Birthday Bash!

Dayton is probably the hardest person to shop for. Every holiday, birthday, anniversary I struggle with what to get him.  I planned to get him a new bike gps/cadence monitor but of course his miraculously started working days before his birthday after having it for a year and a half without any luck of getting it to work.  I got him a few new games instead, which he has really enjoyed.

Along with a bike jersey, my parents gave us some of their time share points for us to stay a night a hotel in Salt Lake. We chose Dayton's favorite, the Hyatt place, known for their legendary breakfast.  We went to the location right below Big Cottonwood Canyon.  I am happy to report that they again lived up to our expectations.  We left Logan Friday afternoon and headed to Salt Lake. It has been a long week. Dayton has been working 70 hours a week. . .  and usually gets off early on Fridays. Waking up at 3 or 4 was pretty normal that particular week.  We were REALLY looking forward to a family get-a-way.  We got to Murray and went to Couscous Mediterranean grill.  This was the place we didn't get to go to for our Anniversary. They food was great and the owner Nick was awesome! We got it to go and headed to the hotel.  We ate a quick dinner and let Hunter take a quick snooze. Then we headed for the pool! This was Dayton's first time swimming with Hunter and they had a blast!

Hunter made a new friend at the pool.  She was the cutest 7 year old and instantly latched onto Hunter.  She entertained him with her many tricks and shows she put on in the pool and I'll admit even I was impressed with her flip, twirling, and swimming skills.  She shared her water toys with Hunter. His favorite was a rubber snake and he would not let it out of his site! When his little friend was getting out of the pool to head to dinner I tried to give it back.  As soon as I took it away from Hunter he started screaming!  He has never been so attached to anything.  The mother told us just to keep the snake.  She wasn't even sure where they got it and assured us Hunter would enjoy it more.  Well she was right.  We sat in the hot tub with him for a while and he held onto it the entire time. That little snake saved us on our drive home.

The next morning after breakfast we went on a hike.  I wanted to hike around Little Cottonwood Canyon and see the beautiful wildflowers.  We brought our hiking backpack and planned to hike Cecret "secret" lake.  We got there around 9 and couldn't believe how packed it was! The ranger explained there were no more parking spots up at the trailhead and they were shuttling people up.  It was going to take us at least an hour to get a shuttle.  After waiting in line for a while, we opted to hike our own little trail up to where the shuttles were taking everyone.  We did this hike last sumer and weren't too upset by it.  A lot of families opted to do the same.  We were sure glad we did that because Hunter got tired after just a few miles. We could have never have waited.  On our hike we saw a moose and her babies! It was so neat. You can kind of see them in the trees. . . . that's about as good as my camera would do.

The wildflowers were absolutely gorgeous! They are my favorite.

I love the mountains in the summer!

Hunter sure loves his hiking pack. I need to find one for me!

Selfie

Our little family

After the hike we went back Grandma Hunter's to take a nap.  Unfortunately they were gone to Cedar for the weekend for Ali's wedding so it was just us.

Later that day we went to the new aquarium in Draper. It was so neat. Hunter loved the penguins, sharks, and the little fish.  

We were lucky to be there for the penguin feeding.

 There were some pretty big fish!

 

 The shark tunnel was wine of our favorites.

Sunday we celebrated Dayton's birthday with his choice of chicken drumsticks and potatoes.  On his request, I made gluten free angel food cake for his birthday cake. He really wanted me to be able to eat his cake with him, but sadly gluten free cooking is not always easy and I still struggle with some recipes.  This was no exception.  Poor guy had to suffer through it to eat it.  I made him chocolate zucchini cake a few days later to make up for it.

Birthday boy.

Sunday we went continued the celebration/family time and went on a walk and fed the ducks at first dam.  Hunter loves the ducks! We also had to walk on dayton's new trail he designed along canyon road. He was quite proud of it and gave us the "insider details" of the project. That silly engineer. 

I had to get several different shots of the trail. . . hah.

A few days later it was uncle Christian's birthday. We celebrated with chicken and steak kabobs and the zucchini cake. We love having Christian up here in Logan.

Hunter enjoyed his balloon  he got from the Old Navy employee. How that balloon went that long without popping is still a mystery. Best entertainment for Hunter though.