Orem, UT, USA - 28th July 2012
By: crashtestrider
Yesterday was an exciting day! I hung around, relaxing, for most of it, but when crashtestrider finished her run, she brought the mail in with her, and I was surprised to find a new friend! His name is Greeny (delMonte), and I was so glad to meet him, since I have been by myself here for quite some time. He is also from Germany, and just arrived from Kansas.
Shortly after we got acquainted, the family sat together to watch the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics in London. What a show! I was amazed by all the special effects and fun segments they included.
But my favorite part was the parade of nations, and Greeny and I waited patiently for Team Germany to come into the stadium. There they are!
What colorful uniforms!
Yay! I hope they do well. crashtestrider used to be an equestrian rider before she got married, and knows that our country does very well in those events- she has been watching Germany take gold for several years! She said they don't televise equestrian events much in the US, but hopefully we can see some on the internet.
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Posted Jul 28, 2012, 3:17 pm
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Orem, UT, USA - 11th August 2012
By: crashtestrider
Hi there! I haven't written for a while, and just wanted to let you know that I'm still doing well and seeing lots of great places. crashtestrider's computer died on her, and so she is borrowing a computer and having trouble getting my photos to upload, but hopefully we will find a solution soon!
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Posted Aug 12, 2012, 2:35 am
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Salt Lake City, UT, USA - 22nd August 2012
By: crashtestrider
All right! Now I'm ready to show you everything I have been up to! A little while back, we had a reason to go into Salt Lake City for business, and while we were there, we checked out a couple of places. First, we visited the Salt Lake City and County Building on Washington Square.
Then, we walked to the next block over to visit the Salt Lake City Public Library. Since the children were with us, we rode a glass elevator all the way down to the lowest level, where the Children's section was located.
This was such a fun library! They had an outdoor court with a great waterfall sculpture and a tunnel with Native American cave paintings like are found on real rocks down in southern Utah.
There were also a few different rooms for children to read in: a "crystal cave" room...
...and an attic room- wow, it's kind of dark in here!
As we left, we turned around and notice this giant "spider" on the ceiling- what's called a "daddy long-legs" Yikes!
We also went to the Utah National Guard headquarters in Draper for business. The sign said we weren't allowed to photograph the building, but I did get my photo taken in front of the American flag and this cool airplane!
Later, I introduced Greeny to In-N-Out burgers!
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Posted Aug 22, 2012, 7:19 pm
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Utah, USA - 20th September 2012
By: crashtestrider
Has it really been a whole month? Wow. Time has gone by so fast. With summer ending and the children starting school again, there has been so much to do. We still don't have a real permanent computer at the house, but we are making do, and hopefully it won't be long.
Let's see....
We went bowling:
And we went to the local mall. Not only did we get to play on the dinosaur- and treehouse -playground, but we also got a free Pretzeldog! It's a hot dog wrapped in pretzel dough, get it?
We went to the Ikea store, where I saw lots of great furniture and places to play hide-and-seek.
We stopped to eat in the Ikea restaurant and met a tiny moose. He wanted to come home with us, and crashtestrider said yes!
We are still thinking of a name for him.
One day, we visited the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point, where we saw lots and lots of scary dinosaurs and ocean creatures!
Hey, look, I glow in the dark! (Not really)
Thanksgiving Point is also known for its beautiful gardens, and we walked through a few of the ones that were free to visit. Isn't this waterfall pretty?
I went to the small town of Payson early one morning to cheer crashtestrider on in the Onion Days 5k race. She told us to stay in the car so we wouldn't get lost, but we watched from the window. This is where the finish line was.
So much going on! I hope to have more adventures to write about very soon!
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Posted Sep 21, 2012, 12:58 am
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Utah, USA - 2nd January 2013
By: crashtestrider
I tried to make a post on here, but it looks like it didn't work! Oh well, here goes another try...
Here I am on my birthday! Columbus' birthday was just a day away from mine- isn't that interesting? crashtestrider made each of us a little card and we got a cupcake from The Sweet Tooth Fairy bakery, which was made famous on the television show, Cupcake Wars. It was so rich, I could barely finish it!
The host family moved recently to a new home in a town further south in Utah. I got lost for a while, so I missed the American Thanksgiving, but I was not going to miss Christmas! Look at all the snow we got in a few blizzards! This is what it looked like when we opened the door...
crashtestrider had to wear these huge boots just to go check the mail:
Before we celebrated, I got to help fix a toilet that was leaking.
Merry Christmas!
A few days later, we decided to go back up to Salt Lake City, to visit a restaurant and see the lights on Temple Square. It was a much longer trip since the move.
The restaurant was a tiny place called Bruges Waffles and Frites. They have a sandwich called The Machine Gun that was featured on television. It consists of a lamb sausage in a baguette, with a special sauce and frites on top! We ordered that, plus some vanilla yeast-dough waffles with pearl sugar inside. It was all delicious!
Next door was an Italian market and deli called Tony Caputo's. We looked at wonderful sausages, cheeses, olives, and chocolates and then decided that we would like to come back to taste some!
Temple Square was beautiful- so many lights!
Happy New Year!
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Posted Jan 2, 2013, 7:57 pm
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Thistle, UT, USA - 5th February 2013
By: crashtestrider
About 30 minutes from crashtestrider's home is a real ghost town, called Thistle! It became a ghost town when, in April 1983, a landslide blocked the Spanish Fork river and flooded the town. There are several remnants of the buildings left, and I even heard that there is a car stuck in a living room of a house.
It was hard to get too close to the buildings, because of the busy highway traffic (lots of big semi trucks!), plus, many of them are still partially underwater!
Plus, it was wintertime, so much of the water was frozen- I was not brave enough to step onto the ice, for fear it might crack and I would get hypothermia.
I think this is the remains of the old schoolhouse.
It was fascinating. On the way out of the canyon, we passed by a wind farm! The winds here are so strong, that they built windmills to help provide energy. Look how big they are!
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Posted Sep 2, 2013, 3:02 am
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Fairfield, Utah, USA - 6th April 2013
By: crashtestrider
Two weeks ago, I got to visit Camp Floyd State Park, one of the starting points for the famous Pony Express over one hundred years ago. Nearby, in the town of Fairfield, is a one-room schoolhouse that was built in 1898.
We got to go inside and see how it looked back when children were taught here. I liked the big black stove and individual desks. They even had toys that children from back then might have played with during school recess.
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Posted Sep 2, 2013, 2:47 am Last edited Sep 2, 2013, 3:03 am by crashtestrider
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Utah, USA - 28th July 2013
By: crashtestrider
Wow! The summer has been flying by!!! Here are some photos of the places I have been.
I went to an Asian Festival, which is Utah's longest-running festival. There was lots of music, dancing, and food, and many friendly people from China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and other countries.
I also went to the Utah Lake Festival, where we learned all about the lake and how to safely enjoy water activities like boating and fishing.
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Posted Sep 2, 2013, 3:23 am
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