I've wanted to take a trip to the north end of the Great Salt Lake since we moved to Roy. So I put it on the family goals very first this year, even before lesser things like, "Make sure we have food, water, and shelter in 2015." Way back in January, we optimistically put it on the calendar for May, and lo and behold, we found ourselves in the car headed north on Memorial Day. We were lucky enough to have Michelle's sister Brianna with us, so she got to come along. Brianna is basically sunshine in person form, and the kids love it when she treks all the way up from BYU to stay with us. We all love it, really. Invariably she ends up staying longer than anticipated, which sometimes leads to RIDICULOUSLY early train rides back to Utah County, but I'm not complaining. So we drove out to the middle of nowhere, everyone kept busy eating a delicious ham sandwich, including a baggie of strawberries and carrots packed for us by Leah. We got to Promontory Point ju...

One thing we wanted to make happen this Christmas season was a trip down to see the lights at Temple Square with the kids. We picked a day, had an early dinner, hopped on the train, and rode down. It was a fun trip. We were all excited to be on the train, especially Leah, who is very into trains right now. We discuss each day that Daddy's at work and she's always quick to remind me that he took the train there, by making choo choo noises. The kids were pretty much awe-struck when we arrived and caught the first glimpse of the lights. We took turns picking where to go, and then had fun doing a little exploring at City Creek Center once we got through all the lights. City Creek is a great compliment to temple square. We stayed until we were all cold and starving and hopped back on the train to head home. We had fun looking out the train windows for Christmas lights, and Bryn finally sacked out on Nate's lap.We got home late and headed straight to be...

We shook things up a bit this year by taking our annual vacation to Georgia in May instead of July. It had its advantages, for sure: not completely sweltering yet; Beck and Ben were there from Ohio; great deal on plane tickets; sandwiched in between all heck breaking loose back home. It was perfectly timed and a wonderful trip. We were there for almost two weeks and got more than our fill of adventure, overeating, and chillaxation. The next several posts will be a recap. We'll start with "Go Time." UTA recently finished a Trax line that goes all the way from downtown Salt Lake City to the airport. We figured it'd cost like $8 total for the train, we could avoid airport parking (the cost and the headache), and it would be fun to take the train. And we were right! Okay, it was Nate's idea, so he was right. Here we are at the beginning of our grand adventure, awaiting the train. The flights were long but pretty uneventful. The kids all behaved admirab...