Park City - Day 1

The summer season for our family is all work and hardly any play (except for Owen & myself) since it's landscaping season. With Barry exhausted and me dealing with my own issues, life has been stressful to say the least. We were in dire need of some R&R and family fun. Originally we wanted to vacation in Oregon and go to the Farwest nursery convention. Since we have been pinching pennies to save enough to increase our adoption budget we decided it was too expensive. So we canned Oregon and looked for another destination. 


Barry is the king of finding travel deals. Apparently timeshare owners in Park City, UT are having problems with filling their vacancies so we got a killer deal for 4 nights in townhouse. We also saved money by purchasing some groceries instead of eating out. The townhouse was located in the Newpark Resort part of newly developed area of Park City close to Kimball Junction. It was a gorgeous townhouse! It had tons of sleeping room with 1 king bed, 2 pull-outs, and 2 twin beds. as well as 3 complete bathrooms.


Though Owen isn't a Thomas fanatic anymore he still LOVES trains.  Our first stop to Park City was at the Golden Spike National Historical Site "near" Tremonton. I say "near" because it is truly in the middle of no where. LOL. We made it just in time to see the reenactment of the trains meeting. The trains are almost exact reproductions of the Union Pacific's No. 119 and the Central Pacific's Jupiter. Of course we left on the hottest weekend of the year so we didn't spend as much time as we wanted. Owen was in 7th heaven seeing the trains and the rest of the weekend asked daily to go see the Jupiter.


It was so bright that all of us had to wear sunglasses or what we call "cool dudes" in our home.

Eagerly awaiting the Jupiter train

Union Pacific's Jupiter - Wood
burning steam train

Posing by the Jupiter train

Owen and Daddy examining the main train parts.
Owen knows them all.

Central Pacific's No. 119 - Coal burning steam train

Overheated already!

Thankfully Park City was about 10 degrees cooler than the valley and the resort had a swimming pool. We invited Barry's sister and her family to come swim with us. You wouldn't know from the pictures but Owen acted like a cat thrown in the pool. He had a death-grip on Barry the whole time even though he had a life jacket. Aunt Mandy and I were able to pull him off a couple times. You would have thought that after the first or second time going swimming he would have loosened up. Yeah right!

Daddy and Owen

Aunt Mandy trying to get Owen
to chill out and flow on his own

Dipo Family

Noah

Eloise

Hazel and Uncle Nate

Owen and Neckties

It amazes me that as a mom how I end up needing to learn some skill I never expected to need. The ability to tie a necktie because I'd have a son who hated to wear pre-tied ties is one of those skills. We have tried all types of fastener, the clip-on, Velcro fastener, and plastic fastener and Owen refuses to wear any of them.

Unlike girls who have bows, flowers, ribbons, headbands, dresses, leg warmers, tutu skirts (I think you get the point), boys have just a handful of accessories with the most important accessory being TIES. So I have given some thought from time to time on why Owen refuses to wear a tie. I decided that he didn't like holding still long enough for me to fumble around trying fasten it with the Velcro/plastic fasteners and the metal clip simply poked and the metal surface bothered him. So what was the solution?

So yesterday I remembered the regular necktie Owen got last Christmas from Grandpa & Grandma Vest. I figured if I could tie it around his Buzz Lightyear pillow doll's neck and then loosen it as far as I could then I could just drop the tie over his head with his collar already up. Then I could quickly put his collar down and adjust the tie. But I didn't know how to tie one and Barry wasn't home so I searched YouTube on my phone and watched this video.

Well my little plan worked!! Owen looked so cute and handsome. Someone also suggested that a zipper tie might work since I could also just slip it over his head and adjust. Does anyone know any stores that sell these in the 4-6 size range? I have yet to see one in the stores I've shopped.