Friday Let Down and Saturday Football (last on the Utah Trip)

Since we have moved from Utah over 5 years ago, we have enjoyed many a game via the media. Fernando has even been so desperate to watch it pac man style online. We are grateful that Direct TV has bought the chance to have Mountain Network and Versus so we can get the games at home. We gear up the kids, the house, and bring out the football treat helmet for good game time fun.



So you can imagine the excitement we (meaning mostly Fernando and I) were to be at the game. We planned for a weekend trip to Provo. Friday was the time to tour campus, buy too much cougar gear at the BYU Bookstore, eat dinner at Bridle Vail Falls, and attend the fireside. Well, we made it to the bookstore and that's about it. We stayed in a dumpy hotel next to the Stadium and woke up to a better day on Saturday.

Fernando woke early and ran the Y. I got the kids up and dressed. Fun side note, our kids were having fun filling up the hotel cups with water and drinking the water. I had forgotten my contact case at my parent's house so I decided to improvise and use two cups from the hotel. I made sure to make the kids aware of my contacts and not, repeat, not drink or pour this "water out". I knew that my extra contacts, and glasses were in Sandy and we would not drive the 45 minutes each way to retrieve them if there was an accident. I guess I should have also talked with Fernando. He wisely hydrated before his morning run, but choose my right contact glass to do so. Though I wasn't blind, I couldn't see well. I spent the rest of the morning trying to figure out how I could get a quick pair of glasses for the game. Luckily, right before I plopped down some serious cash to get glasses in an hour, the Lens Crafters manager gave me some trial contact lenses in my prescription and called it a day.

We had a chance to meet up with one of our old friend, Dave. On his suggestion, we got breakfast at Mimi's Cafe. Then we headed up to Squaw Peak. Aside from Mia getting sick from the chocolate milk and Tiago having an accident in the car, it was an enjoyable breakfast. We headed to the Marriott Parking lot to get a good space and headed back to the bookstore. Fernando insisted that I get some BYU earrings and we needed some sun screen and batteries. Of course, Fernando couldn't resist the BYU football that Tiago found, so we now own our 4th football. We then went to the President Hinckley Alumni building for some Pre-Game festivities.
With faces painted, we headed to the Lavell Stadium.

Fernando had hopes of finding better tickets from a scalper, but I drew the line when the best offer was handing over our $25 a piece tickets with an extra $60 per ticket in exchange. This was wise since we ended up buying quite a bit of stadium food and frozen treats to assuage the kids. It only slightly worked. Tiago thought that he would have a chance to play with his newly acquired football, but lost all interested when he found out that only the players were allowed on the field. The sun, lack of naps, close quarters, and long distance from the field spelled disaster. Fernando opted to get the kids a chance to cool down below the bleachers and take a potty break. When he came back 10 minutes later, BYU had already scored 4 touchdowns. Poor UCLA. Poor Fernando who missed it. The shut out made it easier to leave before the game was over. It was fun, but next time we'll have my parents watch the kids while we enjoy the BYU festivities and game.

Tatonka and the Buffalo Burger (Thursday's Utah Adventure)

Utah is the place for outdoor fun. When Angela told me about her bike and my near by cousin's bikes and kids trailer, I couldn't get bike ridding out of my head. Everyone doubted the idea, but I stayed strong and true. I engineered this master plan which involve a strange amount of rope and finagling. I confess I had thought that more would fit in the back of the van, but the roof proved large enough. Once we were loaded into the mini van, we were ready to go. The loading part was longer then expected which meant we hit the road hours after we intended. Antelope Island. Stink aside, it was the closest venue that offered a plausible route. Using the new iphone, we read up on possible trails and the restaurants on the island.

Side note, I hate repeat HATE uninformative websites. There are millions of them out there. Why waste the time and money if you aren't going to update or even have any helpful info at all. It is because of such a site that we ended up eating at Buffalo Pointe Cafe (=$$$$)

and had our own little handcart pioneer experience on "The 2-mile Lakeshore Trail is well suited for novice riders or for families with children. Start at the White Rock Bay campground and pedal around the base of Buffalo Point along the shore of the Great Salt Lake. Turnaround where conditions get too rocky and watch the sun set from a trail-side rest bench."

What this translated to in real life was at least a 3 mile boulder riddled narrow trail that really was probably meant for hikers only though we did see some horseback riders. Our bad. The short distance fooled us into thinking it wouldn't merit bringing water. And we rationalized that the insane boulder field was the only one like it on the trail. Wrong. Tenacity isn't always a good thing. We finally got to the point that Tiago and Mia had to hike seeing as how the bumps in the road were bumping into their bottoms. They also seemed to be the human equivalent of a pinball machine. Therefore, Fernando became our beast of laden. He finished the trail hefting his bike and the bike trailer in various precarious manners. My dad and the kids forged ahead.
That is to say my dad kept finding new animals, reptiles, bugs, and what have you to get the kids to keep going. What kept us going forward was the idea that the end had to be near. In fact each time we "came around the bend" we were sure we would be home. Unfortunately, that was far from the truth. What made matters worse is when we met up with my mom and Talia, she told us we still had quite a ways to go. We made it through and even with all the let downs of the unbikeable trail, it was a peaceful ride. A gentle breeze kept the temperatures pleasant and the view was incredible. Furthermore, how often to you pass a buffalo, pronghorn deer, and lizards on a family outing?

Kung Fu and Birthday's Too (Wednesday's Utah Fun)

Wednesday's just so happen to be half off day at the dollar theater. My kids were riveted to the repeating trailer of Kung Fu Panda on the airplane which made it perfect for our Wednesday outing. With a little time to kill before the movie, we stopped by the near by Temple Granite Quarry. They have made a little nature trail with informative placards about the site like the fact that it isn't granite. The kids loved the huge rocks that were fairly easy to scale and my dad loved taking us off roading into the empty stream bed where we found an old pioneer quarry tool still stuck in the rock. I really miss living so close to the beautiful canyons. I should have enjoyed them more when I lived with my parents.

Afterwords, we headed to the movie. It was hilarious, but very violent. Mia began laughing really hard at a few parts which made it even better. It was totally worth the $3 it took to get all of us in. Thanks to my mom, Talia didn't have to sit through another movie with fingers in her ears in hopes of not causing too much permanent damage from the overly loud speakers. I called in time to hear that Talia was not to happy unless she was chugging the rice cereal or being held.

Later that afternoon we went to Liberty Park to have a little pre-birthday fun for Tiago with the Richen's.

The park had a funky swing like centrifugal force thing that was perfect fun for the adults. I would have taken a video, but was laughing to uncontrollably to do so. Afterwords, we had a race track cake with Lightning McQueen on top for authenticity.

Mountains (Tuesday's Utah Adventure)

It has been years since we have been so close to mountains. In fact, that is all my kids would talk about. We had several excursions planned since we knew we wouldn't be seeing any more mountains for a long time. My dad thought of the perfect place. Silver Lake up at Brighton Ski Resort. Gorgeous mountains, serene lake, and tourist friendly wild life. We packed a picnic lunch which included my mother's amazing cookies. Quick comment about these cookies. My mother hates cooking, but loves her children more. And on special request, she made these amazing homemade oatmeal, chocolate chip cookies the size of Mia's face. I would have taken pictures, but one can't think straight while looking at them.

The drive up to the lake is beautiful. Some of the trees were trying on their red and orange leaves and the river doing its thing down the fallen rocks. The kids were fascinated by the mountains and what the change in altitude was doing to their ears. Tiago kept repeating my name and giggling.

The trail was really a boardwalk which made it easy for the kids to run up and down pretending to be either animal or man made machine. At little outcroppings, they could get close to the water which started a duck migration. From all over the lake, ducks started to converge upon my kids in hopes of food. Fernando handed the kids bait to encourage more interaction. I was excited until I realized that Fernando was giving them the good stuff. That's right, Fernando was throwing delicious homemade-unreproducible cookies to ducks with indiscriminate taste buds. I quickly solved that problem and offered them our whole wheat bread from our average sandwiches.







Aside from ignoring the "Don't Feed the Animals" sign, we ventured off the man made path and onto some of the massive boulders. Come on, could Mia really help her self with a Pride Rock like boulder? So the family minus Talia and me with the stroller balanced up fallen trees to the top of the rock. Sorry nature friends.



We finally made it around the whole lake just as several bus loads of kids came. Perfect timing.