Manti

The Provo temple was closed for pretty much all of July, so one week we used that as an excuse to go down to Manti. Last year when we were dating, we went down to the Miracle Pageant, with some roommates, but we didn't really get to see anything except the pageant. So this time we went to the temple and then went on a walking tour of some of the historic places. We made a few other stops too.

 

You were supposed to be able to see the temple behind us in this picture, which didn't work out so well.

 

These were some of the places on the tour: the cemetery, and this house and school. The house is actually a museum, which we didn't go into, but we looked at all the stuff in the yard.

 

Ian wouldn't let me take a picture of him with the old farm equipment, so I had to sneak one in.

 

We found a playground and had to play on it a bit. There weren't any swings, which was weird, but there was a see-saw and this contraption that Ian is on. It spun around and around.

 

This is where we ate last year when we came down, and didn't have a picture then, so thought we might as well take one now. I'm told Ian to make a funny face, but I don't think that counts. I'm also wearing Ian's sunglasses, since I forgot mine, and he had a hat. They don't look that strange.

This is where we ate this time. Its just across from the temple and used to be called Temple Hotel or something like that. The bathroom was in a tiny room under the stairs. Neither of us actually used it, but I would imagine that you would have to double over in order to make it to the toilet. The food was pretty good too.

Trip to Royal City

Just after Ian's birthday we went to Royal for our niece's baptism. I didn't actually take any pictures while we were there, but I took pictures on the drive. I've discovered that its a good way to entertain myself on really long car rides.

You can't really tell in this picture, but the clouds were amazing. They were the craziest shapes and much more colorful.

Even there are no pictures from while we were actually in Royal City, we had a lot of fun. We got to go to one of the twins' little league games, drove around the farm with Chad and his girls, who were very entertaining, I got to see Chad and Marnie's new house 5 or 6 times, and of course there was the baptism. Basically it was a really fun few days with lots of family.

Ian's birthday in Park City.

It was only two months ago. Anyway, I'd never been to Park City, and Ian hadn't been in a while, so we went up. We went to the outlet mall, which was probably much more fun for me than for Ian, though the Nike store made it all worth it. We ended up getting sunglasses. Ian said we had to get them because Dr. Tim (his optometrist brother-in-law) says everyone should have them. Though I'm pretty sure he just needed an excuse to try on every pair of sunglasses in every store we went to. And of course you can't do that without actually buying a pair. So here we are in our sunglasses:

After the outlets, we went downtown, and wandered around a little bit while we decided where to eat. We ended up eating at a French restaurant called Jean Louis. We were quite adventurous and had escargot as an appetizer and veal for the main course, both of which we never had before. I didn't take my camera in, so there are not pictures of the escargot sampling. The escargot was actually much better than I had anticipated, and of course the veal was good. These are the picture of Jean Louis we took driving by.

On the way home, we got caught in construction. We were stopped behind a horse trailer and next to a loverly orange barrel. I entertained myself by taking pictures.

The next day, which was really Ian's birthday, he got to open his presents. Since he loves candy, (but really, who doesn't?) I had to make him this highly cheesy candy card. Don't worry, he got other things too.

 We had pizza for dinner, of course. Then we saw a movie that Ian didn't like (I don't remember which) and came home and had cheescake. I have to brag  a little bit, because the cheesecake turned out perfectly. It wasn't even cracked at all. It was just one of those serendipitous moments that are all too rare when cooking. Check out the size of Ian's piece.