Monday, April 12, 2010

Spring Break, YO!

I just got back from looking at my cousin's pictures from HER Spring Break vacation to the Caymen Islands and listening to my friend tell us all about HER trip to Disneyland. Well, it was NOTHING like MY vacation (for one day) to Summit County, Utah!

When the kids are in 4th grade around here, they do a "county report" and so far we are 2 for 2 in visiting the county to help give them some awesome pictures for their horribly homemade posters to accompany their report. And as an educator, I want my kids to realize the importance of good visual aids. Powerpoint, shmowersmoint. Good, old-fashioned posters with some glossy 4X6's are where it's at! It's the future of education, I'm just sure of it! Here are some highlights of our trip:


First thing's first: let's eat! Here we are at a historic diner transported from the east coast, right to Summit County! We are impressed already! At this point in the trip, we're still enthusiastic. We're throwing snowballs, we're laughing. We hit the road while spirits are high.

Our waitress was super great (drinks always full) and friendly (you know how I feel about talking to strangers--I like it), and served Topher the best reuben sandwich he's ever had.

Margaret's not in this photo because she's too busy throwing glass salt and pepper shakers and jumping on the antique tables.

Here's Owen at the Summit County museum. Luckily, no one was manning the store, so to speak. We could wander in and out at our leisure and not worry about any museum representative judging me on my parenting skills as I yelled at Margaret to stop touching all the antiques and passive-aggressively rolling my eyes at Topher. My favorite part of this museum was a framed newspaper clipping from the late 1800s advertising a nutritious vegetable compound for "women who are too tired to do their work!" One testimonial stated, "Now that I drink (this special "vegetable" snake oil), I now weigh 165 pounds and I feel so energized and healthy! I can finish all my household duties and chores!" Can you imagine that ad running today?! Then I cracked open a diet Coke and took a nap in the car.

This is the outside of the museum. My kids always want to climb on things and have me take a picture. I'm not sure if it's for artistic reasons: like, it improves "the shot," or if it's just so they have an excuse to climb on something they're not sure they can. We're on vacation so anything goes!

We thought this looked like a still shot that belongs in an episode of "Parks and Recreation." Yeah, Pawnee!

Here are the kids experiencing some interactive learning at the Park City Olympic museum. It's free and I highly recommend it because kids can touch stuff and it teaches you what to do in case of an avalanche which is something I'd been meaning to cross off on my "stuff my kids should know" mental parenting list. Done and done!

Owen is awesome.

Here's a historic (old) church in Summit County. This is the point in the trip when half of the car had fallen asleep and the other half were lamenting that we didn't let them bring their DS's and Topher told everyone to "LOOK OUT THE WINDOW!" and enjoy the beauty of Utah, as any good dad would. Then we took a picture.

We love Summit County!

Incidentally, this is how our trip both started, and ended.

15 comments:

  1. Your kids are so adorable they make any picture you take really good (!) I'm sure he'll get an A.

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  2. People around here TRAVEL during breaks. I can name at least three families I know of who went to Hawaii - I'm like, "Uh, we went to Cold Stone...?"

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  3. Loved the trip! The cheetos are a must for any undertaking. I am so glad that I am not the only mom whose idea of travel is not too far from here!

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  4. Let's face it, we all look like Margaret after a road trip!

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  5. Thank you for that. . .I loved it! And thank you for going to the counties that I would never want to visit, so that we can steal all of your stuff if one of our kids needs to do a similar report sometime in the future (if we ever move back to Utah). Also, thanks for feeding Margaret Cheetos. It almost justifies me giving Lila a bottle pop to keep her happy in the car today.

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  6. I have a fourth grader too and I think this is a fabulous idea, so I hope you don't mind if I take it. Now, off to luxurious Iron County!

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  7. any mom that lets her kids eats cheetos is a good mom.

    (in the car none the less! gasp!)

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  8. I love Summit County. Who needs the cayman islands? For spring break we went...to a big fat nowhere. So you're doing better than us!

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  9. There was a clear THREAT of vomit, a pullover to the side of the road, and some tears and dry heaving, but no actual vomit. I appreciate you asking for the details.

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  10. MAN! We have NOT been assigned this, and we are in the 4th grade! I wish we had been assigned the Cayman Islands, but I think we will have to make-do with Canada in the summer. Puke is usually de rigueur on our trips (but it's usually ME doing it), so I won't bore YOU with the details, and I SO enjoy the posts. XO

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  11. How do you tell someone you liked their post and laughed without writing "lol" or "hahaha"? I guess what I am trying to say is, um... awesome and stuff. Thanks. I love reading your writing.

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  12. Wow, I feel like I was there too!
    Love it!

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  13. Awesome stuff! The picture in front of the diner looks like an album cover!

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