It was a wonderful trip. This trip was about spending time as a family, enjoying something new and escaping our day to day routine. I am so thankful for these past 3 days!
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Gravity Hill
We stopped at Gravity Hill in Salt Lake City. It's on Jason's must do list. In essence you park your car on a slight hill facing down the hill and then place the car in neutral. When you take your foot off the break the car appears to be/feels to be rolling up the hill. It feels as though you are being pulled up the hill backwards. Do I even need to tell you how cool the kids thought this was? It is cool and because they were so interested in it I think we may have to schedule a trip to the Oregon Vortex in Gold Hill, Oregon.
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(Gravity Hill is an optical illusion. Because of the way the road sits next to the mountain, it looks like it's going "down" into the canyon, but that section is actually going uphill. So it looks like you're rolling uphill. Shhhh don't tell the kids)
Last stop, Deseret Book
I thought it would be fun to pick up a little souvenir before we left. The girls wanted the cut out of David Archuletta. It was a no-go. Last week they found out David is going on his mission and they are holding out hope that he has been called to the Portland, Oregon mission. Do I tell them that's a no-go as well?
In the end we did find books, earrings, and a big toy Captain Moroni so it was a successful book store stop.
Church History Museum
"These beds are SO comfortable!" said Ansen. "I wish we could have been pioneers coming from England and in a boat for 2 months..." said Braley with a whine in her voice. "Why do we always have to take an airplane everywhere? Why can't we travel like in the olden days?" said Kahau with a look of disappointment on her face.
My response?
"Because your mother was born in a day of modern convenience. I am sorry for ruining it for you. Keep walking"
Ansen was pretty sure traveling across the plains in a wagon would make for a thrilling adventure. I can't wait til he's old enough to go on a actual pioneer trek.
Someone get this girl a step-stool!
Did I tell you Kahau got a camera for Christmas? She did and boy did she take a lot of pictures. 289 to be exact. She says she wants to start her own blog to talk about her adventures. I think it will be great!
This museum was our last official stop and boy oh boy were we tired. We are so glad we stopped though!
North Visitor Center
Fantastic. That's all.
(listening to people bear their testimonies about the Bible and the Book of Mormon)
(learning about Nephi building the boat)
(in Hawaiian)
Conference Center
This place is huge! We toured the Conference Center on our last morning (Friday) and the kids loved it. The art, the fountain, the Organ (which someone was kind enough to be practicing), it was all great. Our tour guide was a man from Samoa and he did so well with the kids. We were able to go down to the very bottom of the Conference Center by the stage and then to the veryyyyyyyyy top to the nosebleed seats. In actuality though there were really no bad seats in the entire Center. The architecture is amazing.
Because the weather was unseasonably warm and there was no snow or ice we were able to go out on the roof top to the gardens. The view was spectacular.
Behive House
I forgot to mention that we went to the Beehive House our first night in Salt Lake. The Beehive House was Brigham Young's home and office as Prophet. The home was stunning. We all especially loved the beautiful fireplaces throughout the home. Just look at it. I wouldn't say no to living there simply because I'd love to decorate the outside for Christmas!
Us at Ellis Island
Above: Our family in the Family History Experience in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building sitting on the docks of Ellis Island.
Day 2-SLC
We began our day by attending an organ concert in the Tabernacle. The music was beautiful and loud. The kids favorite part was watching the ceiling change color with each song. It became a contest to see who could guess the next color.
Lunch was at one of my favorite places. The Garden restaurant on top of the Joseph Smith Memorial building. The view is to die for......
and so are their fried pickles.
Oh. So. Good.
We too time and went over to the Church Office Building (Church Headquarters) where daddy gave a little insight on this picture to the kids.
After being on the grounds the night before with so many people everywhere it was nice to be there when it was less chaos. The one thing that was happening was weddings! Braley couldn't have been more excited to see bride after bride after bride after bride....seriously, they were everywhere.
We watched the movie in the JS Memorial Building entitled Joseph Smith, Prophet of the Restoration. It was excellent. The movie is (obviously) about the Prophet Joseph but the story is told from his mothers point of view so there was a lot of emphasis on Joseph and Hyrum as brothers.
Following the movie we went to the South Visitors Center and spent and hour learning about Temples, families, and Heaven. An hour well spent!
We attended a family sing along in the Assembly Hall. They asked that no pictures be taken so sadly I have none.....even if everyone else in the entire place was. We sang Christmas songs, Christmas hymns, lots of Disney songs and songs from The Sound of Music. Oh yes, The Sound of Music. I was, as you already know, in my element. The lady who was conducting all of us incredibly talented singers warned us after the first two songs if we didn't sing louder she would point us out and make us stand up and sing a solo. From that point Ansen practically shouted all the songs just so he wouldn't get embarrassed. It was so-so-so cute.
After the sing-a-long we took in some more Christmas lights. Again, stunning.
To end our night we went to the Family History Experience. We learned how to make a memory jar,
started a drawing of our own family tree using our hands,
and looked up some family members. Fun story: I looked up my Great Grandfather on my mother's side. His name was Thomas Johannes VanDenBerghe. He was the 1st member of the Church on my mother's side and has a very cool conversion story (he was baptized 6/17/1926) starting in Holland and ending with him and my great grandmother bringing their family to Utah. So there I was on December 31st, looking him up in SLC and guess what? It was his birthday! He would have been 117. I felt a very strong sense of gratitude for him and his life.
A trip to Gravity Hill ended our pretty wonderful day.
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