First Anniversary and Utah!!! Part 1

My family was having a family reunion in Zion National Park the first weekend in August. We decided to get there a little earlier to spend some time with Nate's family first. It was also our First Anniversary on July 29th. So we decided to get a hotel room in Cleveland, next to the airport, since we had to leave early the next morning. It wasn't exactly the best anniversary, but we made up for it later. In fact, I'll talk about that now since I forgot to bring my camera so I don't have any pictures to post about it. But on September 16 (so over a month later) we stayed at a guest house in Amish Country, about a half hour west of us. It was so nice! It was basically like a bed and breakfast, but without the breakfast. However, they did have cookies, popcorn, and drinks in the kitchen that we could help ourselves to. There apparently was someone else who stayed there that night, but we never saw or heard them. We stayed in the Victorian suite. It was decorated beautifully with a large bathroom that had a jetted tub! We did some relaxing and celebrated our first year together. It was great! We will definitely be doing that again!

But anyway, back to our real anniversary. We found our hotel, then went out to eat at Bob Evans. After that, we came back and went to bed around 11 or earlier since we had to get up at 3:30 in order to get to the airport a little after 4:30. Our flight was the first one out around 6. I didn't mean to choose that time! I thought I had chosen the 8:00 tickets! But then they were suddenly 6! I seem to do things like that a lot. Nate can attest to that. But that meant we got to Utah with plenty of day to spare. My parents met us at the airport to give us their extra car so we could head to Nate's parents.

When we got there, we said our hellos, and then went to a family reunion for my father-in-law's father's family and descendants. Nate didn't even know very many of the people there, but it was fun to meet people (or remeet people since it's really hard to meet people at a wedding when there are so many people to talk to!) in Nate's family. And of course his two sisters that live in Utah and their families were there so it was fun to see them.   After the reunion, we came home and I basically crashed. I had been up too long. So I took a nap while Nate played with his nephews. The rest of the night was spent mostly relaxing.

The next day was Sunday. Which was normal. We went to church, relaxed, ate. Then on Monday we went to the Clark Planetarium at the Gateway in Salt Lake. I've been there a few times on different dates, but it was Nate's first time. Our favorite thing was a ball machine, like those cool gumball machines, but giant. We liked looking at it and trying to figure it out. And of course the kids loved checking everything out! There are some fun hands-on activities.

Matthew, Steven, and Annika playing with the coin, toilet bowl thing

Annika, Jillian, and Cindy on the moon!

Summer, Steven, and Matthew on Mars!

On Tuesday, we drove out to a bird refuge. I had no idea that this even existed! First we stopped by the information center where they had different displays on information about birds. Then we drove out to the actual refuge. There was construction going on for part of the road, so we didn't get to see as much as normal, but I thought there were some pretty cool looking birds! Too bad I have no idea of the names of very many birds. I only know the usuals that everyone knows

Seeing how our wingspan measures up to some birds. Too bad I can't remember what birds they are

Nate's wingspan almost made it to the biggest one

Little birds that had very long legs

Summer and Annika throwing rocks

The kids with their favorite uncle!

A lone bird on the other side that seemed to be making mating calls

After the refuge, since we were so close to Brigham City, we decided we would check out the progress on the temple being built there. It is beautiful! It's like a miniature Salt Lake Temple.

Then we went home and spent time with the fam playing games and whatnot. It was good to be able to spend this time with them. It's just too bad we couldn't stay longer, but I had just gotten my new job and didn't feel like I could ask for more than a week off.