Roadtrip to Utah!

Yeah, after several years it seems, we finally took a roadtrip with the family to Utah again. We love Utah, everything about it. Strangely enough after having been raised in one of the flattest countries in the world, I always feel like I come home to the mountains. We took a week to drive to Utah and stopped at ALL the national parks that we could find on the way. The girls had discussed National Parks all year in their advanced classes, adn they had just completed their very large project with a cake in the shape of their national park of choice. Sofia had chosen  Theodore Roosevelt NP, as there are a lot of wild horses, while Lilian preferred the Lassen Volcanic NP in Northern California. Unfortuantely we were not able to visit those 2 at this time, but I bet we will some day!

We had sucha  marvelous time, beautiful weather, the kids learned so much about the country, we even had thenm help us plan the trip wioth an atlas, so they could learn the topography a little better and understand why it took so long to drive through Texas! :)

We stopped at the Hot springs National Park first in Arkansas. It was really cool to read how it took thousands of years for the water to come back up through the narrow slits in the earth after having fallen down as rain. We walked thrrough the forest to the top and overlooked the town. Beautiful.

In Texas, we had to stop at 'The Big Texan', a restaurant with a huge bull and boot in the front, and where anyone who could eat a 72 oz steak with accompaniments in 1 hr, would get his meal for free. We watched someone attempt that, but after 50+ minutes adn not quite being done, everything came out into a garbage can. Eeeewwww. Still fun to see.

We also checked out the petrified forest. SO neat to see these trees that dies many hundreds of years ago, having turned into stone, with pretty colors and chrystal on the inside.

The kids were mostly excited about visiting their favorite cousins: The Taskers. They were so welcoming and all the kids togehter had fun swimming, chasing eachother and looking for snakes. We love you Taskers! Thank you for having us!

We ofcourse stopped at the Grand Canyone and walked the complete ridge, one of my favorite things! It was amazingly beautiful. We took a lot of pictures, but only a few of the ones survived as my computer harddrive literally died without a back up of the photos. Fortunately I had sent my mom a bunch of the pictures, the ones included in this post!

We chose from there to drive past Zion and Bryce, and enjoy all the beauty on the earth that Heavenly Father has given us. Finally, we went to Temple Square on Sunday, and enjoyed the beautiful Spirit there in the visitor center.

Finally, we spent the week in Park City from where we went on daily trips to see some colleagues and friends that we had missed. We were able to visit 'This is the Place' a monument to the pioneers of the church who finally arrived in the Valley where they were able to finally build up their city and follow their own beliefs, after having been persecuted for many years. When Brigham Young came to Salt Lake City, he recognized it from his visions, and said 'This is the Place'. Pretty neat! The day at that place was sooooooo fun. we rode a little train, got to make old fashioned dolls, see Native Americans dance and sing about their cultures, saw the Samuel Jewkes house, dug for gold in a gold mine, climbed trees to pick apples, rode ponies, and petted a very sweet baby mini horse, smaller than mini-boefje. It was so wonderful!

 

In Park City we stayed right in front of the Utah Olympic Park, which is also home to the Alpine Slide. I had to go on a one day vehicle inspection trip to San Antonio, such that Josh had the whole day with the 4 kids. They got to ride the Alpine slide several times as well as do some of the other rides on the fair.

 

Ofcourse we went to BYU one night, where we climbed the Y (Boefje too, Espen in the baby bjorn), learned to calculate portions of miles into feet, ate at the food court, went bowling and walked around the campus. Here some pictures of bowling and from the Y.

 

On the last day, starting our way back home to GA, we were able to stop to see my friend Brent Benson. He was nice enough to take the kids on his motorcycle and to have Josh borrow his 4-wheeler with the other kids. They took turns with the kids and they all had a blast! Thank you so much Brent for having and entertaining us!