Spiral Jetty and The Golden Spike

So Kate had to do this social studies project about the spiral jetty.  It's this artistic rock design that somebody made on the shores of The Salt Lake.  So we decided that when they went off track, we wanted to go check it out.  I knew it was kind of far out, but I had NO idea just how far out.  We passed the Golden Spike National Monument first and it was far getting there, but the roads were all paved and it was ok.  After that we went on a dirt road and just kept on going out.  There were no other cars... just a bunch of cows and cattle guards and desert.  There were times when I was slightly worried dragging me and my three girls out in the middle of nowhere, especially when my GPS stopped working!!  But then we saw the final signs and made it!!  That was a relief.  I have to say I was a little underwhelmed with it.  I guess I just had imagined it bigger... I'm not sure exactly.  I'm glad that I can say that we've been there, but I'm not sure I'll be heading back there anytime soon.  It was really fun to go explore with my girls and we are pretty tough!

We stopped at the Golden Spike on our way back home.  It was fine.

Here it is!  You should google some real pictures of it.  It does look pretty cool.  I just lack photography skills!

We did practice our selfie stick skills, though!

We found a mini spiral jetty that we thought was pretty funny!

Running out to the lake.

It was very pretty in a middle on nowhere kind of way.

Sara and Kate had fun running around the path of it.

I'm glad I've got three girls who will adventure with me!

Kate's big day

So Kate had a big day.  It was fast Sunday and I just mentioned that she should share her testimony of the Book of Mormon since she had just finished it.  It was interesting that she didn't really push back on it so I think she felt like she probably should too.  She gave a really short, simple and very sweet testimony.  She said that she had just finished the Book of Mormon and that I told her that now she needed to pray about it to know if it was true and her response to me was, "Mom, I don't need to.  I already know it's true."  That was all of her testimony but it was very much from the heart.  She didn't have any idea about what happened next but after church in ward council they were asking for the names of primary kids to speak in stake conference.  We have a small primary and I think because she had just born her testimony she was on everyone's mind so her name was submitted.  Later, the stake presidency invited her in and asked her to speak in stake conference.  Jerry and I had been given a heads up but we didn't tell her.  She was absolutely shocked.  She said she would be really nervous but that she would.  I could just see the nervousness immediately coming out of her.  But she was very diligent about it and wrote her own talk and practiced it every night so she didn't have to look down much.  She practiced speaking slowly and clearly.  She put a lot of work into it.  It paid off because she did a great job.  You could tell she was nervous but she handled it very well.  I was, of course, very proud of her.  It was a pretty big deal!

This is a copy of her talk.

And this is the letter she received from the stake presidency afterwards.  It was hard, but a good experience for her.

Jerry's birthday

We laughed when the Saturday before Jerry's 41st birthday we went skiing and he got this number for his food order!  It's like even the ski gods knew it was coming!

We had fun celebrating his birthday and are so glad to have such a fun dad/husband.  We always have fun hanging out together.  We bought him some Vans so he could feel young and hip again and the girls had fun being Vans mannequins.  I don't know where they get these ideas!

Sara meets Derek Parra

Sara had a field trip to the Olympic Oval and I was very happy to get to go along with her.  We had a lot of fun skating around together.  She's pretty natural at things like that.  She also had fun racing around with her friends.

The best part, though, was that Derek Parra, olympic skater, was our guide for the field trip.  I explained to Sara who he was and all the medals he won and the records he set in the 2002 Olympics and she was pretty impressed.  So she felt pretty cool getting to have her picture taken with him.  I loved that she recognized how cool it was to have a picture taken with an Olympic Gold medalist.  We are kind of obsessed with the Olympics in this house!

My ski days with Abby

So on Mondays Abby didn't have preschool and I didn't babysit her friend so we turned Mondays into our ski days.  We had a lot of fun together most days.  I always let her choose the runs.  I let her decide when she was ready to go home and we always shared a salad, skittles and chips for lunch.  They were really fun days together.  We talked on the lift ride and we laughed on the way down.  She'll probably forget these days but I won't and I'm so glad I got to spend them with her!  With Kate and Sara going off track, I took these pictures on our last day together.  She's a pretty cute ski bum!

16 years!

We were so excited that college basketball started their tournament in Salt Lake!  So we started our anniversary celebrations early and went to a couple of games.  We had SO much fun.  I love watching college basketball.  It's one of my favorite things!

I had no idea that my nephews were at the same game!  But when we found out, we met in the concourse and had fun hanging out.  I felt a little short next to them...

We know the guy who is in charge of all the tech stuff for the Jazz and the Bees and does a lot of other games too.  He actually lives in our old house!  Anyway, Jerry knew my life long dream was to be on the jumbotron so he gave our friend our seats and got me on! Seriously dream come true!  Best moment of my life!

And then we got Sam, Seth. Lucy and Sarah on too!

We finished the rest of our anniversary weekend by having Scott and Aubrey coming and staying with our kids for a night while we stayed downtown and went mountain biking at Antelope Island.  It was a ton of fun.  It was a good time of year to be at Antelope Island...no bugs and good temps!

Catching air

I had so much fun skiing with Abby.  It was so fun to watch her gain confidence and have fun.  I love my ski bum!

Guess who's back. Back again.

Jerry was pretty excited to be able to get back on his skis.  Actually excited and nervous was more like it.  He definitely took it easy the first few times back on his skis and even the rest of the season he ended his days early.  He was glad to not be left at home anymore though!  It was definitely fun to have the whole family back together again!

The views at Brighton are pretty amazing.  It makes us all happy to be there together!

Some runs we took some video to keep everyone humble and have some fun!

March weddings

In March we were excited to go to our nieces wedding in Boise.  I hadn't ever been inside the Boise Temple so that was fun.  We tried to talk them into waiting two weeks to get married and then we would have shared anniversarys, but that didn't work.  We had fun walking around the temple afterwards even though it was kind of windy and chilly.

We took our own post wedding pictures!

The reception was fun.  It was amazing how some people in their ward transformed the cultural hall of the church!  Some people have some pretty amazing talents!

Kandace, Seth and my girls, who absolutely love going to weddings.

Sara is obsessed with wedding bouquets.  She was bummed that Kandace wasn't going to throw her bouquet, but she loved that Hailey let her carry hers around.

Sara and Abby now make fake wedding bouquets out of real and fake flowers and practice throwing and catching them in the living room.  It's quite funny!

While the kids were waiting in the temple, Kate finished reading the Book of Mormon.  At the beginning of this year, she felt like she should finish reading it by herself.  She'd started it a couple of years ago so she just picked it back up where she'd left off.  She was pretty excited to have finished it and Jerry and I were very proud of her!

Spelling Bee

After winning the 2nd grade spelling bee last year, Sara was excited for the bee again this year in 3rd grade.  She got the list of words at the beginning of October and started studying the words then for the bee in March.  She knew it would take a lot of work.  At first the bee was scheduled for one of the days that I was in California so we were so excited when it got pushed back a couple of weeks.  After all the studying we did, I wouldn't have wanted to miss it!

She started off a little shaky and almost misspelled her first word, supplies.  It took her a few minutes to work that one out.  She said for that first round her mind was just blank.  It was hard to watch, but I'm glad she got to experience that and I'm glad that she stayed calm and worked it out.  Until the kids are in 4th grade, they are allowed to write the words on a white board before they spell them out loud.  So she worked it out and finally got it right.  Phew!

After the first round she got in the groove and didn't have any errors in her spelling.  She kept going round after round.  It was finally down to the last 3 spellers!  I have to admit, I was definitely proud of her when she got down to the last girl!  Sara also learned a lot about sportsmanship.  The boy standing was quite frankly, obnoxious.  Every time someone spelled a word wrong he would whisper loudly, "Yes!" and every time someone spelled a word right he would say, "no."  It got down to him and Sara for the champion and when he spelled his word wrong and Sara spelled the next two right he tried to argue with the principal that he did spell his word right and there is in fact a "w" in whatever word he was trying to spell.  It was really lame.  I'm glad that Sara got to see how annoying it was and how being a good sport is a much better way to be.  She is very competitive but you don't have to be a jerk!

This was most of the kids.  They all had to either pass a spelling bee in their class or their teacher just chose the top 2-3.

Yay Sara!!  It is so great when you work so hard for something and it pays off.  She was so excited to win and get her name on that trophy for the second year!  Next year will be harder, the 4-6 grades all compete at the same time and they still have grade winners, but the words get harder faster.  We'll see if she chooses to make that bee her goal!