Last week, my family spent time in Utah. We were there for my wife's family reunion. The reunion was held at Bear Lake - which spans both the Utah and Idaho borders.
I arrived in the late afternoon, as the rest of my family was already in Utah. In fact, they drove there straight from Nauvoo! (see previous blog posts). It was great to see them again, after a few days at home by myself. That evening, we took the kids to the Museum of Natural Curiosity in Lehi. It's a truly great children's museum. I just wanted to share one picture. This is L in a portion of the museum called "Kidopolis" - where they have several kid-sized businesses and store-fronts for the children to experience. L was drawn to the veterinarian location...she has a soft spot for stuffed animals. She gave the stuffed dog a thorough check-up which even included x-rays:
We had dinner at Cubby's, where my son (playing Pokemon Go) promptly found one of the Pokemon sitting on my shoulder ; )
We spent the next day in Salt Lake City. We wanted to take the kids to Temple Square, because it's always beautiful there...and we always want the kids to see temples.
At the Temple Square Visitor's Center - learning about what the temple looks like inside...
While there, you're given an iPad to use in several interactive exhibits. If you have a FamilySearch account, you input that information. At each station, you physically attach the iPad to a display and several types of information are displayed. At one station, one a large screen display, it showed how unique my first and last names are, in a combination. They also showed historical information about my birth year....and how many folks in the U.S. share our last name:
In another room, you could sit down individually, or with a family, and record "memories" to be stored with your FamilySearch account. The lighting was really good, to create a decent-quality video.
In yet another room, they had a huge video projection system, that you could use to explore pictures and pieces of your family history. The kids had fun pulling up pictures of our family and ancestors:
If you are in Salt Lake, make sure you go to the Family Discovery Center...it's really fun.
We then went to visit some relatives that we recently discovered at a large family reunion. I met them and discovered that they have been running a photography business in Salt Lake for several decades. Naturally, I wanted to introduce my wife to these good people. We toured their studio in downtown Salt Lake...it was beautiful and really creative. We discovered that these folks are responsible for the portraits of our Church leaders. In fact, they recently took pictures of the Quorum of the Twelve - one of the groups that lead Church efforts across the globe. What an amazing collection of men. The picture turned out to be equally amazing:
The next day, we left for Bear Lake. We decided to take the longer route, that would take us through some of the beautiful Utah canyons along the Wasatch Mountains. First up was Provo Canyon - a personal favorite of mine - that gave us a great view of Mount Timpanogos:
Along the way, we stopped to visit with some old friends from Austin, who moved to Utah a while ago. They're a sweet family and it's always a joy to see them.
Next to their backyard is a field that holds several horses. G-Man is a true animal-lover and wanted to pet the horses. With permission, we hopped the fence and I watched him carefully approach the horse. It was awesome to see:
We said our goodbyes, after a very short visit, but worth the effort. We're lucky to have them as friends...
We made our way through the canyons, eventually through Logan, Utah. We paused for a moment, to take a picture of the Logan Temple (sorry about the backlighting, but it was the only time we could take a picture).
We eventually arrived at Bear Lake, and made it to the cabin that would house all the families for the reunion.
The view from the cabin
The cousins immediately found a place to play, and we could find them at this location many, many times over the next few days:
The next day, we all headed directly to the lake. Playing on the beach was an absolute favorite. We had kayaks, paddle boards, floats, and all kinds of things to play with.
That's actually 5 year-old L, kayaking on the lake!!
G-Man and his cousin, M
The boys all worked together to build a "castle" with sand, rocks and some sort of "clay" material ; )
One thing that I loved, was watching my kids really enjoy being with their cousins. The kids are fantastic and got along so well:
That's it for now. The next blog post will include more fun at the beach, including fun with a speed boat...
1 comment:
Can't believe little L was in a kayak by herself. Good for her.
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