park city vacation

We were lucky to spend a week in Park City with all of my family (except for my sister and her hubby who live in Vail, CO...we missed you). Payton was off track so my parents were nice enough to plan this vacation around his schedule.

My Dad, Krista, Parker & Payton.

Our first stop in Park City was Main Street. We ate lunch at Main Street Pizza and then went shopping. My Dad bought books for everyone at Dolly's bookstore. We also got Apple Pie Caramel Apples (daily) from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.

My cute parents.
My Dad wanted to pose with his new book and his "Roots" hat that Les bought him.

My Dad bought Payton a "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" book and he was so exciting to start reading it. He told Payton that if he finished the book, he would buy him another "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" book. Payton was so excited that he couldn't put the book down. He finished the book that night and Grandpa made good on his promise the next day!

My Uncle Les joined us for the weekend. He is obsessed with hats.
He bought himself and all the men these cute "Roots" hats.

Cooper loved walking around with my Dad's hat over his face.
He thought it was hilarious to bump into everything.

My Mom reading to Cooper.
He learned so many new animal sounds this trip. We stayed in the Bear Lodge; so naturally, Cooper was growling constantly because there were bears everywhere! He also started saying, "Maa-Ma" for Grandma. She was so happy!

"Maa-ma"...just happy to be here!

We started and ended every day in the swimming pool.
The boys were in heaven!

My family was teasing me about my OCD so I had to take a picture for posterity's sake. I LOVE getting to a hotel room and getting everything organized for our stay. It's so fun to get things in order and make our hotel room feel a little bit like home.

A chance of fate brought us to Olympic Park.

The entire day was not going as planned. We woke up early (6:00 am) to get ready and go to our nephew's baby blessing in Wyoming. However, before we woke the kids up, we noticed that it was snowing outside. The kids were exhausted. I had a cold and didn't feel well. Parker had a little fever the night before. We decided that we shouldn't go. We really, really wanted to go, but felt like 4 hours on the road, in a snowstorm, would not be worth it. As irony goes, just one hour later it stopped snowing and it ended up being a gorgeous day!

Tim and I both felt really guilty about missing our nephew's special day. We love our family so much and they are always so supportive of us. I felt like this was one of those circumstances of good, better and best. We have so many choices and it's hard to decide between what is best for our little family, ourselves, our extended family, etc. I'm still not sure if we made the right decision, but we did end up having a really great day with our family.

My family all wanted to go to brunch, but again, we had one of those good, better and best decisions to make. Tim & I would have loved to go, but our kids would have been MISERABLE and it probably wouldn't have been worth the $70 we would have to spend for our whole family. Tim decided that we should go to McDonald's (the sacrifice we make as parents) and then drive up and see the Olympic Park.

My handsome bobsled team!
This definitely ended up being the BEST decision we made all week. If you haven't been here, you've got to take your family. It's free! In addition to all the amazing tracks and jumps they have a museum and playground. We walked all over the park and checked out the bobsled, luge tracks, the jumps and

drum roll please.....

Isn't this incredible?

They have this awesome training facility were the ski jumpers actually jump into the pool. We were so lucky because this was the last day that the training pool was open for the season. They had a special performance by a bunch of Olympic hopeful athletes and the Olympic Ski Jump Coach. It was soooo amazing!

We called my family, who was eating their yummy brunch (no jealousy here), and told them to come over and check it out.

Krista & Cooper

Tim really thinks he's sexy, doesn't he?

Well, he is sexy because this was his idea. We had such a fun day. We spent over 3 hours at the park. My kids loved every second of it and so did I. I can't believe that this park has been here for 7 years and we've never experienced it before. We'll definitely come check it out again next year!

To top off an already incredible day, we went to dinner at our favorite mexican restaurant; Baja Cantina. As you can tell, Cooper was exhausted from all our festivities.

Another highlight of the week, was that the Carley's joined us in Park City for a few days. They stayed in the same hotel as us (although we live closer to each other than our hotel rooms were). We took the boys on the Scarecrow walk. Obviously, this was their favorite Scarecrow!

We only paused in front of this scarecrow because the boys wanted me to record them saying, "BYU stinks." Their idea; not mine!

Cooper and Allie had fun in their strollers.
Honestly, Cooper spent more time walking along the trail than he did in his stroller.

This is how Cooper felt the whole week...and so did I.

I loved being with my family.
I loved no agendas, to-do lists or places to be.
I loved playing games with my kids.
I loved watching them have fun.
I loved having fun too!
I loved feeling like nothing else in the world mattered.

It was so nice to have our friends to play with.
It really helped my own boys get along with each other better.

My brother brought his Xbox...'nuff said!

Allie and Cooper bonding.

I think Cooper was having a little bit more fun than Allie. We're just happy that she was warming up to us and actually let me hold her!

This is what we did the rest of our time in Park City!

Swim...
Parker did a great job blowing bubbles and swimming on the steps. He's still a little scared of the deep end, but at least he knows his boundaries!

Swim...
Payton was a fish. His swimming skills have improved so much this summer. The hours he spent in the pool this week only boosted his confidence. He is a great little swimmer!

and more swimming!
Cooper is just crazy! He thinks he can swim. He wants to be in the deep end. He has absolutely no fear! Luckily, we taught him how to blow bubbles so by the end of the week he was starting to breath a little better under the water, which is good since that's where he spent most of his time. I would not be surprised if he was swimming on his own next summer.

I'm so proud of all my boys.
Tim worked throughout the week (someone's got to do it), but he did get to spend most of the evenings with us.

It was a fabulous little getaway!