Salt Lake City

As one last hurrah for summer, we headed south for a long weekend in Salt Lake City. It's easy to spend time in the "big" city. Our first stop was at the air museum, which Owen enjoyed so much last year and had requested a return trip many times. They have such an awesome collection of new and old planes.

Owen wanted to see every plane outside, but Hadley tired of them about halfway through. So, we caught a P-38 Lightning flight video while we waited for them to join us inside. She folds up quite nicely in these auditorium seats!

Hmm... where to begin inside?

After the museum closed and kicked us out, we checked in to our hotel, only to find out that the pool was closed all week! What a bummer, but we didn't let that derail us. The next day we headed to the Hogle zoo. 

It was hot, even early in the morning, so most of the animals were sleeping. Three cute lion cubs in this pride! You can see one at the top of the picture.

There was a very informative elephant show with a mother and baby elephant. They will do anything for sweet potatoes, apparently!

Right after that we caught an entertaining bird show where they constantly flew over the audience. Hadley is always eager to volunteer, so she went down front for the kids' free dance, (striped dress, center) but didn't win any carousel tickets. She got too distracted by the other kids dancing. :)

This zoo has lots of animals that we don't have, and we had a good time. I think we were there nearly four hours! 

They even had a fun playground and water splash pad. They're no dummies!

We had so much fun, some of us needed naps. Then we ventured out for dinner and dessert and enjoyed the beautiful night at a small fountain. I guess that was a consolation prize for no pool at the hotel!

The last day we spent at Lagoon, a large amusement park we always see from the interstate. Since the kids' interest in roller coasters was piqued at Bear World, we thought they might enjoy a trip to the real thing. Added bonus: Owen is just a hair above 48", which was the minimum height for some of the big coasters! He tried a few, but their favorite area was KiddieLand. They had a blast!

This was Owen's favorite. Add a gun to anything, and he's hooked! Hadley had the back gun, but a few 'bad guys' may have escaped from her aim.

They loved the super-tall ferris wheel.

It seems that some rides were slight variations of others, like these fancy spinning ones.

We also experienced a freak downpour, which caused us to seek shelter under the nearest available awning. Silver lining: seeing some E-list stars sing and dance to today's pop hits through the back fence of the amphitheater.

Aw, love my sweet family!!