Exploring part II

Welcome to part 2 of our Friday exploration day. After the Hogle Zoo (part 1) we crossed the street (literally) and visited "This is the Place". For those of you who may not be familiar with the story, "This is the Place" is referring to the place that Prophet Joseph Smith received revelation about, where the Saints would one day arrive in the Salt Lake valley. Brigham Young also saw the vision and when the Saints arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham pitched a stake in the ground and said "this is the place". 

The monument was way cool, and we took many pictures of the cool statues and their stories. Enjoy the pictures! 

The three flags here (from left to right): Utah state flag, United States flag, and the Mormon Battalion flag. 

So cool story: there was a description next to this statue which gave an account of a man named William Frederick Fisher. I saw his name just as Ky had finished telling me a story of one of his ancestors who had been in the Pony Express. Come to find out from my father-in-law, we actually might be related to this very man! 

That's me with two of the greatest men who ever lived: Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. 

Three of the greatest men who have ever lived. 

A statue of a pioneer family. What an amazing test of faith all of those families must have gone through in traveling to the Salt Lake plains. 

This is me and Etienne Provot. The city of Provo is named after this French explorer. Or at least his name is French, maybe he's Canadian? 

This is the place! Pretty cool huh? I think the monument is very well done - and there's a sort of reverence just being there. 

This is a quote from one of the plaques around the monument: 

"Rising above the Salt Lake Valley is a dome-shaped peak. Brigham Young saw it in a vision before the Saints left Nauvoo. He saw an ensign descend upon the hill and heard the voice of Joseph Smith say 'Build under that point... and you will prosper and have peace.' 
When Brigham Young first arrived in the valley, he immediately recognized the peak. On the morning of July 26, 1847 several men climbed its slopes. 
This small group of church leaders gazed out upon the valley below. 'This is where we will plant the soles of our feet.' President Young said, 'And where the Lord will place His name amongst the people.' 
Here they were, almost a thousand miles from the nearest settlement to the east and almost eight hundred miles from the Pacific coast. They were in an untried climate. They had never raised a crop here. They had not built a structure of any kind. 
They were exiles. Driven from their fair city on the Mississippi into this desert region of the west. But they were possessed of a vision drawn from the scriptures and words of revelation. 
This great pioneering movement of more than a century ago goes forward with Latter-Day pioneers. Today pioneer blood flows in our veins just as it did with those who walked west. It's the essence of our courage to face modern-day mountains and our commitment to carry on. The faith of those early pioneers burns still." - President Gordon B. Hinckley of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

This experience certainly strengthened my testimony of the pioneers who crossed the plains to fulfill a revelation given by the Lord through His prophets. Their faith stands as an example to me of what true faith is. I hope to show the same faith and devotion to our Heavenly Father as they did. 

We ended our amazing day by eating delicious hamburgers at Red Robin's. Although I didn't capture a picture of our burgers, I did get our dessert. Red velvet cake... yum. 

Until next time. Which will hopefully not be another three months from now. ¡Adios amigos! 

Exploring part I

Hello! It's been so very long since I've posted anything. Usually in the past I've said this after not blogging for 2 weeks, but now it's been 2 days shy of 3 months since I've last written anything... oops. I guess life gets in the way a lot of the time. 

Well honestly nothing eventful has happened in our lives. I'm not pregnant, we haven't graduated and won't for a while, and my sister isn't home from her mission yet. Not having anything exciting to write about also contributes to me not blogging. But that all changed when Ky and I took a trip on Friday to... THE HOGLE ZOO!! This is Salt Lake's zoo and it was so much fun. I had been getting restless for a while because I only ever go to 5 places: 

1. School, on BYU campus.
2. Work, on BYU campus.
3. Home, 3 minutes away from BYU campus.
4. Church, at the foot of Wymount and only 2 minutes away from BYU campus.
5. Macey's grocery store, about five blocks west of BYU campus.

Pretty much we like to keep it simple and stay within a 1 mile radius from campus. It's our safe zone apparently. So on Friday we braced ourselves for an adventure into the great beyond. 

We began our day with breakfast at the Awful Waffle. Yeah, that's the actual name of the restaurant. Despite its name, the waffles were DELICIOUS. I regret to inform you that I did not take a picture of them. But we both got the same vanilla based waffle with nutella, strawberries, bananas, delicious sugary sweet syrup, and lots of whipped cream. 

Then we hit the road and made our way to the Hogle Zoo! They gave us a map of the zoo (which Ky used as a route so we could "get our money's worth and see every animal in the zoo") and we started with the primates. Enjoy the montage of animal pictures with an occasional caption: 

This is a Colobus monkey, not a skunk. Don't worry, it fooled me too. 

This is by far our favorite picture of the day. This is the adult male orangutan. He's a handsome fellow. 

If Ky eats all of his fruits and vegetables, he might grow up to be as big as the male orangutan. 

The elephants' watering hole. 

These two little kids were talking to the rhino and saying "hey there little guy!" in the same voice that I'm sure their mom uses to talk to them/their baby sibling. It was so adorable. Especially because this rhino is anything but "little". 

This is a Jedi lemur. Really though, I'm pretty sure that's his scientific name. 

Our presence is recognized. WAY TO BE OREGON. 

The seals and sea lions were near impossible to capture on camera. These two seals were "hugging" each other and fighting almost the entire time we were looking at them. The throngs of children made it difficult to get a good view so we quickly moved on. 

One bear resting on his sister or her brother. I can't really tell what gender they are soooo yeah. 

This is called a Palas cat, but I'm pretty sure this is the wild ancestor of grumpy cat. 

Sloth! I made sure to take lots of pictures for my friend Kristin - a fellow sloth fan. 

These are called Tamarin monkeys. What's interesting about them is that the male is the primary care giver. He only gives his young to his mate when they need to be fed, then he takes them back. 

This is called a Kinkajou, and he (or she) was by far the ugliest animal we saw all day. 

Apparently monkeys love Fisher Price toys as much as babies do. 

We found Timon, but no Pumbaa. 

This is called a Sand cat. I need one as a pet. 

This is the Chuckwalla lizard. In its description, it says "Males will do 'push-ups' to attract a prospective mate, or to assert dominance over an intruding male." Wow, who knew men and lizards had so much in common. 

Ok, so you know when you go to the zoo as a kid, and you press your face up against the glass at every new animal? Then you reason with yourself that as an adult you should probably step back and let the kids crowd the animals and you'll just take pictures from afar. Nope, not Ky. As you can clearly see from the picture, he wanted to be front and center, looking at all of the animals too. He's just a big kid at heart. 

This is the Black footed cat, and it is a very rare animal to find in zoos. Hogle Zoo is one of the only zoos to have them. 

We came back three times just to be able to see the Lynx. Ky was so excited when he (or she) finally came out of the cave. 

Read part 2 for our visit to "This is the Place" and dinner at Red Robin's.