Cornelius Chronicles

Flamingos!!!!! We had a family fun day at the Tracy Aviary and Botanical Gardens in Salt Lake.  It was so fun to see all of the beautiful, unique birds, walk through the beautiful garden-scapes, and be together as a family.  Loyd and Rebekah were especially happy to get some city time.  It helped them feel a little bit more at home away from Houston.   We saw birds, cool plants, played on the nest themed playground, and ate dole whip ice cream.  To top the day off of we ate a yummy, late curry lunch at Sitara India in Ogden on our way home.  It was a fun day for everyone.  Here's some action shots of our fun day.   Check it out!  The birds match my shirt! If you look closely you can spot the ever elusive teenagers in the background!

 After 17 years we finally got out for a night without the kids for our anniversary (it was after our anniversary actually, but we wanted to wait until we were officially fully vaccinated for Covid-19).  We had a nice trip to Salt Lake City where we ate a yummy dinner at Skewered Thai, explored the Gilgal Sculpture Garden, and stayed at the Anniversary Inn in the Sun Valley room.  It was fun and relaxing to just be us and have a night away from the kids.  Thanks, mom, for baby-sitting!

Because of this cute little boy and his current craze for trains we decided to go for a trip to the Golden Spike National Historic Park.  It is the location of where the East Coast Rail Road (RR) and the West Coast RR finally came together to make the first transcontinental RR in the United States.  It is the place where they laid the Golden Spike to commemorate this important event in United States history.  It was fun to learn the history of the place and even cooler to see the replicas of the original Engines in action.  We had a great time and this little boys had his train cup filled for the day.

The little kids have been begging and begging to hike to the M on the mountain behind our house.  The M is for Morgan and a much loved community  touchstone.  The kids have heard all about how cool the hike up there is from their local friends and want to get in on the action too.  Loyd and Xavier hiked up there with the Young Men from our Ward and came home with stories of nearly sliding off the mountain and barely making it home from this crazy hard hike.  Maeve, Owen, and John hiked the M the following Friday morning nearly sprinting up the steep trail the whole way with lots of energy and no troubles or complaints the whole way.  HAHA  I think the big kids need to get out and exercise more often.  John has been so excited about hiking all the way to the M by himself that every time he sees it he has to tell me, "I hike the M all by myself!" Wild flower break for Mom and Dad on our way up the trail to the M.  I just love the red rock and t...

 This May we had a neat opportunity to go on an outside construction tour of the LDS Layton Temple.  It was so cool to see the construction progress and learn about the history of the place where it will stand.  When it's done I believe this will become our temple for Morgan County.  It was a neat evening for the whole family. 

We had a fun afternoon with Grandma P visiting the Ogden Union Station Museums.  We got to see the most complete collection of Browning Guns, Saw really neat old cars from the early 1900s owned by the Browning family, explored a really HUGE miniature train recreation of the train route from Kansas to Utah, and explored lots of interesting old train artifacts and fact.  We even had time to check out the wild west exhibit.  We had lots of fun checking out these fun mini museums.  John is currently crazy about all things train so I'm sure we'll be back again soon. Grandma remembers coming into the Ogden Union Station as a train passenger 3 times as a child.  That was how she would come all the way from Maryland to visit her family in Utah.    

After months of begging, finally commencing construction of a fire pit on his own, and wearing Daddy down to help him complete the project, Owen finally got a campfire outside, even with s'mores.  He was so excited about it that as we pulled away from the Grocery Store with chocolate covered graham crackers and marshmallows he exclaimed to John, "It's finally happening!"

 I just love Owen and his creative engineering mind.  Check out this totally cool robot made only out of magnatiles!  It has feet and arms and everything!  Owen is so talented!