Family Home Evening

We have been doing family home evening lessons based on the monthly youth topic for Sunday School.  This month (August) is marriage and family.  I based the lesson on this quote by Elder Neil L. Anderson:

"Don’t let the whirlwinds drag you down. 

These are your days—to stand strong 

as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ."

We discussed how the world's view of marriage and family is changing and unfortunately getting farther away from the truth. The further the world gets from truth, especially regarding family and marriage, the more unstable it becomes.  We used these balancing kiwi's I got on my trip to New Zealand as an object lesson and the activity. There are about 20 ways you can balance the 5 little wooden kiwi, trying to keep them from tumbling down (an example of the world's unstable stance).

Tyler was first to try.  It didn't take long before he got them balanced.  After everyone had had a turn he went back and tried every formation.  He looks quite proud of himself :)

 

The first one that Amy tried didn't work (we decided it was the hardest one), but she was able to get this one figured out pretty quick.  Kate, of course, did not want to be left out.  She and Tyler worked on this one together.  She was very pleased.

   

Over the years I've become a true believer and very grateful for Family Home Evening.  

Vernal Trip: Monday (August 31, 2015)

We were aiming at getting home by 1pm on Monday, but still wanted to see the other dinosaur museum. So we got up, dressed, packed, ate breakfast and were at the dinosaur museum when it opened at 9 am. We were quite proud of ourselves. 

We were the only ones there for a while. It really was an impressive little museum. They had activities for the kids, like digging up dinosaur bones.  They had a lot of actual bones and Native American artifacts to look at and touch.  How cute is this little papoose with a little shade cover on the top?!  And the little beaded moccasins are darling.

The exhibits were very well done. Matt and I tag teamed some so we could actually read about the displays. We could have spent a lot more time there, but had to keep moving. 

  

This is Daniel in mid "Whoa!" which he has taken to saying with quite the dramatic flare.

They also had lots of dinosaur statues outside that we walked around and looked at before we headed out. Kate took a little convincing to stand next to the dinosaurs in the garden area outside.  "They're a little bit scary." she said.  She braved it after we told her they were not real.  She doesn't look like she quite believed us.

 

Could not ask for a better husband or father.  We're lucky folks! 

 

This time Daniel is in mid "ROAR!"with his little dino that the hotel gave him (Kate had a pink one).

 

From the museum we headed back home.  We had to take a feed-the-little-guy-who-thinks-he's-starving break.  The timing was good, as we were coming up on Daniel's summit.  Matt took Kate and Daniel for a little walk around the gift shop and then for a snack on the big rock near where we were parked.

 

We got home in time to jump back into daily life.  Matt was soon having his meeting, I was getting the kids lunch, and the big kids were home.  Life is good.

Vernal Trip: Sunday is a special day

It's always tricky to know how to keep Sunday a special day when you're on vacation.  Today turned out just lovely. 

Matt usually has early meetings on Sunday, and we have 9 o'clock sacrament meeting, so it was nice that we could sleep in a little because just a few blocks down from our hotel was the Naples second board meeting at 11am.  We were asked several times if we were visiting family or friends. When we responded that we were visiting because we hadn't ever been here before everyone responded with something similar to, "Why would you choose to come here?"  We thought that was a funny response.  We decided to stay for all the block meetings. Kate and Daniel did great in nursery. Matt and I had conversations throughout the rest of the day based on interesting comments made in sunday school and a combined meeting.

We put together lunch with the leftovers from the previous day and snacks from the car. Then we attempted nap time by turning off all the lights tucking in Kate and Daniel and turning on the cartoon 'Prince of Egypt.' It did not work.  When either one of them started to slow down and look like they might drift off the other one would do something like jump on top of them or stick their foot in the other's face. After about an hour of this we decided to take a little drive to see the temple and then follow a driving tour through parts of Dinosaur land National Park. 

We made a quick stop at the famous pink dinosaur that welcomes everyone to Vernal.  As a side note, they had these amazing flower baskets all throughout Vernal and the surrounding towns. They were this big everywhere and they lined the streets.  Someone in the Uintah basin has some mad gardening skills!

Then we were off to the temple. The Vernal temple was originally the Uintah tabernacle built in 1907. The temple was completed in 1997. It really was a pretty little temple with a very pioneer feel to it. It has very small grounds that were fun to walk around with Kate and Daniel. They both ran from flower to tree to temple and back again, very excited to be at the temple. Kate kept saying she wanted to go in.  We explained to her that it was closed on Sundays.  When we got home the first thing she told Amy was that we went to the temple but she couldn't go in because it's closed on Sundays and none of us were getting married.  We tried to take a picture in front with Kate Daniel and Oliver. Kate got distracted by all the cute little pine cones. She gathered them together in her dress and brought them over to where we were waiting. Here are how those pictures turned out.  I don't think we'll be hanging on our walls ;).

 

When we started to leave she was distraught at the thought of leaving all of her pine cones. We told her she could bring one. She said "Okay, I'll just bring one for me, and one for Daniel Oden, and one for Oliver, and one for Mama and one for Daddy..."  She ended up bringing them all. However, transporting them to the car was a little bit more difficult than she expected so they were all abandoned in the parking lot.

 

We were not surprised when both Kate and Daniel fell asleep within a few minutes of us getting in the car after we saw the temple. That ended up working out fine since it was a little ways before the driving tour began.  Once we started the driving tour, we saw some petroglyphs that were made by the Fremont Indians approximately 1000 years ago. Kate and Oliver were asleep when we got to the first set (that were a little less impressive), so Matt and Daniel ran up to take a look. 

There were some other really cool ones (they had pictures of them in our booklet) that we would have liked to have seen closer but you had to hike up a pretty steep very rocky hike before you could get close enough to see them well. There were also geologic formations such as Elephant Toes...

 

and Turtle Rock...

...that were fun to point out to Kate and Daniel. We stopped at a little picnic area by the river to have dinner. There were a lot of little cottontail rabbits hopping around that made for an extra exciting meal. We took a brief walk down to the river's edge before getting back in the car. Kate and Daniel or both sad that they couldn't sit down and play in the sand. I'd really like to get a sandbox and our house. They just love it.

The end of the tour is at the old homestead in ranch of a woman named Josie. She died in the 1960s after living there for over 50 years. Her little cabin is still there.

By the time we got home we were all quite tired Kate and Daniel or verging on grouchy at this point. So we brushed teeth, got in pajamas, had prayer, and turned off all the lights. Everyone was ready to go to bed except for Oliver. I stayed up with him for a while. I dozed off with him by my side, then woke and put him to bed. What a pleasant day.

Vernal Trip: Dinosaur Day

By the time we were finished at Granny's Drive-in it was about 8:00pm, so we just decided to stay in Heber for the night. A few of the places we called were all full, so we stayed at a place called M Star.  Classy - it was not. Cheap - it was. Kate and Daniel had a hard time falling asleep. I think it was just way too exciting for all of us to be in the same room :-). I think they finally dozed off at about 11 pm.

The next morning (love Daniel's bed head) we got packed up, grabbed some McDonald's and headed to Vernal, which was about 2 hours away.

Actually, before we left, as we were packing the car, Kate saw a hot air balloon.  She was super excited because just a night or two before Matt had told them a story about a princess and prince who had taken a ride in a hot air balloon.  Kate said, a little disappointed, "I can't see the princess and prince."  Matt told her to just wave and shout hello to them, which she did. 

Well, after a quick stop at a red box that was low on options, we ended up getting one called Frog Kingdom, we really were on our way to Vernal.  As usual, Matt and I enjoyed chatting for the two hour drive. Kate watched the movie, Daniel spotted every truck, boat, and trailer on the road, and informed us of each one.  Oliver slept the whole way, bless his heart.

We made a stop at Walmart to grab some food for lunch. It was an uneventful trip to Walmart (minus Kate being on time out for screaming - she said she was singing - in Subway and Daniel cleaning up the yogurt he smeared on the walls).  

 

We finally made it to the dinosaur Museum in the early afternoon.  Hooray!

I honestly think the tram ride up to the wall of bones and back down was Kate and Daniel favorite part. Matt and I tried to read and learn what we could intermingled with chasing Kate and Daniel and feeding Oliver. It really was a remarkable sight to see all those bones.  I tried to read to learn more about Vernal and the Quarry while I was feeding Oliver but didn't find as much as I would have liked.  I've still got some research to do.

By this point it was about 3:30 and the kids hadn't had any naps. It showed. Daniel fell asleep on the drive back to Vernal. Oliver, however, did not. We stopped at the DI so I could try and find a swimming suit for Daniel and myself. Then we ran to the Smiths next door and got some food for dinner.

 

I was surprised it was such a fight to get Daniel and Kate to eat anything besides grapes because they hadn't eaten much for lunch or dinner.  While I was feeding Oliver and K and D were watching a show about sharks and eating dinner Matt experienced firsthand Daniel's diaper-emptying antics.  Wow! Matt was a champ at scooping Daniel up and racing to the bathtub and taking care of the whole smelly, stinky, gross mess.  I did not document this event with any photos.

Now here we sit at the swimming pool. I'm holding Oliver and Matt has been swimming with the Littles in hopes of totally, utterly, and completely wearing them out. 

 

It worked!! :-) 

Vernal bound!

This weekend marks one of the few times during the year that we can get away for a little weekend. We decided to head to vernal since we've never been there and they've got a great dinosaur museum that we hope the Littles will enjoy.  

I got the car packed up so that I could pick up Matt and we could leave straight from his office. Our first stop on this weekend's adventure is Granny's Drive in Heber for dinner. We've heard about this place but neither of us has ever tried it. So far we're big fans of the onion rings and the donkey burger and the chicken fingers.  Oh, and the shakes, we were all big fans of the shakes (especially Matt's lemon raspberry shake!)

The first of many firsts

Well, I just can't quite believe it's come to this. Today was Kate's first day of preschool. The first of many first days of school. We've been talking about it for the last few months. It was the main motivation behind her getting potty trained. Robin gave us a cute backpack a few months ago as well. As it got closer and we talk more about it I think the discussions are as much for me getting used to the idea as they were for getting Kate prepared to go.

I ask mom to watch Daniel and Oliver so that I could take Kate to the preschool and not be distracted. We had been there twice before briefly, once the week before when there was an open house and a few months ago when we were first checking out the preschool. On the drive there Kate kept saying "This is so exciting!" However, once we were actually walking towards her teacher she held tightly to my hand and said, "I think I'm going to be shy."

I tried to take a picture of her with her teacher, Miss Julia. Granted, they were facing the Sun, but just to get her to stand by her teacher took some corrosion.  We went inside and I sat on a chair and Kate stood right next to me, quietly observing everything. It was only a minute or so before a little girl came over with two princess dresses and a princess crown from the dress up box. She asked me if I could help her put on one of the dresses. Kate's eyes were fixed on the crown and said lI like princess dresses, too."  It was soon thereafter that both girls were in dresses looking for another crown in the dress up box.

I watched for a minute, starting to feel my emotions tingle a little. I have her a hug and got a picture with her before I left. I cried in the car. I'm so excited for her.  It just seems to go so fast from here on out.  I love that little person more than I can say. Happy first day of preschool, Kathryn Elaine.