A Mini Vaca

Last week we had plans to go to Salt Lake for my nephews wedding so we decided to make a mini vacations out of it.  My goal was to find as many deals as I could so it would be inexpensive. (Unfortunately, I don't have any photos from the trip.  I even charged the camera battery so it would be ready to go and then I left the camera at home.  Benjamin didn't even bring his ipod which has a camera on it.  So all we have left from the trip is our memories)
The wedding was in the Draper temple.  We left the kids in the waiting room to watch a movie while we attended the ceremony.  After the wedding we went to the Sportsmans Expo, to which I had discount tickets.  We hung out and chatted with people for nearly 7 hours.  Other than my feet killing me (I still had on the dress and heels I wore to the wedding) we had a great time.  The boys were even really good until the end when they all got handed punching balls, then things got a little out of hand.  They thought it was fun to get all the free stuff.  They are still talking about the deals you can get on hunting trips
We left the expo just after 8 and headed to Salt Lake to the hotel.  I had booked us a hotel with a coupon from City Deals - $49 at a Hampton.  Not too shabby!  Even though it was getting late, we suited up and went to the pool.  After a while we drug the kids out to get dried off and ready for bed.  Then we stayed up for a while watching some swamp people show about alligator hunters until we were all so tired we needed to get to sleep. (we don't get many channels at home and don't watch much tv)
The next morning we grabbed some breakfast in the hotel then packed up.  We went further north and our first stop was Smith and Edwards.  It's such a crazy place but you can find some pretty neat things there.  I think they have just about everything.  We wandered the outside scrapyard and Ethan's little inventor brain was going nuts.  He was just dying to get his hands on some of those great treasures.  But I think the kids favorite part was the 20 for $1 candy shelf.  We loaded a bag with a variety of treats and spent $5.  Then it was time to be off to our next adventure. 
We headed even further north to the Crystal Hot Springs (deal, just $12 for a family of 6).  Great place!  We swam and relaxed and played for a couple of hours.  We can' t wait to go back, if only it weren't so far away.
We realized we were very close to Logan so we jumped over the hill so we could get some more boxed milk from Gossner Farms.  Its a great way to have milk in storage.  By this time it was nearly 3:00, we hadn't had lunch yet and the kids were all starving.  The were swarming the sample table, it was quite embarrassing.   We wrapped up our shopping and found a Subway (where we had a food incident that left me and my starving, unreasonable brain go into a meltdown that I won't discuss all the details of).  Then it was time to head home from our little get away.   It was a great trip that I am glad we took the time and money to go on.  Sometimes its hard to feel like we can afford a vacation but it's good for the soul to splurge a little like this every now and then.  After all, I got enough good deals that it really didn't cost very much.  In the meantime, we will keep throwing our pennies in our jar to save for a bigger vacation.