Pictures of the Utah State Capitol

Here are our pics from the Utah State Capitol. 

This is the "gold room" which we weren't supposed to take pictures of.

Here are some statues and murals from throughout the building.

House of Representatives

Senate

The marble used to build it was from Georgia. They had a few museum type cases in the basement about Utah history. 

We took some goofy pictures on a bench.

And Nate did get one more picture at the beehive house of the dining room where Brigham Young had dinner each night with his "whole family".

Addison's Baptism Birthday

Here is our picture of the candle lighting for Addison's baptism birthday (7/14). Braelyn was excited to blow out the candle again.

And from earlier in the day...someone likes Red Vines. Hopefully she's not allergic to red dye.

SLC Vacation part 2

This is part two...read the previous post for the beginning...

The next day we figured since we were in Salt Lake City we should visit the Salt Lake.

At the visitor's center there were giant orb weaver spiders outside and nests of birds in the eaves.

We waded in the lake.  You have to go out really far in the lake to actually swim.  There were a LOT of brine flies, which left us alone, but was really gross.  We went to Antelope Island, which you take a road through part of the lake to get to it (being an island, of course).  The beach area we went to was really a far walk to the lake itself...of course that probably varies with rainfall, etc.  We wandered out to the lake to just wade and then went out again after Braelyn changed into her suit.  You come back literally covered in salt from where the water touched you...my shorts were covered in salt after Braelyn splashed me. Braelyn got a little water in her hair and it was white with salt in that place.  It also smells a little.  The lake is shallow in general, but in the eighties the road to the island was covered by the lake for 10 years.  

There is buffalo on the island as well as other wildlife.

There was a historical farm on the island too.  This was the kitchen.

Lots of laundry machines.

 Braelyn in a covered wagon.

 In the barn which had a bunch of antique farm stuff.  This seemed out of place a bit.

Our last day we were trying to find fun things to do that were cheap.  We went on a tour of a candy factory (saltwater taffy) and went to a park to feed ducks and let the girls play.

There was a stream running through the park that Braelyn and I walked through.

That evening we went to a mall that had an Olympic square with fountains.  They did a little show to music like the Bellagio fountains.

Nate really wanted to go inside the arena the Jazz play in.  It's right next to the mall we were at, so we walked over.  Turns out there was a free scrimmage with t-shirts given out to the first 10,000 people.

 We all got shirts, they even gave us a t-shirt for Addison!  It'll be a while before she can wear it.

Then we came home to our newly cool house since our friend Susan hooked us up and convinced the company to install our AC while we were gone!

Salt Lake City Vacation

Our summer has been like this so far:  Nate had a little kid soccer camp in the evening the same week I helped with Vacation Bible School in the morning at church.  Braelyn stayed home with Nate Monday and Tuesday morning and then decided she'd try VBS, stayed with me Wednesday, and then went around with the kids on Thursday and Friday.  She had fun.  The next week I had an AP conference in town, then the week after that, Nate went out of town with his soccer team to a team camp in Utah.  Finally, we decided to go to Salt Lake City for a vacation for a few days to see the old Olympic sites and whatever else there was to do there.  In a few weeks we will go to Nebraska for a week to visit family.  And then it will probably be time for school to start up again.

Addison loved our hotel.  It was kind of weird...we got a one bedroom apartment with a pull out sofa bed.  It was actually an apartment complex that rented some apartments out as a hotel and leased some.  It was sort of close to the airport.  It had a walk-in closet that was Addison's "bedroom".  She loved crawling and cruising around it and especially liked trying to climb in the refrigerator and escape out the door.

Our first day in SLC we visited Temple Square.  It was an education, really.  This was the Lion House, which was where Brigham Young's many children and wives lived.  In the next picture you can see how long it was, each child had a room under the gables, if I remember correctly.  Next door to this was the Beehive House, which we could tour.  There are pictures of that later.

Here's the temple.

 Braelyn in front of a fountain in front of one of the visitor's center.  This particular center let you see pictures of what is inside of the temple since you can't go in.  It also went into the history of the construction of the temple.

The inside of the tabernacle.  The Mormon Tabernacle choir actually rehearses elsewhere during the summer, but they do use this space still. It was built in the 1800s and has amazing acoustics.  It was quite the achievement of that time.  Two sisters came and demonstrated the acoustics for us...you can hear beads dropping in a bowl from the very back and you could hear her talking as she turned around.  They were very nice and did try to engage Braelyn, but she was too shy.

I can't recall the name of this building, but it's another place to worship.  It was made with leftover materials from the construction of the temple.

 The inside of the above building.

 This is the inside of the Beehive house.  This was the office of the church and the governor when Brigham Young was the governor of the territory.  It was also his home with his main (?) family.  There was a dining room that the guides (more Sisters) told us was where he had dinner all together with his family each night...but it was only his main family, from what I understand.  Only one wife and one set of kids lived in this house, if I gathered that correctly.  This was a sitting room, I think.  They restored the house based on his daughter's diary, I guess she talked about the furnishings in great detail.

 This was the music room.  He encouraged his children to learn music.  If I remember correctly, the piano on the right is original.

 This was the daughter's room, including her dress which she hand sewed.

We also visited the State Capital.  We took pictures of it, but they are on Nate's phone since the camera battery died at that point.  Very white marble.  It's on the top of a large hill which we pushed the girls up in their strollers.

That evening we visited the University of Utah football stadium, which was the stadium used for the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies, and is where the cauldron is.

There's a fountain at the site of the cauldron.  Braelyn was trying to drink from it.

 We took a picture by the fountain.  It was a little in disrepair.  It actually had engraved in it all the medal winners from the Olympics.

 The field.  We didn't go on a tour, but could get pretty close.

The next day we went to Park City, which is where most of the stuff from the Olympics is.  They have training for ariel ski jumping there.  We got to see a lot of jumps into the pool which was really neat.

 This was the best shot I got of a jumper going off.  We did see someone jump off the highest jump.

 There was an Olympic museum there.  This is a collection of all the souvenir pins from the Salt Lake City Olympics.

A sled and hockey sticks from the Paraolympics.

Volunteer medals from previous Olympics.

The medals from the Salt Lake City Olympics.

 These were puppets used during the opening ceremonies.

 One of the torches.  Braelyn is trying to touch it.

 Ski jumps.

 The bobsled/skeleton/luge track.  We walked the entire thing.  Uphill the whole way.  I was not the happiest about this.

 At the top was a bobsled!  With some cute girls!

 The official (?) ski jumps.