Vernal Day #3

We were awake early the next morning. We packed a lot of big things the night before, and the rest we quickly packed in the morning. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be! We realized toward the end of packing that all the breakfast things were packed away. So...we went and ate a cheap breakfast at McDonalds. Somehow, our kids magically grew up overnight, and they shared pancakes for breakfast. They are sure cute! 

After breakfast, we went to the Vernal Temple. Scott jumped out and took some really great pictures! The Temple is made of brick (which makes it unique compared to other LDS Temples).

After the temple, we had to find the pink dinosaur! Macey had a "kink" (pink) dinosaur she carried everywhere the entire trip. Vernal is known for their giant pink dinosaur. (We found it on accident the day before while the kids were sleeping. :)) Macey was the happiest little girl! She screamed "kink, kink, kink" for about 5 minutes!

Then we headed to Bluebell, UT. Ever heard of it? Neither had we! I would try to tell you where it is, but our GPS led us there...and it really isn't by any other towns! It's Southwest of Vernal and Northwest of Roosevelt :)

They had an awesome corn maze/festival and a wagon ride to a pumpkin patch! This festival was small but really fun! They had a PVC pipe slide. Evidently, it was not gentle on a person's rear end. Scott's face=priceless!

There was another slide, a sandbox, and a dried-corn filled sandbox. We were finding corn kernals for days after this adventure!

We paid a dollar for Macey to ride a cow "choo choo". She LOVED it! She wasn't too sure at first, but she stayed in the wagon the entire time and was smiling when she came back around!

Then we headed to the pumpkin patch! Macey was an expert pumpkin picker! If only she was a little bigger, she might have been able to carry her pumpkin back to the wagon! (She sure tried!)

Scott got to shoot a pumpkin out of this very large gun/cannon. He nailed an old pick up in the middle of a field! Macey enjoyed the view :)

We headed out after this. We stopped really fast at Bluebell's park, and I made sandwiches out of the trunk of our van! We ate on the go, and both kids quickly fell asleep.

We had such a fun vacation! It was an adventure, and it was definitely an adventure worth living!

Vernal Trip, Day #2

We had one full day in Vernal to do everything we wanted to do! Surprisingly, Vernal's claim to fame is dinosaur bones. (Who would have thought?) Macey is going through a huge dinosaur faze! (Who would have thought?) We knew we had to do everything that had to do with dinosaurs...and we did!

Remember that rough night of sleep we had the night before? Well, I woke up and got breakfast going on our Coleman stove. Cooper napped for the first time that day, and Macey ran around in that wonderful field by our cabin!

After cleaning up breakfast, we headed to the Utah Field House: Natural History Museum. There was a video that introduced the museum. Macey was a riot! This video was extremely boring, and obviously, filmed about 15-20 years ago. It felt like I was in Earth Science all over again! Macey pointed out the dinosaurs, rocks, etc. in the movie. When the narrator talked (and the video showed) about extinction, Macey exclaimed "Oh no!". She got very into the movie and kept the audience on the edge of their seats.

The best part of the museum was that it was interactive! Macey put together dinosaur puzzles and dug for dinosaur fossils.

 Poor little, Sick Cooper was sick and a little miserable through the museum, but he was a trooper!

The mammoth was scarier than the dinosaurs were. Macey couldn't decided if he was real or not!

Poor boy!

We knew we needed to find somewhere to go eat lunch. I brought all the stuff for a picnic, but it was extremely cold and windy. With both kids being sick (Macey came down with a cold the second day), I didn't want to make them sit out in the cold and wind to eat. We ended up going to Costa Vida for lunch. I had $4.00 off, and we ate there for pretty cheap! We got a kids meal for Macey...which Cooper proceeded to eat most of!

The kids ate really well, and at this point, they were getting tired! We put them in their carseats...

Both kids were asleep before we left the parking lot! We drove around for a little bit, and then we decided to go to the Dinosaur National Monument. The National Monument is about a 30 minute drive from Vernal, and it is literally in the middle of nowhere! We drove into the park and sat in the parking lot for about 30 minutes before Macey woke up. Cooper was awake shortly after. We loaded everyone up, and we headed to the museum first!

We got a map of the park. Then, we headed to see some petroglyphs!

(Notice her rock collection sitting on the rock above her? :) )

After the petroglyphs, we headed to see the wall of bones. In 1957, they built a museum around the side of a mountain. They preserved all the dinosaur fossils on the side of this mountain for people to come and see. It was awesome! This was probably one of my favorite parts of our vacation!

 

We headed back to the cabin after this! The kids slept on the way back, and we enjoyed the quiet :) We got back just in time to make dinner, bathe the kids (which was entertaining) and for the kids to go to sleep. (Did I mention we went and bought another pack-n-play? Oh, we all slept like babies Friday night!)