This is the Place and Salt Lake Temple Vacation

 While we had grand plans for this summer, life doesn't always work out :) My Grandparents are serving a temple mission in Nauvoo right now and I so so so so wanted to be able to go and take our family and go see also where Dave's parents have been serving their mission... but two herniated discs and the looming cost of a possible back surgery for poor Dave kinda crushed those ideas. 

So instead we settled for a quick weekend trip down to Salt Lake City

We took the kids around Temple square {the christus and visitor centers}, the Joseph Smith building and the Beehive house. While we were there we also watched the Joseph Smith movie. The kids did wonderful and I was honestly surprised by how much Payton enjoyed the movie {like loved it!} 

Another thing that I wanted to take the kids to was the

  THIS IS THE PLACE HERITAGE PARK.

My grandparents took me there when I was probably close to Payton's age and I loved it! It sparked so much interest in me about that time period and I remember reading book after book when I was younger about pioneers. 

Payton was of course the Navigator of the trip and took us to all the places he wanted to visit. 

 The kids seemed to really enjoy it!

 They mined for gold nuggets

 and made some Indian necklaces along with riding the little train around the pond.

 Overall we had a lot of fun as a family looking at things and teaching the kids about that time and what life kinda looked like back than. 

 Brynley and Payton were able to Ride some horses which they loved!

 {Payton trying to act like the big boy and that it wasn't that fun.... but I can see his joy right under that thin facade}

 They also had a cute little mini playhouse village made that the kids had a blast running around in, and gave me and Dave a chance to sit down cuz it was HOT! Dave being the amazing Dad that he is was pretending like his back wasn't killing him as much as we really knew it was :(

 Over all the kids loved the park and asked if we could go back every year :)

After the Park we decided to take the kids up to the Temple where we got married.

I had wanted to do a picture like this for our kids for awhile so I was glad for the opportunity and it was a nice end to a beautiful day and vacation!

I dearly love my little family and that they are mine for the eternities!