Bits of Summer

One nice thing about having the summer off from orchestra is that I can go to Pack Meeting.  August Pack Meeting was fun because they had all gone to scout day camp and earned a bunch of pins.

 I'm so glad Jonathan could go to scout day camp, he had a lot of fun.

 The rest of the time was spent playing.

 Jaaromy helped Brigham have fun.

 Meanwhile, they had set up a bike course in the parking lot for the scouts.  Jonathan had fun riding his scooter all around.

It was a fun Pack Meeting, the last one I was able to attend before orchestra started up again.

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I have to throw in this picture too.  Brigham has taken a liking to watching shows in our room.  Lately he's been a fan of Backyardigans.  Grandma Patti got rid of gave the grandkids a bunch of stuffed toys that she had collected over the years.  My kids have never really loved stuffed animals but I took a few anyway.  One was a little Pablo from Backyardigans and now Brigham has to watch it with Pablo tucked into the blanket with him.

So cute!  I also found a Uniqua at Harmon's.  He didn't really like it at first, but gradually took to watching the show with both of them.

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We're huge fans of Studio C and one of the sketches is about a feelings board that makes people actually feel the emotion their picture is on.  Jonathan really wanted to make one so I helped him.

It just makes me laugh.

It was a fun summer.  I was really sad to see it go.

Oquirrh Mountain Temple Visit

Since we were checking off temples in my temple passport app, I decided we needed to do an official visit to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple.  We've been there before, of course, but I hadn't taken a picture with all of us in it.  It was the perfect Saturday afternoon activity.

 Here's the requisite group photo.

And one of the temple itself, although I'm a little too close to fit it all in the frame.

 And one of Brigham because he's cute.

 There's such a great view from this temple, I love it.

You can see two other temples from here.  Draper...

And Jordan River.

Of course I had to play with my camera.  Jonathan liked being part of this shot with the mountains behind him.

Brigham is often kind enough to just stand there for me.

We've recently become big fans of Studio C.  The Photobombing 101 sketch was one they had watched recently and so they wanted to practice their photobombing skills.

Jaaromy was nice enough to be my "subject".  Jonathan tried first.

Brigham often succeeded without really trying.

Jonathan isn't very subtle when he's photobombing it turns out.

Now it was Nathaniel's turn.  He was more subtle.

Not too bad for a first try.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have loved going to the temple.  It has brought me so much peace.  I hope I can pass that on to my boys.  It's a great place to take fun pictures too.  Lots of pretty flowers that are hard to photograph wrong.

This one is my favorite.

So many pretty flowers.

I'd like to visit all the temples in Utah at the very least.  It's good to have goals. :)

Ogden Temple Open House

Back in August we had a chance to go to the Ogden temple open house.  I'm so glad we went.  We haven't been to an open house since Brigham City and that visit was so hot and crowded that our memories aren't entirely pleasant.  So, I wanted to create new positive memories of a temple open house.  We went earlier in the day in the middle of the week so that it wouldn't be too busy.  We started at the newly remodeled tabernacle and pretty much went right into the temple after that.  We stopped a few times during the tour but at least we were inside and cool.

It was so beautiful inside.  I loved the glass and the wood work.  I loved the dome in the celestial room and the neat lights that look like street lights on the floor.  I saw an amazing painting on our way upstairs.  Everyone I talked to noticed it.  It was a black woman in white kneeling in prayer.  It was so striking and beautiful.  I loved it.  I didn't even have to ask which painting my mom was talking about when she mentioned that she saw a beautiful painting.  I wish I could post a picture of it here but I couldn't find it online.

The tour was wonderful and we stopped outside by the fountain when it was over.  A volunteer was nice enough to take some pictures for me.

 One with the temple in the background...

 And one close up.  Brigham wore his headphones so that he wouldn't have to cover his ears.  It was a lot easier to hold his hand instead of holding his elbow.

 It was a beautiful day.  Slightly overcast and not too hot.

 They enjoyed looking at the fountain for a while.

After the fountain we went in the little information tent and looked around.  There was a status of Jesus inside.  I wish I had taken a picture.  It was a nice visit and the boys were good.

After that we went to lunch at Wendy's in Ogden.  When we were done I tried to get back on the freeway but apparently that's impossible.  After taking a few unfortunate detours made all the more confusing because of construction, I finally just drove down a main road until I got to another, less confusing, on ramp.  It lengthened our drive time by a half an hour or so.  I was getting frustrated and Nathaniel was worried that it had ruined our wonderful trip to the temple.  I had to laugh, it was frustrating, but honestly I had forgotten it until now.  The trip was great overall.

We took our trip while Jaaromy was in New York for a week starting his new job.  He was nice enough to travel all the way to the Manhattan temple for me and took these awesome pictures.

 He tried a couple of selfies but I made him keep trying until he got this one right.

I love it that there is a temple in New York.  Such a contrast.

I love temples, they are such a blessing.  I have craved the peace I get when I go.  This has been a hard year for me and going to the temple as often as I can has really helped me feel peace.  I can tell when it's been too long and I need to go again.  I do my best to make time because I can't do it without the blessings of the temple.

Sunday Thoughts - To Whom Shall We Go?

I've decided that I want to start posting about things of a spiritual nature that I've been thinking about recently.  I've felt like this is something I have needed to do for a while but I've been putting it off.  I don't think I'll do it every Sunday, but I'm going to try to post every Sunday either way even if it's just a family post.  The last several months of my life have been very challenging and I have been clinging to gospel principles as best I can to try and come out of this a better person.  I want more than anything to have the Spirit with me as I work through my challenges so I can grow closer to my Heavenly Father and become the person he wants me to be.

My topic today has been running through my mind for several months.  If I had posted about it when the idea first came I might have been able to express deeper thoughts about it, but I figure that it's better late than never and I hope I can express what I've been thinking adequately.  It started with the story in the Gospel of John chapter 6.  Here is the video.  It's a long one, but an important one.



The part of this story that hits me is the very last part in verses 66-68.

66 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.

67 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?

68 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.

This was the scripture that ran through my mind over and over in the early days of my current struggle.  Where else would I go?  Even if things are hard.  Even if I hear something I don't like.  This is the only way to return to my Heavenly Father.  Would I give that up just because something makes me uncomfortable?

My thoughts surrounding this often include this quote:

“If you have not chosen the kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead.”

It was said by William Law, which I did not know until just now, but has been quoted several times by many church leaders.  This really sums it all up for me.

It's really easy to get caught up in the routine of life.  The gospel has always been very important to me but, being human, I fall prey to this often.  This struggle I've been going through has really made me focus more on making sure that what I am doing brings me closer to the Spirit.  I want my actions to reflect my belief that this gospel really is the most important thing to me.

Brigham's Birthday

Two weeks after Nathaniel's birthday it was Brigham's turn.  I tried really hard to get him to tell me what he wanted to do for his birthday.  I asked him if he wanted to go to the planetarium or the dinosaur museum.  He actually said dinosaur museum first but I figured he'd change his mind after lunch.  He did.  I anticipated that and so I made sure that we had lunch early enough to make it to the planetarium in time to see Perfect Little Planet.  We sure do miss Secret of the Cardboard Rocket, but this was okay.  It was better than I thought, although I didn't expect much.

 He was just happy to be there.  He didn't plug his ears or anything.

 We looked around for a little bit and he enjoyed it.

Not sure what Jonathan is doing here.  He sure is silly sometimes.

I took him to the gift shop so he could pick out a cool birthday present.  We looked at everything but he just didn't seem interested in any of it.  I did end up getting him a new color cube.  The one we got him for Christmas stopped working.  I felt bad but I didn't want to get him something that he wasn't excited about.  There were plenty of things that Jonathan was excited about though, but he'll have to wait.

After we were home I made him some brownies and tried to get him to tell me what he wanted for dinner.  I went through all the meals that he'll eat, which isn't very many, but he didn't want any of them.  For a minute he seemed to want to go to Arctic Circle but then he changed his mind.  He finally decided that he wanted pizza.  And by pizza, I mean Crazy Bread.  The rest of us ate the pizza. We got two bags of Crazy Bread and Brigham ate at least one whole one by himself.  By the time he was done it was pretty late.  I was just going to have him blow out his candles and open his present first but he insisted on taking a shower first.  So, after we had that out of the way, he was ready to get to the fun birthday stuff.

 Eight candles is starting to be kind of a big deal to blow out.

 We love birthday brownies!

 Jonathan became very interested in Brigham's present when he noticed that it was the same size and shape as a Wii game.

 He was extremely anxious for Brigham to finish eating his brownie so that he could open his present.  Nathaniel was just being silly, but Jonathan was serious.  He wanted Brigham to be done.

 He was being a little shy for some reason and we had to help him along.

 He had been giving me this cheesy smile all day.  I think he was excited about it.  By now it was really late but he really wanted to try it out so I decided to let him play for 15 minutes or so.  He had fun.  I think he had a good birthday, I did my best to make it all for him.

Happy Birthday, Brigham!

Nathaniel's Birthday

It's birthday season in our family and we started it off with Birthday "Sunday" at my brother's house.  Back in the day, Nathaniel was the only birthday in July.  Then we got two more six years later with Dallin and Brigham.  Then we got two more with Bodie and Blake so July has turned out to be quite the month for birthdays.

We always start with the youngest so after Bodie and Blake it was Brigham's turn.

 I thought to grab my camera just after he blew out his candle and Dallin was just about to blow his out.  I'm glad I remembered.

Then it was Nathaniel's turn.  He seemed a little amused at the attention.  That's Bodie on Scott's lap.  We already sang to him.

It was a great party.  We had to do it on a Saturday a week early because my parents were going to be out of town and so we were a little more rowdy than usual.

A week later we celebrated Nathaniel's actual birthday.  His activity of choice is to go see a movie.  Since Pixar did not release a movie this year we decided to see How to Train Your Dragon.  I was a little worried that I wouldn't like it but ended up being surprised at how much I did like it.

We came home and I made his favorite dinner: Chicken Broccoli and Rice casserole and we had brownies and opened presents.

 So many candles!

Tasty treats!

His presents.  He specifically asked for the animation book, he said it was the one everyone talks about.  I decided to get him the Avatar comics on my own since we enjoyed the series so much.  He also got his own copy of Portal.  It's a download so it's not easy to wrap or show off so you'll just have to take my word for it.  He was the most excited for that one so I was happy to get it for him.

Happy Birthday, Nathaniel!  I love you!