Making Memories, Part IV: Goodbye, Cherry Hill & Hello, SLC!

Cherry Hill's campground had bathrooms and showers and a laundry room, which was a total lifesaver, but none of those things are quite good enough for a toddler who desperately needs a bath.  Though the camping part of our vacation had gone pretty well, all things considered, at that point I really felt like I was roughing it.  There were some definite moments of "I'm never, ever doing this again!"  S was not at all acting sick-- as if throwing up had been just a bad dream-- and she was not exactly cooperative.  She wanted to run around the campground and did NOT appreciate Mommy rubbing furiously at her hair with baby wipes.

Still, being completely insane (or dedicated, depending on your point of view) we did get S cleaned up and all the kids ready, and we made it to 9 am church at my cousin Jason's ward.  We only stayed for sacrament meeting (and I think my family pretty much slept through it) but it was a much needed breather before we tackled the next stage of vacation: packing up a campsite.

Not fun.  Especially since most everything outside was still dripping wet.  But it was finished eventually and we checked out of our campsite.  At this point we had three hours to kill before check-in time at our hotel in downtown Salt Lake.  My mom suggested a drive up to Silver Lake, which Denell had mentioned on Friday, so we took a little drive up the canyon to where some of the ski resorts are.

S rode on Daddy's back this time

It was so beautiful!!  I love the mountains.  I just don't get to spend much time in them.  It rained on us a bit again (of course) but it smelled glorious.  There was some kind of a raised plank pathway that went all the way around the meadow and the lake (a pond, really).  Perfect for the kids.  I was hoping to see a moose but we didn't get so lucky.

On the way home The Headache decided that it was time to party in my head.  Horrible, pounding, nauseating pain.  Yippee.  So once we were checked into our hotel, Terence kindly decided to keep all the kids as well as washing our new pile of dirty laundry (S was going to need clean blankets).  I rode down to Orem with my mom to return a bunch of camping gear to my aunt Shelly.  Shelly is super familiar with her own Headaches so she handed me some Excedrin and I rested in the cool, dark basement for awhile.

(Why can't we have a basement?  More Utah house envy....)

Sunday night was blissful.  Absolutely.  Sleeping in a bed, with air conditioning, with half my kids in another room-- it was something I just appreciated so much more after spending three nights in a tent!

Monday we took all the kids to Temple Square and City Creek.  We took the kids through the visitor centers and got an abbreviated tour of the Conference Center (we asked for the special kid-friendly tour, since we weren't sure how well K and S would do, let alone J).  That Conference Center is amazing!  The wanna-be architect in me was just astonished, especially by the roof garden.  What a place!  The only bummer was that I really wished I could have spent more time enjoying all the paintings and exhibits and maybe even getting to watch some of the movies.  But I had kids that wanted to run from one thing to the next, and keeping track of all of them was a nightmare.  (Especially when you need to keep them from grabbing things, or climbing on displays, or racing up the escalator backwards.)  Maybe I'll get to go back when they are older and enjoy it for myself!

Kylie, M, Bryson, K, J, B, S & me

(Last installment of my vacation chronicle coming up next....)