FUN AT SNOWBIRD WITH GRANDMA AND GRANDPA Z

My sister and three of her kids came from Vernal, Liz and her kids came, and Taylor, Manja, Lauralee and Emma all visited Snowbird for the day.


Building "the fort". The cousins have been working on this for the last three years. I'm pretty sure other kids have helped when they visit Snowbird during the year.
Cousin Quinn on the slide.

Cousin Heidi on the alpine slide.




Sisters!!




Emma loves the water and her "water car"!



Emma loves jumping - she helps count 1,2,3 by shouting "two", she's still working on the other numbers!

Shelly and Manja used to be in the pool with their kids, now they sit on the side
with Grandma enjoying the kids as they play!! Life moves on!



Here we are all gathered around two computers looking at Manja's and Liz's pictures from our San Antonio trip!

DAY NINE - MESA VERDE AND HOME!!

DISCLAIMER: I posted three posts Monday night.
If you want to go in order of our travels, scroll down
and visit Days 6, 7, and 8 first!
Otherwise, live in reverse!

Saturday evening we arrived in beautiful Durango,
Colorado. Unfortunately we only had a few hours in the
area before we had to head home to Utah on Sunday and so
we spent the morning visiting Mesa Verde National Park.
We all really enjoyed the museums and the quick hike
down to the Spruce Tree ruins. Bryan and I thought the
area was so beautiful that we hope we can come back
soon and do some camping in the area and spend
more time in the Park - there is just too much to see.

Climbing down into the kiva.

ARE WE IN UTAH YET???
Hey, look at Taylor, he's sitting upright after being
sick for the last three days.

After leaving Mesa Verda and traveling all afternoon and evening
we arrived in Ogden at about 10:00 pm, tired but full of
great memories.

Now, here's Manja's testimonial for GPS systems.
GET ONE, GO OUT RIGHT NOW AND BUY ONE IF YOU
PLAN TO TRAVEL TO LARGE CITIES WITH CRAZY
FREEWAY SYSTEMS.
I firmly believe that the GPS unit that we borrowed from
Bryan's friend literally SAVED OUR MARRIAGE!!
It honestly never led us astray - and Manja is the first
to admit that had she been the sole navigator, we would
probably still be in San Antonio somewhere trying to
get from a collector system onto the actual freeway.

Here are the stats generated by the GPS for our trip.
9 DAYS
3400 MILES
60 HOURS OF TOTAL DRIVE TIME
(This number should be higher, because sometimes
we actually didn't have the unit turned on.)
Average speed: 59 mp
Top Speed: 90 mph (passing a truck on the freeway folks!)
4 STATES
2 RELATIVES
4 HOTELS/MOTELS
1 RAIN/HAIL STORM
1 COMPLETE DOUBLE RAINBOW
1 DUCK - Hit Mike and Liz's front grill on Suburban
THREE GREAT MEXICAN MEALS
1 GREAT STEAK DINNER
1 GREAT BARBECUE LUNCH
AND
APPROXIMATELY 30 DIFFERENT
GAS STATION RESTROOMS!

REMEMBER THE ALAMO!!

DAYS SEVEN AND EIGHT, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Day seven was a very, very long day of travel. We left
San Antonio, our home for five nights, and traveled north
to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Other than a stop for a really
great lunch in a scary hole-in-the-wall restaurant, in a town
with a name none of us can remember, we drove 13 hours on Friday.

Unfortunately, poor Taylor started getting sick Thursday night --
(sore throat, aching ears, body aches, just-leave-me-alone-
and-let-me-sleep kinda sick - probably Swine flu) and so he spent all of Friday,
Saturday and Sunday in the van, just trying to keep water and Tylenol down.
The really amazing thing was that with 12 people together
for four days and four of us traveling together in our van,
Taylor was the only one who caught this nasty little virus.

Santa Fe was a wonderful city - and not just because it was
the first time we felt temperatures below 80 degrees! We only
had a few hours to spend here on Friday morning, and so of course
we did the only thing we could - WE WENT SHOPPING!
We headed for the main plaza where you could find
a little bit of everything. It was especially fun to see all the
beautiful jewelry the Native Americans create.

Anne and I pooled our money to buy a silver and turquoise
necklace in Santa Fe. This is the Native American artist
who made our necklace.

Anne can hardly be expected to go shopping without
buying a pair of shoes. There was a Tom's Shoes
store in Santa Fe and they were having a children's
art festival fund raiser. If you bought a pair of shoes
you could choose to decorate/paint your shoes yourself
or pay extra to have a real artist to the work.
Anne, being the artist that she is, decided paying extra
for the real thing would be best. This is the artist at work!
He used the design on Anne's shirt for the inspiration
for the art on the shoes. It was really fun to see all the people
shopping and supporting this fundraiser.
Notice Anne's hat - also purchased in Santa Fe.

DAY SIX - CORPUS CRISTI

On Thursday we drove 2 1/2 hours south
to Corpus Christi. Our first stop was the
U.S.S. Lexington, an aircraft carrier that served
our country well during World War II and beyond.
We spent about three hours on a self guided tour
and still were unable to see the entire ship. Of course
with the temperature near 100 and the humidity high,
the inside of a steel ship is a bit warm.
The ship was amazing and we sure have a lot more
respect for those who can serve at sea for months at a
time in hot, cramped and often times perilous situations.

After we finished with our visit to the
U.S.S. Lexington and lunch at
Taco Cabana (shout out to Amy!)
we went to Padre Island and spent
a few hours in the GULF OF MEXICO!
We had a blast. Bryan bought the kids a
knee board and skim board and they were
doing their best to catch some waves!

DAY FIVE - TEMPLE VISIT AND SIX FLAGS!

We started Day Five with a session at the San Antonio Temple. Beautiful stained glass windows were everywhere and they were beautiful both from the inside and out. Jeff served his mission in the San Antonio mission and was there when the open house and dedication were held.

After our temple session we headed off to SIX FLAGS. Again, this was a HOT, HUMID DAY!!But it was a riot!! We basically walked right on to every ride. Was everyone at the waterpark?? Mom, Anne, Eric, Liz and Mike loved ALL the rollercoasters. Dad made it on one giant rollercoaster, think Lagoon's white coaster, all wood, 3 times larger and longer, and A LOT MORE RICKETY. After this, Bryan kept to the water rides. And speaking or water rides - THANK YOU!!!! (We don't have a lot of pictures of Six Flags because we were just too busy having fun!)