Utah Vacation

We had a week off of school last week so we drove down to Utah to visit Ryan's brother Dave and his family. They use to live in Cardston so we sure miss having them around. The drive went well. Our kids are pretty darn good at travelling which makes it much more enjoyable. We made it in 10.5 hours. Its always fun to drive through Salt Lake and try and find the temple from the freeway. Its hidden in between all the huge buildings so you can usually see  the top of it, but every time we try and find it. The kids usually have a harder time spotting it. We were so excited to see our cousins. We spent the week just hanging out and playing. The weather was beautiful so we walked around the Lake by their house, and played at a couple of parks.

To be honest, most of our days were planned around food. There are so many yummy places to eat. We had to eat at In & Out, cafe Rio, Rodizio's, we ate at a place called Blue Lemon. My mint mango chicken salad was to die for. Jacki introduced me to Zupa's, which is a sandwhich, soup, and salad place. I ate there three times it was so good. My new favourite. Their salted caramel creme brulee is amazing. I heard about Rita's Italian Ice a couple of years ago from my brother and have been dying to try it. They have one near our cousin's and it didn't disappoint. We all loved it. We had to go there a couple of times.

Of course I also had to go shopping. The exchange was really terrible so we tried not to spend too much but that is not an easy task to accomplish when there are new stores and lots of fun things to buy. We went to Scheels, which is my new favourite store. It is a huge sporting store. Its like a massive sports chek. They had a huge ferris wheel, which we rode a couple of times, and was just a really fun place to shop as a whole family. I bought a couple of cute new hats and a bathing suit. Now I just need Spring and Summer to arrive.

One morning the girls went to get our nails done. The little girls got pedicures. It was McKenna and Hayley's first one. Hayley was so cute sitting in the big chair. She sat so still. They all loved picking out their colors and got a cute flower painted on the big toe. Jacki and I got manicures. I love my french manicure with mint tips. I think I'm hooked:) Then we went for Zupa's for lunch. It was fun. The boys went to Airborne. A huge trampoline and stunt center. They had a lot of fun.

The only down side to the trip was the sickness. Everyone but McKenna and I had coughs come and go before we left, so naturally McKenna finally caught it while we were there. She had a bad cough which mostly became present at night. The first night Hayley got a fever and a sore ear so we had to take her to the clinic on our second evening and sure enough she had an ear infection. Thank goodness for antibiotics and travel insurance. It was $150 just to see the doctor for 5 minutes. She was as good as new once the meds kicked in. Our last day I got a bad cold, and Ty and my nephew were throwing up. Ty's was just a 24 hour thing and was thankfully fine the drive home. Even with all of that, we still had an amazing time. The kids love playing with their cousin's. When I told Hayley we were headed home she said "but Jennica will miss me". None of the kids wanted to leave. Thank you Dave and Jacki for being such great hosts. We will definitely be back again. And not just for the food and shopping:)

The boys making a movie

Ty pretending to puke in Abe Lincoln's hat. He promptly banged his head on Abe's chin. Serve's you right.

McKenna is hiding on the other side of Ryan.