This is the Place

Today we went with my sister-in-law and her kids to Heritage Park. It is a huge village that surrounds a monument to Brigham Young and the pioneers. For those of you who may not know, after the pioneers walked across the plains they came through one last canyon and as soon as they got through it Brigham Young pointed to the huge valley below and announced that this was where they would finally settle. That was the birth of Salt Lake City and the rest of the valley. I couldn't get a great picture of the valley because of the storm coming in, but you can kind of see the valley. This is basically the view that the pioneers had from the canyon (minus the people and the park, of course). There was a great petting zoo with hundreds of baby chickens running everywhere, peacocks, goats, rabbits, cows, pigs, horses, and llamas. This is Shannon petting the goats, which she thought were kitties, of course. The animals actually seemed to enjoy the attention.
She was too tired at this point to care much, and she wouldn't let go of her dad long enough to ride the pony, but she did sit on it for a picture.

There was the cutest little mini village with this barn, a general store, a firehouse, a teepee, and a log cabin. Shannon liked the store the best because it even had toy food and a cash register (which she promptly picked up and walked off with). She probably would have stayed here all day if we had let her.

This is Shannon with her cousins and a friend on a little wooden train. They had a lot of fun playing on that, too.