Sunday, September 7, 2014

Utah, The Final Countdown!

The last thing we wanted to do before ending our trip was visit BYU.  Surprisingly, Nate had a lot of fun.  We went to the bookstore and Nate picked out a magnetic BYU flag and proceeded to be obsessed with it.  He wouldn't let it go. He wouldn't even give it to Annie so she could hand it to the cashier, he insisted that he do it himself. 
 
 
Bryan and Lisi added to the party and we all went to the Eyring Science Center where we played around with all of the experiments they have there. 
 


On our way out of town we made a couple of stops.  One of the stops was the apartment complex where Annie and I met, specifically the hot tub where we met.  Not in the hot tub of course since it was out of order at the time and, fittingly, was out of order the day we visited as well. 


Next, we stopped at the Thanksgiving Point farm.  Nate was a fan.


He road a pony he named Eight Digit Pin, an inside joke between Nate and himself.  While we stayed at Dave's we were trying to figure out his Wi-Fi password and we needed an 8 digit pin.  For some reason this phrase made Nate fall to pieces in laughter and just saying those words got him to smile for every picture for the rest of the trip.


Here is Nate riding 8 digit pin.  He was very against riding the horse when we explained it to him.  Once we got in line and saw how it all worked Nate was all for it.  He couldn't wait to get on the pony.  That changed again once the pony started moving and Nate almost immediately fell off.  A walking horse is not a smooth ride.  But we got him repositioned so he felt comfortable and he loved it. 
 




Nate was a trooper for the ride home.  Although if it weren't for his obsession with How to Train Your Dragon and his ability to watch it multiple times in a row, things may have been different.

To stay sane on the way home we spent a night at a sick-nasty casino in Reno which Nate thought was the bee's knees.  He wanted to live there and meanwhile we wanted to keep our shoes on at all times and leave as early as possible. 


When he got up in the morning he was tired and crabby and didn't want anything to do with anything we were doing.  I sat Nate down in front of the window, opened up the blinds and uncovered a train yard.  Nate stared in awe and after about a minute exclaimed "I'm having a good day now!" and spent the rest of the morning staring at the trains.


One man's trash and all that....

We were nervous about the trip and we were not convinced at all that it would work out.  Not only did it work out but it was fantastic. We loved it so much that we've decided to move to Utah and are taking this opportunity to let everyone know.

Kidding!  Any grandparent have a heart attack? 

Anyway, it was a lot of fun and we're glad we went.
 

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Amazon Smile

 
 
Have you heard about Amazon Smile yet? It's a fantastic program for Amazon shoppers that enables you to give back to charities you support while going about your everyday shopping.
 
If you choose Dcipher Group Foundation as your Amazon Smile charity, the foundation will receive a donation equal to 0.5% of your eligible purchases every time you shop. This is the foundation that helps us get special therapy equipment for Nate.  All you have to do is go to www.smile.amazon.com each time you shop Amazon! It's an easy way to help Nate and other kids like him without a lot of extra effort.  Check it out!