State Fair

A couple of weeks ago we headed to the Utah State Fair on a double date with my brother Scott and his wife Em.  A huge shout out to my sister-in-law Mary who hooked us up with free tickets.  The fair wasn't quite everything I remember as a child.  We often went as a family for free on the night my mom went to judge some of the sewing creations.  But like always my favorite part was the baby animals.  I don't know if you can tell in the photo above but the calf in the picture was just a week old and smaller than our family dog.  

Another one of our favorite exhibits was the produce room.  We got to see a display on bees and some huge pumpkins.  Who knows...maybe next year we will grow something for this contest.

This photo below was taken for my brother Jeff who is becoming a master welder.  It is the front of a car that is turned into some kind of massive bug.  We saw lots of creative art projects....as well as some that weren't quite so creative.  In the 4-H room we saw someone had been awarded a ribbon just for building legos...and it was just a kit they had assembled.

We didn't indulge in any fair food...instead we headed to the Blue Iguana to use a Groupon.  Blue Iguana is located in downtown Salt Lake and they are known for their Moles.  Seth and I each ordered one and they were delicious.

Mount Olympus

On Labor Day we decided to take advantage of my time off work and planned a hike.  Seth picked Mount Olympus.  I had never hiked it but remembered my cousin describing how tough of a hike it is.  Well...she was right.  It was a really steep trail and it felt like it just kept going and going.  We hiked about 3 hours and were still several miles from the summit. We had tickets to a baseball game in the afternoon and had to turn back before making it to the summit.  It was sad to not make it the entire way...but we plan to go back and conquer the mountain.

Brigham City Temple

The first weekend in September we headed up to Cache Valley for our nephew Mark's baptism on Saturday and for our niece Alauria's baby blessing on Sunday.  On our way up Saturday morning we stopped at the Brigham City Temple for the Open House.  The details in this temple were incredible.  My favorite detail was the peach blossoms motif found in the windows, furniture and exterior.

I was negligent in taking photos after the baptism and blessing...but we did get a few photos as we canoed out on the lake.  Our nieces Hannah and Isabelle were brave enough to ride in a canoe with us.

We attempted to race our nephews Ben, Mark and Hyrum but they declined our challenge.  I love the expression we captured on Ben's face below as we were about to crash into him.

We had a wonderful weekend and are grateful to be living close enough to family to be a part of the everyday experiences and the special experiences.

Golden Spike & The Spiral Jetty

The weekend before I headed back to work we headed up North for our final adventure of the summer.  We visited Golden Spike and the Spiral Jetty.  We arrived at Golden Spike just in time to see the first train pull in and stuck around for the arrival of the second train and the reenactment ceremony.  Neither of us had ever been before and found the outing quite enjoyable.  

After leaving Golden Spike we drove west and a little south to the Great Salt Lake.  We visited The Spiral Jetty.  After a picnic lunch overlooking the jetty we headed down to explore.  The rocks of the jetty looked like glazed doughnuts to me...the salt from the lake looked like glaze.  If the water was fairly high so we weren't able to walk to the very middle of the jetty, but we did enjoy what we saw.

The artist of the Spiral Jetty was married to the artist of the Sun Tunnels which we visited last June.  I wish we could have stuck around to see the jetty at sunset.  If you haven't gone...I would highly recommend you plan a trip.