We just returned from a fun three-day trip to Salt Lake City. Julie, Sheldon, and Jace arrived ahead of us on Friday afternoon. We met them at the Hilton Hotel in downtown SLC. The hotel was within walking distance to Temple Square. We arrived in SLC quite late as we didn't leave Las Vegas until after school ended on Friday. We haven't been in SLC for about four years, so it was really great to spend some time revisiting familiar places. We managed to spend an entire afternoon walking around the temple, tabernacle, visitors' center, and the Joseph Smith Building. We ate at the Lion House and then wandered through the Distribution Center and new Deseret Book store. Temple Square was beautiful as always. The flowers were so pretty and the weather was just perfect. The day was complete with a swim in the indoor pool at the hotel later that evening.
On Sunday we drove up Little Cottonwood Canyon and went on a small hike to Lisa Falls and had a "Subway" picnic. The beautiful mountains were covered with trees and bushes. The waterfall was small, but we all had fun especially Jace playing in the water and feeling the mist spray on our faces. It felt like we were surrounded by granite rock which reminded us of the SLC temple that we had visited the day before. Later that afternoon we went to Liberty Park and went to the bird aviary. We saw a bird show and enjoyed looking at all the different birds especially the ones from South America which were so colorful. The hotel was really nice, and again at the end of the day we found ourselves enjoying another swim.
Monday morning we spent a few hours in the pool and then went to a great restaurant called Paradise Bakery for lunch. It's very similar to Panera Bread only better. As we said our good-byes, we decided to go see where Sheldon is doing his second optometry rotation in SLC. It was just a couple of miles from the restaurant. It looked nice, and Sheldon says he is really enjoying this rotation. They will leave for Honolulu which will be rotation three on November 11th.
