The Gateway Fountain

One of the things we have been wanting to do this summer is visit the Gateway Mall in SLC with Lena. Yes, shopping would be nice, but we really wanted to go because of the fountain in the main plaza. They call it the Olympic Legacy Plaza and the mall was a part of the urban redevelopment that SLC did for the Winter Games in 2002. The fountain is particularly cool because not only is it in the shape of a snowflake to commemorate the Games but it is also at ground level so kids (and kids at heart) can play in it. We figured that it would be a fun thing for Lena to do, especially with how warm it has been up here, and also since there is nothing remotely like it (to my knowledge) in Utah County. Oh yeah, and it's free.

On the flip side, we really needed a reason to head up to Salt Lake, especially with gas prices the way they are, and yesterday we came up with the perfect excuse. Evan and I decided that we were long overdue for a date night and needed to go out for a good meal. We also decided that Provo was lame and we didn't want to eat at any of the restaurants it had to offer. We actually both independently came up with the same restaurant, which just so happened to be located at the Gateway Mall. We were planing on finding a babysitter, but we both decided that the experience of having Lena crash our long-looked-forward-to meal was far outweighed by the possibility of seeing her have fun in that fountain. So we packed ourselves up in the car, armed with cameras and extra clothes and headed north.

And I am so glad we did.

The meal was good... sadly, we didn't finish our food, which was more a combination of the fact that Lena had had enough and I don't have enough room to eat bowl of cereal let alone a full 3 courses. Lena actually did really well. Usually her limit is a maximum of 30 minutes sitting at the table, but we were there for a good hour and a half before we left the restaurant giving us just enough light to head over to the fountain and let Lena get rid of her excess energy.

I guess I could talk about it, but I think pictures are better.




Needless to say, she had a lot of fun. And she got very wet. She loved being around other kids, even though she was by far the youngest and smallest there, and she ran around like a maniac for the most part. It was really cute. And the best part... she was out cold before we even left the parking lot!