Dinosaur Adventures -- Spring Break 2014

For Spring Break this year, we were so excited to go hang out with Joe and Kym's family in Price. Cousins were such an important part of my childhood, and I desperately want my kids to be able to feel that same love for their cousins. We don't get to spend very much time together, so we take any chance we get.

Price is in "Dinosaur Country", so we thought it would be fun to make it the theme for the weekend. My dinosaur-loving boys were thrilled with the idea.

We left Friday morning and arrived in Price just in time for lunch. Kym fed us amazing meals all weekend and even made homemade dinosaur graham crackers. We were all so impressed (they were yummy and adorable)! It was quite the accomplishment to feed all of us and and do all of the dishes that we created.

After lunch, we headed over to the Prehistoric Museum that is only a couple of blocks from their house. It is a small museum, but just perfect for a bunch of kids. They loved the huge mammoth, the fossils and the dinosaur play area. After playing and digging for fossils in the sand pit for quite a while, we got to watch them feed the alligator live mice. The kids (and Jonathon) thought it was pretty cool. Then we went back to the house and enjoyed the evening together. 

On Saturday morning, we went to a really cool dinosaur playground for a picnic. Then we headed to the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry, which was about an hour from Joe and Kym's place. The quarry has the most dense concentration of Jurassic dinosaur bones in the world. To get to the quarry, we had to drive 13 miles on dirt roads. Once we were there, it was fun to see what a real paleontologist does. There was an area where exposed bones were still in the earth. There were so many bones in such a small area. It was pretty crazy to see. Then we took the boys on a hike to the top of Raptor Point. We made it about 3/4 of the way up the mountain when it got pretty steep and dangerous. I decided we probably needed to turn around or it might get too hard to get down with 3 little kids. The kids were devastated to have to turn around, but soon realized that going down was even harder than going up. We made it down just fine and enjoyed a few more little trails before heading home.

 Christian and allosaurus

 Hiking up to Raptor Point

 The boys and their raptor poses

When we got home from the quarry, Kym and I got to go to the General Women's Meeting together. It was simply amazing. The spirit was so strong and we left with a renewed desire to be better women, wives, and mothers. When we arrived home, we were greeted with kid's in their pajamas and homemade ice cream ready to be served. It was a lovely evening.

Sunday was church and lots of play time for the kids. I taught the kids the game "Ring on a String" that we used to play when we were little. Jadyn wanted to play it every single day. We also played Settlers of Catan and ate the leftover homemade ice cream and brownies. It was so fun to watch the kids interact and play together. Christian is the oldest grandkid on both sides, so I was worried that he would never be able to enjoy his cousins. Luckily, Jadyn and McKay are getting old enough that they can all have fun together. They played together remarkably well and we hope that this trip will be a great memory that they can look back on. It was also fun to see Bridger and Hyrum together. Bridger is 4 months older, but about the same size. We joked that he better beat up on Hyrum now because it looks like Hyrum will probably be bigger soon. We left early on Monday. Hyrum slept the entire two hours home and the other boys also napped. They were exhausted from all of the fun, but everyone had a great time.

 Bridger and Hyrum playing

Playing out front-- Christian found a nice barrel to sit and read