The Congdons

Aunt Missy and Gwen

 



We went and sat on the side of one of the main roads to watch the fireworks.  The girls played with the glow sticks that we had bought for them, and had a lot of fun.  They shot off the fireworks from 4 different places in the city, and even had a firework waterfall coming down from some of the cliffs there.  It was really cool, and the girls loved it.  They would go from sitting on someone's shoulders to watch the fireworks to running around to see all the places the fireworks were coming from.  It was a great 4th of July, and I am so glad we got to spend it with my wonderful relatives!!

 



 Another neat thing we did while visiting them was to go to the Idaho Falls Museum and see the King Tut exhibit.  Ever since I was little I have had a fascination with Greek mythology and history and Egyptian mythology and history.  When I saw the billboard for this exhibit I was so excited, and even more so when everyone agreed that it would be a fun thing to go see.  Even the girls were excited.  I can't remember the descriptions of all the things that I have posted here but it was really cool to see.

I do remember that this was one of King Tut's thrones, and that the following picture was one of his chariots.

 



 

The absolute best part of the exhibit was getting to see King Tut's actual mummy.

 

The younger two girls were kind of torn between being grossed out and being scared, but Gwen loved it.  She has really developed an interest in some of the same things I had (or still have) an interest in.  She really enjoyed the whole exhibit.

 



 One of the things that the museum has is a children's little discovery area.  The girls loved this area, and played there for quite some time.  They loved getting up on the "horse" outside the room too.

 

Gwen the explorer.



My brother in law, his dad, Robbie and my brother Matt set up a zip line off of some construction equipment my brother in laws family owns over the pond on the campground.  Even Jamie and my sister Missy took turns on it.

 



Robbie has one of those Go Pro cameras, so he attached it to a harness he had, and filmed what happened when he went across the zip line and fell into the deep part of the water.  It was a lot of fun to watch them do it.

 



The pond was a bit far from where we were camping...too far for the girls to walk (and not complain about it).  So quite a few times we piled them up in the back of one of our cars and took the short drive back and forth.

 



All the cousins except Grace (who you can see playing in the background).  My girls sure had fun playing with my sisters two girls!!

 



It was really great to see them again.  We hadn't seen them in almost two years, so to see them again was wonderful, and we had such a fantastic time.  Wyoming was wonderful!!

 

After the Grand Canyon we drove to St. George Utah to spend time with my grandparents, my aunt and uncle and my cousin Lindsay.  It was so nice to see them again, and for the girls to get to see them again.  Gracie followed my grandma around everywhere, talking to her and helping her in any way she could.  Gwen loved spending time with my Grandpa, especially when they would go out on their back patio at night and watch the bats fly around.  Georgia loved playing with all the toys my aunt and cousin brought over, and would spend time with anyone who was willing to pay attention to her.  They all loved spending time with my aunt and uncle, and loved that my cousin Lindsay played with them.

 

 

 

 

While visiting them we took a trip to Zion National Park.  I had lived with my grandparents during my senior year of high school, and gone back during a spring break while in college at Utah State, so I had gone to Zion's quite a few times and had so much fun there (I even hiked all the way up to Angel's Landing-sheer cliffs and 5,785 feet in the air-don't know how I did it but I will never do it again...http://www.zionnational-park.com/zion-angels-landing-trail.htm ).  We didn't get to see much, cause we started out too late in the day, but what we did get to see was beautiful.

 

We even got to see a little wildlife not far off from the side of the trail.

 



 The girls had a ton of fun playing in one of the rivers there, and they were able to fill out another handbook and receive junior ranger badges once again.  They loved putting those on their backpacks next to the ones from the Grand Canyon.

 

The day after Zion's we took the girls to the Splash Park that St. George has.  The girls had sooo much fun there.  They loved that Mommy, Daddy, Aunt Mimi, my cousin Lindsay and even her boyfriend joined in on the fun.

 



 

We had so much fun in Utah, and it was hard to leave.  It'll be great to go back some day...hopefully some day soon.

After walking through the caverns, we went back up to the gift shop and visitor's area.  They had a really cute photo area where the kids could poke their head into the head hole and pretend that they were a ranger. 

 

Ranger Georgia

 



 Ranger Gracie

 

 Ranger Gwen

 

Here are just a few photos of some of the formations we saw inside the caverns.  It was definitely an experience unlike any other, and one place we will definitely take our kids to again some day.

 



You can see how big some of these formations were, and how open some of the caverns were.  That's Gwen standing in the archway of one of the formations that spans the walkway.

 



 

I had to throw this picture in because it was so cute.  After we were finished at the caverns we stopped at a place in town that had the best ice cream I have ever had (sadly, even better than Ben and Jerrys).  I wish I could remember the name of this place. Georgia had one of their special creations called Cookie Monster Ice Cream...it was just vanilla cookies and cream ice cream with blue food coloring added.  It turned Georgia's mouth blue for the rest of the day-so cute!!