They Came From Afar...

The group of people over to your left made the long trek from Virginia to Utah to be with me for the Thanksgiving Holidays. By long trek I mean a nice three hour drive to the airport, and once flying they had to make a stop to change over planes. They also made this journey at an impossibly early hour of the morning and forgoed much sleep. For all of this I'm grateful : )

The beautiful sunset for the group picture was out by the salt flats near Antelope Island and the Great Salt Lake. (Looks like one of those fake backdrops doesn't it?) It's a particularly beautiful place.

So my guests arrived on Wednesday morning. The rest of that day was spent catching up on rest, taking a drive out in the country, a buying our Thanksgiving groceries. The following day (Thanksgiving Day) was spent preparing our meal for late afternoon. They ate late afternoon, how peculiar you say. Well, our timing was for good reason, we had a Utah Grizzlies hockey game we had to catch later that evening. I say you don't want to be late for hockey, that would be such a shame. And now since I'm a local to Salt Lake I had to be there to cheer on the Grizzlies, who won the game that night.

On to Friday in my recounting of the Holiday. It was Friday that we met my good friend Maija and her Aunt Annie for a tour of Temple Square. We not only got the perspective of the Sister Missionaries who lead the tours, but it was interesting to hear what Maija and her Aunt had to share throughout. Later in the day us girls went out for lunch and then shopping. My good ol' brother Brent had seen some dealerships along the way that he wanted to check out. He went off on his own for a while (I think shopping falls under too girly).

We all met back up later to go home and relax ourselves for a while before we had to return downtown for the Temple Square Lighting Ceremony and a very nice dinner. That's exactly what we did later in the evening, we strolled Temple Square looking at the 300,000 lights they had on display and then it was off too dinner at the Melting Pot (fondue...yummy). ***The above photo is of the SLC Temple during the light display of Temple Square***

Saturday was all about snow and driving. As a group we drove down south to Provo and saw where Maija lived and then she took us to one of her job sites (The Quarry - an indoor climbing wall). Later we traveled from Provo northeast to Park City (through the Provo Canyon). That is a spectacularly beautiful drive when traveling through Provo Canyon. Once in Park City it was out to lunch and then some more shopping. We really didn't stay in Park City long because it's a fairly cold place to be at this time of year. It's a good 3,000 feet higher in elevation than Salt Lake City and that tends to make a good 10-15 degrees cooler as well. The genius in the following photo thought it would be fun to sit next to the cold metal bear. She realized a second too late that the bench was also metal and very cold as well. She regretted her impulsive actions for the following five or so minutes after the picture and her bottom was thawing out.

LESSON LEARNED!!!

No pictures from Sunday I'm afraid. Our group went to Church that morning and then out to eat with some of the Church members afterwards. Then it was quickly home again to finish packing and off to the airport. End of trip as far as I'm concerned, but for my guest it was another whole 15 hours before they were done with traveling. AND for that I am grateful to them for coming anyways : )