Grand Parents visit Salt Lake City

January is cold and things tend to slow down for Lucy and Drew. We find ourselves working on projects around the house after many months of neglect. When the weather is fair we are traveling and exploring during our free time. When things slow down in the winter we find ourselves putting down roots for a few months. This is usually the best time for family and friends to come out and visit.

My parents jumped at this opportunity to come out and visit us the last week of January. My Mom came out under the pretense of doing research in the genealogy library which is an incredible source of information. She usually spends hours cross checking facts and pursuing leads that she has formulated over the months back home in Pennsylvania. My Dad traveled out to Salt Lake under the guise of doing research as well for his upcoming cross country flight in his home built airplane this summer. He looked at prospective airports to land at and talked with local pilots about the best ways to navigate through the Uinta and Wasatch Mountain ranges.

The real reason for their visit was quite obvious to Lucy and I though. It had been 4 months since "Mango Mandy" came in to our lives and the proud grandparents wanted to come out and visit their newest grand daughter. "Mango Mandy" made such an incredible change in all of our lives and my parents wanted to see her first hand. Now that we have a 29'ner in the family we can not imagine what life would be like without her!

After a few days of playing with "Mango Mandy" and working on genealogy and flight planning we all decided to head up to Heber Valley and ride the Heber Creeper train. It was a cold clear morning when we all boarded the train in Heber and headed south towards the Provo Canyon.

The train had two inside cars which were heated and an exterior passenger car. The fresh snow on the valley floor made for a beautiful backdrop as we headed south. The train traveled for approximately 11 miles before we turned around and traveled back to the station in Heber. The whole ride took about 2.5 hours and we all had a wonderful time.

My parents flew back to Philadelphia PA with new photos of their grand daughter, new genealogy leads to follow up on and dreams for my Dad of flying through the beautiful mountain ranges that surround Salt Lake City. Lucy and I had a wonderful time during their visit and were glad that we could share part of our every day lives with them.