School Shopping and Aquarium-Take 2...where did my post go?

I already did this post once...I'm not sure where it disappeared to? But we just recently went school shopping in Utah...Yes that means that summer is over, but we are ready physically for school to start! We did some great shopping and for the first time we went up to the Park City Outlets. I loved them and they had so many great, fun kid stores...that we pretty much found everything we needed.
Andy always likes to joke with me about outlets, because while I find good deals, I for some reason buy more thus spending what I could have saved..I've always told him I've never been a quality girl, but quantity! But I recommend the outlets..They have everything you could want!

My next favorite things we did were to go to two of our favorite restaurants that we only go to when we go to Boise or Utah...We are glad that PF Chang's and Cheesecake Factory aren't local or we would go broke...but they are worth every penny. Andy and I call it the quality scale.

Wendys=20.00$

Olive Garden=40.00$

PF Changs and Cheesecake=80.00$

See the quality of the food doubles by twenties..ha! I know that doesn't make any sense unless you have eaten at them.

We love the lettuce wraps at PF Changs. And our kids even liked the lo mein they had. At the cheesecake factory my favorite things are of course the cheesecake, but the salads are probably my most favorite...

We ordered cheesecake to go and sadly one of our pieces got left in the fridge in our hotel room. Some lucky cleaning person got a nice treat. My question is though, do you think they really ate it? Most people seem to think that they would, but I wouldn't eat it so I don't think that they did? Any thoughts? Ha!

Another one of our favorite places to go is to the Sandy Aquarium. This was our second time and Peyton just breezed through it and seemed a little bored, but Sonnet loved everything and would stand and look for a long time at all of the cool fish and exhibits. Peyton kept wondering when we could go back to the hotel and swim!

These are my cute frog wranglers!

There is another place in there where you get to pretend you are driving a boat. Peyton loves this place and of course, sister had to do it too!

This part is my favorite part of the aquarium. It is where the jellyfish are and they sit and swim around and it is dark and the light changes and they just keep floating. I love to photograph them and also to watch them! They are so cool!

Sonnet wanted to pet this big old octopus, maybe because it was behind glass, because when she had a chance to pet the sting rays...she wouldn't! I don't blame her. They are pretty slimy.

Peyton ran right to the sting rays and wanted to pet them and said he was going to pet them (he wouldn't last year!) I happened to catch the whole process on film. You can see one right by where he is standing. Then he tentatively puts one finger out to touch it, but it suddenly flaps its (wing?) and it freaks Peyton out! (third picture in this series). It was hilarious!

As you can, they are kind of creepy looking. I had no desire to put my arm in this year, but I did last year!

Andy was the only one brave enough to actually touch them this year!

You can see she doesn't want to stick her arm in that either!

The cute little explorers going on an expedition! or at least posing for a cute picture!

We had a great time school shopping and doing some fun stuff too!

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory...

So this summer we read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Peyton. (I got this idea from my friend Megan S...thanks!) and we knew we were going to Utah to shop and so we decided to take a tour of the Sweet Candy Company so Peyton could see how a real candy factory works. Let's just say it was pretty cool and that he had 1000 and 1 questions. But it was all worth it. The candy shopping at the end was also fun! We had to wear these groovy hats through the whole tour. Didn't we look styling!

The tour showed us a bunch of different things and how the different types of candy was made. My personal favorite was the orange sticks because we got to see the whole process. We were showed the cool machines and how they do things and we got to try candy along the way. It is definitely cool to see American manufacturing and how they have a machine that does everything. These pictures were all taken in the candy gift shop. My personal favorite was above...the huge orange jelly beans. I didn't end up buying anything though...I was quite proud of myself. However Peyton choose buttered popcorn salt water taffy, Andy got a bag of the tropical mix because it had coconut in it and Sonnet picked out swedish fish.

My favorite comment of the day was when Peyton was telling granny and pop about the candy factory and he said they had candy clear up to the clouds. This was when they showed us their storage room and where they keep the candy. That was cute.

The famous Salt Water Taffy that you buy at Broulim's all of the time. However, not all of their flavors were out. Andy was sad because we couldn't find coconut...only in the mix!

Peyton with his purchase!

Another one of my favorites...orange slices!

These are the fun mixes that they only sell as mixes! Just so you know! :-)

We loved the candy tour but Peyton kept wondering where Willy Wonka was! ha!

Garage(Garbage) Salin' It!

So Pam decided she wanted to have a garage sale. She has moved into a new home and had a lot of stuff she wanted to get rid of. We all ended up adding in a few items and we all made some money. It was a lot of work for her and some work for the rest of us. We held it at Angie's house in Idaho Falls. We all had a hard time watching our stuff leave for less than we knew it was worth, but we made it through it. We decided to have another one in three-five year!

We were amazed at some of the funny things that people do when they come to garage sales. First of all people show up earlier than when it starts just so they can get a good deal and see all of the stuff. Second they like to make a deal. If something says five dollars, they want it for three. I've learned to mark things up a little higher and I might actually get what I'm asking for. Third, people buy really stupid things if they are cheap. Why would people buy some of the things they do? Fourth, some people are very strange that come to garage sales. I thought it would be mostly moms, but there were some strangees...(Pam called them all meth users!). Finally I've learned some people get some really good deals. We sold one of the Andy's fossil watches cause he owns three and it was a ninety dollar watch that someone paid 10 dollars for. Also some little Mexican lady bought 12 pair of Pam's dress pants for .25 cents each=3.00$. As she was leaving Pam said she just walked away with 600$ worth of my clothes!

We ended up making over 600$ and I walked away with 200 and less junk! It was an interesting experience.

Once we finished, we went to Craigo's to enjoy some of the fruits of our labors!