Swaner Eco Center

Us Fergys don't often leave the house with all kids in tow except for church, but as of late we have vowed to change our ways and begin by having family outings. Our first offical planned outing was to the Swaner Eco Center. Why did we chose this random place you make ask, simple, the building was an architect landmark Cory wanted to see. It turned out it was also kinda cool for the kids to play at too. We went on a Saturday and we were practically the only ones in the whole place so we didn't have to worry about the kids running around the neat exhibits they have, such as large dam remplicas, caves with animals nesting inside and climbing walls.

The Swaner Eco Center is a plot of 12,000 acres of preserved wetland in Park City.  when you get to the top of the tower all you see is field as far out as the mountains, you would never guess this ritzy mall and apartments were on the other side of the Eco Center

We walked out on the pier and what o our wander eyes should appear, but tons of little caterpillars on all the leaves. I haven't seen these kind of caterpillars since I was a LIL-little kid on the farm. The kids all LOVED them inching around and how fuzzy they were, in fact many tantrums were thrown later that day because all they wanted was to go back and look at the caterpillars some more.

  

After a while we came back inside to play some more and discovered more fun stuff like an interactive light table of the animals found in wet lands and this mountain range that went up and down when you turned the wheel.  After a couple hrs of playing we went out front and had out picnic lunch we brought.  The kids were not really into eating however, because they had cool art outside you could limb on like the large metal worm thingy and a real 4 man bobsled.

 Well our first outing was pretty fun and except for the gas to dive the 20 minutes to and from Park City it was a totally free trip, my favorite kind!

Blanding was anything BUT Bland

A couple of weeks ago Cory had to run a job proposal down to Blanding, Utah and so he wouldn't make the 10 hr drive alone and for a fun adventure I volunteered the whole family to make the one day 10 hr round drive.  We hit the road at 5:15 am and it was sort of a really boring drive until the sun finally came up then we got to see fun sites I have never seen before, like natural arches.

After dropping off the proposal we had to clean Phoebe up because she got car sick the last 30 minutes, then we headed over to the city park for some play time for the kids. They all had a fun time swinging and running around and if you look under Cami you will note there is a LARGE puddle she is swinging over, which shortly after we took the pics Josh fell into, so he wore his pj bottoms for a while until his shorts dried.

After the playground we drove up to Monacello and had a picnic lunch at the temple, which is so small it only took a couple minutes to walk completely around.

 We then loaded up and headed towards Moab to visit a zoo we saw on our way down; it was called The Whole in the Rock Petting Zoo. Our kids and even us adults LOVED this place!

Besides all the animals which you got to feed here, they also had tons of other random stuff we enjoyed seeing.

This Camel is Carson the Camel and he is only 1 yr old and the zoo keeper said in the next year he will DOUBLE in size.  He looked pretty large to me already.  I also learned that Camels do not have any top teeth so you have to hold out the food so they can grab it with their gums.

 

The Ostrich stuck the food SOOO fast you can see in the pic it make Phoebe jump back. Cory and I were really surprised on how snake like the Ostrich's neck is.

Right after the pic with Phoebe and the Lamas this guy bent right over and started eating some of Phoebe's hair, I guess it looked like food to him.

Here is some of the random art and displays surrounding the Whole in the Rock stop.      

This Lawn Mower bike is genious we think we are going to make this so when the kids are old enough they will WANT to mow the lawn.

This is a 5500 sq foot house that was built inside the whole in the rock.  we didn't take a tour though 'cuse it cost more money and we were really ready to head home.

This little lizard in the bathroom scared me when I first saw it out of the corner of my eye, but it was Phoebe FAVORITE part of the day she even thanked Heavenly Father for seeing the lizard in the bathroom in her prayers.

The truck is "Mater" from Cars, the kids got a kick out of it.

This "mini" whole in the rock was some kind of sanctuary when you got inside they had candles and whatnot inside.

After this blazing hot adventure we were really all very tired and eager to make the 248 miles back home.

This really was a fun last minute day trip, the kids were all very well behaved and we all really enjoyed every bit of all San Juan County had to offer.