This Is The Place

Historic Town

I love little historic Villages, and the "This Is the Place" is no exception. After a little bit of lunch at.........wait for it...... CAFE RIO! We headed out with Drea and the girls to Play. It was so fun to watch the kids together and to walk and talk together.

Liza took the "big sister role" especially with the little ones, and I think she brought her Auntie Drea a welcome break.
Alex is ALWAYS talking about panning for gold, and mining for jewels. He really wishes he could "strike it rich" one day. He has really wanted to look for gold in rivers so this was a perfect opportunity. Because it was an activity here, I knew that the environment would be 'rich'. Alex enjoyed it up until they told him that he could turn his one piece of gold in at the bank for a candy. Then he realized that this was probably not real gold. Yet he really wanted more then one piece. I told him he could take 4. one for him, myself, drea and Ashley. He was happy.
There were a few pretty photo opportunities out there..... I loved this pretty little window in one of the homes.
The place gave us each a wrist band upon entry. Each 'special' activity counted for one 'punch' off your band. There were only 3 punches on the band. Imagine the disappointment when we discovered that the kids had spent a few punches, and now only have enough left to ride horses one time.
However, after some tears, a kind woman shared with us that mommy wrist band punches can also be used towards the kiddos doing activities.
So, Back on the horses they went!! They all loved it SOOO much. And sweet Liza took Ashley both times. Ashley seemed to like it.
Alex... I don't know if he was waiting for some saddle bronc, or if he was waving.... LOL...
And Miss Katie loving the horses too!
There was a house, where the children could work and do the jobs that the pioneer children used to do. Amber here, washing some laundry... gotta love those beautiful Utah/Wyoming Mountains in the back drop there.
And Alex, now working SOOO hard. (In flip flops) :-)

My favorite moments are these, where cousins walk hand in hand. Like old friends, cousins pick up like they just saw each other yesterday! Katie and Amber had fun together, it was sweet to watch them talk and play.

And of course the school house! Gotta do the school house.
And for kicks, I asked the school teacher about punishments for bad behavior. Lucky lucky Alex got picked to be the demonstrator.
He was quite worried that she would really paddle his backside when she had him assume the position up there in front of the class. Actually, she gave the paddle to his big sister, so his worries were quite justified. LOL!!!
We headed over to the petting zoo, and we got an offer to go over and feed the lambs. Oh YES!! Wouldn't miss it for the world. Sweet little lambs!!!
Everyone got a turn holding the bottle, and feeling the little guy tug on it. They were so cute, and so lost out there w/o their mama.
Here's Katie "helping" Amber feed.
And Amber sneaking in for a soft touch of a goats ear.
Katie finally took a seat and churned some butter for us inside one of the houses.
We found this FANTASTIC little bucket hanging on the wall of the house. I asked if we could pull it down and put the baby in it... the woman was sweet and agreed. Oh how I just wanted to line up 1 year olds and slide them into this bucket, with this backdrop.
My favorite picture of the day!!! I love it!! She's so CUTE!!!

While Drea and I were with the kids, Jeff was at school and Brent was up doing some mountain flight hours. (poor guy, up there flying around, missed all the fun and heat of the historical village.) :-)

Brent said that flying over those mountains was SOOO cool and he wanted to go again and again. He tells me that someday he is going to take his family up there to fly over those mountains. I am sure it's beautiful from a small plane.

We had a lovely day, and wrapped it up with a visit to Grandma and Grandpa Davies (pics to come) and a quick jaunt into Ikea! :-) It was a long day, but boy did I love spending it with my little sis!