the biggest stadium they have been to.
Radley was impressed with the grass. It was much better than what we have at home, even with the amount of work gets put into it.
A walk through the bookstore and picture with Cosmo
They have a slide in the bookstore now, wow!
Didn't take him long to find a football trophy and then we went to DI to find BYU shirts rather than spending the money at the bookstore.
A walk through the underground library
Walking through campus with the Y in the background.
Some Videos
They loved walking through all the seats and seeing how big it all was.
There were some really cool interactive things for the kids to do.
They were having a great time.
It was crazy that evening when we got back there were flurries in the sky!
