Utah - Before and After Cruise

Dear Friends:

This post is about our recent trip to Utah.  We actually traveled to Utah both before - and after - the cruise to Alaska.  We were lucky enough to have family that were willing to watch over our youngest kids, to allow us to take our 10th Anniversary cruise.

Just about every time that I reach Utah, I take a deep breath and lovingly stare at the mountains there.  I love them.  I really do.  That's what made Alaska so amazing.  The Wasatch Front is a real favorite, particularly Mt. Timpanogos:

With just a couple of days before we left on the cruise, I decided to take the kids up to Brigham Young University campus.  BYU is a sacred and memorable place for me.  I wanted to share that with the kids.  They were kind enough to cheer for BYU:

I promised the kids that they could take their picture with a big cougar...I snuck into this particular shot:

That statue is located right next to the Lavell Edwards Football Stadium.  On that day, there was a youth football camp being conducted on the field, but we were able to go inside and take some pictures.  The kids are starting to make their own poses:

Up on the main campus, the kids wanted to see the stuffed cougar in the Wilkinson Center.  L was captivated by the two cougars on display:

Coming outside, we took another look at the mountains - particularly "Y Mountain", with a giant "Y" painted on its side:

G-Man wanted a toy cougar, and L wanted a football, with a little cougar inside of it

We walked a short distance to the BYU Creamery.  I love the ice cream there, although there are several university creameries in Utah that are amazing with ice cream:

While in Utah, the kids had no shortage of activities to keep them going every day.  One of these was tennis lessons.  Tennis runs strong in my wife's family, and my wife has been itching to see if the kids were interested in the sport:

G-Man takes a swing

While we were in Alaska, G-Man attended two different sports camps at BYU.  The first was a football camp, where he was able to play on the field in the big stadium:

He also attended a two day basketball camp, held by staff from the BYU Men's and Women's basketball coaching staff:

We returned just in time to watch his second day in the camp.  It was held in several buildings, but culminated in the Smith Fieldhouse - which is where I spent a lot of time as a freshman at BYU.  I would run the indoor track almost every day there.  My father actually attended the Division-1 BYU basketball games in this building...lots of history here:

Parked outside the Fieldhouse was the most awesome golf cart that I've ever seen...

After the basketball camp, we walked with the kids across campus.  It's such a beautiful and clean campus...and the views are just stunning:

We had a meal at one of our favorite Utah County places - called Cubby's.  They specialize in tri-tip steak sandwiches.  L showed us her unique approach to coloring the hat that Cubby's gave here while we were there....

We also met up - totally by accident - with family that were in town.  We went to see the new Pixar movie "Inside Out" and G-Man was able to hang out with his cousin, who was also at the same movie:

The reason that other family were in town, was for the Ragnar Race.  This is a 200+ miles running race that is completed by teams of people.  Each person runs several legs of the race, each consisting of multi-mile segments.  It's a grueling race, but the course runs through the mountains, so it's beautiful to watch while you're running.

My father was part of our family team.  He's an unusual participant, as he likes to walk his segments.  His pace is a little faster than normal people, so he was able to pass a few runners, while walking.  The crazy thing?  He did it in a long-sleeve shirt, and long pants.  People were taking his picture along the way, because that's an amazing way to participate:

Mom and Dad - aren't they cute!

The family team finished strong.  We went up to Midway to greet them at the finish line.  We were very proud of how well they did!

We were really lucky, because the next day was Father's Day.  Not only did I get to see my youngest kids, but I was able to see my own father - something that doesn't happen very often.  The kids were having a blast playing with their cousins:

My older kids were really thoughtful - they created a book for me that had a ton of pictures of me and the grandkids.  It was beautiful and I loved every single page!

The next day, I was going to head back to Texas, before the next trip.  I convinced my wife and kids to climb Y Mountain the morning of my departure.  The hike was difficult, as you ascend about 1,000 ft. in a very short distance.  I won't lie - there were several moments that I was asking myself WHY I convinced everyone to come with me....because I barely made it.  However, the views were just incredible:

After sweating my way to the top, we took pictures on the Y - which was so much larger than I remember.  The little ones made it - I'm proud of them.  I didn't have to carry anybody, which is a good thing ; )  It's all smiles now that we made it to the top:

The trip - both before and after the cruise - was awesome.  We love to visit Utah whenever we can.  The kids had a wonderful time, and we created a few family memories to treasure for a long time.