Snow during General Conference

My favorite two weekends of the month are in October and April when it is General Conference!!!  I love being able to be with my family.  I love hearing the words of the Lord through our prophets and apostles.  I love being able to relax from the cares of the world and be strengthened and edified.  In April 2010 there was this HUGE snow storm.  Coby left early Sunday with my niece and his cousin Jessica.  It took them a long time to get here because of the huge snow storm and the accidents.  Just in case you don't know, there usually isn't  a huge snow storm in April during Conference.  Here are some pictures of the snow from our window before Coby and Jessica arrived!!!

A car landed in our yard, broke our fence, took down the stop sign because the roads were so icy and slick!

This morning around 7:50, a truck landed in our yard due to the snow, and extremely slick roads. It was a very interesting morning, and so all you could do was laugh. He of course broke through our fence, took down the stop sign, and came fairly close to our trampoline, but luckily nothing serious to himself or his car which was quite amazing. If you were to pick a person to run through your fence (like anyone would do that) we picked the right person. It just so happens that he works for a private company fixing fences and yards. (For some reason uploading pictures isn't working right now or I would show you the pictures. So it made for a very interesting morning, but I was still able to go snow shoeing with my friend, Julie. We had a great time and the snow came to our knees in some places. It is so beautiful to go up the canyon and to enjoy the beauty. We also heard a lot of avalanche control work while there. It was definitely a work out for me at least since I have been a little lax in my exercise program during the holidays.

So far this week it has just been so busy, but I can't complain because I LOVE being busy and doing things for my family. Yesterday as I was picking up car pool my brother Mark called me up as he is a VIP tour guide in the new Draper Temple. He was being a tour guide on Tuesday (the temple isn't open for the open house yet only for VIP's for two weeks). Anyways yesterday he called me up and let me know that if I wanted to come today through the temple that I could. I was so happy to say the least. And as soon as I finished my responsibilities I made my trip there. It is a most gorgeous temple and so intricately decorated so beautifully. You can just feel the spirit so strong when you enter the temple and what a wonderful blessing to have another temple to be able to attend and to see all of the work that can be done.

On Sunday my friend LeAnn bore a eloquent testimony and she talked about the temple and her experience of going to a wedding where the sealer told them that attending the temple will bring so many wonderful blessings that we are denying ourselves when we don't frequently go. It was a great reminder for me to remember the most essential things and what is important.

Also on Sunday another former member visiting our ward who lives in Minnesota shared with us that in his current ward the boundaries cover 250K people. It amazed me and caused me to wonder what that would be like when we walk across the street to attend church. Sometimes I am in awe of my blessings that so often I take for granted.

Also, that Sunday I couldn't find my scriptures when church ended. While looking for them I felt such a sense of urgency to find them. After looking all over the church (the other ward was every where) I finally went home. And then called LeAnn and Von to see if they maybe saw them since they moved in my spot, but they didn’t see them. I started thinking about how much the scriptures mean to me and how their words have helped me so much in my life. I felt this immense gratitude for my scriptures, that I would never have felt if I hadn't misplaced them. After going home with a prayer in my heart a member of our ward called me and let me know that he had picked up my scriptures. I felt such tremendous relief and was so grateful that he had picked them up. I went to his home right away filled with tremendous gratitude. I felt such gratitude for all of my blessings and having the scriptures.

Here are some of Spencer's pictures from the truck being in the yard.
At one point there was the truck stuck and then the garbage truck got stuck on our curb too and couldn't get off.
An angle from our home of the truck in our yard!

What it looked like after the truck was taken out.
Picture snow shoeing up Big Cottonwood Canyon at the Spruce's. We had to have four men push us out of the parking lot since our car got caught in the snow! It made for a lot of fun.

Sledding, Christmas program and other happenings!

Today Kara went sledding with her two friends Natalie, and Riley. They have a tradition of going sledding right before Christmas at Eastmont. Matt took them this year since I was wrapping presents most of the day!
Here is a picture of Kara's school Christmas choir. They sang on Wednesday December 17th at Eastmont Middle School. This is Kara's last year of being in the choir since she will be in middle school next year. This is her 6th year of being in the choir. Kara also got some very good news this week about her 6th grade play. They are doing the play Much Ado about Nothing by Shakespeare. She got the part she tried out for, Beatrice so she is pumped! Although she does have to fall in love with Benedick and learn around sixty lines so she has her work cut out. Kara also graduated from NOVA a new program that is taught to replace DARE (the drug free program). Thankfully, Spencer drove my carpool route with Lindsay so I was able to go to the N.O.V.A. program.

Colton had a lot of parties at his school this week. One day I made him Texas Sheet Cake for his whole class (you don't have to buy store brand stuff) and the next day I made him Cinnamon Rolls for another class. He has had a lot of fun at his parties though and found out there is a lot of talented people at his school when they did a Christmas talent show program.

This week we did a lot of Christmas shopping, baking, finishing Christmas cards, visiting teaching, home teaching and other Christmas activities. And in the midst of this we had a TON of snow. Matt had put new tires on my Pilot and they were terrible in the snow. I was sliding into everything and because there was so much snow the roads weren't plowed. Luckily Spencer and Matt put my old un-fancy tires back on my car which I am so grateful for because they drive so well in the snow!

Tomorrow would have been my mom's 67th birthday. I miss her so much and I always feel sort of melancholy on her birthday when I think about what might have been. Every year I convince myself that I won't feel this way, but it is really pretty fruitless since it seems to be what happens on her birthday! I am just so grateful for the HUGE influence she has had on me because of who she was!

We also want to wish Matt's parents a very Happy Anniversary today. We are so glad they got together and hope they have a wonderful day.

Christmas skiing in blizzard like weather!

Here is Kara exhausted after our last ski lesson with the Deseret Ski school. I really enjoyed this program and it is so CHEAP. We were able to get three two and a half hour lessons for a total of $40. When I looked at prices for regular ski lessons it was $90 for just one hour so we were very grateful for such a wonderful price and great lessons. When I was talking to my ski instructor he also let me know that all of the Alta ski instructors were teaching these three classes for free. What wonderful kind people to do this for the community. We are so blessed.
Matt waiting for us during ski lessons! He has been great coming with us each week, to enjoy the scenery and he also says it is because he wants to protect his girls!

Here I am about to go on the ski lift with my new found friends. I am in the blue vest and I am too excited to do something that was a fear of mine for a very long time.
Here is Kara at our last ski lesson. She did wonderful and we both went up on a green ski lope. It was so much fun and we both loved it. The only thing that was interesting to deal with was the snow that was falling at a rapid speed.

Here is a picture of Kara after the Mormon Tabernacle's amazing concert that we both went away from in awe. What an amazing choir we have. We are very lucky that Matt has two employees that always give us tickets to this and make it a tradition each year. The guests we had were Brian Stokes Mitchell and Edward Herrman were fantastic.
Matt ended up getting the flu so Kara and I had a fun mother/daughter trip to see the Mormon Tabernacle choir on Thursday the 11th. Here is a picture of Kara before the concert when we went out to eat and this is the dessert we shared. Kara is a lot of fun to hang out with.

I did forget to take pictures of Lindsay and I's trip to Cedar City to pick up Spencer. Since Matt was sick we decided to drive down to Cedar City a day earlier than planned as he was going to make the trip on Saturday, but since he caught the flu that we all had we knew he wouldn't be well enough to go. And since Matt was home on Friday I could actually go because he would be able to pick up Colton and Kara from school and take Kara to her "Up with kids" class too. I still felt bad leaving him with the driving like that when he had been really sick on Thursday, but he liked the idea of not having to drive to Cedar City a lot. When Lindsay and I got to Cedar City we realized that there was still cleaning to do as Spencer was behind because we were coming a day earlier then planned. After the cleaning was done we packed up his stuff in our car. It went pretty quickly and we were back on the road in no time. It is nice to have Spencer home. He has been very helpful. When we got home from ski lessons Spencer had enlisted Colton's help in shoveling the snow on our drive way and walk ways and had hot chocolate waiting for us. And then later that night he and Lindsay made dinner for us too.