Temple Square at Christmas Time

 I love going to temple square at Christmas time.  It is so beautiful, calm and peaceful.

 
 I love to see the Nativity. 

 I love taking pictures of family.  Unfortunately, it sometimes feels like Kara and I are the only ones who love creating memories with pictures.

 Colton wasn't feeling super well, but he still came.  Thanks Colton!!!

 

 

Gratitude Post 22, 23 and 24

Post 22---I am grateful for  the scriptures.  I learn so much from them daily.

 

 Post 23---I am grateful I can pray and I know that Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers.  I am grateful for the testimony that although my prayers aren't always answered how I would like, He knows what's best.  I am grateful that when I have any kind of struggle, that I know where to turn.

 

Post 24   I am grateful to live so close to temples. I am grateful for the knowledge I receive when I enter this holy place.  The temple truly is a place of peace.

 

The Spirit of God like a Fire is Burning....

The Spirit truly was burning at the Brigham City temple dedication our family attended last Sunday.   It is such a tremendous blessing to be able to attend a temple dedication.  I am grateful our family had the opportunity to attend.

 The Spirit is so strong at a dedication as the speakers testify of the blessing and importance of temples here on earth with their sacred ordinances and eternal sealing power.

When I was growing up, I used to dream about being able to go inside a temple. Well,  because I grew up in Washington state I didn't see any temple until after I turned 12.  I feel so fortunate to now live in a time when some many temples "dot the earth."   When I enter into the temple I feel  a very calm peaceful feeling that never leaves. 

Some of the things I want to remember from the temple dedication are:
"It is what really happens inside our selves that matters when we go inside the temple.
We can be taught how to be more like our Savior when we attend the temple."
The Brigham City temple is the 14th temple in Utah and the 139th temple in the world.

Home sweet Home!!!

We had such a wonderful trip!!!  I love visiting Washington, and Oregon. It is filled with so many happy memories.  And it is filled with people I love dearly.  I think because I was at trek the week before that it seemed like forever since I was in my own home.  On  our first day of our trip we drove straight to Washington.  We left at 7:30am and got in around 8pm pacific time.  We took a couple detours on the way.  We stopped at the Columbia River temple that is in the Tri-Cities.  It is a beautiful temple.

On our first full day there we went and visited one of the offices in Matt's company.  Since he doesn't have an office yet we thought we would check one out.  It looks like a normal office to me.

They had tons of car pictures still wrapped up.  Matt will be in heaven.

It was nice to go to the office because it was so close to where I grew up.  I could almost imagine Matt working there.  Afterwards we went to see where my father in law works.  It was really cool to see where he spends so much time each day.  My father in law is one of the hardest workers I have ever know.  I am grateful because my husband has his work ethic too.  Then we went to Costco.  We actually went to one of the very first Costco that was ever built.  I realized I have been going to Costco for over 30 years!!!!

Then we went to visit my sister Katie, Tyler and baby Abe.  It was the first time I have ever met Tyler.  He is such a nice young man and such a good daddy to Abe.  Katie and Tyler moved in their first home earlier this year and it is so cute!!!

 After we left Katie's home we stopped at Trader Joe's.  I have always loved this store and missed not having it in Utah.  They are supposed to be building one downtown and I am so excited!

 After visiting with Katie and family we headed back to Matt's parents.  They had invited some of our family for a barbecue.  All the food was delicious and the company was great!!!  Matt and Kara were taking a lot of pictures, but not of everyone. 

 Matt's mom

 Apparently Kara really loves taking photos of Issac.

Education Week

August 16th through 19th Kara and I went to Education Week at BYU!!!  It was so fun to go there with my daughter.  She loves to go to classes as much as I do.  I loved it!  Colton started working this week too at his new job at UVU, so he wasn't able to come with us as planned. I love hearing speakers who inspire me.  I love running into people at Education week that I haven't seen in a long time.  I saw my teenage friend, Kristina Ramussen and my friend Christin who I have know since 5th grade. We met up for a few classes and it was so much fun to catch up.  But, my favorite part of Education week was going to class with Kara and just having girl time together!!!!!!

  The following week  Christin and I went to the Mount Timpanogos  temple together to do a session.  I sure have missed Christin and it was good to see her while she was in Utah dropping her daughter off at BYU.

Kara's temple walk

In April Kara went on a temple walk with some of her friends in their stake. At the Young Women's General Broadcast Sister Dalton had talked about a group of girls who had done a temple walk from the Draper Temple to the Salt lake temple.   Kara's group prepared for the big temple trip by during some other small walks before.  The first time they walked from the Oquirrh Mountain temple to the the Jordan River temple.  The second time they walked from the Oquirrh mountain temple to the Jordan River temple and then back to the Oquirrh temple again.  Finally on the last day they walked from the Oquirrh Mountain temple to the SLC temple.  Kara is really glad she did it, but I don't think she is looking forward to going on another walk anytime soon.

One of the reasons they chose to go on this hike/walk is because the whole purpose in Young Woman's ultimately is to see all the girls go to the temple some day and receive their endowments.  So walking to the temple will help them keep this goal in mind as they were walking but also as they think about the activity afterwards!!

Finally finished with the over 22 mile walk to the temple!!!!

Draper Temple Celebration is Tonight

I am so excited for the Draper Temple Celebration tonight. On Wednesday all the participants went to the Conference to go over the performance twice. All of the participants is somewhere around 6,00 youth which is pretty incredible. We left our homes a little before 4:00 pm and we returned after 11pm. It has been quite a sacrifice for all of the youth, but especially the Lombardi's, the Maughan's, and Brother MacDonald who have put in countless hours in their behalf by being in charge of teaching them the music and dance steps which isn't an easy task to a lot of youth who have competing schedules with dance, soccer and other conflicting activities. But regardless they made it happen after months of work by practicing twice each week.

On Wednesday night when we were in the Conference Center and we watched everything coming together it was so inspiring and magnificent to see the youth perform so well in their dance and music. I was in awe of how much they had accomplished. One of the things that was cool was to see the youth cheering each other on when they were performing for one another. What a blessing it is to have temples continue to dot the earth and to be blessed to live in a time where we can have the opportunity to do the work for others that they can't do for themselves. This temple will mean something to the youth of this area after sacrificing their time to truly celebrate it coming "high on the Mountain top".

I am so excited tonight to see the final production that they will be doing for President Monson all that are privileged to attend!

Fabulous Weekend

I am so excited for the Draper Temple Celebration that is at the conference center on May 29th. It is such an amazing opportunity for Colton and Kara to be a part of. We have practices each week and they are wonderful. We are singing some amazing songs that are beautifully arranged. I am just so glad that I volunteered to help with the driving. Colton's seminary teacher is the director who also happens to be in our stake. He is so fun to listen to. We have been blessed with so many amazing opportunities and one of them is this celebration. I just can't believe how much my cup runneth over with blessings! We truly are blessed.

Saturday night Kara and I went to the Young Women's Conference. It was wonderful. They had a delicious dinner before it that was scrumptious and also the best desserts. It was fun to go to our first young women's conference as it was Kara's first of course since she just turned 12. I LOVE having a daughter. I love young women's and the program they have. I love Personal Progress. My goal is to try and get my medallion again. When I was a leader in it last time I almost had it, but I got released before I was done. I just thing it would be fun to do it with her and I know it will help me too. She gave a talk today in church and did a great job and she is so fun to have around.

The one bummer this weekend is our fridge decided to break! And we had someone come and look at it and they told us what was wrong, but the part we needed has to be shipped. So we have bought a lot of dry ice so that we don't lose everything. It isn't the greatest thing to have a broken fridge with company, but it is kind of funny how ironic it is that it happened.

Today sometime very soon Melissa and Herb (Matt's sister and family) will be coming to Utah to stay this week. We are so excited to have them here and their children--it will be a real treat! My kids can hardly wait for them to get here and I hope that they don't overwhelm them too much with excitement and of course Matt and I are excited too. I do wish the weather would be better for them as it is snowing today.

Happenings of this week!

Today I was at Colton's school all day for a Leadership conference that the parents put on and it was super. There are some amazing students at his school that are so respectful, and kind. His school needs a lot of help so it is always fun to go and help there. I am grateful that we found such an amazing school for Colton even if it is almost and hour there and back.

Tonight Colton is on a Klondike and it amazes me that my boys have wanted to go to a camp where they sleep in tents and do activities in the winter time. Brrr-it makes me cold just thinking about it. I am glad that they know how to enjoy the cold weather, but I am certainly glad that they don't ask for moms to come and instead request the dads.

This week Matt and I worked at the Draper temple open house. What an amazing day it was. Matt left at 6:30 in the morning and was done at 7:00 PM. I got the kids off to school and then went directly there and got home at 7:30 PM. Thankfully, Spencer was home and picked up Kara and had dinner waiting when we got home as well as peanut butter cookies. Then Colton went and cleaned the temple that night and he thoroughly enjoyed that. I am so grateful that we had this opportunity. I highly doubt that I will ever have the opportunity to work in a temple open house again. I think the thing I liked about it the most was how happy everyone was that came through to see the temple. The little children were so respectful and in awe of this beautiful house of God.

During one of my shifts I was the tour guide on the buses and that was so fun and then during my other shifts I was directing people in to one of the sealing rooms and helping with the presentation. Matt was outside almost the whole day and it was FREEZING. It was snowing off and on throughout the day. So he was quite frozen when he came home. The over whelming feeling in the temple is one of peace and reverence that I work to keep in my home.

This week I also went snow shoeing with LeAnn and Julie. It was so much fun to spend time with them and enjoy the beautiful area. I highly recommend it for everyone.

One long sleepless night

The weirdest thing happened last night. I couldn't sleep at all. I was tossing and turning and then I was just barely asleep when I kept hearing my husband's low battery warning beep on his cell phone. So I got up and turned off the phone and thought I would just go right back to sleep. WRONG! My body had other plans as I couldn't get back to sleep EVER. So now I am so tired, but I don't want to go to sleep now or I don't know if I will ever be able to wake up or perhaps I will have trouble going to sleep tonight. My what big worries I have? So now I feel like a zombie seeing the world through a very different perspective and it might just be a very darn good perspective. For example I should be vacuuming today, (I haven't since Friday) but right now it just doesn't seem that important. Or I should have called or done a myriad of other things, but right now it seems like no big deal. It will all happily wait until tomorrow! Period, end of story, except for our ball room dance class, now I will definitely be there regardless of my zombie state.

But since I am so tired I probably am not making very much sense (I know that is a for sure yes) so perhaps I should stop before I am ahead. Since I last wrote we have been doing a lot of fun things. The highlights was going to the Draper Open House tour. What a beautiful temple and sweet spirit that we felt there. The whole process was so organized and well done. I am so grateful that we will be in this new temple district and I feel such gratitude to be able to live so close to so many temples. After we came home from the open house my friend LeAnn and I went to the Jordan River temple (it was supposed to be a ladies temple night, but ended up just being the two of us) to do a session and it was so crowded. We waited for almost thirty minutes to get in our session. So having this temple will relieve some of the huge crowds in the Jordan temple. I am so grateful for temples and the important truths we learn there so that we will be able to return to our Heavenly Father someday. We are such a blessed people.

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.