As soon as I heard that Kevin’s Aunt Jolyn and her family as well as Grandpa Dick were going to be in Utah for the holidays, I started reaching out for a way to get together. I also knew that I have 5 sons who don’t sit still very long and that Kevin’s Uncle Brian’s house was new (that’s where the out-of-towners were staying). I figured that in order to spend a bit more time with family without destroying a house, we could meet somewhere different. I proposed the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium and was pleasantly surprised that everyone was willing!
We had never been there before but the boys loved it! This first picture is of the penguins. I was having too much fun watching the penguins to actually take a picture of them, apparently. But I did grab one picture of Kevin and a few boys watching the penguins swim around.
Those would be my boys walking across a rope bridge in the rain forest section of the aquarium…
One, two, three, four … those are mine! Bobby was not invited to walk across the bridge.
But he was definitely invited to watch the sea turtles, which were really cool! He was sitting on Kevin’s knee and squealing with delight.
Hello, my people by the giant orca!
We had Uncle Brian and Kay, Grandpa Dick, Aunt Jolyn with all her family, and Marc’s family with us. We didn’t move in one group but just kept running into each other here and there.
Kevin and Bobby are in the viewing bubble for one of the large tanks…
I found the shark tunnel cool … and freaky! I like looking at the big fish, but having them swim over my head is a bit disturbing.
Bobby found nothing disturbing about it.
Neither did the other boys. They also loved petting the sting rays and star fish.
We were perfectly content just sitting and watching these amazing fish swim …
Rusty found a bone display to satisfy his paleontology desires …
We sat watching these beautiful fish for quite a while expecting to leave when someone else from our group went by. Then we realized we hadn’t seen any of the rest of the family in quite some time. We found them waiting for us outside in the waiting area. Oops! We still don’t know how they got past us!
Everyone was finished with the museum, so we went out to lunch at Village Inn.
We needed a table for 21! The food was good and we had a great time visiting and laughing!
Marc’s family had to leave, but we went back to Uncle Brian’s to visit a bit more. The boys hunkered down in the theater room watching “The Grinch” with Juston…
…while Kevin and I sat upstairs listening to Grandpa Dick with Aunt Jolyn and Uncle Jim. They might have been a bit sleepy (heeheehee)…
Before we left, the boys gave Grandpa Dick the Christmas letters they had written for him.
Ricky made Grandpa Dick laugh by retelling, “When I was younger I just wanted all sports to just go POOF!” Oh, how Grandpa laughed!
The connection between these two is very, very sweet. I love the emotion in this picture!
We sure do love Grandpa Dick and I’m so glad we got to spend a little bit more time with him!
There was a ton of traffic on the freeway as we headed home, so we took the surface streets. It was late and cold, so we didn’t stop to look at lights at Temple Square, but as we drove by I shouted, “Hey, boys! Look at the lights!” That’s good enough, right?
It was a wonderful day. We have been blessed with such a fun expanded family and I feel so fortunate that we got to spend the day with them!