Family Journal Catch-Up A Trip to Snowbird

Awhile ago I might have mentioned having two blogs and keeping family journal stuff on one and something else on the other. It turns out I am far too lazy to have two blogs. It involves way too much clicking. So until I can figure out how to not be so lazy (or really until all my children are safely installed in school and I have so much spare time I start thinking about starting a non-profit organization for poor destitute blue herons), this will continue to be as the title states, "Excited and Confused"-- a conglomerate of things that happen to occur to my mother-adled brain.

Anyway. . . Here are a bunch of pictures with captions so that I don't forget what I did during my summer vacation. Well, I will still forget, but now, if the magic of the Internet lasts for another 100 years, I will be able to come back here and read them and pretend that I remember.

While the Tour of Utah was in town the week of Aug 17-23 I got to write a few stories about it and cover some of the event. It was really a cool race and the excitement about the big name bikers was fun. For one day of the race Mike and I took the girls to watch one of our friends finish a stage of the race (he was racing in the amateur section) at Snowbird. I was also able to convert the trip into a biking action story for the newspaper.

We decided we would have some fun while we were there and ended up riding the tram ($12/adult) and the alpine slide ($9/adult $3/lap rider). The girls loved it. Later we found out we could have bought an all-day fun pass at Costco for cheaper, but we were pretending we were rich, so we pretended we didn't care. (And then we made the girls eat samples for dinner.)

Hannah and Kenzie love sitting on things. Rocks, buckets, cable boxes, and sometimes even chairs. Here they are while we were watching the racers finish the 1000 Warriors race. It was an insane race that started in Park City and finished with that crazy crazy climb to Snowbird.

The alpine slide at Snowbird is a long way to walk, so we rode the lift like the lazy people we are. The lift was free and I think we would have thrilled our children just as much if we just rode the lift over and over.


Hannah and me on the lift. I kept my arm tightly wrapped around her. My overactive imagination kept picturing a kamikaze Hannah bent on jumping off the lift. She was really good and sat very still.

You know, I really like delighted children. Hannah and Kenzie were both absolutely thrilled with the alpine slide.

The line was annoying but the squeals of delight as we raced down on our sleds were worth it. Now Mike plans to install one of these in our backyard, right next to the track and the rock climbing wall.

Next we rode the tram to the top of Hidden Peak at 11,000 feet. Wow! It was amazing. The girls were so excited. Mike, is that a twinkle in your eye? (not an announcement, but if we have another child this picture could make for a good play on the old, "before you were even a twinkle in my eye" line.)

Oktoberfest was also going on this weekend so these horn players rode the tram and played some songs at the top. It was beautiful to hear the music echoing all around the view. On the way down Kenzie got a little bit scared and wouldn't look out the window anymore. Instead she found a tiny hole in the bottom of the tram and looked down it during the ride. I'm not sure how that didn't make her sick.

Happy times.

P.S. I realize that once my children are in school I will probably have far less spare time than I imagine. Especially since I will be saving blue herons.