Our Getaway

Last Friday Kevin had a day off, so we decided to get away one last time before life changes, and we’re on our own again.

Thursday night we went to Salt Lake and checked in at the Plaza at Temple Square in Salt Lake City.  We got a room on the North West side, and this was our view from our window.  I thought the room was a little pink and outdated, but comfortable and we had a mini fridge and microwave.

This view was significant to me because my grandparents lived in the building straight ahead on the left, or straight west from the conference center, for 21 years.  My other grandparents served a mission here, and lived in a condo in one of the slanted high rises, best described as straight north of the conference center.

We took off for dinner only to find that Subway was gone even though the website said they’re still running, we assume it had been in the crossroads mall food court.  We ran back to our hotel and I snapped the night view just before we enjoyed the wedding episode of The Office, and then went to go get dinner again, this time enjoying a nice dinner at JB restaurant attached to the Plaza.

Friday morning we took off for temple square after an all you can eat breakfast buffet at JB’s which was attached to our room stay.  We saw “Joseph Smith Prophet of the Restoration,” at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in the Legacy Theater.  Very wonderful movie.  I’m not sure there could have been a dry eye at the end.  Of all the things to have a testimony of in the LDS church I think my strongest testimony is if this man and the works he was willing to do.  Here’s a picture outside the Memorial Building.

And a picture of the Salt Lake Temple while we walked around between the buildings.

Here’s my sweet hubby standing in a doorway at the Lion House.

We then took a tour of the Beehive House, which is the house that Brigham Young built and stayed in.  I got a lot of pictures I liked there, but will spare you…  That was a very enlightening tour that I’d never had the chance to take before, it was very fun.  I’m a big fan of the classic traditional country look and his house was so beautiful!

Here’s a picture of the addition his son or grandson later built.

Then we headed back to the memorial building, because I LOVE the ornate look of the lobby there, but hadn’t had a chance to take pictures there my first couple times there this trip.

I’m glad we went because while inside one of the nice Sisters suggested we go upstairs to the waiting rooms of the restaurants (The Roof and something 10) for the views from there.  The windows were pretty filthy, but I like this shot.  Left of frame, the building with the red sign is the Plaza where we stayed.

Here is another angle of the Temple.  I asked Aiden what one of these temple shots was hoping he’d know it was the temple, and he said,  “Mom!  I don’t know WHICH temple that is!”  I was just hoping for the temple answer, it totally cracks me up!

Then we went over to the new church history library and enjoyed snooping around there, there are a lot of very interesting things there.

Afterwards we went for a tour of the Conference Center.  That room is HUGE!!!

There was also this amazing sky light above a sculpture and fountain made of sea colored glass. Again you’re going to have to go to my facebook gallery to see more of those images if you’re interested.

When we were done there we went to the tabernacle. That building is truly amazing!  I had a sister missionary take a picture of the two of us.

When Aiden saw this picture he said “MY DAD WAS THERE?!?!?!”  Almost two weeks ago we took Aiden up there because he’d asked about the organ in the conference center, but it was closed in prep for General Conference.  So we were invited to go to the tabernacle and the boys (just Aiden and Joseph) were amazingly reverent.  That’s the last of the pictures, but there’s more on facebook if you’re interested.

We went over to the Church History Museum and enjoyed that, but were pretty tired and hungry by this point (around 4:30) so we walked back to our car, planning to find somewhere else to eat, but went straight to Park City.

We had dinner at Ruby Tuesday.  That was my favorite salad bar EVER!  They had fresh high quality baby spring mix, and many toppings, plus a fruit salad, a potato salad, and a pasta salad.

We checked into our room at Holiday Inn Express planning to get settled and then look up and go back out to catch a movie, but all the movies playing that night were stuff we weren’t really interested in.  They had Movies on Demand, but that was overpriced ($16.99 for a in theater movie, $14.99 for a new to DVD, and $4.99 for a TV show played like DVR, yeah not happening!).  We ended up watching Hulu, haha!  At least the wifi was good and we didn’t have problems with the show loading.

Saturday morning we had the continental breakfast, checked out and Kevin indulged me at the Tanger Factor Outlets, they were mostly clothes, jewelry and housewares.  That’s not exactly Kevin’s idea of a thrilling day…  He humored me, and I think he’s glad he did.  He loves the Columbia company, and we stopped at their outlet store, and found shoes in his favorite everyday style for almost 75% off their retail value, so we bought two in his size, for just more than half of what we usually spend on shoes!  Yay!  We stopped into the Zales Outlet and I had a blast looking at all their stuff while Kevin fought off sleep, hahaha!  We ended up getting me a sterling silver and diamond snowflake necklace for about 60% off retail.  I’m pretty sure it was the cheapest thing in the store, but i LOVE it!

Then we went to find lunch, we went to Main Street in Park City, and there was a lot to see, by the time we found somewhere we thought looked good, and went through several galleries that looked pretty neat, it was about 3:30, so I guess we skipped lunch two days in a row cause we were having too much fun to slow down and eat.  We ate at Bandit Bar and Grill.  It was pretty good.  Their baked beans are my favorites I’ve ever tried, I’ll have to try and replicate them the next time I make beans.  They obviously had a lot of molasses in them.  They were sprinkled through my tri tip Nacho’s and I thought that was EXCELLENT!  We headed home through Salt Lake and enjoyed a quiet drive just before what would normally be rush hour.  We got home to a sleeping baby, and two boys that seemed to not care a bit that we were back, and then when Joey woke up he only wanted Grandma, but she’d gone to run some errands.  Silly kids!  Hahah!

Overall we had a great time and feel like it helped our relationship to have some time for just the two of us.  Thanks to my family, especially my Mom for keeping the boys routines, and to my FIL Mark for taking the boys out for a car wash (he washed my van for me!), to the DI for a toy scavenge hunt, and to the PG Discovery Park, I hear they had a great time.