Not the Matterhorn, But the Next Best Place…

The Zermatt of Midway, Utah, of course! I can’t really vouch for the previous statement. I’ve never actually been to the Zermatt of Switzerland…yet…so it’s a tad difficult to compare the two. But we do love the Zermatt hotel, nonetheless. The yodeling music that plays in the hotel courtyard always does it for me. And it’s a nice, close escape for a day or two at least. So that's where we went over the weekend.

Here, the Blackhursts meet The Razor:We journeyed to the tip-top of the mountains in it. As we winded up the mountain-side, Kate sat cliff-side crying, “This is the baddest day ever!” She was super nervous and wished she could trade me seats.
Once we reached the top and looked out over all of Wasatch County, she was fine and determined that she wasn’t scared anymore. But on the way back down she carefully instructed, “Mom, my job is to watch where we’re going and your job is to watch if we fall off the edge.” I assured her I could do that. After all, watching if we fall off the edge is really quite easy and takes virtually little to no effort at all.

We made a pit stop at Cascade Springs.
 
We bought the kids some long pants to wear for this excursion the night before…’cause bugs and dirt and wind are nice and all, but not when they’re on you for several hours. Being in Heber City, Utah, at the Walmart, in the middle of summer, we were somewhat limited on our pant selection. Cole got some clearance pants for $1, and Kate got jazz pants that were several sizes too big. It was pretty cute to see her battling those pants to stay up.

                                                                         Two big noggins

Never to be skipped…a carousel ride…or two…or three. This carousel always gets some good usage when we come to stay:

Our favorite find of the trip was Café Galleria, an Italian joint. We’ve never been really impressed with any restaurants up there so it was really great to find some good food and, even better, to eat outside!
Best of all, we were serenaded by the dude below (whom you can’t really see), but who played lots of John Denver and the likes. The Parents were all sorts of relaxed. I certainly could have stayed there all night. Also, we saw a couple of “done up” lady folk that made for some excellent people watching (fyi—Dave took the pic not me).





























A spontaneous duck feeding at the park fit nicely into the agenda. Lucky we had some goldfish crackers in the car.


And playing on the playground too:
We also got to see “Brave” at the local theatre, The Ideal, which btw, was not so “ideal” if you ask me. But, hey, run-down, premium-priced, oldie-moldy theatres aren’t really my thing.  But it was really wonderful that our Cole Bear sat through the ENTIRE movie; that was ideal for sure.

Of course, plenty of swimming, gelatos, room service, and all-around family fun were also worked into the trip.

The Zermatt trip was “zer gut!”

Happy Daddy’s Day!

 

Dear Dad,

Thanks for being so nice! You’re the best dad ‘cause you make money for us and I like your green beans. I like you to bring me on vacations. I like that you’re my dentist and I get prizes and the tickle brush! And I like your IPad.That’s all.

Love,

Kate

 

Dear Dad,

You are my buddy! I love it when you’re home. I especially love Wednesday mornings…that’s the day you go into work late. I like to pump weights with you, and chase you around, and get all the Daddy time I can.

I love it when you help me brush my teeth with “Pooh.” In fact, I want to do it all day long!!! And when you wrap me up in my bath towel and tote me away to my room, it makes me laugh! And thanks for introducing me to all things Disney; you know, Mouse, Wall-E, Nion, Mi (Muppets); without you, I might never know they existed.

The whole family adores you! Mom has a major crush on you. And “Tate” and I think you’re TOPS! Thanks for loving us. Happy Father’s Day!

Love,

Cole

50th Anniversary Staycation

We had ourselves the time of our lives last weekend! It was Dave’s parents’ Golden Anniversary and they took all the adults on an all-inclusive weekend stay in SLC. They reserved the Inn on the Hill, and we loved every minute of it.
So the Inn is an old manor, built in 1906 that now serves as a bed and breakfast. We pretty much had the whole house to ourselves, which made it so much more fun than staying in a hotel. It kind of felt like we were living in the game of Clue, being that there were so many rooms to explore; you remember, Colonel Mustard, in the billiards room, with the candlestick, am I right?























Dining room where we ate breakfast each morning:
Dave’s pervy brothers:
Our room was the Bryce Canyon suite, and while it had nothing to do with Bryce Canyon, it was very spacious and sported a walk-out balcony, which was lovely. Here we are showing off the view from our little veranda:

So here’s what we did on our travels to the far away land…
The Pioneer Memorial Museum (a diamond is disguise), was full of donated pioneer artifacts, including the wagon the Brother Brigham rode into town on.
A chart of original pioneer properties in Salt Lake City. William Blackhurst is Dave’s ancestor:

I was able to find some portraits of my ancestors as well, Lorenzo and Emily Argyle:
Here, Lonz is pictured with the imprisoned polyg’s:
He is the tall, dark, handsome guy sitting in the front row, next to the dude with the cane. Funny story…I asked all the women in our group to point to the best looking guy and they all pointed to him. Then I told the guys to point to the guy they thought was most handsome, and they all pointed to someone different. Well, I thought it was funny.
Our adventure was full of good food (maybe I should have said ‘our bellies’). Every meal was from somewhere divine, like…
Buca:

Cheesecake Factory:
The Roof:…as well as Macaroni Grille, Hagerman’s Deli, and Corner Bakery. By the end, it was all tasting like Cruise food. I was getting to the point where no food sounded good, and mostly, I was just really disgusted by inability to refuse whatever was put in front of me.
Here we are all after our temple session on Dave’s parents’ actual anniversary day, June 8th:

Dave and his brother, Brian, were playing photographer and got their parents to do a few wedding photo opp’s:

Above, we are presenting their gifts to them. The quilt represents their 50 years together. It has grandkids, kids, jobs, hobbies, special dates, their mission, and such all quilted into it. The woman who did it really outdid herself; in fact, she let us know that she was done making custom quilts and to not give her name and number out to anyone. Gosh, were we that difficult to work with?
Below is a memory book we had published. Each grandkid submitted several pictures of themselves, as well as a favorite memory of each of the grandparents on one page. Then we put all the pages together to make one big book; kind of fun:
Other highlights of the trip, included a Conference Center Tour, Music and the Spoken Word, a carriage ride, shopping at City Creek, celebrating my 31st birthday (June 9th), and some “Kwuality” entertainment at the Desert Star Playhouse.



Also fun was this hike up to Ensign Peak. “Two days after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young and seven other pioneer leaders climbed the mountain to survey the valley. From its summit they laid out in their minds the city they intended to build. A small monument now sits on the summit.” I stole that tidbit from somewhere off the web.

Loved spending time with my sweet boy and his darling family. I’ve said this a million times, but I knew I wanted to marry Dave based off of his family alone; that’s a pretty big deal!
We really did have a wonderful weekend..not only because of Dave’s sweet parents, but also because of mine. My  parents (I’m thinking mostly my mom) really showed my kids a good time. They went swimming, played with cousins, hit a movie, trekked to the dino museum, ate at the Purple Turtle, etc. My kids probably didn’t miss The Parents a smidge. It was wonderful coming home to a clean house, a freshly baked birthday cake, homemade birthday cards, and two sweet babies. It really made the blow of coming back to reality so much sweeter.

Trying on their souvenirs…Cole was not amused.

gaLoon 2012

We took our annual Memorial Day trip to Lagoon with dinner afterwards at Buca. I am surprised every year at how much I enjoy this tradition. I don’t ride a whole lot of rides, but nothing thrills me more than watching my babies whirl and twirl in delight. I know I sound like the ultimate Mom in saying so, but it’s true.

Here, Cole rides the boats: He got a little bell-ringing and steering action in, which is commendable. But how industrious he was too! Yes, ours was the kid who was dipping his fingers to the side of the boat (into the green water), and then bringing his fingers up to his mouth for a little tasty drink. Oh, heavens.

Cole loves him some Grandpa. Anytime he sees a grandpa (not necessarily his own) he squirms, squeals, gets overly-excited, and shouts, “Pa!” repeatedly. On this day, however, Uncle Rob became an instant buddy when he helped Cole win a turtle:

Everyone kind of liked the turtle…

Cole did not adhere to height requirements. He made it on all the big kid rides he desired (or his parents desired), including Rattlesnake Rapids seen below. Lucky for Dave and him, THEY were the lucky ones who went right underneath the waterfall…

…all Cole had to say was, “WET!”

Kate and Cammie enjoyed each other’s company as usual….plus, throw in some Dippin’ Dots, and nothing tops that for the day.

Thank you, Blackhurst family, for another memorial Memorial Day.