Temple Square

A couple of times a year, we seem to end up on Temple Square in Salt Lake. I love the flowers there. I always take more pictures of the flowers than anything else. The temple always looks the same, but the flowers are always different. Over spring break, we were passing through Salt Lake, and decided to go see the new Church History Library. (It was also a good excuse to go see the beautiful spring flowers.) It was a sunny warm day, and since we haven't had many of those, we took full advantage of walking around the church grounds while we were there. The blossoms on the trees were beautiful. I'm sure that they only got a day or two because of the rain. We caught them on a good day.

I wish this picture hadn't had quite as shallow of a depth of field. I was trying to get the Angel Moroni in the background to be just a little more in focus, but I was having a hard time with that. Now, I realize what I should have done to solve that problem.

I love this pic. It didn't turn out quite as I intended, but I couldn't get the right angle on it.

I love this reflection of the Assembly Hall steeples in the business building across the street.

And I love the profile of all of the different buildings here. The only other thing this picture needs is an artistic eye and the roof of the Tabernacle

Just a fun pic to add to my collection!

Ogden Temple & Tabernacle

The Ogden LDS temple is the closest temple to our house. It has never been one of my favorite, I think more because of its location than anything, but we are still going to miss it once it is gone. The church has decided to completely renovate it. At first, I was told that they would leave the inner structure, and just tear down and re-build the outer shell and grounds. Since then, I have heard that they are tearing it down to the ground and re-building it from the ground up. I'm not really sure what will happen. Rumor has it that they will also be removing the steeple from the Tabernacle so that those people who don't know what the buildings are can tell the difference between the Temple and the Tabernacle. I decided to go take some pictures of the "old" temple before it is gone. Maybe I'll be able to get timeline pictures of the demolition and rebuilding as they go along. I was very disappointed with my pictures when I got home, and I sure wish that I had photoshop to touch them up, but I'm glad I got the pictures anyway.

The Tabernacle

The mural inside the east entrance to the tabernacle is beautiful. It catches your eye from the street. I think that is why some people confuse it for the temple.

I have always loved this clock on the north-east lawn of the temple grounds. I'm sure it has a story, and I wish I knew what that story was.

Region Science Fair

After winning the district science fair, Amber had the option & opportunity to participate in the region science fair. She was entered in the Environmental Science category for her project that tested the health of a local river.

She won 2nd place!!

Kids from 6th, 7th, and 8th grade from two of the local school districts got to participate. I think that for being one of the youngest participants she did awesome. I believe there were about 350 (maybe that was 450) students at the science fair. She did AWESOME!

Part of her prize was cash, but the other half of it was a $200 scholarship to the local University if she chooses to go there once she is out of high school!

Visit with Grandpa

Every few months, I go with my mom to visit Grandpa. This time, I took Zak out of school to go with me. We watched a lot of BYU during March Madness, and Zak kept Grandpa busy with games. Grandpa used to own a dairy farm with about 200 head of cattle. He and Grandma gave it up to go on a mission 23 years ago. But my uncle usually has some kind of livestock (sheep, pigs, a horse, or a cow) out back that he is raising for meat for his family, or to sell at auction. My boys love to go see the animals. They would make good farm kids. This cow was very interested in us, and when I would get out the camera to get a picture, he kept trying to eat it. We laughed, and then kept harassing him with it!

Field Trip!

I am so lucky that I get to go on field trips with my kids. I love going with them. It is so much fun to see them learn and experience new things while socializing and interacting with their peers. I am so amazed at the confidence that my kids have. They certainly didn't get that from me. In early March, I went to the Environmental Center with Les and the rest of the 3rd grade. When they go in the winter, they get to cross-country ski and snowshoe. Les loves going there, and since he gets more opportunities than most of the other kids, he has gotten very good at both. He wears me out every time we go. But he loves it. He is in his element up there. He simply can't get enough of the outdoors. He is a smart kid and has never struggled in school, but after he has been contained inside, sitting down, day after day, he gets stir crazy and can't focus. (For those of you who know Brian well, you'll understand) But when he can move, he goes as fast and as hard as he can for as long as we will allow him to. He never tires of being outside exercising.

When we arrived at the Environmental Center, Les beat the other kids up the hill by 5 minutes (it is about a 1/2 mile walk up-hill up a snow/ice covered road). Then we put on our snowshoes, and he led the other kids to the top of a mountain ridge. Of course, he got to the top first, blazing the trail through about 8 inches of fresh powder. Once at the top, he claims they spotted a bear across the other side of the valley. None of the adults saw it, so I can only imagine what those 3rd grade imaginations saw, but Les is usually the first to spot wildlife, so in some ways it wouldn't surprise me.

After lunch, we went out to ski. I think Les did about 6 laps on the big loop. Probably 1-1 1/2 miles. He is awesome on skis. I did one lap on the smallest loop available. I'm a chicken. But we had fun. I love these days.

We're Still Alive!

I started my blog so that my Mother-in-law could see what the kids were up to while she was across the country on her mission. She has been home for two years now, and every time I get behind, I decide that I'm going to stop blogging. Who really wants to read about the day-to-day of our life anyway? Well in the last week or two, I've had a few friends that are far away comment that they are missing my blog. So, for them, I'll keep posting. For now anyway. Ultimately, I would like to put it into a book, but for now, that hasn't happened. So, all the more reason to keep it up until I am able to do that.

Hardware Ranch

This year for President's Day, we changed our normal plans and instead, went up to Hardware Ranch with Brian's family. Gramps has been trying to take us for a few years. We were excited to go.

At Hardware Ranch, they feed the elk to keep them from migrating down into the valley. This is a picture of the elk from the visitors center up on the hill. I believe they said that there are over 300 elk there.
We got to take a sleigh ride out through the elk. This is the sleigh driver. He had a funny handlebar mustache. It made me giggle a little.
It was fun to see the animals up close. This one felt like there were too many other animals in her space.

It was a good time. Thanks Gramps for taking us. We enjoyed it!

District Science Fair Awards

After winning 3rd place in the school science fair in November, Amber had the opportunity to participate in the district science fair. Last week was the awards and....
Amber won 1st place in the category of Environmental Science!! We were super excited and very proud of her. Now she gets to continue on and participate in the region science fair!

Happy Birthday Les

Every year, Les struggles through Amber's birthday knowing that his is only 5 days after and yet he is getting nothing. As always though, it was worth the wait. He got exactly what he had been asking for....

Some cowboy boots from his grandparents,

New rollerblades that fit!

And a pocket knife. He was so excited. He went out immediately and cut a branch off of the tree so that he could start whittling.

Les has been asking for a pocket knife for about 3 years now, and I refused to get him one. But the last few months, he has shown a lot of maturity, and I gave in.

You win Buddy.

I hope you had a great day! Happy 9th!

Behind on Blogging

I don't remember the last time that I blogged Christmas. By the time it has come and gone, I am exhausted and by the time I care enough to post anything, Christmas is too far in the past to worry about.

So for now....onward and upward!

(P.S. We had a great Christmas)

Amber's Quilt

I met the designer of this quilt, Natalia Bonner (from Heber) at a conference that I went to with a friend in November. When I saw it, I knew that I had to make this for Amber.

It is done with a Moda Jelly Roll. If you aren't familiar with the Moda Bake Shop pre-cuts, they are essentially a pre-cut dimension of fabric that comes in a collection with one piece of every fabric in a particular line of Moda's fabric. In this case, the jelly roll was a 2 1/2 inch by 44 inch strip of every fabric. So for the smaller squares, I was able to get 2 squares out of every strip and for the larger rectangles, I only got one. So no piece of fabric is in the quilt more than twice. For the flowers, I cut and sewed the strips together, and then cut the circles. It was SO EASY. It is tempting to never cut quilt pieces again, although I know I will eventually.

Natalia has a tutorial for the applique flowers on her blog that made doing the flowers just as easy as the rest of the quilt. It is an applique that doesn't use fusible and you don't have to do any turning. I'll definitely use it again!

This quilt was both fun and easy to do, and I love the way that it turned out.

Amber's Birthday Surprise!

This year for Amber's 12th birthday, I decided to surprise her by redoing her room.

We bought bedding for her when we moved to our house 10 years ago, and otherwise we have never done anything else for her room. Her bed was a $10 yard sale find, and her dresser and desk were both hand-me-downs. Her room drives me insane, so when I saw a quilt that I wanted to make in November, I knew that I had to do it.

Here is the before picture of her bedroom. You can see why it drives me crazy.

What a MESS!

And here is the after!

I love the way that it turned out. And I have to brag that I am also very proud of the way that the quilt turned out.
I still am going to replace her old dresser when I find one that I like and can afford, but otherwise, it is done.

Now, we just have to "fight" over what things she gets to put back into her room and what gets to stay on the walls.

And here is here face as she walked into her new room and realized what was going on.

But even better, here is the look on her face 10 seconds later when she said, "Where's all my stuff!"