Salt Lake City Part 3

After the park we went to Michael's and bought some things for the kids to paint.  We needed an indoor activity so we could cool of a bit.

Laney and Daniel

Susanna and Timothy

Sara, Sam, Andrew and Ashley

Sam was determined to be silly in both of these pictures.  He said that it took him a while to master the second pose, the half blink look.  What a dork!

Sara, Sam, Ashley, Andrew and Tim

The next day we got off early and took a tour at the Sweet's Candy Factory.  I highly recommend it. It was a lot of fun and at the end you get to buy really cheap candy in the factory store.

Drew, Ash, Sam (being a dork again) and Daniel

Josh loving the 5 pound bag of gum drops that only cost 99 cents!

Kim and Tim with chocolate covered cinnamon bears... who knew that combo would be SO good!

Lots of yummy chocolate!  30# of chocolate covered almonds for $30, 5# fruit sours $2.99, 5# giant jelly beans $1.99.  CRAZY!  We bought more than our fair share to bring home. I love the Green Apple Fruit Sours.

Daniel excited about the Gummy Bears

Sara in Candy Heaven!  Behind her is a wall of  Taffy, all flavors, pina colada, popcorn, licorice, etc.

Laney

Here is most of the gang, minus Richard who was taking the picture (you can see a bit of his reflection in the window), John was at work, and Matthew and Bethany had already gotten in the car.  Good times!

Salt Lake City Part 4

That evening, after the candy factory, we went to Mill Creek Canyon to get out of the heat and have a picnic dinner.  I couldn't believe that a 10 minute drive could make it so much cooler!  

Sara, Sam, Andrew, Tim, Ashley and Josh

Sara, Kim and Marshall
Kim brought wood from a tree they had chopped down for the fire.  It was still green so it didn't burn well and smoked tons.  We scouted around for dry wood to burn, more on that later.

Sara and Tim

The kids had fun stomping around the woods and playing near the creek.  It really was a nice respite from the heat.

Sam

Josh

Drew

Nate, Drew and Daniel

Natalie

Laney, Richard and Susanna
The girls had fun walking around with Daddy.

Laney

Susanna

Sam and Ashley
All three of my older boys love this girl.  She is truly one of their best buds!  I love watching all there friendships develop.  It really does feel like we are with family.  Who doesn't need more cousins, right?

Richard and John

There were some great battles fought that night too.

The ladies, Steph, Kim and Amy

Kim still trying to get the fire going while John smoked some hot dogs.

Ashley found a cool little snake.  The kids all took turns wearing around their wrists and fingers.  

Ash, Nate Josh, Dan and Sara

Amy helped the little girls make a fairy house.  They worked on it for a long time.  It turned out really cute!

Kim found a dead, dried out tree and enlisted Sam and Rich in pulling it down for fire wood.  They managed to pull it down right on to Rich. Poor guy!  He was fine.  This is Kim's "oops!" face right after it happened.

Once they got the tree down, they had no way to chop it up.  The boys stomped off some of the branches, but mostly we couldn't use it.  Oh well.  It sure was exciting though!

Drew

Boys sure love fire!

Drew

Nate and Sara

Kim was not thrilled to have the snake on her arm.  She told Ashley she couldn't bring the snake home to add to their collection of animals.  She didn't, she had Josh put it in his back pack and bring it home for her.  Since then I have heard that the snake escaped and is wondering around the Loveridge house freely.  Eeek!

Zannazoo

It was a wonderful evening.  I look forward to doing it again next year!