Utah, Days 1 and 2

It wasn't too long of a drive to Lehi from Moab.  And for this location we were renting an AirBnb with more than one bathroom!!!  The only location we stayed at that could boast of this feature!  It was a 3-bedroom townhouse, in one of those awful neighborhoods where they'd packed as many units into a city block as they possibly could.  The neighborhood was so soulless.  But the townhouse itself was lovely-- it was decorated in a very minimalist style, which was perfect and restful after all the traveling we'd been doing.  And we were so excited for those 2.5 bathrooms!

I was anxious to take a shower, where I discovered that the shower looked amazing, but had one of those ridiculous shower heads that sprays not nearly enough water in about 15 directions, so you can never rinse the shampoo out of your hair.  That was a bummer, but we made do.  (One time I finally broke down and used the kids' shower so I could just run my head under the tub tap.)

We got all cleaned up and Craig dropped me and Colton and Camille off at my cousin Jenna's house and I had a fabulous time catching up with her and (as is my usual problem), didn't take any pictures.  Craig took the other three kids and they did baptisms at the Draper temple, marveling the entire time that they could get there so quickly.  They're used to temple trips involving 6 or 8 hours in the car.

Then once Craig had collected me, we got dinner at In-n-Out, which was great:

Them's my kids!

The next morning we headed to Provo so we could give the kids our own tour of BYU.  Craig and I were SO EXCITED to be back again!  The last time we were in Provo (or anywhere in Utah) was when I was 7 months pregnant with Bentley defending my thesis while Craig loaded up our trailer!  That was 16 years ago!  How did the time fly by so fast???

We started out with breakfast at Magleby Fresh and it was just as amazing as I remembered.  I do so love a good omelet and french toast!  Then we headed to campus and ran around showing the kids all the buildings that had significance to us.  We kind of did this all wrong, though.  It didn't help that it was Saturday of the 4th of July weekend (of summer term, no less), so there was NO ONE around.  The place looked so empty and dead.  And it was about 100 degrees out, so we were also sort of dying.  Also, we didn't want to bother with too many of the main buildings, because we figured those would be on the official tour (which was scheduled for Tuesday).  So we were actually hitting the lesser known stuff on purpose.  But I think all we did was make it super boring for the kids.  Not quite the way to get them enthused to come here some day...  But, oh, well.

Some of the places we hit: The Museum of Art!  (This was my happy place back in the day, and it still is!)

They had this fun frame you could pose in!

And then we had to do a goofy picture, too, of course.  Notice my lovely daughter pretending to puke over the side of the boat...  😕

My absolute favorite, Fallen Monarchs.  (P.S.-- my other favorite is Le Premier Chagrin!)

No, I wasn't standing here lecturing the kids on fine art.  Why would you assume that?  But really, it's incredible that BYU has this painting.  So impressive for such a small art gallery that you can tour for free!

We also headed to the Bean Museum.  I was glad to see that they still had the Liger there.  It was also fun to remind them that this museum is featured in this really great parody song, Firebolt!

Bentley liked that this sculpture made him think of Minecraft

We spent way too long wandering around the HFAC, which is mostly empty now since they're tearing it down in the fall.  Craig worked at the scene shop here for a few years, building sets and obtaining supplies for those sets, so he was very excited to see everything.  The kids were completely creeped out because it was so dark and empty.  I think they were afraid we'd get arrested for trespassing or something?  Like anyone in Provo would be that aggressive!

This was where Studio C began

Empty scene shop

We told them we'd buy them t-shirts, so we spent quite a bit of time running around the bookstore trying to decide what we liked best.  For some reason my kids all wanted new water bottles, but I told them they had to stick to t-shirts.  ($40 for a water bottle???  I don't think so!)

Craig and I went to a football game once where Cosmo ran by giving everyone high fives, but when Craig held out his hand, Cosmo didn't see him and ran right by.  So here's Craig finally getting his high five!

This little slide was adorable!

That's a pretty great jump, but Colton couldn't quite reach...

This was Craig's building!  I remember him giving me a tour of it when we were dating and it was so fun!

The fountain outside the admin building is where Craig proposed to me!!!

This stairwell leads to the front door of our first little apartment together!  My cousin's wife painted that Starry Night on the door to a crawl space where we could store our luggage!  Despite being a basement apartment, it was a great space-- it had decent windows and a washer and dryer, which were highly coveted among the newlywed crowd!  There was a step up into the bedroom, and I remember feeling like we lived in a cozy warm cave in the winter time.  I have so many happy memories here.

We also spent quite a bit of time at the Eyring Science Center, and the kids liked that one a lot, too.  And at the end, we got ice cream from the Creamery, so that rejuvenated us somewhat.  (Except Bentley, who was very grumpy by then and doesn't like sugar and refused to get anything.)  We grabbed dinner at Bajio's (which is basically the same as Cafe Rio, but with a slightly different flavor; I really liked it back in the day, but was less impressed this time around).  Then we took the kids back to the townhouse and let them have a break.  Craig and I turned around and went right back to Provo so we could watch the fireworks from the Stadium of Fire concert, and we had a great time together.

You can see Squaw Peak behind me!

Those tiny specks in the sky are five skydivers.  Also, you can see the spire of the Provo temple!

It was a fun show, but we got home very late.  But there was no sleeping in the next day, because we had to get to Salt Lake for...

Music and the Spoken Word with the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square!!!

It was so cool to see them live!  They were so good, honestly they sounded like a recording, but in a good way, if that makes sense?  It was especially fun because they sang mostly patriotic songs AND they were in the Conference Center with a full orchestra (I think they're usually in the tabernacle with just the organ?) so we thoroughly enjoyed the concert.  It was a nice length for my kids, too-- not too long for them to get bored and start making noise.  This was the concert we saw, if you want to watch it too!

They always end by singing "God Be with You Till We Meet Again" to the audience.  And even knowing that they do this all the time, it was still really touching.  I was especially impressed with Mack Wilberg singing his heart out to us, too. 

You can't get the scope of it from this picture, but the conference center is HUGE.  It seats 21,000 people!

We grabbed some lunch at our townhouse, and then drove to Provo.  We picked up my niece Lindsy and Bentley and Kendra went to her YSA ward for church while the rest of us went to a family ward.  We wanted the older kids to see what a YSA ward in Provo looks like-- even in the summertime, it's a far cry from what we have in Charlottesville!  Then we all went to our friends the Shaws for an afternoon in Spanish Fork.  It was so great seeing them again (the last time we got together was when they came to Virginia in 2016!), we could probably have stayed for hours and hours.  And Craig actually thought to take pictures:

Craig and I with Steve and Emily

Plus our kids and Lindsy!

We heard at church that there was a 7pm meeting at the Marriott Center with Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf, so we hurried back to Provo and joined the throngs of people pouring into the Marriott Center.  Talk about a Utah experience for our kids!  It was a lovely evening-- all about patriotism and honoring our military.  It was fun to be in a more patriotic place for the 4th of July!  (And yes, the first thing Elder Uchtdorf did was mention the irony in asking a German to speak about patriotism!)

But his talk was great and we were very glad we could attend! It was a very full day-- we all slept well that night!