Warning: What follows next is mostly a travelogue with lots and lots of pictures and a few astute commentaries thrown in here and there to break everything up.
Friday and Saturday of our trip had been dedicated almost from the beginning to us spending time up in Salt Lake City, visiting Emily and her family in their new home, and seeing the sights around Temple Square. As an added bonus, Emily and I had plans to meet up with one of our good friends from growing up to have brunch with her before she and her husband left for New Orleans. When we woke up Friday morning to TONS more snow coming down, I was super bummed thinking we might have to postpone our trip up there due to the road conditions and our borrowed Mercury Sable station wagon not quite mixing. Thankfully, we only had to wait about an hour before things started to clear up and Scott was able to safely go and get gas while he tested the roads out with the car.
Once up there, Emily and I met up with Anna for some fabulous food and conversation while Scott and Jeremy chilled with the kiddies back home. After our brunch turned lunch, we came back to her house and hung out for a bit more before eventually heading off to Temple Square to see the lights, visit the Primary exhibit at the Church History Museum, and meet up with my dad, Freddie and Laura to eat over at the new City Creek mall, and possibly hit up the Deseret Book before leaving.
We had a blast at the museum, froze outside while looking at lights, and barely made it out of the food court alive at the end of our adventure. Let's just say that a Friday night downtown during Christmas vacation made for a CHAOTIC eating scene. All in all, though, it was a pretty successful outing.
The theme at the Primary exhibit was "The Book of Mormon." Here are the girls hanging out at one of the play areas.
This sweet old lady was helping Jane to put on a skirt in one of the interactive areas and for whatever reason Jane decided to go super-sensitive/emotional here and headed straight for me when she was done, crying and folding her arms and saying she didn't want a pink skirt. Go figure. Hahahaha.
Sophie, however, LOVED her skirt and spent the majority of her time dancing in front of the tv screens there.
Alex joined in the fun with one of the girls' headbands.
Meanwhile Grace and Pearce bonded over their mutual love of animals.
The temple looked gorgeous!
It was SOOOO cold out there, and as I've said before -- we are woefully under-prepared for the weather this trip.
It was super helpful to have extra hands in the form of my dad to help keep all the kids together!
Once we got home for the night, the kids all cuddled up for bed down in the basement while watching a little Brave on the TV. Emily treated us the next morning to a delicious breakfast of cinnamon rolls and we played a little longer before heading BACK to City Creek to let the kids play at the Dinosaur Land playground.
These two were so cute together!
There was lots and lots of "ring around the rosies" going on! Hahaha.
We attempted a group shot of all the cousins, but not everyone was always super cooperative. Hahaha. Here are a few of my favorite shots.
I think this could be the best one I got.
And then Ethan decided he was done and just started walking off. Nice.
After playing at Dino Land for an hour or so, our party began to break up as Ethan and Scott left to go join up with some of his family for another BYU basketball game and Emily and Jeremy had to head on home for Pearce to take her nap. After everyone left, I was on my own for the next 2 hours at the mall with Grace, Sophie, Jane, and Alex in tow. Woo hoo!!! Hahahaha. It actually ended up being a lot of fun as I decided on the spur of the moment to let Grace get her ears pierced {again} at the Claire's and then let the girls pick out some other accessories and fun stuff before we left. We spent some more time at Dino Land and then splurged on some ice cream before Scott and Ethan were FINALLY back. Scott then treated me to a leisurely browsing around the Deseret Book while he loaded up the girls and Alex and drove around downtown trying to get Alex to fall asleep before we headed for home. Poor little lamb was MAJORLY in need of a nap. Ethan accompanied me and we spent a glorious 45 minutes or so looking around and buying stuff until we were ready to go.
Grace did not flinch AT ALL as she got her ears pierced. It was kind of amazing. She was so stoic, in fact, that a passerby asked me if I had numbed her ears beforehand. Hahaha. Nope, but she IS our ever-surprising surprise.
She chose some lovely CZ studs. And p.s. it is awfully expensive to get yours ears pierced for free these days. At least at Claire's.
Sophie chose these glasses. Which are an absolute hoot, right?
And Grace had to pose with them, too.
Nancy, is that you??? Hahahahahaha.
Sisters, sisters...
After our fun-filled couple of days in Salt Lake, we headed back down to Provo and ended up getting together with Freddie, Laura and my dad for one more family outing. We ate dinner at The Brick Oven {which had super slow service and was not as good as I remember} before joining back up with Scott's family and eagerly awaiting our family reunion planned for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day up at Aspen Grove. We are having a pretty awesome Christmas vacation! {Except for the part where the little ones wake up in the middle of the night and keep us up, too. Oh well, you can't have your cake and eat it, too, can you? Hahahaha.}
