Family Fun Week - Day 2

Today's agenda: Movies, Dinosaur Park, Maddox Ranch House, Brigham City Temple

We started our day at the dollar movies to see Charlotte's Web.  After that we headed up to Ogden, to visit the George S. Eccles Dinosaur Park.  I've heard about this place and have wanted to visit for awhile now, but just didn't want to make the trek up to Ogden.  Since we were going to be headed up north anyway today, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try it out.  Turns out it was a lot of fun and very reasonably priced - bonus!  They have an indoor exhibit with skeletons, fossils, and even a few robotic dinos, and then they have an incredible outdoor park with 52 different species of dinosaurs on display - not real ones, just statues ;o)  But, I think they are all to scale and they were pretty life-like.  They also have a fun playground area, and excavating site, and an indoor education center with coloring pages, crafts and other activities.

After the dino park, we headed up to Brigham City and met up with my parents, Abigail, and Emily and her kids.  First stop, Maddox Ranch House for an early dinner.  I thought it was great, Brian gave it a C-.  He stated that he gets better food every Sunday at my Mom's house.  I can't really argue with that, but after talking it through with him, he bumped it up to a B+.  All the food was really good (especially those rolls with the raspberry butter, mmmm), but he was disappointed in his not-so-flavorful steak.  He even had to use steak sauce, and he hates steak sauce.  Anyway, enough with the food critique.  We had dinner and then headed over to the new Brigham City temple.

The company my Dad works for did the electrical on the temple and they were having a special open house for all the contractors and their families.  I think the official open house begins on Saturday.  It was fun getting a sneak peak, but is was so gosh darn hot in there.  Too many bodies me thinks. 

We had to wait in line for about an hour before we got inside and then we continued to move at a snails pace.  Just after we passed the recommend desk, a group came in through a side door by where we were standing.  In that group was Elder Neil L. Andersen!  Ashlyn was the first to shake his hand and he also took notice of Chase stating that this was likely his first trip to the temple.  As we were leaving the temple, his group passed by us again and Ashlyn got to shake his hand a second time.  I enjoy temple open houses, but it's even more special when you get to see an apostle in person. 

After suffering through the heat, we decided that ice cream was well deserved.  So, we made a quick stop at a local creamery, Peach City, before heading home. 

Favorite part of day 2?
Ashlyn: "The dinosaur park."
Trent: "The T-rex at the dinosaur park."
Luke: "Ice cream!"