Another Utah Spring Break in the books. The last two years, when we were living in Washington, we ended up making spur-of-the-moment Spring Break trips to Utah for job hunting and other reasons. This year it was nice to enjoy a spring break in Utah without having to drive 30 hours.
We spent the first few days on playdates and trying to get back up to speed on potty training. (Not much luck there. I knew our easy-breezy first go at potty training was too good to be true.) Then we did an ambitious day trip to Goblin Valley to meet up with cousins and my parents for a fun day. The next day we rested up and then hit up our local rec center to swim. And on Saturday we spent the afternoon after conference at Lagoon! Jared's parents gifted us season passes for our Christmas gift this year. I didn't even know Lagoon existed until I was a teenager, so I'd never had any experience with the kid section, but there were lots of great rides that the kids loved. Next time we will go right at opening so we won't have to deal with as long of lines. Alice really couldn't grasp the concept of the lines. With kids I'm grateful to have a season pass so that when we go, we can make it a 2-hour trip and then feel fine about heading back home, instead of trying to stay all day to make the most of a day pass.
Lest you think Spring Break was all good times, we did finish up Sunday afternoon taking refuge at my parents' house because we were all spring break'd out and having cute lil' MTBs. So grateful to live close to them and be able to crash their Sunday dinner with very little notice. They're the best. And now for some pictures:
^^Jack taking iconic selfies with my bestie's oldest son. They have become good friends over the past few months. It makes me feel so nostalgic and happy to know that me and my childhood bestie now have kids who are best lil buddies too. Also sad because I know this phase is a blip and they will be moving out of state at the end of this month. We're making the most of the time we have.
^^We spent one morning with my brother and his oldest at Kangaroo Zoo. So fun to have Alice be old enough to wander around a little bit on her own these days. These places aren't quite as all-hands-on-deck as they used to be for me.
^^Realized we hadn't taken any nice pictures of just Jack and Alice together for several months, so we had a little casual photoshoot.
^^On Wednesday afternoon I took Jack to the new Dinosaur Museum Jurassic Jungle playground. Since I didn't bring any playmates for him and since he had a lot of dairy that day, we ended up running home with a tummyache after only half an hour. Meanwhile, Jared was taking Alice to get her blood drawn for allergy testing, but they couldn't get into her vein so they sent her back home. Bit of a failed afternoon.
^^Goblin Valley! My brother invited us to join them for a spring break trip. We chickened out because our children are notoriously terrible travel sleepers. After our last overnight trip with them (Mt. Rainier) we swore off all overnight travel with our children for 2025. We felt bad but told my brother to let us know where they'd be going and we'd try to join them for a day trip. The location ended up being Goblin Valley, which at 3.5 hours away is an ambitious day trip. The drive down was gray and snowy and we spent most of the drive regretting our decision. Luckily the skies cleared up right as we entered Goblin Valley and we enjoyed a lovely afternoon in the park. The kids had an absolute blast. It was worth the drive to have a change of scenery for a day and have quality time with cousins and grandparents.
After Goblin Valley, we went to my brother's campsite for dinner and my parents' hotel for a swim before heading back out on the road for a much smoother drive home. It would have been fun to be able to stay overnight but it was the right call to get the kids back to their own beds this time. Once Alice is sleeping well in a big girl bed, we'll start braving longer trips. The goal is to reach that point by our family reunion this summer.
^^Camping! This was Alice's dream day. Camping, swimming, playing with her baby cousin Hunter in his tent, and making her grandparents follow her everywhere. She was on cloud 9. It was Jack's dream day too.
^^Back home, I spotted this coyote on my walk in our hills. Neat!
^^Lagoon! This was Jack's first experience in memory with cotton candy. His brain was blown. This was a great way to end our Spring Break.
