Summer Day at the North Pole

We headed up to the North Pole yesterday...well the North Pole in Colorado Springs. It's an amusement park up in the mountains. Eva loved it! They had some cute rides and their toy stores were amazing. They had the best Santa I have ever seen. He had a curled mustache and a British accent and he was great. 

 Eva thought she was actually driving this vehicle, hence the concentrated expression.

 Cute little candy cane slide.

 This is a carousel that had reindeer instead of horses. 

 This was Eva's favorite ride by far. She still talks about her blue car that went round and round. 

This was her second favorite ride. Horses and little bells to play as your ride, how could you ask for more. It was a fun day. 

Utah Trip 2016 part 2

The second part of our Utah vacation consisted of hanging out with our great friends the Laws. We have missed them so very, very much and had SUCH a fun week staying with them. We laughed hard and partied hard and wore ourselves and our kids out...and we sadly didn't get a picture! We are the worst at that. Anyway, our first day together, we spent up at Thanksgiving point at the dinosaur museum. Eva is obsessed with dinosaurs, so we had to make this stop. She loved it as much as I was expecting her too. 

 This is her motioning that it was, "big, huge"

 They had a couple interactive activities that all the kiddos loved. Eva could have stayed at this one forever. 

 This is Eva's 'smiling because I have to face'. Although she loves movies about dinosaurs and loves looking at them, she didn't like getting too close to them. 

 Jack loved digging for bones at the end of the exhibit. 

The next day we went to the aquarium in Draper. Eva loved looking at all the fishes and when we entered the humid South American part of the exhibit, part of us felt back at home with the heat and humidity that we are now use to in Charlottesville.

 Jacky loves people watching, push him around in any sort of crowded place and he is happy as can be. 

 Eva thought the turtles were big and really neat (obviously).

 Little best friends in the making...

 We finished off at the penguin exhibit and it was the BEST part! They were so cute to watch! This one kept swimming right in front of Eva to get her attention and then held perfectly still while she gave him a kiss. It was darling. 

Thanks for the great trip Utah.

Utah Trip 2016 part 1

Our big vacation this year was to go to Utah. I know what your thinking, "how exotic." Am I right? haha...we have missed our friends and family from Utah so much that we decided we had to go. That is definitely one thing living across the country has taught me, things and places are fun to see, but people are what make life worthwhile. Anyway, I digress, so we headed out to Utah and of course stopped in the middle of Wyoming at Little America for an ice-cream cone (a childhood tradition in Morgan's family). I got Eva a full sized cone, not sure what I was thinking. There were tears when we had to leave it uneaten. :(

The first few days of our trip consisted of a Lyons' family reunion (just with Morgan's siblings). The first day we had a picnic in Provo and everyone (except this tired momma and Eva and Jack) went to play tennis). Then we went up Provo canyon to a park and pavilion area for dinner, games and a sing-a-long. The next day we met up in Draper again for dinner and a slide show of Aleisha and James' recent trip to Europe.

 Eva definitely had too much sugar...

 This was one of the first meetings for Grace and baby Jack. She was darling with him and kept leaning in to give him kisses. 

 They'll be best friends someday...

 at least that's the plan.