When we got to the park, there were some school groups there, which I thought was weird since school was supposed to be out. Must have been some sort of summer enrichment program or daycare or something like that. Regardless, it was sort of crowded, and I also heard that the next day was KSL's Free to the Public day, so I considered asking for my money back. But when I talked to the lady at the desk, she said, "There will probably be at least 10,000 people here tomorrow. Trust me, you do NOT want to come back." So, I decided to take the kids to Wendy's for lunch and then come back, since they said the school groups would be gone after lunchtime.
That worked out really well. When we came back we practically had the place to ourselves. :) I haven't been to this park since I was in Elementary school on a field trip. The only thing I remembered about it was that we got to make butter. I have a vague snapshot in my memory of the way the buildings used to look.
I was pleasantly surprised. There were so many fun things to do and see. We'll probably make this a regular summer outing. I've also heard that they have a fun Haunted Village thing around Halloween time, so we might have to check that out too.
We walked around a bit when we first got there. Every house/building has something to show you about the way the Pioneers lived when they first came into the valley. There was a yard with laundry set up, and the kids got to scrub some clothes on a washboard. One house had a lady making lace - that was really cool to see. It looked like a very intricate and time consuming process. Another lady was making yarn out of wool - she spun it on a spinning wheel, and then showed us the things she was knitting with the yarn. Each house was decorated with time period furniture - many of the things were authentic antiques, instead of replicas.
We visited the bank where a man showed us how they weighed gold dust to trade for paper money or coins. I guess you could buy "Deseret Dollars" in the bank to spend on crafts and activities there. But you get 3 free activities with your admission, and they mark them off on your wristband. We didn't have time to do more than that. I wish we could have stayed a couple of more hours (we were there for FOUR), but we were all hot and tired and I had to teach that afternoon. We had lots of fun, anyway!
We rode the big "train" up to the Mary Fielding Smith house, where the girls got to make pioneer dolls. We just hefted Tessa up onto the train in her stroller. I love her silly scrunched up smile.
Some of the cool buildings and structures on the park. I should have taken more pics of those.
Making pioneer dolls
After making dolls, we walked a little ways to the "Indian Village". This is a mud hut, and below is a wooden teepee.
Inside one of the mud houses, Kaleb and Macy chose to make an arrowhead necklace. Elise decided not to use her wristband on this activity. Isaak said, "I don't want to make anything. I just want to ride the little train. If I don't ride the little train, I'll be sad."
So Macy and Isaak rode the little train. Isaak was happy the rest of the day. Silly boy!
I thought this was a pretty cool shot with my dinky little camera.
While waiting for the kids to ride the train, Tessa finally crashed in the stroller. She took a pretty good nap. Good thing I put sunblock on her legs, cause it was too hot to cover her up with a blanket! I tried to stay in the shade as much as I could, too.
Kaleb and Macy also decided to decorate a little piece of leather with these leather stamping tools. I remembered that I had a leather stamping kit when I was a pre-teen. Actually, come to think of it, I probably asked for the leather kit after I went to this park on my field trip. I made a few things like keychains and such with it, and I think we gave it to the DI when I got tired of it. But it was a fun art kit. Before we left the park, Elise had one more spot on her wristband and she decided to go back and make one of these as well. She likes to think very carefully about her decisions of what she wants to do, so that she doesn't miss a better opportunity by wasting her choices. It's a good quality, but sometimes she misses out on fun things because of it. I'm glad she chose to go back. However, I was tired of walking, so I just had Elise and Kaleb run back to the leatherworker shop together, so I didn't get a pic of her stamping.
We went into a Hat Maker's shop. This cute little lady made all of these hats, and was very adamant that we do not touch them, so the oils (and probably DIRT) from our hands wouldn't ruin the hats. But she let us all wear one that she chose for us. Kaleb is the only one that got to choose what kind of hat he would like. She asked if he would like to wear a farmer's hat, or a rich boy's hat. And of course, he chose the rich boy. :)
I told you not to laugh at the lack of makeup and hairdo, didn't I? And the blue Walmart special t-shirt...
The last activity before we went home was for the girls to dig through this dirt to find seed beads to make a bracelet with. We all had a great time, and we will definitely go to this park again. It was worth the $32!
2 comments:
You are such a fun mom. I know my kids wish I would take them more places.
I have been wanting to go there too, but I didn't remember what there was to do there. We are at the zoo so many times, we are going to have to stop at This is the place next time. Looks like you all had a great time.
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