SPRING BREAK! (Weekly: March 27-April 2)

SPRING BREAK! Yay us! We got a break! We needed it too. It was such a good week, and while we would rather it not end, I feel good about going back to work feeling pretty refreshed. I'm not excited about the next two (longest) months of the school year, but... one day at a time, and I'm "sure" summer will be here "before I know it" (*fingers crossed*).

We had Monday and Tuesday to just chill out before we went out of town, mostly though I did laundry, cleaned the house, and packed... I did NOT want a mess when we got home. The kids were sad to leave Ripley at the kennel... Ripley wasn't sure she was sad.

Wednesday we left early and headed out for Salt Lake City, it's only 5 hours so it feels like nothing compared to our California drives! First stop - In-N-Out per usual. I only regret that I did not order a Neapolitan milkshake.

Then, because the weather was so sunny and nice we went straight to the zoo... the forecast for the next two days wasn't as great. It was a perfect zoo day - the lions were awake, the elephants put on a show for us, the bear cubs were playing, and there was the cutest baby orangutan to watch.

We went with our friends, so we rented a house instead of staying in a hotel - cheaper AND we can actually have room to play/hang out and put the kids to bed while the adults stay up for games or movies. We were able to have a kitchen to keep some food in so we could eat breakfast and cook some little dinners for the kids. It was a smart move.

The next day was supposed to be solid rain, but when it wasn't raining in the morning we decided to head out and test our luck. We ate Red Iguana for lunch, then the weather was still holding so we visited Temple Square... always interesting. We also got a quick tour of their conference center which holds 21,000 people in it's auditorium and the pipe organ was bigger than my house! We also got a quick tour of the roof... with the Temple in the background. 

It was drizzling a little bit, but not even enough to warrant putting our hoods on, so we decided to go walk around the Capitol. The cherry blossoms were SO beautiful!

We were tired from walking all over so we stopped at Jack Mormon Coffee - I highly recommend this place - it was up there in my Top 3 best coffees I've ever had! Then we were just lazy for the rest of the day, we watched Netflix and the kids played, and it was so relaxing.
on Friday we had a shopping day - Ikea and the City Creek Mall - again the weather was supposed to be gross, but it was only drizzly like the day before and  the sun popped out a few times even.
Our last day was Saturday - after packing up and moving out we decided to try a hike to Ensign Peak since the weather was perfection. It was a mile - roundtrip - supposed to take 20-30 minutes - and labeled "easy." It was not. We almost stopped after reaching the first lookout.

The trail was much steeper and longer than it looked at first and our legs and lungs were burning by the time we got to the top. It was a little embarrassing. Except for Liam, who was the only one who'd had any exercise recently, he made it up without a single word of complaint. It was harder for Lina of course - her little legs were tired - but she made it on her own without too much whining. But when we got to the top, the views were phenomenal. This picture doesn't even do it justice, I zoomed in so you could make out some detail of the city, but it you could see the entire expanse of the basin, and watch airplanes take off... from above them, and actually see the Salt Lake, and follow the path of the freeway until it went through the mountains. It was pretty fantastic and good since we would be sitting in the car for the whole afternoon. 

We got home to a clean out and I had everything unpacked and put away and laundry going before bedtime and then it was nice to just relax on Saturday night and Sunday.
Oh, and our sweet cousin Heidi thought of us while they were in NYC over break and brought back the CUTEST TsumTsums ever!

The weekly video has a lot of extra events from the trip - so enjoy!