Schools Out for UEA...Now What?

It pretty much goes without saying…the boys and I LOVE to go camping…and Rod usually likes it too as long as we plan ahead! Normally we try to take advantage of any opportunity we can find to take as many family vacations as we can fit in during the year, but for some reason, this year we kind of lacked in the vacation department! I’m not sure why that was, whether it was that Rod and I were too busy or whether it was lack of planning or if it was just the fact that none of us would make any decisions as to what we wanted to do...but whatever it was, we only eeked out two vacations this summer and neither of them were very long, although they were both lots of fun.

Because of the lack of vacationing this summer, when October and UEA weekend rolled around, we were intent on taking one last camping trip for the year and we were even going to take Jan and her family along. Unfortunately, once again, none of us would make any decisions as to where or when we wanted to go and once we finally decided to go to Moab, there was nothing available. So our hopes of going camping one more time this year were pretty much dashed. UEA week still came though and we had to do something besides just sitting around, so Jan and I decided to take our kids to the Living Planet Aquarium in Salt Lake.

Jan and all of the kids had already been to the aquarium before, but I hadn’t, so it was fun for me to see all of the sealife exhibits…and I think the kids liked it too, even though they’d seen them before! It actually wasn’t too busy at the aquarium, which surprised us a little since all of the kids in Utah were out of school, but we didn’t complain because it was nice not to have to fight to see all of the exhibits and we got to stand right next to the stingray pool and pet them as they swam by...but none of us really wanted to, least of all the kids!

The stingray exhibit...no one would pet them though!

Hayden just loved being with Carli

The little boys at the shark tank

My favorite exhibit was the penguins...and it was probably the busiest of all of the exhibits, so obviously it was everyone else’s favorite too! I loved to watch the penguins swim back and forth in front of us and then suddenly stop and jump straight up onto the ledge. They were cute!

After we saw the last of the exhibits, we had to go through the aquarium’s store in order to leave, which of course, was by design! They had all sorts of stuffed animals and various other sealife toys that were cute and fun...and the kids desperately wanted everything they saw! It would have been nice to just bypass the store altogether but since that wasn’t an option, we decided to take pictures of the kids with some of the cute toys...and let the pictures be their souvenir! Then just as we were ready to leave, the boys spotted the penny smashing machine and our souvenir dilemma was solved! It only cost us $1.02 and both boys were completely happy with their smashed pennies. I love those machines!

Look at all of the cute penguins...and kids of course!

Paige preferred the ladybug over the penguins

Going to the aquarium may not have been the camping trip that we had all hoped for, but it was definitely cheaper than going camping and a lot more fun than staying home…and I still got to spend some time with Jan and the kids got to spend time with their cousins! What more could we ask for?