After taking a five month break, Natalie decided she wanted to give gymnastics another try. Her team was competing in Park City, Utah and since the competition dates fell during the kids' mid-winter break from school, we decided to make a trip of it.
My kids are road trip rockstars. We left early Monday morning and made it to Utah with just two brief stops.
On Tuesday morning, we visited Temple Square. We enjoyed wandering the grounds and spending a fair amount of time in the newly renovated Church History Museum, with the Joseph Smith film being the highlight. We had lunch at the Lion House before heading to Orem, where my aunt and uncle live.
Oh, and we stopped at Scheel's on the way to Orem. A ferris wheel inside a sporting goods store?
Lots of funny photo op stations, too. Fun place to shop.
On Wednesday morning, we attended the Provo City Center Temple open house. Jon and I used to attend stake conferences here when we lived in Provo. We were saddened when it was destroyed by a fire, but rejoiced when President Monson announced that it would be restored and become the city's second temple. Beautiful!
We had lunch at Brick Oven, because that's what you do when you're in Provo. And then you go to the bookstore. It's what you do. If you're Caleb, you try on crazy blue wigs while you're there.
Then Alyssa wanted to pop into the gymnastics gym. The team was just finishing up practice for the day. They were incredibly friendly and gathered everyone in to pose for a picture.
On the way out, Alyssa said, "I should've told them, 'See you in 4 years.'" I love that missing a season and having to undergo surgery has not deterred her from her goal to one day be on this team.
Something else we always do when we're in town is measure Lys' height against the shortest athlete--a gymnast--in BYU history. She's passed it by.
Thursday was Natalie's meet day, but that morning, I met my dear friend Sara for breakfast. We met as freshmen in college.
That afternoon, we made our way to snowy Park City where Natalie had a whole fan club to cheer her on. Grandma and Grandpa, Shauna and John, Maureen, and Christopher and Jen joined us to watch her. She didn't compete floor, which was disappointing, but five months off of gym didn't impact her amazing vault skills. She came away with the 2nd place medal.
On Friday, we met the Turners at Provo Beach Resort for some arcade games. Natalie won headphones in a claw game. I mean really, it's too bad there isn't an option for becoming a professional claw game operator. She'd be rich!
Maison and Alyssa were happy to win princess crowns and mini laser guns. Not quite as much skill required for those parting gifts.
After dinner at Los Hermanos, we went to the BYU gymnastics meet. Lys had so much fun sharing this experience with Maison. They got their faces painted and bought handstand shirts.
Lys can already picture herself here:
We returned to Park City Saturday afternoon to watch the AGC level 9s compete. Then we finished our fun week with a BYU basketball game.
Having nose-bleed seats didn't keep us from having a blast.
Nat and Lydia shared a Cougar Tail. Look at that thing!
Caleb's always in his happy place when spending time with Mason and Landon. I suppose getting to spend time with them and be at BYU at the same time would be his definition of paradise.
The Evans' baby, Grace, participated in a baby crawl. Caleb got to go down on the floor with Mason and Zeke to try to coax her to the finish line. She was so close to winning it, but some other speedy baby kicked it into high gear and the last minute and passed her by.
We said goodbye to my parents and the Evans in the parking lot after the game and started toward home. We spent the night in Brigham City and then traveled the rest of the long trip on Sunday.
It was a great week spent with family and friends.
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