Vance's Visit

I'll warn you, this is a longer post, but we did so much, this was the shortest I could make it! LaNita and 4 of her children were here for a week visiting before the Earl Reunion. I actually took time off from the office work and just had a great time with them! We did all kinds of fun things with the kids, and LaNita and I even got lunch and a little shopping in too.

We started out at the Pioneer Village at This is the Place monument in SLC. I'd never been to the village before, but it's a really cool place, a replica of an whole village from the pioneer era, with so much for the kids to do. We spent over 5 hours there and could have spent all day!

Madeline Vance, Emily, Allison V., Rose V., Spencer V. at This is the Place! Monument

Emily and Allison - a new way to clean clothes!

Madeline and Emily with their new pioneer friend, Anna

Wanna go for a ride?

Spencer gets a consequence in the school house

Emily learning the Deseret Alphabet

There were all kinds of animals for the kids to see and touch, which Emily absolutely loved: goats, cows, peacocks, lambs, and of course the horses.

There was an awesome play village where the kids really could have spent hours. unfortunately, we didn't discover it until it was almost time for us to leave.

LaNita had made newborn kits with her achievement day girls, so we headed over to the Humanitarian Center where we had a tour and all the kids got to "donate" newborn kits. Emily had decided she was tired of getting her picture taken - thus no Emily in the pic below.

One of the best things that happened during the week, was that we stopped on the way home from SLC and picked up a used trampoline I had bought off Craigslist. Dave helped us get it put together right away, and the kids spent hours and hours on it throughout the week.

In motion......

Here are some pictures from our trip to the Bean Museum. The kids each did a scavenger hunt, finding answers to questions about the different animals.

LaNita touching the tarantula at the live animal show

We spent another day going up Payson Canyon. First stop was "the Grotto". You take a short hike up to to this awesome cave- like area with a waterfall.

The kids had a great time playing in the freezing water - then it was on to Payson Lakes for a picnic and some swimming. Here are the highlights from our day:

Rosie through a huge temper tantrum (reminicent of her younger years)

Spencer caught a dead fish

Allison had a "head-on" collision with a remote control boat. She didn't think it was very funny, but it was actually hilarious and we wished we had caught the whole thing on video so we could send it in to one of th0se funniest video shows. Her hair was wrapped around the motor pretty tightly.

LaNita couldn't get the boat detatched, so we enlisted the help of some fellow picnickers, who performed "surgery" and finally cut the boat free. There was quite a crowd standing around by the time it was over, and Allison was pretty embarrassed, but everything turned out okay. (We were trying not to laugh in front of her). It was a beautiful day to be up the canyon, and just a great week overall!