Provo, UT

Inspired by an earlier pirate adventure, my children and I wandered around Woodland Hills looking for treasure. My aunt, a botanist, lead the hunt for brightly colored leaves. I don’t recall in my thirty-four years of life ever running across a salmon colored leaf, but we found a tree full of them.

You’ll find Pumpkinland at the Vineyard Garden Center on Geneva Road in Orem. If you’re coming from I-15, you’ll take the Orem Center Street exit (whether coming from the north or south) and drive west (towards Utah Lake.) Once you reach Geneva Road, turn south (left) and keep motoring until you reach the nursery at 435 S Geneva Rd. They are open Monday-Saturday 9:30am-6:00pm. Entrance fee is $3.00 per person (for those 3-99, as Farmer Grant tells us) and this is definitely one of those “get more than what you pay for” kind of deals.

Confession. I’d been itching to take this boat ride since last year, when my husband flatly refused. He’s a big guy and was worried about the seaworthiness of the vessel.

Get ready for Halloween fun at Thanksgiving Point! From traditional pumpkin picking to the only-in-Utah David Archuletta corn maze, there are tricks and treats for kids (and adults) of all ages.

It may not be fly fishing in a sleepy southern town, but Nielsen’s Grove Park is a beautiful get-to-in-a-flash alternative that my family and I frequent when we want to relax, cast out a line and stretch out on weed-free green grass.

The Shops at Riverwoods is an outdoor mall right on the corner of University Avenue and 4800 N, which turns into Orem Center St. There are lots of stores and restaurants there–there are clothing stores, like Abercrombie & Fitch, the Buckle, Victoria’s Secret, and Kaleidoscope (none of which are cheap stores, for the record); there’s a yoga studio called It’s Yoga, an art store, Bath & Body Works, a children’s clothes store, and lots of other retailers; there’s Macaroni Grill, Happy Sumo (a fantastic Asian restaurant), Tucano’s Brazilian Grill, Bajio’s, Subway, and a few other restaurants, and a Hogi Yogi across the parking lot from the theater. Sometimes we’ll see a movie at the Wynnsong theater, too, which has been recently redecorated inside.

Is it just me, or was anyone else surprised by last night’s snowfall? Snow on October 12th?! Three days ago my daughter was dancing barefoot in the grass! Hmmm….Well, we decided to make the most of it and have some faux-winter fun!

From the number of cars traveling in either direction through the Alpine Loop on a typical fall afternoon, you’d think everyone already knows about this Utah Valley treasure. Assuming you’re the one soul reading this who’s not yet had the pleasure of this sublime must-do, it’s time for a road trip!

There are so many fun things to do in Utah in the fall. One obvious must-do is pumpkin picking. At the Pack Farms pumpkin patch in Farmington you can go out into the field and cut your pumpkins right off the vine (or they can do it for you). Pack Farms also has a children’s corn maze, a hay maze, and a fun scarecrow gallery.

My husband wanted to go on a date this weekend. We love walking in the mountains, so he planned for us to go up into the canyon and walk the trails at Vivian Park. He also knows that I love taking pictures, but that I haven’t done it in a long time because the batteries [...]