We're in Utah!

It's only day four, and we've seen so much! From dinos to Leonardo/Renaissance to black holes in space, we've basically covered everything, lol.

Quick recap: the short flight from Reno to SLC absolutely sucked for me - I was so sick! It actually took me two days to start feeling like myself again, which is so weird. Aging? Just general weirdness, probably. Whatever. In any case, after our flight we met my friend Jen at her awesome democratic unschooling school (http://www.segolilyschool.org/pages/). It was so fun to see the school I watched her dream up, fully functional, a place where children are obviously enjoying their days. Then she invited us over for dinner, so we happily drove to her house where the kids played (legos and a trampoline, among other fun stuff!) and we all talked and talked. She even had gluten-free pasta for us, so that was a treat! Meeting Jen and her family was a way to start our vacation with a high point!! She also saved us by having a cooler, a backpack, and a sleeping bag for us to borrow - thanks, Jen!!

Xmoms Unite!

The next day we drove to Lehi to go to the dinosaur museum there. We wasted a lot of time looking for food and ended up eating at a pretty gross place, but finally getting to the museum made it all worth it. Thane was SOOOOO excited to be there. Here he is jumping around as we walked in the door:

We saw a 3-D IMAX movie called Where Africa Meets the Sea which was very cool, and then spent a couple of hours looking at dinosaurs. It's really a great museum. We learned a lot and were very impressed by it all.

After the museum we discovered a local place called Iceburg where, clearly out-of-towners, we bought about 20 pounds of milkshakes, LOL.





Day 3 we drove to Provo where we went to the small BYU dino museum. We should have saved the best museum for last, because so far everything has paled in comparison to the big one we went to in Lehi. I did fall in love with the giant sloth there though.

Driving into Provo we had seen a billboard for a Leonardo da Vinci exhibit at another local museum, so we drove around looking for that, but instead ended up just touring the entire BYU campus, which to be honest was a little creepy (everyone looks the same there). We did find it eventually (not on campus) and it was awesome!! So far I think it was my favorite experience. They had about 60 of daVinci's inventions there (replicas of his drawings, obviously) as well as some replicas of his artwork. Even though it was all replicas, it was still really educational, and the kids were able to play with and experiment with some of his inventions, which they loved.

Next we went to a great little shop called Against the Grain, where EVERYTHING is gluten-free. Awesome! Then we had a nap for Emrys at the hotel and a swim for the big kids, followed by another leap through time to the Planetarium where we explored space and watched a movie about black holes in the dome theater. I still remember my first trip to a planetarium to see the domed "sky" above, and I was thrilled to see Rhanna's and Thane's excitement during the movie (Thane ended up getting a little nauseated, but Rhanna loved it). After the movie, we went to a Brazilian restaurant where they had a meat carnival - carnivore-Rhanna was in her element and slipped into a meat coma after the huge dinner, lol.

Today we drove south to Price, passing some excellent windmills and picnicking at a sweet little rest stop next to a creek. Emrys was able to get out and walk with his walker a bit, and he had a little crowd of fans at one point who just couldn't get enough of him. That was funny. The highway to Price goes through a very impressive canyon - all of the terrain was much different than I had anticipated. We found the tiny dino museum and let Emrys go wild, since no one else was there, and he had a fun time, I think. They had a tank there with a live turtle and he just couldn't get enough of that! We did find a small place to eat here, but there's only three food places in the whole county, I think, and there was a bowling alley Thane wanted to go to, but it was league night, and clearly nothing else to do in the Price area, so they were completely full. What people do here to make a living I have no idea!!

We are going to cut our stay here short - we were supposed to stay for two nights, but we are going to take off tomorrow instead. We're playing it by ear and trying to be spontaneous!

This was anything but a quick recap, rotfl! Time to get the kids settled down to sleep - tomorrow we will see the Cleaveland-Lloyd Quarry and then head up to Wyoming. Yay! It's an interesting desert scene, but we are missing our trees and mountains, and want to see some (living) animals!

Will check in again soon!!