Staycation

The first week of August, we had planned on visiting Nathan in Provo.  I had hoped to leave on Saturday August 1st and have a full week, returning on the following Saturday or Sunday.  However, Alex scheduled a young women backpacking trip over that weekend.  The backpacking trip actually got cancelled, but Owen had already committed to work that Saturday since we couldn't leave until Sunday. We also discovered that Nathan's roommates hadn't moved out yet, so we couldn't even stay at the house with him.  Nathan was also working that week.  By the time we calculated the costs of renting a vehicle and hotel costs, plus not actually spending that much time with Nathan (who we would see a few weeks later), it just didn't make sense to go.  We decided to do a staycation instead, where we committed to mostly put aside work and other activities to spend time doing local things as a family.  

We had a really fun week.  On Monday we did a Spiderman movie marathon, grilled hamburgers, and had dessert at a restaurant downtown.  We walked around downtown for a bit too, which Alex really likes to do.  On Tuesday we played board games, with everyone getting to pick a game they wanted to play.  We played Ticket to Ride (my choice), Harry Potter Clue (Owen's choice), Trekking (Alex's choice), Sheriff of Nottingham (Weston's choice), and Telestrations (Savannah's choice).  We went out to eat that night.  On Wednesday morning, we biked to the beach, about 12 miles total.  We had to round up a couple bikes.  We had issues with one bike, which wouldn't switch out of 1st gear.  Savannah started on it, then Weston tried it out, and then I finished out the ride to the beach.  Owen rode the 6 miles back from the beach.  The weather was really nice, and it was actually our first time to do a family bike ride together.  In the afternoon, we went bowling, which was fun but a lot more expensive than I remember it being.  Four of us even had our own shoes, but we still paid over $100 to bowl 3 games.  On Thursday morning, we went to the Newport Beach Temple.  We watched the new Spiderman movie in the theater that afternoon, followed by eating out.  On Friday, I stayed home and did a work day while Alex took the kids to a small waterpark.  We had pizza for dinner. On Saturday, I made a nice waffle and bacon breakfast.  We had a beach day, where we played some 4-square volleyball and got in the ocean.  It was cold at first but we got used to it pretty quickly.  We had tacos for dinner at a local taco place.  It was great to spend the week together!