Stay-cation Day 5

Day 5 of the staycay was spent at "the beach". The kids have loved having a beach/reservoir so close to home. While it's not the biggest thing around, I love that it only takes 5 minutes to get there, and all the kids really want to do is splash in the water and dig in the sand anyway. Since we don't have a boat or anything, it's all we really need. Besides that, how lucky was it that we got a 90 degree day in mid-September? Perfect weather!

I spent most of my time in the shade, since it takes me all of 5 minutes to get a nice sunburn.

We ran into a neighbor there who let Greg try out his paddle surf board. He got cruising pretty fast on that thing. I thought it would be funny to get a picture of him falling off, but he never did.

Dylan trying his first mouthful of sand.

The water was freezing!

My little dirt diggers.

We took a nice walk/bike ride down to the Iceberg for dinner. Mmmmm, so yummy.

And ice cream for dessert.

Yeah, it was Iceberg, so we probably should have gotten shakes for dessert, but our tummies were too full. Besides that, we have had no shortage of tasty treats this week!

We finished it all off with a movie night/sleepover in the living room.

So sad that our staycation is almost over!

STAY-cation Days 2 - 4

On day 2 of our stay-cation we decided to take a trip to the zoo. We hadn't been there in about three years, so we were due for another visit.

Upon walking into the giraffe house, I took one whiff and sarcastically said "Mmmmm, smells good in here!". Right away Alyssa answered (and she was being totally serious) "I know! I love this smell!". Classic Alyssa. Greg and I just had to laugh.

This cute little thing looks like a house cat, but is really some South American wildcat. Dylan didn't seem to notice that there was anything interesting to look at at the zoo - and we'd already seen elephants, monkeys, rhinos and a few other things - until we got to this little guy. The cat was actually curled up in a corner until we set Dylan down in front of his cage, and then he got up and walked right over to Dylan and where they both just sat and stared at each other for the next 5 minutes.

Posing on the giant elephant's trunk.

Greg being a good sport and doing the gorilla pose with the big kids.

Tyler was only attacked by animals twice while we were there. A peacock (or a "pee hawk", and Ryan thinks they are called) came over during lunch looking for some crumbs. I didn't notice that Tyler tried to pet it until it was flying up in his face and screeching. We thought it was funny - Tyler did not. Later we were looking at a baby crocodile that was behind glass. Tyler had his face pressed right up against the glass trying to get a better view, because the crocodile looked like it was just sleeping in the bottom of its pool. All of a sudden it leaped out of the water and threw itself against the glass right in front of Tyler's face, snapping its jaws. It was totally unexpected, so it was quite funny - except for poor Tyler, who saw his life flash before his eyes. He was a little wary of getting too close to any animals after that.

After the zoo we headed on up to Park City to spend the night, which leads us to....

Day 3

Park City is pretty dead this time of year as far as the mountain resort goes, so we mostly just hung out and relaxed. We spent LOTS of time at the pool, which is all the kids really care about anyway. (Okay, there was a little shopping involved as well. Can't miss a chance to hit up the outlets you know!)

Alyssa is our little fish. She would spend the entire day in the water if she could.

Ryan is the opposite - he always prefers to spend his aquatic time on the top step of the hot tub....

...Or wrapped in a towel snuggling on the lounge chairs.

Dylan seems to be a fan.

(I love the matching expressions on their faces!)

We spent our second night in PC with a DVD from Redbox and some delicious take out from Red Rock Brewing Co. I LOVE that place! Especially the Sweet Potato Cannelloni. Holy delicious...cannelloni shells stuffed with a blend of ricotta, sweet potatoes, spinach, sage, and smothered in a cream sauce with melted provolone and parmesan....so good, and I normally don't even like sweet potatoes! Okay, have I gone on about how much I love this dish enough? :) I am ready to go back for more right now!

Day 4

We left Park City and headed for Discovery Gateway in Salt Lake. None of us had ever been there before, so we thought we'd give it a whirl. The kids had a great time and there was plenty to keep everyone busy for the entire afternoon....

Like delivering vegetables from the farm to the market.....

Or flying a Life Flight helicopter......

Doing a tipping table maze.....

Or practicing some horseback riding skills. Good times.

After the museum, we took the kids to splash around in the fountains at the Gateway.

Then it was back to our home sweet home to roast hot dogs and make s'mores in the back yard. Gotta enjoy this beautiful weather while we've still got it!

YUM!!!

STAY-cation

We had some vacation time planned for this month, but for the longest time we couldn't decide where we wanted to go or what we wanted to do. Of course if we had endless funds, we would have been able to come up with plenty of great places to go, but as it is, we decided to go on a "stay-cation". There are plenty of local things that we have never done, and plenty of local things that we have done, but that the kids wish we did more often. So we tried to hype it up and get the kids all excited about a vacation that doesn't sound nearly as fun as Disneyland or some other far off wonderful place. This is how the conversation went:

Mom & Dad: "Hey kids, we decided that for our vacation we are going to do a stay-cation. Do you know what that is?"

Kid (very excitedly): "Is it where we get to go on vacation and STAY there forever?!"

Mom & Dad: "Um, no, it's not."

Now this idea seems really lame.

But in the end, the kids seemed to think it sounded like a fun idea after all.

So here are the results of "STAYCATION 2010"

DAY 1

(also called "the best day ever" by Ryan)

The Incredible Pizza Company

So I found an amazing deal for this place, and for only $10 per person we got:

unlimited bumper cars

unlimited go-karts

Unlimited mini-bowling

Tyler has his own special method of throwing the bowling ball. If you look to the far right of the picture, you'll notice that his ball is still airborne. Strangely enough, this proved to be highly effective.

Unlimited mini-golf

Okay, so we're not actually golfing in these pictures, but they were taken on the golf course. I think I was born in the wrong era, don't you? :)

And also unlimited laser tag....of which I have no pictures. Because really, I'm trying not to "get lased", as Ryan puts it, and taking pictures while shooting and ducking and dodging is not the easiest thing to do.

We also managed to get in a few games and rides.

On top of all that we also had unlimited access to the buffet all day long. We decided to really get our money's worth and just stay the whole day and eat all of our meals there. Well okay, not breakfast.

Surprisingly the food was actually decent, and despite the name, they had much more than pizza to offer. There was also a salad bar, pasta bar, potato bar, taco/nacho bar, hamburgers, hot dogs, fries, chicken fingers, and a dessert bar, not to mention quite a few other foods.

We ended up staying for 9 hours, and the kids are begging to go back again tomorrow, so I think Day 1 was a success!