Birthday Trip

For my birthday I really wanted to take a trip over Memorial Day weekend.  The boys had nothing scheduled that weekend, but Jim's work schedule was a little iffy.  Luckily it worked out and we had a great time in Midway, UT.  We got Emmett and Ezra out of school an hour early and drove down to Midway.  We checked into our condo and then went to Heber City to a fast food restaurant with a train theme called Dairy Keen.  We had dinner there and then went to ride the Heber Valley railroad on their Star Wars themed train.  It was a surprise for the boys and Ezra and Elliott especially loved it.  Elliott wore a Darth Vader costume and all the boys had light sabers that I had packed.  

 It was a really scenic ride, had lots of Star Wars characters roaming the train to interact with, Star Wars music, Star Wars trivia, and a fiddler that played some regular fiddle music and some Star Wars themed music.  

Saturday morning we slept in a bit and had cinnamon rolls and sausage for breakfast.  It was the day of the European Soccer Champion's League Final with Emmett's favorite team Manchester City playing Chelsea.  Emmett had long planned that if his team made the finals he would dye his hair blue.  We had some temporary dye and did his tips blue.  It was pretty dark and a little hard to see.  We loaded up and headed to Deer Creek Reservoir State Park.  Emmett and I were scheduled for a Zip Line tour through Zipline Utah.  They boast the longest continuous zipline course in the world (over 2 miles) and the longest zipline over water in the world (3900 feet).  For the whole course you don't touch the ground, just multiple towers, spiral staircases, aerial bridges, and 10 ziplines.  

We had a blast and we were lucky to have an amazing photographer on the ground.  Jim and the other boys stuck around throwing rocks in the water, exploring and taking pictures.  Emmett is not my most daring child and I wasn't sure if he would really want to do it.  He got a little nervous the day before, but he was glad that I wouldn't let him back out because he had such a good time.  We had a bit of a head wind on the long line over water and only half our group made it all the way to the tower.  Because it was running slow and Emmett was barely heavy enough for the tour, they had him ride tandem with a guide down that line.  

The view across the lake with the train going by

A starling feeding it's (big) babies

We went and got milkshakes from Dairy Keen and headed back to the condo to watch the soccer game.  We missed the start of the game and started watching just in time for Chelsea to score.  It ended 1-0 and Emmett was pretty disappointed.  Jim and the boys went swimming and after a while we had dinner.  We also played air hockey and shuffleboard and watched a movie.  

View of the golf course from our condo (and storm clouds)

Elliott lost a tooth!

On Sunday we enjoyed pancakes and bacon and a relaxing morning.  Then we drove up to Cascade Springs to hike.  It was up in the mountains and listed as heavily trafficked.  We got to the trailhead and there was no one there!  We were starting to wonder if we had missed a closed sign somewhere.  It was a really beautiful mountain spring area and we had the place to ourselves for quite a while.  We started seeing a few more people on the trial and by the time we left it was a little busier.  We drove around a little more to see the scenery and then went back to the condo for lunch.  The boys spent most of the afternoon in the pool.  We also went to a memorial park on a big hill that had flags, views, and lots of plaques with the names of soldiers from the area that had served in various wars.  

On Monday we got packed up and checked out.  We went to a park to play for a bit and to a big home decor store.  Then we went to the outlet mall in Park City.  The boys weren't too excited about shopping, but we stayed for a few hours hitting both playgrounds and going in the stores that we wanted.  The best deal of the day was in the last store, Under Armor.  They had a bunch of kids clothes on clearance and they were an additional 75% off.  They also have a discount for healthcare workers, military and other front line workers of 40%, which is apparently better than the employee discount.  We probably should have shopped some more after we found that out, but we didn't.  Elliott claims that Under Armor is his favorite brand, so he was excited to get clothes for next Fall there.