A couple weeks ago we received a much-anticipated package in the mail – our 4-day passes to the Utah Arts Festival. We love the Arts Festival and always order our tickets early. When they arrive it’s like they usher in summer with them. They started a conversation of all the activities and festivals coming up in the next few weeks and months. I decided to take a minute to share the fun Salt Lake City summer activities that we’re looking forward to this year.

The Utah Arts Festival

I’ll start with our favorite. The Arts Festival is four days of fun that we rarely miss. It’s great for all ages too. There are over a hundred booths filled with art work – pottery, paintings, photography, iron and wood works, jewelry, clothing - the list is nearly endless. There is also the Fear No Film short-film festival. It’s one of my favorite parts. It also gets you out of the sun for a bit. There are musicians and bands performing all the time on various stages and plenty of yummy food to eat.

The kids’ area is wonderful too. I have a 3 ½ year old that loves the hands on artwork he gets to do in the Art Yard. This year the theme is Ancient Egypt. They have large works of art in the middle of the yard that get added to by kids each day of the Festival. There are also short films for kids, a musical instrument petting zoo and make and take art projects. They even have a booth that sells PB&J sandwiches and milk.

The Festival is happening June 25-28, 2015 and is located at Library Square in Downtown Salt Lake (approximately 200 E and 400 S). There are entrances scattered around the perimeter of the Festival. Tickets cost $10 on Thursday and $12 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Kids 12 and under are always free. If you buy tickets by June 19th online you can get a discount too. The website for tickets and everything else “Festival” is uaf.org.

Chalk Art Festival

The weekend before the Arts Festival is the annual Utah Foster Care Chalk Art Festival. It starts at noon on Friday June 19th and runs through Sunday. It’s located at the Gateway in Downtown Salt Lake City at 18 N Rio Grande St. Artists get a section of the street to create a mural of their choice. We lucky patrons get to watch them take shape. It’s amazing. Saturday they also have booths from vendors that are always fun too. And admission is free!

Balloon Art Festival

This is another one I’m excited about. The Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point has a special exhibit that runs all summer (June 1- September 4, 2015). It’s the 7 Wonders of the World – Balloon Art exhibit. Each week they will replicate one of the seven ancient and seven modern wonders of the world in balloon form! This week it’s Zeus at Olympia.

Admission to the exhibit is included in regular Museum of Ancient Life admission. It’s $15 for adults and $12 for kids ages 3-12. Or it’s free with a Thanksgiving Point membership.

We’ve found that even though it’s a bit of a drive to get there, the membership is completely worth it for our family. We spend about $170 a year (that is for two adults and all your dependent children) and it grants us access to the above-mentioned museum, the Museum of Natural Curiosity (which is similar, but much more expansive than Discovery Gateway), Farm Country, and the Thanksgiving Point Gardens. And the indoor venues are awesome in the winter too.

Thanksgiving Point is located in Lehi at 3003 N Thanksgiving Way. You can see it easily from I-15.

Heber Creeper

My son loves trains. This summer we are hoping to take him on a ride on the Heber Valley Railroad – known by locals at the “Heber Creeper.” I’ve always wanted to go myself and never have. It’s an “old timey” train. I know they do all kinds of special themed rides at times as well as the regular train rides. All their info can be found at hebervalleyrr.org.

Hiking

My husband and I have always loved hiking. We’ve had to tone it down a bit now that we have a three year old tagging along. I think it’s more fun with him though. It’s so interesting to see the world from his perspective and see his unfiltered excitement.

We try to keep our hikes pretty short these days. We found a great article with some short and some longer hikes that work great for kids. The link is https://www.newscastic.com/news/10-perfect-hikes-for-your-kids-2768948/. I’ve done a few of these myself and am looking forward to checking the rest off the list. I think our next goal is Timpanogas. I haven’t been since I was a kid and I’d love to share it with my family. We might have to work the three year old up to that one though.

Those are a few of the things we are looking forward to this summer in and around Salt Lake. I’d love to hear what your plans are – we are always looking for new ideas ourselves.     

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