The Living Planet & Snowbird

The final leg of our adventure left us exhausted, but we had a great time. After lunch we went to the Living Planet Aquarium. The girls loved the hands on features, touching the sting rays, star fish, sea urchins, etc. and they thought the shark tank was pretty impressive, but oddly, their favorite thing to see was the "TOADS...LIKE AUNT TOAD!" (Greg's sister's nickname is Toady).
I enjoyed the exact opposite things from Rachel...for example the I find jelly fish fascinating, but Rachel cowered into my shoulder at the very sight. I didn't really care too much for the "boat" they stuck next to the marsh (although the marsh itself was fairly impressive), but it took some serious coaxing to get her out.
I asked Rachel if she wanted to pet, or even just put her hand in the water and "wave" to the sting rays, and put my hand in the water to demonstrate, only to have the ray come a good six inches out of the water to wave "hello" with one of its wings, which REALLY didn't endear them to Rachel, who started to freak out that it was coming to "get her."
But even she liked to see the star fish and the other fish & sharks that were behind glass, so I would consider the outing a success.

When we finished at the aquarium, we decided to get the girls a Slurpee and head up Little Cottonwood Canyon to ride on the tram. I can't tell you how pleased I was that we decided to make the 7-11 pit stop first because as we were heading up the mountain we ran into the "Tour of Utah" bike race and we crawled up the mountain averaging less than 10 miles per hour. It was kind of fun to watch the cyclists creeping up the mountain and to see all of the supporters cheering them on, but we were also pretty excited to finally reach the ski resort, too.
We didn't realize it, but we happened to arrive at Snowbird during Oktoberfest, so we also were able to enjoy a little German entertainment (without the beer) which meant watching the kids who were strapped into harnesses & bungee cords jumping on trampolines (maybe that's what Grandpa Steve should do with his trampoline).

Riding up on the tram was a lot of fun, too. The girls couldn't believe how high up we went & they enjoyed getting out at the top and looking around. The protective mother in me wouldn't let them go for any great hikes at the top, but they still enjoyed sitting at the various viewpoints to look over the valleys.

On the way home, we sang songs to keep the girls entertained, including the song "The Cannibal King with a Big Nose Ring" which Ellie decided to sing on her own. Her lyrics were as follows:
"The Smelly old King with a big nose thing fell in love with a dirty maid. Baroom, Cha Cha!"

Thanksgiving Point

We made our way to the Gardens at Thanksgiving Point as the sun was getting a little too high for our comfort, but the girls were troopers and were thus rewarded with the chance to take off their shoes and play in the various splash & plays in the children's garden. I love the Noah's ark splash and play with elephants spraying water from their trunks, and Becca soaked herself (just as we were getting ready to leave), but the girls loved going in the bear cave, running through the splash & play fountain, jumping in the ark "pool" and running through the maze.

Museum of Ancient History

On Friday we started the morning with a trip to Thanksgiving Point. Our first stop being at the Museum of Ancient History. The highlights of the museum for the girls would have to be
Rachel--The Fish in the different little streams
Sarah--Digging for Fossils
Ellie--Playing in the Sand and Water Table (This one ranked pretty high for all of the girls, actually)
Becca--Building a giant dinosaur out of a dressmaker dummy covered in fluff and various dinosaur heads, tails, horns, spikes, arms and legs that you could Velcro or hook in place.
Digging for fossils.
Rachel burying her shoes.
Mega Shark versus Giant Octopus (Do they look scared?)
Playing at the sand/water table.

Discovery Kids

After a yummy lunch at the Lion House (with WAY more food than we could eat), we made our way to the Discovery Kids' Museum. The oldest three girls have all had a chance to visit the museum but for the rest of us it was a first time visit. Other than the fact that Rachel decided to actually leave when we gave the girls there two minute warning & we had to race around to find her, the entire outing was very fun.
The girls played with the vacuum balls, the wooden xylophone, the water table, went rock climbing, played at the miniature farm and grocery store, played with the construction blocks and cranes, made paper airplanes, built with blocks, rolled ping-pong balls down the "wall of PVC pipe," floated muffin cups up to the rafters, and had an all around great time.

This is the Place

As we were leaving the zoo, everyone wanted to ride on the train, but we told the girls that they could ride on a big train, little train, and horses if they would come with us. None of us had ever been to This is the Place since they turned it into a "Heritage Park" and it was a lot of fun for the girls.
The most memorable part of the trip (for Becca at least) was the fact that she got a bloody nose and a very nice man helped her, and gave her a Deseret Dollar that she got to spend on Pixie Stix at ZCMI.
The rest of the girls also got a bunch of pixie stix which helped to mollify them despite the increasing heat of the day. All in all it was most enjoyable.

Hogle Zoo

We started our adventure at Hogle Zoo. We focused our visit on Greg's favorite blog "Zoo-Borns" (I know, can you believe he claims Zoo-borns as his favorite & not this blog?). There were four babies born at the zoo recently, and we saw three of the four. There was a baby giraffe, elephant, snow leopard, and tamarin monkeys. We saw everything other than the elephant who is not out on display yet :( but the other babies were all very cute. The girls had the most fun climbing on the bronze statues, getting sprayed by the misting fans and riding on the carousel, however.