Peace Possibility Promise

It seems that the peace negotiations have broken down.

Day 11 - Imposters, sushi and the rain chain

At this point, we are eating so much yummy vacation food, we ABSOLUTELY MUST keep dropping on on local Crossfit classes. It's that, or buy new clothes to go home in....

Today....Hermes Crossfit! I always like this place. The are funny and welcoming. In fact, during this visit, Mark made a new friend! And then that friend asked him to take a picture of his bare butt to send to his wife, proving that her gift of an "anti-raspberry" ab-mat worked perfectly! 

You can't make this stuff up.

We leave for Moon Lake soon, so we wanted to make sure that we put up mom's rain chain. It was a gift from Me, John and Kaira...with the promise that we would install it when we came out. We grabbed a special drill bit from the store and Mark knocked it out in no time. He's so handy!

Works like a charm! I wish I could find a good spot to put one at our house.

With the rain chain up, we headed back downtown to find Kylie and her companion and take them to lunch.  We're not sure they'll be able to handle our coolness.

We met up and she led us through the super secret doors and tunnels that the missionaries and other "temple square elites" use to get around. We felt like spies.

We all had lunch at the awesome cafeteria in the church office building. It was crazy!! It was super inexpensive and had tons of options! She may have fibbed to several of her acquaintances when she introduced us as her family...but we sure love her like a daughter!

She took us all over temple square and gave us little snippets of history and tour talking points.

Everly got the deluxe tour package.

It was fun to listen to the information that they share with their tours. Kylie has learned so much and we're so proud of her!

Soon is was time to say goodbye and let her get on with her day. We had promised Megan we would go back to the big Deseret Book store to let her play the piano...she goes through withdrawals when she can't play for several days in a row. The rest of us wandered about and looked at the books.

We were hoping to catch Seth (Jim and Ameli's son) and say hi before we had to drive back, so we killed a little time riding scooters around the block. The big kids got to go on their own, but we took the little for rides too.

We dropped all the kids back in Spanish Fork for the evening and then came right back up to meet Jim and Ameli and Mat and Lori for dinner at their favorite sushi place, Takashi. It was such a cool restaurant.

I was so grateful they had non-sushi options! It was so delicious and the rest of them were happy dining on raw fishies...I did my best to seem worldy and open-minded...it's hard to do when I really prefer tater tots.

I am so grateful I got to know these guys better. They are so fun and it feels great to be more connected to Mark's side of the family.

Day 11 - Timp Cave, Hot tubs and The Gettin Place

Today's crossfit adventures are brought to you by Park City....which was way to far of a drive for me, so I let Mark head up and check it out on his own. I think this Spealler guy is a big deal or something...

He finally got to add to his t-shirt collection!

While he was gone, we got dressed and packed up a backpack lunch. We wanted to hike Timp Cave!

I remember this hike being steep and harder than you anticipate... so we planned on lots of rests and plenty of time to sit and take a drink or munch a snack.

Anna showed us all up by doing walking lunges periodically, just to make it a challenge.

The views were stunning! 

Mom and I were total troopers.

If you don't look too close! haha!

We made it up to the cave right on time for a tour with the most knowledgeable park ranger EVER. She knew way too many things about way too many things. The tour was super cool and super cold. We were all shivering in our shoes by the time we emerged back into the sunlight.

The rest of the group headed right down the mountain. Everly and I struck a more leisurely pace.
Sometimes we meditated....

Sometimes we advanced 20 steps.

But we persevered! And we earned ourselves some treats at the BYU Creamery....luckily, it was right at the same time thousands of hungry EFY kids had the very same thought.

We ended our night at Heidi's for dinner. (Thank heavens....we were so tired!)

The kids got to dig through Jay's collection of cast-offs and left-behinds he inherits when kids leave their camps and dorms at BYU. He call's it "the gettin place" and it is what Mathew's dreams are made of. I see a wad of cords. He sees tech treasure.

Heidi came to Anna's rescue and repaired the mess I made on her hair right before we left for Utah. She was so sweet and did her very best to not laugh out loud at my horrifying hair cutting skills.

Megan surprised us all and asked Heidi to chop her hair too!  She was so happy with it!

Ethan had a chance to reconnect with his cousins, Zach and Johnny...

And then they all jumped in to the hot tub for a soak! It's easy to see why we all love my sisters!

Day 10 - Movies!!

We hit Crossfit Lehi this morning. It was a cool facility, but oddly laid out. there was a wall right down the middle, forcing the coach to walk back and forth to see both sides and try to watch everyone. But she was good at it and we liked the workout. No good t-shirts to buy, so that was dissappointing. Mark's Father's Day gift this year was to visit all these gyms and buy a t-shirt at each one (and sometimes one for me...he's so generous!)

Mom wanted to treat the kids to a movie, so we grabbed tickets to Aladdin at the theater in Spanish Fork and went to see a matinee. We loved it! Which is a huge relief, because I really didn't love the cartoon one.

And just to make sure we watched all the movies in one day, we drove up to the Redwood Drive-in and met Bri and her family for Toy Story 4. We listened to our new favorite music all the way: muscials! Mom said she loved it!

Megan tucked safely into the trunk....any power supply is a good power supply.

Remind me again why we pay money to watch movies on the concrete? I had to restart the car every 20 minutes because the auxiliary power was trying to save me from having to get a jump start.

Mathew and Quinten bonding over video games!

Bri and me!!

Day 9-When in the West

In our continued effort to not return to Kansas fat and sassy, we dropped in to Spanish Fork Crossfit for an early morning WOD. This is one of our favorites!

Next up! Mark takes the kids out to shoot! They borrowed my dad's (on mom's) guns she stores at Lara's house.

We spent the evening hanging out with Lara, her cutie daughter, Kylie, and Kylie's husband, Rylie.

That's right! Kylie and Rylie....if that isn't fate, I don't know what is....

We played several rounds of humongous Jenga.

Kylie and Rylie schooled us all.

 And Lara was on stand-by to save Anna's toes!

Those two are also crazy about horsed and let the kids all take turns grooming them and riding. It was one of the highlights of the entire trip!

 I can't think of a single thing that could make this day better...I mean, maybe a cute puppy to play with?

Oh...look at that!