Antelope Island

This year Aaron and I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day with my family. His family had come down to visit a few days earlier to open gifts and spend some quality time together but we really missed them a lot. So a few weeks ago we went up to Roy to surprise his family for Christmas and New Years. 

As we were driving up we passed the exit for Antelope Drive and with it, a sign for Antelope Island. I, of course, was embarrassingly amazed and surprised that an island existed in the middle of the Great Salt Lake let alone that it was home to buffalo, porcupine, coyotes etc. (Now before you call me a total struggler let me defend myself by saying I probably would have guessed an island existed there but it's not something you think or wonder about on a regular basis.) Anyway, Aaron ended up telling his parents that I'd never been there so we took a family trip to the island the next day. It was really fun, too!

I have this weird fascination with seeing wild animals in their natural habitat. I once saw some bevers while rafting down the Provo River and was simply delighted. I also saw some raccoons run across a residential street in Salt Lake. That was pretty awesome too. Anyway, despite my strange enjoyments it was awesome to see wild buffalo in Utah. I've been to Yellowstone so I've seen plenty of wild buffalo in my day but in Utah?? Didn't even know they existed here. I really wanted to see a porcupine or a coyote but, no such luck.

Anyway we headed down to a little ranch on the south side of the island and hung out there for a while. We ended up taking lots of fun pictures and I learned how to lasso! (Aaron's such a good teacher!)

First he teaches me how to use chopsticks and now how to lasso? What a smart husband!

Dad's got an eye for setting up photos. What a cute family! (Even if we're not all in it...)

I love my cute sister-in-law!

As we headed back to the north side of the island, the sun was going down. We rushed over to the west side to snap some shots of the sunset and this is what we got:

Incredible. I love spending time with the family. Sometimes it's just so hard to be away but we're lucky they're not further away and even more lucky to have the other half of our family so close. Spending time with them is priceless.