Utah trip!

Every year I make sure I get to Utah to visit my parents and my sister who lives there. This year I found a good deal on tickets for October and so I decided to be there for my birthday (although I didn't actually get to be there on my birthday because of a change of plans, we still celebrated my birthday before I left)!

My dad picked me up from the airport and dropped me off in Salt Lake City where I met my mom and my sister, Heather for lunch (Dad had to go back to work.) Of course, we had to stop by temple square. The Salt Lake Temple is beautiful!

Mom and I went inside the tabernacle and there was a man practicing the organ, which sounded amazing! We heard the tour guide say (although we weren't on the tour) that it is one of the biggest pipe organs in the world and that it has over 10,000 pipes. Holy cow that's a lot of pipes!

My niece, Cami is attending BYU and I, of course, had to go and visit her and take her to lunch while I was in Utah. I went to Provo and we went to eat in downtown Provo near the new temple! The temple isn't finished yet but it still is beautiful! I remember going to that building when it was still the Provo Tabernacle.

Cami and I ate at Bruge's Waffle and Frites on Center Street in Provo and it was delicious! Seriously I loved it! I got an Italian waffle sandwich and I really enjoyed it. We also got fries to share and our purchase qualified for a free waffle with strawberries and cream. Can I just say that dessert waffle was delicious?! The waffle was carmelized (or something like that) and then with the strawberries and cream on top, it was so good!

Tuxedo the cat. Tux is about 15 years old, which is pretty old for a cat. My parents have had him since he was a kitten. He's kinda cute. :)

 Tim, Tuxedo, Mamachka, Heather, me and Papachka.

For my birthday dinner, Mom made fried burritos and salad.  She also made a cake and we had ice cream. I haven't had fried burritos in a very long time and they were delicious! Happy birthday to me!

 Heather and I the night before I left.

 Mama, me and Papa the day I left!

My younger brother, Tim, moved out to Virginia a few months ago, but he left his car in Utah while he was searching for a job. Now that he has a job, he decided he needed a car. So he flew out to Utah a couple of days after I did and packed up a lot of his stuff in his car and then he and I drove from Utah back to Virginia. The picture above is from the very beginning of our journey to Virginia.

 We saw lots of windmills on our trip especially in Wyoming and Nebraska.

We had to stop at Little America in Wyoming and get ice cream cones. Growing up, we often stopped there when driving from Minnesota to Utah and got the $0.25 cones. Although the cones are no longer $0.25, it was still worth it as they were only $0.75. :) Oh the memories of road trips as a child...

 I believe this is somewhere in Wyoming.

Our first night we stayed in Lexington, Nebraska and this was the gas station we filled up at in the morning before starting our second day (which was also my birthday). :)

We kept on seeing these trucks pulling these wing-like structures and wondered what they were for and then realized they were probably windmill blades.

Look at those pretty fall colors we saw at a rest area in Iowa!

For my birthday, we stopped at Culver's for dinner and it was so good! I got a burger and a salted caramel pumpkin concrete and it was delicious!

The second night we spent just outside Indianapolis, Indiana.

When we got to West Virginia and Pennsylvania the fall colors were particularly vibrant and beautiful! This picture does not capture the vibrancy of the colors but just know that the tree-covered hills were gorgeous reds, yellows, oranges, and greens. I love fall time!

The third day, we made it back to Virginia. Yay! Tim and I were both very happy to be out of the car. Overall I had a lovely trip to Utah and I am glad I got to see my parents and Heather and Cami!