In early August, the Utah Shenks were happy to welcome Stacy P. and her kids, Reese and Quinn, for a visit. Jill and Stacy have been friends since high school and James was super happy to have playmates here for a week. Their vacation was definitely not restful, but we were determined to show them as much of Utah as we could cram into a week. The kids were great sports for being stuck in the car for hours at a time. Thank you, portable movie players!

We went camping over the weekend in the mountains near our house. The kids had a great time playing in the dirt and going on nature walks. 

On Sunday morning, we hiked the trail up to Timpanogos Cave National Monument and enjoyed the tour through the caves. 

There are so many beautiful areas here that it can be difficult to decide which ones to share with visitors. We chose to take a drive up to the Mirror Lake area and have a picnic with the kids. It was going great until the sound of unidentified wildlife growling nearby sent us hightailing it out. We still don’t know what it was, but we weren’t going to stick around and find out. Despite that adventure, the area was a hit.

Southern Utah has a very different landscape from northern Utah, and one of our favorite places there is Moab, so we piled the kids in the car and drove the 3 hours southwest to Arches National Park. The kids didn’t seem to think the drive was worth it, but Stacy did, so that’s good. The views are always worth it for us. 

Since we were so close, we took a brief detour over to Canyonlands National Park as well. We wished we had more time to explore the road we were on, but alas, we had to head home. Next time.

On their last full day here, we all enjoyed a train ride on the Heber Valley Railroad with lovely views of Deer Creek Reservoir and the Provo River. 

We are so grateful to Stacy, Reese, and Quinn for sharing their vacation time out here with us, and can’t wait to do it again!