Our Trip to Utah

Dearest Castillo Family,

Let me tell you a tell of a trip to Utah - not a vacation exactly, more like a long work week. Todd had offered my parents his services as handy man up in Utah. They have been working on getting trailers fixed up to rent out at the trailer park my Aunt Joanne owns. They are hoping to use the rent money for these trailers as part of the their retirement plan. The last few summers have been spent up in Utah acquiring and fixing trailers for their business venture. However, this summer they had high hopes of finalizing the repairs and having all of their trailers rented out. My sweet husband offered to take time off to drive up to Utah to help out for a week. Thus began our adventure.

I wanted to go the last week of July since I was starting with voice lessons the following week and didn't want to have to cancel any of my new students. We drove up on a Saturday with the express hope that we would be there on Sunday - which was my birthday. The drive up was actually really fun. I got to chat with my love, the girls watched movies and we got to eat lunch and dinner together as a family. I can see now why people like doing road trips as a family. However, without that little DVD player it might have not been so pleasant. :)

On Sunday we went to my Aunt Jo's ward. My auntie just had surgery so she didn't attend by we took her granddaughter Lilly with us. During sacrament Todd leans over to me as asks me if the man on the stand looked like Neil L. Anderson, from the 12 apostles. I'm not great with faces so I wasn't sure. We got there late and missed who was presiding over the meeting. Towards the end of the meeting they mentioned that YEP! he was visiting since his grandson was passing the sacrament for the first time. It was just weird to go to church and there was a general authority hanging out there, too. Utah is so weird.

That night Todd made me dinner and a birthday cake. My parents still hadn't made it up to Utah yet so it was just our family celebrating.

 

Me with my 32nd birthday cake

 

My family on my 32nd birthday (baby in tummy)

That week Todd fixed a ton of stuff around my parent's little apartment attached to my Aunt Jo's house. He fixed the garbage disposal - which was horrible broken and smelt of fermented cabbage that had been further fermenting because some dumped a bunch of it down the sink not realizing the disposal was out. He fixed, rewired, put in an air vent for my parents washer and dryer. He helped my dad figure out that his truck wasn't running because it needed a new fuel pump. He fixed a horribly leaky bathtub in my aunt's house, a few of her stairs that were getting really lose and even hauled a new swamp cooler up to the roof of her house. PLUS, he went to Price (the trailer park) and helped out there for the day. By the end of his visit he has put in a lot of hours of service to my family.

I, on the other hand, wasn't doing well with the pregnancy and just hung out with my beautiful girls. I took my mom and my cousin Brittany to Thanksgiving Point for a day. We went to their dinosaur museum and it was awesome.

 

The girls loved having Grandma explain things to them.

 

 

There were a ton of cool displays, Nora's favorite was walking through a dark tunnel with only little lights surrounding you - like you're walking through stars.

 

 

Anything you can touch - you know they did!

 

 

There was a huge room full of dinosaur bones.

 

It was so kid friendly, toys all over to play with as you went.

 

 

Annalise, me and Nora in front of some bones.

 

You could build your own dinosaur

 

 

The best was they had a huge sand table to play in with a ton of little dinosaurs.

 

 

My favorite part of the trip was getting to have a date night with my husband. On Monday night we went out to dinner to a place called Station 22 that was fabulous and a lot of fun. They have specialty root-beers and Todd got one called Brigham's Brew, that had vanilla in it that was actually really good. Only in Utah. We went to a place called Sammy's that had *famous pie shakes* and we split one as we walked over to where the new temple was being built out of the old tabernacle that burned on the inside. It's going to be beautiful once they are all done with all of the repairs. We then went to look at minivans to see what we liked and really like the Honda Odyssey. Went to Ross and then everything was closed. We called a friend to see what we could do since it was only 8:30 for us and not the 9:30 for Utah. We headed over to a dollar movie theatre (only showing movies PG-13 and under of course!) and we watched The Great Gatsby - which I LOVED. It was such a nice night to be able to stay out a long as we wanted and do whatever sounded fun. I love date night.

 

 

The drive back from Utah was really rough. I was pretty ill feeling the whole car ride back. But we made it and I didn't die! Hooray!

 

 

I loved spending time as a family out and I hope we get to do it again really soon - Daddy keeps talking about how he wants to take us all to the beach...let's hope so!

 

 

With all my love,

 

 

Your Mother