Utah Trip

Back when Emily agreed to marry me, she was very particular about the date. The date fell on a Monday. At the time, only three temples were open on Mondays; Provo, Palmyra, and St. George. Since Provo was closed for maintenance, we landed on St. George. 

A couple years after we got married, the St. George temple was closed for an extensive renovation. After every renovation, temples offer an open house before they are rededicated. We saw this as a pretty neat opportunity to take our girls down and walk through the temple with them. Cambri, especially, has been really into looking at picture and videos of temples, so, we had to go down. We found a week that also included Halloween and Emily's birthday, so there was enough other stuff going on to help us justify going down.

As soon as I logged off of work on Friday, Oct 27th, we picked up Hadley from school and started out drive down to Utah. It was a pretty easy drive to Baker City, where we stayed for the night. The girls travel pretty well if they have their kindles and some snacks.

We stopped at McDonald's on our way, and the girls were able to get some green boo buckets.

Hadley crushed some ham at breakfast the next day, and then we were off again. 

We coasted into Tremonton with our gas light on, and stayed for some Arby's. I firmly believe Arby's gets a lot of unwarranted hate.

We arrived to Meemaw's in time to head over to the South Davis Rec Center for a Halloween carnival/festival thing they had going on. 

They had quite a bit of stuff going on, including a swamp ride, which Hadley coerced Meemaw into going on with her.

There were several booths with games and treats. I don't know what this is, but the girls thought it was pretty cool. It was like a dry ice bubble with soap or something.

There was also cookie decorating. The girls enjoyed the frosting, but the cookies were actually kind of garbage.

Harlow was all about the frosting, which was dyed black. Hadley would mention the next day that her poop was green.

After church, the girls enjoyed some sunshine in the backyard. I was cold, but with the sun being out, it didn't feel as cold.

Sunday afternoon was Emily's birthday dinner with everyone. It's the first time she's been able to celebrate her birthday with her family in over seven years, so that was pretty cool to do. The dinner she chose was crawfish étouffée. I heard it was good. Emily enjoyed it very much.

The dessert she requested of dirt dessert. Meemaw had more than enough little hands helping her out.

Dirt dessert is always a big hit.

Harlow really bonded with her aunt Andrea, but it also helped that she was sharing her dirt dessert with her.

The Orem Temple was also having an open house while we were in Utah. So, we took the girls down to that on Monday.

Cambri kept saying her favorite part was all the beautiful windows, referring to the stain-glassed cherry blossoms.

It's always a cool experience to be in the temple with my girls, even if it's an open house.

Harlow did great in the carrier.

We went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch.

Later that evening, we met up with Dwight and his family at the Kangaroo Zoo. When the girls found out we were going to Utah, they immediately requested to go to the indoor jungle gym place that we went to last time. That one was too far, so they settled for this one, and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Harlow was very eager to go off on her own, so we let her, but stayed close.

See the video at the end of this post for some more of their fun. The girls earned some tokens for playing some of the arcade games. Cambri chose a sucker and Hadley got a little ring (which she lost the next day).

On Halloween morning, Meemaw, Emily, and I went and did some sealings at the Draper temple. Sherry was nice enough to watch the girls for us while we did. They had a blast. 

We then went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch.

When we got back from lunch, everyone got together for some family pictures. It's tough to get these girls to cooperate, but we at least capture their silly personalities.

It's also difficult when you try to get everybody to cooperate. Of the 20 or so pictures we took, it seemed like someone was either not looking, had their eyes clothes, or were making a weird face.

Later that afternoon, we got the girls dressed up in the Halloween costumes. They looked absolutely adorable. All year, Hadley and Cambri had talked about being Minnie witch and Daisy witch, with Harlow dressing up at Cuckoo-Loca. However, their interests kind of changed a little, and even though she still wanted to dress as a witch, Hadley no longer wanted to be a Minnie witch. Cambri wanted to dress as Ghost-Spider, and Emily was able to find a sweatshirt that could double as a costume. Cambri wears that thing every chance she gets. Meemaw made a ghost outfit for Harlow, and it turned out very well.

So much personality.

We headed over to Dwight and Andrea's for a little Halloween party. Shannon put up some decorations and put together a char-boo-terie board for both the kids and the adults.

Dwight dressed as fat Mac from Always Sunny.

Harlow isn't afraid to sit on anyone's lap, which will be something we'll need to address later on.

After some dinner, we all headed out to collect our candy from strangers.

It was fun to see all the 10 grandkids enjoying trick-or-treating together. The girls were not shy at all, which was different than previous years.

I low-key felt kind of bad for the girls, because even though they enjoyed trick-or-treating, they didn't get very much candy at all. They got so little candy, I didn't feel like I could steal any of it.

We made a quick loop, and ended up back at Dwight and Andrea's for some dessert. 

At around 8pm we called it a night. On our way back to Meemaw's, Cambri asked to go drive around the temple. This is something we had done on previous nights while driving around the neighborhoods so the girls could look at all the decorated houses. 

While we were driving up to the temple, we saw the big houses were still giving out candy, so we decided to hop out and take some more candy.

They really liked this house because of the giant inflatable cat.

They had a great night, and I'm glad they were able to spend it with their cousins.

The next day was Emily's birthday! The original plan was to take Emily out to lunch at the Mandarin, but we found out it didn't open until 5pm. So, we hungout for a little until we took the girls swimming at the rec center. 

We then had a little birthday cake and Emily got to open up some presents. The girls were pretty excited to get her the new Mario Wonder game, as well as a Squishmallow card game.

Emily and I then went to the Mandarin for dinner, and afterwards saw A Haunting in Venice in the theater. We kept hearing good things about the Mandarin, but it was kind of meh. Not a lot of Chinese places can compete with Town Story in Everett.

On Thursday Meemaw busted out some of Emily's old American Girl Dolls and all their clothes. The girls were pretty excited to see all of it, and were even more excited when they learned they were going home with us.

We then headed out and down to St. George.

We got there in time to get stuff setup and then head out to dinner at the Pasta Factory. The girls enjoyed their spaghetti, and Emily enjoyed her creamy pesto. I got the Fettucine Alfredo, and wasn't impressed. The sauce had an interesting consistency, and tasted as though it had some sour cream in it. I have a hard time believing that this alfredo was the best they could do, considering it was called the Past Factory.

The next morning we drove over to the temple for the open house. 

Hadley wanted to see the statue of Jesus, but didn't want to get her picture taken with it. Cambri, on the other hand, wanted one.

It was a pretty cool experience to walk through the temple with our girls. We got to go into the sealing room that is kind of an annex of the Celestial room, which is where we were sealed. Emily's only request was to lift the girls up and look in the mirrors that represent eternity. That was pretty cool to see our family in that context. 

The experience was everything I had hoped it would be. Well worth the trip.

When we got back to the condo, Harlow was asleep, so I took the girls swimming. Apparently, she woke up within 15 minutes of us leaving for the pool. 

After a good swim, we headed over to the Red Fort Cuisine of India, which came very highly rated. It did not disappoint. 

Emily and I had our usuals; saag and tikka masala. We got the girls some butter chicken, which they absolutely scarfed down. They ate all of it, as well as their naan and rice.

We made our way over to Culver's for some ice cream to cap off the night.

The girls really wanted to play the Squishmallow game before bed, and knowing the girls weren't going to understand the rules, Emily turned it into go fish. It was a little frustrating for Emily, but the girls enjoyed it.

We started for home the next day, and made it as far as Boise. We eventually made it home Sunday afternoon. It was a busy trip, and everything went as planned, which made for a fun time.