The stuff memories are made of

We decided that we desperately needed a family vacation - even if it was a short one.  A friend of ours took her family to Vernal Utah which is known for dinosaurs and she said that our family would LOVE it.  So Marc picked a day, I booked an amazing hotel room (for an incredible steal), I did some research and made a plan.

This area of Utah is known for having a lot of dinosaur bones and for our future paleontologist this was the perfect family vacation. When we told Rachel (many weeks prior) about our plans to go on a family summer vacation to look for dinosaur bones she was ecstatic and couldn't wait for the day to get her so we could leave. Then on the entire trip all we heard from her is "This is the BEST VACATION EVER!!!"  Benjamin and Hannah agreed, but I think for different reasons.

The trip to Vernal and Jensen started off eventful and it continued the entire time.  No matter how prepared you think you are you never all, especially when it comes to little kids.  But we made it and the first thing we did was visit The National History State Park Museum. They had a pretty awesome display and hands-on-display for kids.  We have been to several dinosaur museums around the state of Utah (surprise, surprise) and we ranked this one as being the 3rd best.  Meaning we wouldn't mind visiting it again in the future.
 




After visiting that museum we visited the Western Heritage Museum.  They had some pretty neat things but was NOT kid friendly and quickly became more of a headache than anything.  I was starting to think it was more of a bust, but as we were leaving Marc asked about directions to the Fish Hatchery and the man ended up helping us a lot. He gave us brochures, stickers, suckers and a  fun little certificate for the kids. After visiting that museum we visited the Vernal Temple then headed to our hotel to unwind, get dinner and swim.

The hotel was awesome!  Andrew loved being out of his car seat.  He was all squeals, giggles and smiles when we were there.  Hannah loved snuggling under the down comforter and swimming in the pool.  She loved splashing in the water, kicking her feet while hanging off the side of the pool, jumping to Marc's arms and floating on her back.  She kept saying "YAY!  The big pool!  Lets go swimming!!"

Benjamin enjoyed jumping from one bed to the other.  We let him.  He isn't' allowed to do this at home so we let him soak up all the jumping he could. Rachel had fun jumping a few times too but got bored with it rather quickly.

 

 




The next morning after a great breakfast and checking out of the hotel we headed to Jensen Utah tot he Dinosaur National Monument.  This is our first pick for places to go to enjoy the history of dinosaurs.  It was amazing!  The Monument is located in Dinosaur National Park which is divided between Utah and Colorado.  It is HUGE!  There are a ton of hiking trails in which you can find dinosaur bones and traces of clams, fish and plants still in the side of the mountain, an open and working quarry, and bones you can touch. Rachel as is heaven.

As the open quarry the kiddos did a little activity and were sworn in as Junior Park Rangers.  Rachel was also given a Jr. Paleontologist booklet of activities.  After staying at the quarry for a few hours we decided to take a small trail back to the visitors center rather than ride the shuttle down.  Rachel loved finding and searching for bones in the walls of the canyon on our way down.  I was beautiful there and so amazing to see actually bones of these terrible lizards who lived millions of years ago.  It really does make one wonder....

Hannah didn't enjoy the hike so much.  She was hot, tired and hungry and she really struggles with being dirty sometimes.  She really would prefer playing with her baby, dressing up, wearing dresses, and swimming.  We will definitely be coming back but maybe not until Hannah is a little older - maybe that will make it easier.