Zoo

We were so busy the whole month that we didn't have a full zoo trip until the end of the month. We had a lot of fun and the kids enjoyed the sea lions, the cats and the gift shop this time. We love our zoo membership.

Kylie got to help with a stimulation activity for the sea lions.

Curiosity Museum

We hit up the curiosity museum at Thanksgiving Point on the last $2 Tuesday. Luckily, it wasn't too crazy when we went and the kids really enjoyed themselves. It really is a great museum and maybe one year we'll get a membership to Thanksgiving Point, but for right now, it's a little expensive. Jordan loved any ball pit area and Kylie liked the little houses. They both loved the rope course, but it was hard for me to keep track of both of them with so many other kids in there. It really was a good time and the kids had a blast.

Jordan could have stayed here all day.

Tornado simulator.

They loved the hurricane simulator.

Red blood cell ball pit.

Thanksgiving Point Ashton Gardens

On Tuesday, August 22nd, we headed to the Ashton Gardens at Thanksgiving Point. This is where the tulip festival is held and I will say that I'd rather go to the gardens during the tulip festival than on a normal day. The tulips just really transform the gardens into something beautiful. It was a hot day and so we didn't stay as long as we would at the other parts of Thanksgiving Point. The kids enjoyed looking at the waterfalls and I enjoyed walking through the Light of Christ statues. With such a short attention span, I was only able to tell the kids about a few of the statues and stories about Jesus. It was a great way to wear the kids out, but maybe next time we'll go with some family or friends.

Omer Family Reunion

From Thursday, August 17th-Saturday, August 20th, we spent time at the Omer Family Reunion up at the Heber Valley Girls Camp. We arrived there around 7pm on Thursday and got settled into our cabin (which was shared with everyone else in the McKown family). We headed to the pavilion for a little family history message and family Bingo. The first night was a little rough on sleep and I had to take Jordan out to the car for him to actually fall asleep. Friday morning, we had a breakfast of pancakes, eggs and bacon. After cleaning that up, we had a little marshmallow gun war. The kids had fun blowing marshmallows out of pipes and I had to keep Jordan from eating the marshmallows off the ground.

After lunch, we headed to do a fun ropes course that the camp puts on. We had to wait for the group before us to finish, but luckily there was a little sand pit for the kids to play in. When it was our turn, we suited Kylie up, but she ended up being to short to climb the pole. The leaders were nice and just let Kylie swing a little bit and she had a lot of fun with that. For some reason, I had a little bit of a hard time crossing the top, but the zip-line was a lot of fun. We weren't able to do the second part of the course because of timing issues, but what we were able to do was fun. After that, we tried to put the kids down for a nap and relax, but it really didn't work out. We had dinner and then roasted some s'mores later that night. Sleep that night was a little better than the night before.

We ate breakfast on Saturday morning and then packed up and cleaned out our cabin. We then headed over to the small lake to hang out and let the kids play in the sand pit. We weren't sure we could do a paddle boat since we didn't sign up ahead of time, but they had extras and so we paid to do a paddle boat. To our surprise, the kids didn't really like it, Jordan especially. We paddled around for about 45 minutes until we were done hearing the kids cry. We waited for some family to finish and the kids happily played in the sand pit. After that, we headed home, cleaned up, took naps and relaxed the rest of the day.

The reunion was fun, but wasn't what I expected. We had family come from New York and Italy and so I thought it was going to be bigger than it was. Quite a bit of family did not attend or only attended for a couple of hours, so there wasn't a lot of being together as a family. The activities were fun and the kids loved being in a cabin, so it was still time well spent.