Utah Mini-Vacation

Last weekend we decided to turn Sarah's annual Shriners doctor's appointment into a mini-vacation. Because I was in school until the middle of July this was really our only vacation for the summer. We left on Sunday morning and drove to Salt Lake. Here is Kaitlyn on our way out of town.



Once we got to Salt Lake, we took the kids to the Hogle Zoo. We use to go to the Denver Zoo a dozen times each year. The kids have really missed it. The Hogle Zoo was a lot of fun though and we're glad we went. Here is Marcus and the kids in front of a big African Elephant Statue. It made sounds periodically and scared the kids once.
Here is Jay and Sarah looking at the wild turkeys.
The zoo had a little place called Discovery Land. Marcus and Kaitlyn waited for us outside and I took Jay and Sarah in. We played on the toys. But the best part was the bats we found in a cave there.

On Monday we spent the day at Shriners. Sarah's appointments lasted from 930 a.m. to almost 300 pm. She had a Movement Analysis, X-Rays, and visited with the neurologist and the orthopedic surgeon. It was a long day, but well worth it. While we were at Shriners we had about a 30 minute break between appointments. Marcus found this park down the street and we played for a while. This is Kaitlyns first time swinging ever (that I could remember).

This is Sarah during her Movement Analysis at Shriners. Part of the Lab was that they took these reflective stickers and put them all over her body. Then they turned on the infrared cameras and video taped her walking. It was fascinating. They should be able to read all sorts of information from the study. It takes about two months to get the results back, but it will be wonderful to compare the information from year to year and see how she progresses or regresses.


More pics from the park.

This is Kaitlyn playing at Shriners. She was so good all day.

This is in the car on the way home from our mini-vacation on Tuesday. We stayed at LaQuinta in Midvale for two nights and fun was had by all. We swam, went to the zoo, ate, shopped, watched movies, got everyone's hair cut by Becca (thanks by the way, you did a great job), went to IKEA, and had a wonderful time. As you can see, we were all bushed and ready to sleep in our own beds by Tuesday night.