Day 17: Grand Junction

Happy Birthday Emerie!

Today was Emeries birthday. She turned 7! So yes she got to eat seven number 7 pancakes! And she worked up an appetite by going with the Hunts bright and early this morning to help clean their chapel.

After breakfast, the kids went out to the backyard and fed the neighbors cows watermelon rinds. Cutler found this to be quite exciting! He could have fed those cows all day long!

Once everyone was ready we took off to Downtown Grand Junction. (Yes, they do have a downtown area!) Grand Junction is actually quite a bit bigger than I was picturing in my head. You really only drive through the very outskirts of town when you are driving on I-70 across Colorado into Utah.
Downtown was pretty cute. They actually have a lot of art on display on the main street. Once again there is definitely some art I just don't get. While other pieces where very cool. The kids favorite was the giant Buffalo made from large pieces of metal. (I think it reminded them of the Buffalo Roam in West Yellowstone!)
We only went in a few stores. The kids favorite by far was the Toy Store. Those little toy stores have so much cool stuff. But it is so much more expensive there than at someplace like Walmart that it is hard to even consider buying anything. They had a really funny little rubber horse that the little kids thought was fun to bounce on. (But at $50 there was not much of a chance it was going to be purchased!)
After our walk around downtown and grabbing some lunch at Chick-Filet (which I still can not believe that we don't have here in Vegas as they have the best lemonade in the world) we headed back to Leslie's house to change into our swimsuits. (No we did not go to another waterpark, but we did go to a Lake! It's kind of like a natural waterpark!)

Leslie took us to a State park close to her house. She had never actual been there before, but had heard about it. And it was really fun. We got there a little later, so the crowds had started to diminish which was good because it was not that big of a lake. Also it gave our kids free reign of the kiddie area- at least most of the time.
There was an entire section roped off just for smaller children. And for a cost of $5 you got two hours of playtime. Which included small paddleboats, a climbing "iceberg", sand toys, and a shallow swimming area. The kids had so much fun the $5 was well worth it. And the adults could go in with the younger kids too, so that was nice. Lincoln still doesn't think he needs any help, even though he has no idea how to swim!

After the lake we headed back to the Hunts where Troy fired up the grill and cooked a nice spread of different BBQ items including hotdogs, hamburgers, pork chops, steak, and corn. So there was something to everyone's liking!

I think Emerie had a good time on her Birthday. And she was so excited to get her first Webkinz- a lilkinz hippo! She is still debating on what she is going to name it, but I bet it will be good whatever it is! (I guess I better get a computer set up at her house so she has some way to get on to the website to give it a name!)

We leave tomorrow and we are definitely not looking forward to the drive or the fact that returning home means we have to go back to work. But I think it is about time to bring this trek to a close! It has been a ton of fun, but I am definitely going to need a vacation from this vacation and from the looks of it that is not going to happen! (I go back to work Monday morning!!)