Midway, UT Sept 18-20

We were in need of a little R&R so we booked our Wyndham resort condo (formerly known as Trendwest) and decided to try out northern Ut for a weekend. We invited our neighbors Nick & Paige Marshall to come along. Troy had InstaCare meetings at Thanksgiving Point all day Thursday so he caught a ride up the night before and then we met him in Provo when he was finished. Friday morning we swam at the Crater which is a big rock with a hole in the top, the natural mineral water is 65' deep and a soothing 96 degrees. We had a blast swimming and bopping around in our snazzy neon green flotation devices, we also rented snorkeling gear and had fun checking out as far as we could see to the bottom of the crater, Nick even spotted the plastic turtle at the bottom. Braxton did really well in the water, I was a bit nervous about him and the bottom of the crater being 65' down but he was fine and loved snorkeling. It was so nice to just relax and soak in the very warm water. I forgot my camera so I will get pix from Paige and post them later. After lunch we headed for a ride on the Heber Creeper, this part of the trip was a surprise to Braxton as he LOVES trains. He was very excited and so happy that the train even had a 'food car'. The ride was 90 mins and fun, we rode in an open-air car and had great views of the gorgeous changing leaves on the mountain. I rode on the H.C. when I was little and remember being scared to tears when the train robbers took over our train and came aboard. I was hoping they would still do this but they only do it on the morning run and we were in the afternoon, Braxton would've loved that. We then ran up to Park City hoping to ride on the Alpine Slide but it was closed due to rain, so we shopped and ran into Nick, one of our radiology students at Old Navy and had a quick visit. Funny how you always run into someone you know when you leave town. That night after the kids were in bed, we stayed up playing games for hours laughing so hard, and you know how bladders weaken after having kids...
Saturday we headed back to Park City hoping to find the slide open. Not so lucky, closed again due to rain and lightening - we looked up, saw partly cloudy skies, no rain and hadn't seen lightening anywhere. Even after several phone calls made from different phones and different people in our car they still wouldn't open the slide.(I'm sure they were bugged by the sudden surge of phone calls & were ticked so even if it was sunny and dry they probably would've found some excuse not to let us ride!) Braxton says they should just put a cover above the slide to keep it from getting wet....hmmmm the 4 yr old has a point. Braxton was way bummed as he was ready to ride the slide with his swim goggles on to keep the bugs out of his eyes (he looked like one of the harley guys from Wild Hogs), as were the rest of us, so we headed to SLC to to bowling. Braxton has never been bowling, however he does hold the record at around 190 on Nick's WII and Nick refuses to play him anymore. So after Braxton finally realized that he even tho he had his own shoes, he still had to wear the funny bowling shoes just like the rest of us, we set off to show Braxton how it's really done. Words can't describe Braxton's bowling ability and his approach, I will have to add the video later so you can see for yourself - we laughed so hard at him, and he had so much fun. I was very proud of his 80, & 82 point games. I skunked them all on the last game...yea for me.
We stopped at the Cheesecake Factory for lunch/dinner...need I say more! Where else can you spend 2 hrs at an eating establishment and have no complaints. We had to make room in our cooler & even send food & milk home out of the cooler with Paige's brother just to make room for our all important cheesecake & leftovers. We also drove up around the new Draper temple which isn't open yet, it's beautiful! The ride home was long and Tanner was at his breaking point by the time we arrived but otherwise he did so good and especially loved the swimming pool, he really is a good traveler most of the time. Braxton got up early with me each morning at the resort and worked out at the fitness room, he came away just a wee bit scathed as he fell off the end of the tredmill, but was a great exercise buddy for his mom.
Thanks N & P for coming with us and adding to all the fun - we are looking forward to San Diego in Nov. to attend the Utah-San Diego State football game (go utes!)