Spring Break 2: Visit to Vernal

Vernal Park

We only had three days for spring break so we didn't plan a huge trip, but we wanted to go somewhere fun!  We headed to Vernal to visit Rachelle, Dave and Jackson and we had lots of fun!  Our first stop was to meet Rachelle and Jackson at the Sonic for a Happy Hour slushy to take to the park. What a great park!  It was a bit windy so we left a bit earlier than we would have had the weather been about 5 degrees warmer.

Caroline samples her watermelon slush.

Alex

Caroline

Joseph

Courtney

Courtney loves to pose upside down!

Grace

Jackson

Grace on the "running machine"

This cool little "gazebo" was formerly atop the Vernal Tabernacle that was converted into the Vernal Temple. See the new "top" below.  I thought this was a superb way to keep the historical piece in use and to display it. The kids loved running up and down the ramp.  It is a fun little item in the park.  After the park we headed to Rachelle's house to play and to eat pizza!  The kids all stayed with Uncle Dave (thank you!) while Rachelle and I attended her church group's Girls' Night Out.  It was fun to be out with my sister!

Friday morning we all got up a bit late (except Rachelle and Dave who had to go to work).  We finally made it out of the house and stopped to visit the Vernal LDS Temple.  It doesn't look like many of the LDS temples because it was converted from a tabernacle that was build in 1907.

I love the unique look and the color of the brick.  Here is the "new top."

Caroline wanted to pose by this "little tree."

After the temple, we didn't have time to do a lot before we met Rachelle for lunch so we visited the new Petco to see their ferrets, snakes, birds, cats, turtles and fish.  No pets at our house right now so we visit pets at the store.  We also did a little shopping at the DI thrift store and almost everyone scored a new item or two.

Golden Corral aka "The Chocolate Fountain Place" was a number 1 request of all the kids.  The Vernal GC not only has a chocolate fountain, but also a caramel and marshmallow fountain!  The kids loved it!

Jackson had fun!

Alex and Jackson together.

Love Courtney's smile here!

In addition to the chocolate fountain, they loved making ice cream cones and decorating them with gummy bears and other toppings.  Each kid must have eaten a bucket of ice cream.

And this is what the boys do when they are done eating...

After the GC, we headed to Jensen, UT, home of Dinosaurland and the Dinosaur National Monument.  It was so amazing.  Any dinosaur lovers should head there. They have a quarry and it has thousands of bones on an exposed wall.  There are 10 different kids of dinosaurs represented in the bones and 350 tons of material has already been taken to museums, most of it to the Carnegie Museum in Philadelphia.

Caroline and Grace pose with a femur bone from an apatosaurus.

A sample of bones on the wall. It was a bend in the river millions of years ago and all of the bones got washed there and when the Rocky Mountains pushed up and the Unita Mountains as well, it made this flat ground vertical as we see it now.

Quarry goers...Grace was NOT going to be in our picture.

This is the quarry built right onto the hill. 

Posing in front of the "cow" stegosaurus!  We had a big debate about how no one really knows what color dinosaurs were so they could paint it whatever color they wanted. Alex thinks Chick-Fil-A should use this in a commercial.  He recently came to understand why Chick-Fil-A uses cows to sell chicken and this reminded him of the cow ads.

The four youngest are sworn in as Junior Rangers and receive their badges. 

After our big trip to the park and a visit to the river, we headed home for a hot dog roast and more fun playing.  Saturday we enjoyed General Conference, visited the Home and Garden Show, and headed home after more General Conference in the afternoon.  A great visit!  Thanks to our wonderful hosts!