Life in the Alps

Last November we were gifted with a hotel voucher for a night at the Zermatt Resort (an awesome, Swiss-themed hotel near Park City, UT).

It was fun to pretend we made it to Europe for a weekend!

Warming up by the fire in the entryway.

We were also given a gift card to eat dinner at the fancy steakhouse there at the resort.

They had magical potatoes that were so good!

We splurged a little for the fondue platter.  Excellent choice.

The entire resort is built on top of a huge thermal water source.  There are all sorts of these collapsed caves leading straight into the deep, hot water below.  There is a huge cave on the property that you can walk into and swim in as well.  (The pool area inside the hotel has hot springs pools throughout too.  It was really fun!)

Caitlin had a hard time with the fact that the Zermatt Bakery was already closed when we arrived.  She had to wait ALL THE WAY until breakfast for her pastries.

It snowed the next morning for us--adding authenticity to our "Swiss" vacation!

Unfortunately the cold weather resulted in the mini golf course being closed.  We were looking forward to reviving our recently dormant putting skills from when we had a year pass to a fun center.

It was the center of everything: just a few thousand miles from any city you could want to see!

We had such a good time and were so grateful for the opportunity to explore our backyard!

Halloween Festivities

I have some serious catch-up to do!  First on the list: Halloween.

We saw noticeable improvement from 2013 on the pumpkin front.  Caitlin really wanted to paint hers this year, so we found a "chalkboard paint kit" at Target.  She was happy as a really happy clam!

We found an actual pumpkin carving saw at Target too--best investment ever.

They turned out well!  Caitlin's would have lasted till Thanksgiving, but some neighbors must have stolen it (while we were home, no less).  A day that will live in infamy.

Halloween night, we decided to go to the Cornbelly's Maze in Lehi.  It was an excellent decision!

My first corn maze.

Trying to scout out our escape from a bridge we found in the maze.

Finished!

Caitlin found a really big cow.

We also did a significantly smaller and infinitely more frustrating maze while we were there.

(Caitlin finished in half the time it took me--that is likely where the 'frustration' began to come into play.)

Giant, rubber, inflatable bounce pad...exhausting!

The view from the top of the potato-sack slide.

There were tons of things to do there!  Unfortunately, I have no pictures to share of the pig races (those little guys were just too speedy for amateur photography), but I did capture an excellent series of events below in the tube races:

She made it about 3 feet on that attempt...

And to cap it all off, what is Halloween without a firework show synchronized to awful re-mix country music?