Birthday's and Random car projects

In March we celebrated the birthdays of Kelli Lundberg and Ann Hendrickson.  For birthday in our  neighborhood we have gotten together to celebrate.  It has been a lot of fun.  I don't know if we will do it next year because there are so many people we have become friends with that we don't want to forget anyone. 

Above if Ann, and she has been such a great friend to me.  I feel like we were able to instantly connect.  She was doing a drawing in our ward for help with organizing a certain room in our home.  I had felt super unorganized in my office  since moving and I didn't feel like I was able to get everything organized. It was so fun to be able to work with her and in doing so, we became fast friends.  Thank you Ann.  After working with her I got the bug and finished the whole home.  She was so great to help.  When I was having a problem I would call her up and she would give me ideas and then would come over and check my progress. 

This is one of the random cars that Matt likes to work on.  Every since we got married he has been always working on a car.  He started when he was a teenager and he has loved doing it every since.  At first I didn't understand where this love for cars came from and thought it was very silly.  But over the years I have realized how happy it makes him to work on cars and how much he enjoys it.  So if he is ever upset or acts  like he needs some time alone, I can usually find any out in the garage which is  his, "cave."

Auto Car show at South towne

Every year Matt gets ticket to the car show at South Towne.   This year Kara and her friend Kie came with us.  There are so many beautiful cars, but after a while they seem to all look the same to me.  Apparently, I am thinking I just don't appreciate cars the way I am supposed to.  Kara loves cars a lot, not quite as much as her dad, but I don't know if that is possible at her age.

Kara in the middle of working on her science fair project! It is due on February 3rd and boy will Kara be excited when it is done (and so will her parents)! I will display her science fair project later on this week when it is displayed at the science fair exhibit! Also, you might notice that Kara has her hair a little shorter and has bangs! She looks so beautiful!
Here is a picture of Matt during the Auto Show on January 17th!

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.