The Finale of "THE UTAH TRIP"

I am a terrible blogger, keeping you all in suspense for so many days, waiting on pins and needles to hear the end of our magnificent trip to Utah, but we have been oh so busy. I have been working for that non profit I was mentioning before, Music in the Schools, and Kyle has been running errands, cleaning house, doing everyones bidding, and just playing the perfect little house hubby. AND we just got back from Fredricksburg visiting some new friends. It was lovely, and oh so Christmasy, with lights and wreaths, a camp fire, and even a cool breeze to give the illusion of some type of cold weather in fall. All of the above is to make a pitiful excuse for why I have kept you waiting an unjustifiable and torturesome amount of time. I might as well have prodded under your fingernails with pins, the suspense must have been such a torture. At any rate, you can rest easy now, as the legendary story is to come to it's end.

Where were we... ah yes, I believe we were at Friday and taking a nap, a much needed and well deserved nap if I remember correctly as all naps are.

• THE BEEHIVE HOUSE! Beehive house, Brigham Young's estate. Brigham Young was one of the founders of Salt Lake City, and as Ida Mae pointed out, had a very large family, 50 wives and 56 children to be exact. His house, or mansion, what have you, is called the Beehive house because deseret, which is a name coming from the book of Mormon which was said to be translated from a language similar to ancient Egyptian supposedly means swarm of bees. The house was beautiful and had many furnishings imported from France and other far away countries. In one room, the price of the curtains was listed as $37/yrd. That is an outrageous price today- in the 1800s, that would be equivalent to royalty I would imagine. Another question we had, which wasn't answered on our tour was how this man, who was said to have been so poor that he had to borrow a pair of shoes to come to Salt Lake City in the pilgrimage gain so much wealth? Anyone know?

The wedding dress one of the daughters made for her wedding.

• Which was then followed by a riveting game of pictionary, boys against women. And of course we women showed those men folk who could draw and guess more accurately. Alright, alright, that's not the truth, in fact it might even be a blatant lie, but it was rigged I tell you. Sorcery was used, I am sure of it! :) Because everyone knows, women are better at everything.

Saturday

• Hiking in the mountain surrounding Salt Lake City was absolutely breathtaking. I love the outdoors and feeling the sense of oneness with the Earth. When much of our time is spent in suburbia with cell phones and televisions, it is easy to forget the majesty of the Earth's wonders, and many blessings.
  
  
  
• We hiked to the SUMMIT, or what we decided was our lunching destination and then decided summit as the real summit was too far.
  
• Snow, snow, what a foreign thing this white stuff on the mountain side was for us Texans. And by our behavior, one might have thought we had never seen snow before. Unfortunately the snow was hard, not soft and fluffy, so snowballs were more painful, and our shoes weren't waterproof, leaving our socks damp from our playfulness.
• And then to Park City- the famous skiing enthusiast resort town. With a population of aprox. 7,000 and is considered part of the greater Salt Lake City area, often has more tourists than permanent residence at any given time. Shopping and din din were on the menu before we headed back for a riveting game of Apples to Apples in which Leslie won hands down and Jennifer participated by spouting out random comments from her dream state on the couch.

Sunday

• Breakfast with another friend who currently resides in Salt Lake City whom I met in Italy and last saw in Korea when she was visiting a friend. Small world ain't it? Anywho, it was wonderful to see her and catch up over Salmon eggs Benedict (which wasn't so fabulous).
• Tea/coffee houses was difficult to find on a Sunday in Salt Lake, but eventually we located one, and sat down for a lovely fall afternoon chat.
• And then, it was time to say our goodbyes, which is the least fun part of vacation. I have such love in my heart for these friends and without their friendship, my life would be greatly lacking.