Family Staycation 2012: Day 1

As we've sometimes done in the past, we recently had a family vacation to....Utah. :)  Kimi was coming into town with the kids for about a month for a bunch of family stuff, and the George was coming out for a week, so my mom found a nice place for all of us to stay for a few days out above Draper (near Suncrest), and Natalie was able to come out as well, so we were all together (minus Elder Ben) for the first time since last July.

We started off Monday morning at the new City Creek Center mall downtown. I'd been there once before (the night it opened) but I think I was the only one.  We wandered around for a little bit (Elise pretty  much wanted one of everything at the Disney store) before getting an early lunch at Kneaders.

Was just trying to get the temple in the shot, didn't realize George and his family were showing up at the time

Not sure what Kimi and Lucy are talking about, but it seems pretty intense. :)

Most everyone finishing lunch while Lucy and I were getting warm on the sunny side

With the nieces

After lunch, the plan was to hit the Hogle Zoo, but when we got up there the parking was overflowing and even street parking was hard to come by, so we decided to go bowling instead (originally planned for Tuesday) and try the zoo again on Tuesday.

Bowling was fun, with bumpers and whatever you call those metal ball launcher things for the kids.  I remember being pretty young and bowling at the 49th Street Galleria and just kind of running up there and falling down and letting the ball go.  Today's kids have it so much easier. :)

We ended up bowling two games a piece (though Elise let people bowl for her most of the 2nd game), with Natalie barely edging me out (132-131) in the first game, and mom dominating the 2nd game.  I probably finished with the best overall score, but mostly we were just there to have a good time.


Austin found some other ways to have fun while waiting for his turn to bowl


And soon everyone wanted in on the fun


Look at the form! :)

After bowling we headed up to the house and settled in a little bit, and then we were back in the cars loaded up to meet up with the Hardens for dinner at Chuck-a-Rama.

Elise showing her affection for Col-ay

View from the back porch

After dinner we headed back up to the house, got the little kids and grandma off to bed and then the rest of us stayed up playing Dicecapades.  Lucy was on my team until she had to go to bed halfway through, but we still ended up winning.