Fabulous Family Fun

Matt has been working at Kennecott for about 5 months. We receive little perks every once in a while. It's great! One of the last perks we received was a coupon book full of family passes to different places that Kennecott sponsors. Did I mention that the coupons got our family in for FREE?:) We took a couple of days to take advantage of these coupons. Our FIRST stop was the Tracy Aviary, a bird zoo. It was so neat! We went to the Amazon show where we were able to go into a cage and feed Sunburst Conures slices of apples. So cool! We were all a little nervous at first, but then got comfortable having the birds all around us. We also went to an Aviator Show where they talked about and showed amazing birds. The birds actually flew right over our heads to make their appearance on the stage. It was fun learning about and seeing some really cool birds. Our SECOND stop was the Clarke Planetarium. We saw an IMAX 3-D movie called Sea Monsters. It was a story about dinosaurs and was very realistic. We all jumped when the Sea Monsters popped out of the screen at us. We also enjoyed other neat exhibits on display there. Our LAST stop of the day was the Discovery Museum. This was so fun for the kids! There are tons of hands on activities. The kids' favorites were the Grocery Store, the Building Blocks, the Helicopter, and the Ball Zone. We were quite exhausted at the end of our day.

The FIRST stop on our second fun-filled day was Utah's Hogle Zoo. Now I know the Zoo can seem boring sometimes, but we loved it! The exhibits were close together for the most part, so we were able to see all of the amazing animals. They were all out and we had close up views of most. We saw a white alligator, which is one of 10 in the world. The monkeys were hilarious to watch play around. The incredible size of the rhino, gorilla, and orangutan was breathtaking. It was warm and humid, so after a few hours and having all the fun the Zoo can offer, we were ready to go. Our SECOND and final stop was This Is The Place Heritage Village. We went on a train tour around the beautiful village and saw amazing historical sites such as Brigham Young's Home, Heber C. Kimball's Home, and Benjamin Franklin Johnson's Saddlery. Benjamin Franklin Johnson is an ancestor 6 generations back on Matt's side, his great-great-great-grandfather. He worked at Joseph Smith's store back in Nauvoo, was one of his bodyguards, and was good friends with him. Wow! We went into the Saddlery and the kids did some fun leather imprinting. As we walked down the wood planked sidewalk, we all thought how different it would have been to live in such a small, old fashioned town. The kids all went on a pony ride and saw some of the animals that were there. We were so glad that we went. It really was a touching experience.