Brighton and a wedding

We headed up the canyon near Sandy, Utah to Brighton where we walked around a marsh and lake surrounded by beautiful fall colors. It was a P-e-r-f-e-c-t day for a great walk with 4 of my favorite people - Tan, my sisters, and my momma. We used to go here with my grandpa Dwayne when we were little and collect crawdads. I don't remember if we actually caught any but I do remember eating at the restaurant nearby afterwards. Leave it to me to remember the food but not the activity!

After our little jaunt into the canyon, we got all spiffed up and headed to my cousin Daniel's wedding in Salt Lake City. He looked like a stud in his suit and his new bride, Courtney, was stunning in her gown.

My dad (Grandpa Paul) tried to show Tan how to play the only song he knows how to play on the piano - "The Spinning Song."

Eli the preacher

Their wedding was across the street from the Utah Capitol which sits on top of a hill overlooking Salt Lake City.

After the wedding, our car Momo had been scraped by a big camper parked next to him. They left without saying anything. Thanks a lot!

Church sites

After dropping Eli off at the airport on his way to a med school interview in Vermont (keep your fingers crossed!!!!!), Tan and I headed to Salt Lake to visit some LDS church sites. It was the first cold day of the fall but it was still beautiful with all the flowers and blue skies. I am impressed at how well the church keeps up the gardens and landscaping. (I loved how BYU was the same way.) Tanner was more interested in watching the construction workers standing behind me. He also really liked watching the fountains.

Tanner was so cute when he saw the statue of Jesus. He started bouncing up and down and jabbering until I put him down. He crawled right to the base of the statue and kept reaching up toward Jesus and "talking" to him. That little act just melted my mommy heart! He didn't do that with other statues. I gave him a pass along card with a picture of Jesus on it and he carried it around all day. Can you say precious?!

I have been to the LDS Conference Center many times, but I've never taken a tour of the building. Tan and I were lucky enough to take a private tour which was so nice because I could get Tanner out of the stroller and let him crawl around whenever I needed to. The top of the building has a garden on the top and the source of the waterfalls that cascade down the side of the building. The garden isn't just a random assortment of flowers though. It is supposed to resemble what the pioneers saw when they entered the Salt Lake valley in the 1800's. You start at the highest part of the roof where there are trees sporadically planted. Then you go down steps (or a ramp in our case) where there are bushes that would have been on the foothills. After walking further down, there is prairie grass and flowers found in the valley. Pretty cool!

We also visited the Hall of the Prophets where there are paintings of all the current apostles and statue busts of the current prophet and past prophets since Joseph Smith. Tanner's favorite room was the Arnold Freiberg art room. He loved it because he had a giant room to crawl in! I loved it because most of Freiberg's original Book of Mormon paintings are there and they are really neat to see in their original form.

We visited the This is the Place monument and spent a few minutes in the visitor center because it was chilly outside.

Seeing this threw me back to childhood when I lived in Utah! These Rainbow Snow stands used to be all over during the summer time!

Wheeler Farm and a dream fulfilled

Growing up, my mom took my siblings and I to Wheeler Farm all the time. I couldn't remember much about it except for the trees (which have been called "Wheeler Farm trees" ever since, no matter where I see that type of tree), and the hen house that we played in. After our time in Salt Lake, Tan and I headed to Wheeler Farm. He has a thing for animals, especially ducks and dogs, so I knew he'd love it. And oh how he loved it!

Wheeler Farm Trees

Roosters and Hens

He wasn't too excited about the cock-a-doodle-dooing

The famous hen playhouse

He loved being this close to the cow. He laughed everytime the tail swished!

Holy HUGE pig!!

Since we had such a great time, we returned that weekend while my parents and Kristie were in town for a cousin's wedding.

After feeding the ducks and geese. Some of them are pretty crazy!

Petting the bunny rabbit

Reverting to our childhood and peeking through the window!

Ok ok, Wheeler Farm is great, but the REAL reason we all went together was because my sister, Aly, has had a lifelong dream of milking a cow. Dream big Al, dream big. When I was there with just Tan, I found out that you can milk a cow for only $0.50 everyday at 5:00pm! So we took an excited Aly to Wheeler Farm to fulfill her dream. That is the cheapest fulfillment of a dream! What did you think Al?? Was it everything you ever hoped for?!

Harold and the Purple Crayon

Ever heard of these books? Eli's mom read them to Eli as a child so she bought us a copy a couple years ago. I showed Tanner how to "draw" on the driveway with chalk, like Harold and his crayon. He really just ended up crawling around with the chalk in his hand and getting his clothes really dirty. Still cute though!

Don't be a distracted driver!!

My mom and Tanner were sitting outside on the front lawn in Colorado, gardening together. This white car passed right in front of them, on the grass, 4 feet away from them. The car continued over our driveway and into the neighbor's yard. My mom ran over to help the lady out of the car. Apparently she had been reaching down for the cell phone and didn't notice that she almost hit my mom and Tanner and was about to run into a tree. Scary. Don't be a distracted driver!!!!!!!!

You can see my parent's house to the right of this house.

Colorado fun

Tan and I spent two weeks in Colorado at the end of the summer and we had a blast! The best part was that the whole family met there for a few days. Here are LOTS of pictures from our visit.

Already learning how to drive the boat

Playing with Xander, my friend Celeste's cute little guy.

He loved playing with the broom. Don't worry, I washed his hands well afterwards.

These fountains are in the middle of the new Southglenn Commons shopping area where Southglenn mall used to be. It's going to be a great shopping center!