Ogden Day 2

Our second day in Ogden was filled with a lot more parks, but first, we had breakfast in the hotel. It was a pretty good breakfast, but there was no orange juice somehow. We left around 9 o'clock and went to an art museum in an old house. The art was okay, but the house was really cool. It was an old three-story built in the 1800's. That was the best part of the museum. 

We loved exploring the old home.

The building was amazing.

After the museum, we dropped Dax off at Hobbs Reservoir and visited 3 or 4 parks. Seth and Dad were great sports, and the parks were actually fun. We picked up Dax for the last one and did lunch in the van. 

It was beautiful at Hobbs pond, but no luck with the fishing.

Seth always wants to swing.

This park was cool. It looked like a castle.

The trail behind the park was still full of Fall!

Seth was speaking with all of the trees for some reason.

It was a nice, easy trail. 

One of the parks had a historic cabin.

This park was one of the best we visited. 

Seth and Dad rode the zipline together.

This is how Dax hangs at the parks.

He did get up and climb a little bit.

There was a cute pumpkin patch that was perfect for kids, but it was really muddy. We parked in the muck and then went in to see what they had. This one was quite large, and there was a fun petting zoo. We fed the goats, pigs, and calves, and then played a lot of games. The best part was a huge slide. The boys liked the bumpy side, but Mom and Dad preferred the smooth side. 

Checking out the big slide.

We love these spots for pictures!

This teeter totter was a unique activity.

We always love the petting zoo.

Mom and Seth on the bumpy side.

A few parks later, we headed back to the hotel to change for the temple. Though the Ogden Temple is beautifully framed in our hotel window, we weren't going to that one. Instead, we drove down to Syracuse, which is the first, and currently only temple with 2 operating fonts. We went to the south font, and Dax baptized Mom and Dad, and then Dad baptized Dax and Seth. It was a nice trip, and the boys hadn't been to this temple since the Open House.

We did stop at one park near our hotel. Seth likes to risk his life on these spinning things. 

This park was in a pretty spot.

The Syracuse temple!

We did dinner at Olive Garden at Seth's request. He ate really well, and we all got stuffed with pasta (well, Mom had soup and salad). Then we stopped at our last adventure of the night.

This was a massive pumpkin patch that reminded us of Cornbelly's. There were a lot more teenagers and young adults at this one, and it was easy to see why. There was a three story slide and three different corn mazes. We did the one that had spooky skeleton lights, because there were no scarers. We also made massive bubbles and rode several different slides. There was even live music on a side stage, though we didn't stay too late. We were tired after a long day, and the boys wanted to get back and watch a movie before bed. It was another great day of "work."

Last Ogden pumpkin patch.

The sunset was nice.

The giant bubbles were a lot of fun.

It was a fun night!

Ogden Day 1

Normally we do a nice Fall Break trip. This year, we spent two days in Ogden. Why Ogden, you ask? Well, we are often asked, through social media, why we have so little information on our website about Ogden. So, we decided to do a business trip. 

On Wednesday, we took off right before lunch. We reminded ourselves that this was a business trip, and we planned accordingly. Our first stop was a park. Our second stop was also a small park. Since parks are a popular landing spot on our website, our third stop was a park where we made lunch. Then we stopped at our fourth and final park.

We visited some fun parks.

Dad and Seth have a lot of fun.

Another park

Seth is a good sport to check them all out for the blog.

This park was super fun!

We liked the bright colors at this one.

We had another fun stop at a pumpkin patch called Pack Farms. This one was a business stop, but we had a lot of fun. First, we played a lot of games. There were jumbo games like Jenga, Connect Four, and ball drop. We also played tetherball and did some of the slides. There was even a little hay bale maze. The boys enjoyed the massive tubes that you stand in and roll down the track. Things really went pretty well until Dad bottomed out in the mud on the zipline and Dax skated down the roller slide all the way to the bottom before falling down on his backside. Then Seth fell off the zipline and we were all pretty muddy. The tractor ride was the highlight, though. We were in barrel cars behind the tractor, and the driver really took us for a ride. It was bumpy and spinny and very fast. We laughed the entire way!

Random duck

We got a little wet and muddy.

This tractor barrel ride was a blast.

The boys laughed a bunch.

Next we stopped at a really strange place called Gandy's. We'd heard this was an ice cream shop, so we were surprised when we walked in the door and heard live music. A lady was playing guitar up front even though it was only 2 pm. There were tables with puzzles, walls lined with books, an open stage area, and tables for lunch and ice cream. We grabbed a few exotic flavors and talked to the owner for quite awhile. It seemed like a great place for a community to gather, but you never see places like that anymore. 

Gandy's was a unique place.

After checking into the hotel, we settled and watched a bit of TV. Then we went to dinner. The restaurant was a steakhouse, and the interior was full of covered wagons. Each table was set in a wagon along the wall, and in the middle were all kinds of desert and forest animals, just like in Cabela's. The food wasn't really that great (we liked the fried mushrooms), but it was different than anyplace we'd been before. 

Temple view from our hotel room. 

Heading into our dinner spot.

Eating in a covered wagon was interesting.

The food was okay, but we love the atmosphere.

It was dark when we finally headed up to the Ogden Dinosaur Park. They invited us to come to their spook night, and since we love this place, we decided to go. We listened to some (sort of) spooky stories, and then ventured among the dinosaurs. There was a spooky trail, and Mom and the boys were a little nervous to venture down it. They needn't have been, as a few kids and teens jumped out and said "Boo!" three or four times. We actually walked it twice, laughing a bit the second time, as they were much less nervous. 

Back at the hotel, we finished our movie. Then we packed in early. We had planned a big day of "business" for Friday, too!

Watch out for Seth!

We had fun at the Dinosaurs after Dark.

Family pic

Great view at night, too!

Paul McCartney

On Friday after school, we watched Seth’s final tennis match of the season. He played singles and won 6-1 sweeping 6 games in a row after double-faulting away the first game. Then we drove down to Cedar City and hopped into a hotel. We got settled just in time to watch the BYU game. They beat WV (despite three turnovers) pretty easily. 

On Saturday morning, we woke up about 7 and went to breakfast. We picked up Mark's friend, Aubrey, and took her to the All-American Diner. It was fun to see her, and she was so nice to us. At 9 o’clock we had a tour of the lighthouse in Cedar City. There are only 91 steps, but it seemed like 910 . We didn’t spend very long, and it was freezing (only about 50 degrees and very windy), but it was cool to look from the deck on top. It’s about 7 stories tall. 

Aubrey is one of our favorite friends!

It was so windy at the top of the lighthouse.

We took a little photo on their camera.

A look at the lighthouse from the bottom.

We listened to the first session of Conference on the ride down to Las Vegas. Jonny had ordered drinks and pizza for lunch when we arrived. We had lunch and then we watched the afternoon session with the Pooles. Mom had thought about not doing the treat bags, but she was glad that she’d brought them along when she saw how excited Ben was to open them. It was a long afternoon of hide-and-seek and conference naps before dinner finally came. Jonny cooked up some pork burritos. 

We love visiting the Pooles.

Mom trying to make Seth's smolder face.

We do have fun together!

The Paul McCartney concert started at 8pm, and Dad was ready to leave for Allegiant Stadium by 5:50. Mom insisted that was too early (she was right, but we left about 6:30). Traffic around the stadium was pretty intense, and we got parked (for $50) and came around the building about 7:10. There was a massive line wrapped around the building, and lots of people were getting in it, but that was just the t-shirt line. We walked right around them and went in. Since we were in the lower bowl, we had to walk through part of the stadium. There’s this huge lounge with food that we had to walk through to get to our seats. We were quite far from the stage, but we could still see. Every seat was full except for right next to Mom for some reason.

There were a lot of cool things to see in the stadium.

Such a memorable night!

McCartney didn’t go onstage until 8:30, and then he came out with a keyboardist, two guitarists, and a drummer. There was also a small horn section. Paul played bass on Help!, Coming Up, Got to get You into My Life, Drive My Car, and a few of his solo songs. Then he switched to his electric guitar and played Let Me Roll It, Purple Haze (instrumental), and Getting Better All the Time. Then he walked to the piano and played Let ‘Em In, and a few solo songs. He ended the piano section with Maybe I’m Amazed, which was so stunningly beautifully perfect. He did all the live piano runs and really banged it out. It was awesome.
On that note, Dad wore his YOU’RE AWESOME shirt to the concert. Six people talked to him about it on the way in. He even purposely stood in a guys picture with his wife, holding the shirt out behind them, and later, they came and told us how much they loved the photo and sent it to their whole family. The family wanted him to tell us they loved the shirt. 

Paul McCartney was really there!

You could see him really well (on the Jumbotron).

Then Paul picked up the acoustic and did I’ve Just Seen a Face and the first two Beatles songs ever (actually the first was the Quarrymen): In Spite of All the Danger, and Love Me Do. He played the mandolin on Dance Tonight. Then everyone else left the stage, and it rose up about 25 feet. By himself, he played Blackbird and Here Today. Back at the piano he played the new song, Now and Then, and Lady Madonna. 

One of the huge highlights came next when they played a really rocking version of Jet, with Paul on bass. He kept the bass and sang John’s Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite. 

This section was sort of a tribute, so he took out the ukelele George had given him and played Something, which went from a Hawaiian style solo to a massive ripping guitar song by the end. After that it was almost all Beatles stuff. He did O-bla-di, Band on the Run, and Get Back. 

Blackbird was cool.

Paul played two pianos.

This one was so colorful and the other was a grand piano.

The best pic we got of him on the stage.

It was fun to see all the instruments he played.

Then he moved back to the piano and did our favorite stuff: Let it Be, and then Live and Let Die. This was full of pyrotechnics, with flames, lasers, fireworks, and explosions. We were pretty shocked when Paul stood up from the piano and covered his ears and head for the final explosion. Then he played Hey, Jude. That was the last number, and it was pretty sweet with 35,000 people singing along.

Of course, after enough clapping, they came out for an encore. They started with I’ve Got a Feeling, Dad's absolute favorite song. It was so cool, because after he sang the first part, John was up on the screens, singing his part through (Taken from Peter Jackson’s film). When they sang together, we love, love, loved it! There was a little jazz remix of this song at the end, too. They did the Sgt. Pepper Reprise, and then a totally ear-ripping, face-melting scream through Helter Skelter. Finally, and fittingly, they ended with the last of Abbey Road’s Long One: Golden Slumbers, Carry that Weight, and The End. He was on stage for 2 hours and 45 minutes, performing 37 songs without a single break. Not bad for 83 years old. The only time he seemed a little old was trying to hit those high notes on Blackbird with just him and the acoustic guitar. Other than that, he seemed like a kid again, telling stories and talking about his bandmates and their time together. 

Surprisingly, we got out of that concert and parking lot pretty quickly (it was sort of an older, slow moving mass of people). We made it back to Tiff’s by about 11:40. I was tired, sung-out, and thoroughly happy. 

On Sunday, we watched the morning session of Conference, and then made the long drive home.

Dad was so happy!!