Summer Staycation, part 2

The next adventures for our staycation was doing the Salt Lake Connect Pass again with Joy's family. We had been waiting for them to go on sale again (they did buy a three day pass at the two day price last spring) and were disappointed that they hadn't when we saw the amazing Groupon deal. They had the passes for 40% off! It really is a good deal at regular price, but I love getting a steal! On the 20th we first met up at This is the Place Heritage Park.

The kids got to do some pioneer chores like washing

and drying,

seeing how wool is spun,

and making beeswax candles.

They enjoyed some wooden swings,

and panned for gold.

In the Indian village they made arrowhead necklaces

and checked out some very cool hogans.

We rode the train

and toured historical homes. The kids got to try a stereoscope.

We had to stop by the salloon for a sarsaparilla and Farr's play dough ice cream cones.

Then on to the petting zoo

and pony rides.

We had brought our lunches for a picnic, but decided that it was too hot and just ate in the car. Our next stop was the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. Tony worried that this would be a boring waste, but we found lots of amazing things there!

Tony was even having fun--here he's pretending to cop a feel on this headless, armless statue's boob.

Faith wanted her picture taken with "art from Shakespeare's time."

For our final destination of day one, we went to Hogle Zoo. The kids loved getting squirted again by the animatronic dino.

A clear beehive, fascinating!

We loved seeing the rhino up close, it's so cool when you hit this area at feeding time.

It was a bit warm, so we were glad to have a squirt bottle of water handy. Christian wielded that thing like a weapon :)

And of course he had to have his picture taken with EVERYTHING. I'll spare you the other 8,394.

Soooo big!

I can't believe this is the first picture with any of Joy's family, I promise we were with them all day! Love the great acting here.

For the 21st, we started off by taking Frontrunner,

and then Trax to the Clark Planetarium. Cue Buddy's usual gift shop meltdown.

We saw the 3D movie "Born to be Wild" about two baby animal orphanages. One for orangutans of Borneo and one for elephants in Kenya. Very moving and a "10" on the adorable-ness scale! The kids absolutely loved the 3D effects and the cute baby animals. Joy remarked that although the theme of the documentary is how we need to be more careful with their habitat and stop poaching so that babies like these can be raised by their parents and without human interference, you come away with an overwhelming desire to hug one! 

Next, we walked over to Discovery Gateway. We spent several hours doing LOTS of the activities:

Here are the dominoes in action:

We took Trax to the Temple Square area

and ate our dinner (included in our Connect Pass tickets!) at the Lion House Pantry.

We then took a tour of the Beehive House,

and walked back to the Trax station.

(Such pretty flowers and lovin' that bulge of Brandt in Joy's belly! Christian just told me that in this pic he's showing off a potato bug he found)

When we got back to the Gateway we cooled off in the fountains.

Sierra was told not to get too wet because she didn't have a change of clothes. I saw her a couple of times actually sitting on the geyser-like fountains, but later cried to her mom, in her defense, that she tried really hard to stay dry!

Our last activity of the day was back at the Planetarium. We went to "Night Vision" in the dome theater which is a live narrated show about what is currently going on in the night sky. The narrator was very entertaining and taught us about many constellations and about billions more galaxies that were recently discovered. Even our kids loved it! Another excellent day of adventure.