Vernal - The Land of Dinosaurs!

Last year we decided that our vacation for 2018 would be to Vernal, Utah. It was on our family bucket list and since we didn't know at the time if we would be staying in Utah or moving across the country we figured it would be the perfect year to make that our trip. I had been to Vernal and saw some dinosaur sites as a little girl and I wanted to relive some of those memories with Danny and our kids. Especially since those three LOVE dinosaurs. Danny might be the reason our kids are such big fans but I love that he's the biggest fan of all. We decided that we would go once Danny's semester of teaching was done at UVU. He teaches a couple labs and his finals are done before the semester is officially so the timing was great. Some of our great friends live in Vernal and the plan had always been that we would visit them there, however it turned out that when we tried to coordinate our schedules we learned that the two weekends we were able to go conflicted with their own vacation plans. They had planned a trip for Disneyland and wouldn't be in Vernal for both of the weekends that we were able to be there. We didn't get to see our friends but we did get to benefit from their generosity. They are seriously the best people and offered their house for us to stay in even though they would be out of town themselves. It was awesome not to have to find a hotel or pay for the nights with our family. It also allowed us to be flexible with our own plans. We were able to choose which weekend we wanted to go which turned out to be so nice because we decided to leave for our trip the morning of. 

Excited for Vernal.

But sad our friends weren't going to be there.

Danny's parent's found out that we were thinking of heading to Vernal and they wanted to go as well. Danny's dad needed to go for a business trip and thought it would be perfect to make his trip the same time that we would leave on ours. It turned out fun to have them join us. We both left on Wednesday the 18th and met up in Vernal for dinner that evening. We were able to plan our next day and talked about things we wanted to do and see. On our bucketlist was the dinosaur museum, seeing dinosaur bones, real petroglyphs, and getting a picture of Addie next to the giant pink brontosaurus we saw in town. Dave and Donna only planned on staying until Friday so we were going to try and do as much as we could while they were with us on Thursday. We ended up doing everything.

The kids LOVED this giant bear in the room they slept in.

We started Thursday morning heading over to the Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum. Addie was pretty happy that the first dinosaur we saw as we pulled up was a stegosaurus, that's her favorite dinosaur.

Addie had a grumpy moment because she wanted her sunglasses.

After the museum we spent some time in the gift shop before heading over to the Dinosaur Quarry Exhibit. This was a cool place where they built a building around a cliff side that revealed actual dinosaur bones. They even had some you could touch. Hudson was also a little stinker in this place and eyes couldn't be taken off him or we would find him climbing inside some of the exhibits . . . which happened twice. After that he had to be confined to the stroller which he wasn't a huge fan of but it was necessary. 

If you zoom in you can see a hidden dinosaur toy.

Zoomed in.

In front of the exhibit we kept finding him in.

Touching a real bone.

We left the Quarry and headed to the Visitor's Center where we tried to watch a short video but both of the kids mostly just wanted to hang out in their gift store so only Dave and Donna actually watched the video. There was a pop up book in the store that both of the kids LOVED but we weren't planing on buying because it was $20 and we wanted to get them different souvenirs however Hudson got a little too excited and ripped one of the pages. :( So of course we bought the book after that only to realize later that night that there were several rips throughout the whole book from someone else who had destroyed it and then left it back on the shelf. Oh well. At least we were able to show our kids how integrity works even though they will probably never remember this story haha. We decided it was best to take the kids outside after this incident so that they can get their wiggles out without anything else suffering from them in the shop, and it also helped save our wallet. :)

Always with rocks in his hands.

We enjoyed a late lunch/early dinner at a Mexican restaurant where both kids did really well. Hudson did better than Addie but he's also the better eater out of the two. Donna told us about an easy hike where we would see some real petroglyphs so we decided to head there next. Let's just say that it was in no way easy. I don't think Danny and I will ever do that again. At least not while pregnant and carrying a three year old and a one year old. There was no way that either of the kids would be able to do it so Danny and I took turns carrying them up that mountain. Once my arms felt like they couldn't carry Addie any longer I would switch with Danny and take Hudson and we just kept switching off the whole way up and the whole way down. Plus I'm pregnant so that made it exceptionally harder. Both of the kids were also tired because by this point we had already had a full day of excitement with no naps for the kids. Anyway the petroglyphs were cool and I think Danny and I would have appreciated it more under different circumstances. If we do try it again it will definitely not be during a pregnancy or while the kids are too little to hike it themselves. With all that said though the kids did like it. Especially when we needed to take a breather and put both of them down. They also took full advantage to play in the dirt and get as dirty as possible haha.

Right before we found out what we were getting ourselves into.

By the time we got back to the house both of the kids were beyond exhausted. Especially Hudson. He wanted to go to bed so bad but because of the hike a bath was more than necessary. They were filthy. They had dirt in every place possible. We gave them a quick wash and then both of the kids fell asleep in record time. Danny and I were also feeling dead that night that we just passed out ourselves. Something sad happened because of that though. :( A record was broken. Two records actually. I have personally read my scriptures every single day for 11 straight years. I started a couple months before I turned 18 and kept at it. Danny and I have also read consistently every single day for almost five years. It started on day one of our married lives together. We read on our wedding night and even on nights that we were separated because of various trips we still found a way to get in some verses together. Well we were soooooo tired that we completely forgot to read before going to bed ourselves. In fact I didn't even realize it until Danny pointed it out the following night when we went to read together. I was devastated. I now blame the hike hahaha. I know it shouldn't matter if we miss one night and that it's not about the record but I was still a little sad about it. I even tried to justify it by saying that maybe the primary songs we sang in the car with Addie counted but the truth is that we did miss a night of scripture reading. Oh well. Here's to moving forward. 

The next morning Danny and I were debating if we should stay as planned or head back home like Dave and Donna were doing. We liked the idea of just relaxing and staying in our friend's house but we also liked the idea of looking at cars to buy and thought hey why not get one today? We knew we were going to buy a minivan at some point and we found one online at a really good price that we wanted to check out before it was no longer available. Ultimately the decision making came down to the fact that we actually did almost everything we had planned on doing in one day and there wasn't really anything else that we really wanted to get done in Vernal. The only thing we still wanted to do was buy a key chain from Vernal and take a picture of Addie in front of the pink brontosaurus in town. Both were easy things so we decided that once that was done we would head home early and get us a van. :) 

The drive home was easy going and both kids did so well in the car. We never had any meltdowns the whole trip from the kids being in their car seats which made it so nice. We plan on doing another road trip next year and right now we're thinking of Yellowstone. Addie has been with me and my side of the family but Danny and Hudson have not. By then we'll also have our third child and I already can't wait. :)

We left a nice little review for our friends to have once they got home from their Disney trip. We'll be back in Vernal again and next time we'll plan better between our friends since we missed them.