Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple

This summer on our vacation we were able to stop by the Oquirrh Mtn. Temple Open House in Utah. Helen, Mary, me and our friends Dianna, Jade and Parker went. It was such a beautiful building and I am so grateful the girls got to go inside a temple and see the rooms which provided a fantastic opportunity for us to discuss the sacred ordinances which take place inside the temple. It helps them to understand why Brad and I make the effort to go to the temple once a month, leaving them with a babysitter for 5-6 hours and how important it is for them to be following Heavenly Fathers commandments so they can do baptism's when they turn 12 and be married and sealed to their husbands in a temple when they are 30. (No, that's not the age you have to be but that's the age we tell the girls they have to be before they can get married!)

The temple was so beautiful and even though it was an open house, the spirit was strong there and you could tell you were walking on sacred ground. After leaving the temple they had tents set up as a reception center with these fabulous pictures of Christ and cookies for a treat. I really loved this picture which was at least 8 feet tall.

Mary gave a talk in church a couple of Sunday's ago and she used this experience in her talk so I thought I'd share it with you. She did a great job and was excited to talk about how she felt at the temple.

Mary's Talk in Primary:

Temple Blessings Unite Families

This summer I was able to go through a temple open house in Utah. The new Ohiqurr (Oaker) Mountain Temple is very beautiful inside. When we first got there we watched a little video about temples and what happens inside of them. Different people talked about going inside the temple and how they felt when they went to the temple. I remember Elder Holland said for him there would be no heaven without his wife and his children. The next day I got to shake his hand and I was so happy to meet an Apostle.

After the movie we were able to enter the temple. The first room we saw when we went inside was the baptismal font which has 12 oxen statues holding it up. These oxen represent the 12 tribes of Israel. When I am 12 I will be able to be baptized for people who died before they learned about the Gospel.

Next we walked through the endowment rooms which lead to the Celestial Room which was so beautiful and I felt happy that one day I could go in there when I came to the temple.

The last room we went to was the Sealing Room. This is where families are sealed to each other forever. They have an alter in the center of the room where you kneel down with your family to become an eternal family. There are 2 big mirrors with a large chandelier in the middle and the reflection goes on forever. When my mom was sealed to her parents they asked her and her brother if they could see the end of the mirrors. They said no and then the man who sealed her family told them that was how long their family could be together if they kept the commandments.

I am very grateful that Heavenly Father gave us temples so we could be sealed as a family forever. I want to go to the temple when I am 12 to do baptisms for other people and I will be married in a temple someday so my family will be forever.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen

Lew and the Dino Museum

Yesterday Lew and I went with our friends to the Arizona Museum of Natural History. Amy's boys are 3 months older than Lewis and they had a good time together. It was lots of fun. I have never been there before and when our friends invited us we jumped at the chance. There were lots of dinosaur bones to look at but Lew liked the replicas in this flood area the best. We watched the flood from the bottom and really enjoyed it!It's not just dinosaurs, we also went outside to a mining town with a jail and we even panned for gold--please note soaking wet shirt. We had a great time and will definitely want to go again, (hint hint Amy)

1st day of 09-10 school year

Well, since we are on week 4 of school, I thought I'd post the 1st day of school pictures. The kids were very excited on meet the teacher night to see their new classrooms and teachers. The girls are in different classes and on different teams this year. With 5th grade they move classes to try and get them ready for middle school next year. They didn't trade the first 2 weeks but are on their 2nd week of switching and are kinda getting the hang of it.

Griffin's teacher was a kindergarten teacher last year so she already knew Griffin and that's a bit of a relief since he is a little high maintenance! (3 weeks in and he has had 3 frowny faces/notes home, 1 verbal bus report and 1 trip to see his BFF, Principal Sterr.) UGH!

But they looked like sweet innocent angels their first day didn't they?!?

Bootcamp fun

Things to do from 5:15 to 6:15 a.m. today....

run 1 mile

circuit:

10 burpee

15 push ups

15 back extensions

15 overhead press

15 bicep curls

repeat 3 times

get drink of water

circuit:

15 push ups

planks with 1 arm row--15 each arm

10 burpee

15 triceps extensions

repeat 3 times

get drink of water

10 minutes of tag with rows, lunges, squats and burpee mixed in at different intervals

15 full sit-ups

30 crunches

stretching

go home to hot shower

and start getting kids ready for school

Jealous?

This may not be exactly right because at some point I think I might have blacked out but you get the idea!

Witty comeback by my man!

Brad and I were watching Travel Channels Extreme Fast Food which featured 10 different extreme places one of which was a coffee place called Cowgirl Espresso where girls wear bikini's to serve coffee. The scantily clad girl being interviewed says "Who wouldn't love to be served coffee with a smile?" to which Brad replies, "They aint lookin at your teeth honey!"

I almost fell off the bed laughing.

The big 40

Happy Birthday to me
Happy Birthday to me
Happy Birthday dear me
Happy Birthday to me

It's finally arrived, the big 40. I asked my mom what she thought about having a child who was 40 and she said she is only 40 herself so she isn't sure if that is possible. She came down to can pickles with my cousin Julie yesterday so we all went to dinner for my birthday last night at the Cheesecake Factory. YUMM! Thanks Mom. Brad's parents sent me some cash so I'll be getting a pedicure on them--Thanks Helen and Claude. Not too shabby so far, we will just have to see what the day brings! :>

Found these lovelies outside my front door! Thanks Lynette!

Trail ride of buckin broncos

The beginning Ferrel, Kathy and Sheri

On the 2nd to the last day of our visit to Idaho one of my dad's friends brought his horses up from Mtn. Home to go scout out a trail ride he has set up. Barry Peterson competes in these races where you go up a trail and have to find a landmark and coordinate on a compass. When you find these there is a paper/plastic plate hidden close by, you find the plate, write down the letters and numbers on the plate and go on to the next landmark. Fastest team to get all the numbers and letters back to home base wins.

His trail that he had marked was up Little Water Gulch and back down Big Water Gulch. (You can see it on the map I took a picture of for our hike.) The fire had hit this area so he wanted to check his markers to see how many he needed to replace. We stopped at 5 places and had to replace 4 markers and Barry had to make a few adjustments since a few of his landmarks had been destroyed.

My dad, Sheri and I went with Barry on this ride so he would have some company. He assured my dad it wasn't too rough of a ride for a couple of girls who hadn't been on the back of a horse in years and I mean years, 1990 was my last real ride up in the mountains before my mission. We weren't expecting a kiddie ride but he said it should be fine for us.

We got to the base camp and got the horses out. He had assigned us all a horse. I had Sir Charles which was the tallest horse. We are talking way to tall for a 5 foot 2 inch girl to get her foot in the stirrup and swing up on his back. I had to find a tall rock, stump or put Charles on a downhill slope every time I had to get back on, it was quite entertaining for the others I'm sure. Sheri got Smokey, a black and white paint who was the lead horse. My dad rode Classy, the horse Barry had won one of these races on 10 days before and Barry rode Mariah, a quarter horse who had never been on this trail before. Our 3 horses had all been on this trail and Barry was confidant they would be good horses for us.

So, off we go. Sheri on Smokey was leading then me, my dad and Barry brought up the rear. Barry's one warning was not to let them get too close to each other on the trail, keep them about a horse length apart so they wouldn't try to kick the offending horse and nail their rider in the leg. No problem, we could follow this one simple rule right?

Well, someone forgot to tell Charles he couldn't keep his nose right on Smokey's tail. Seriously, his head was almost touching Sheri's back. So I keep trying to get him to slow up and give her some space, that just makes him mad and he trys to buck me off. Nice try but no dice. So we keep going and he is still crowding Smokey. By this time we are up on the side of the mountain and when I try to get him to back off he tries to buck me off again. I have no idea how I stayed on that time, Charles really gave it a good effort, I was sure I was going to roll down the mountain, I was just thinking about getting my foot out of the stirrup so I wasn't dragged and was looking for the softest place to land so I didn't die, and thinking tuck and roll, just tuck and roll!

Somehow I stayed on and we kept going up the mountain. Barry told me to forget the one horse length rule and just let him stay close to Smokey since it didn't seem to bother her a bit that we were so close. Charles was much happier but still ornery and when my dad's horse got too close to his tail he tried to kick him so I was almost thrown off again. 3 times that little sweetheart tried to get rid of me and 3 times I showed him I wasn't going down. It was then I said a prayer of gratitude for our horse Lucky, he was one mean stinker sometimes and he was always trying to buck us off when we first rode him, like he was testing us and you just had to show him who was boss and he calmed down and was a great horse. Charles must have been cut from the same cloth because after try #3 he gave it up and was fine for the rest of the ride. Thanks for the hang-on-for-dear-life lessons Lucky.

Meanwhile my dad's horse, Classy is giving him fits too. Classy is used to being 2nd in line behind the lead horse and wasn't too happy Charles got this honored spot. He is walking sideways down the trail and throwing his head up and down and my dad is really having a hard time keeping him in line. On top of that he is right behind me watching his daughter almost get thrown off and is thinking, what have we gotten ourselves into?

When we reached the top of the mountain we could see the backside had all been burned out and after riding down a little in the soft ash and the horses finding the tree root holes to step in and sink into, we decided to walk them down the rest of the way.We had 3 more stops and it was really beautiful but kinda sad to see all the destruction from the fire. I guess it was a huge issue for the people in Featherville/Pine because the forest service could have stopped it but decided to let it burn and it got out of control.

When we reached the 1/2 way mark Barry and my dad traded horses and then Classy gave Barry fits the rest of the way home. He was such a stinker. Barry said he used to be a race horse and they over fed him oats or something and it fried his brain so when he gets it a snit it lasts for a long time, he can't let it go and calm down.

Sheri, Barry and Kathy

The last stop

It was quite the interesting ride and since we all survived and no one was injured we will have to do it again sometime! You never remember the boring rides right? That area is so beautiful and it is so nice to be out in the mountains with no one else around.

Jumping off the Bridge

The road that leads into Pine and Featherville follows a winding path around the lake and eventually crosses it at the tip where a river empties into it. Every year when we pass over this bridge my kids talk about how Mommy, Uncle Michael and Uncle John used to jump off of this bridge. When we first told them we jumped off the bridge the water was about 40 feet lower and all you could see was the tiny creek which was coming into the river, they couldn't believe we would jump into that shallow water off of such a high bridge. We had to explain that the water was just down really low and we didn't jump when the lake wasn't full. Well, finally for the first time in almost 10 years the lake is full and the water is high enough to jump off the bridge. My kids noticed this right away even though we had been traveling for 16 hours by then and it was almost 10 PM but still dusk outside. I told them we could jump off one day while we were there and they were thrilled. When Michael got back with the boat we made another trip to the lake and started things off down at the bridge. Sheri, Lewis, my mom and I stayed in the boat while Michael took the kids to the bridge to supervise the jumping off point. He gets Griffin set up and starts to explain what to do and......bam...Griffin is off!

Griffin starts it all off by bailing in almost before I even got my camera ready. After all the kids jump once, Michael gives them a few tips on how not to smack the water so hard. He spends a good 5 minutes explaining things to Griffin like stand up straight, hold your life jacket, jump feet first, you know, the important things, so here is Griffin's 2nd jump..........

Quite the improvement wouldn't you say?! Yeah, that one hurt his face just a little!

Helen's 1st jump

Mary's 1st jump

Girls together--Grif was supposed to jump but he waited so he could jump alone...

Go Willow!

Not a chance of this guy jumping! Ced just says NO!

Lewis was so mad we wouldn't let him jump off the bridge. He kept saying MY JUMP and he was not impressed we didn't let his 2 year old self throw his body off the bridge, maybe when he's 3? We did let him jump off the boat so he did get plenty of water time.

This was our second adventure to the lake, this time with the boat and new jetski. Cedric didn't go for the jumping but he was all for wakeboarding! He did a fantastic job. We also had a tube which was a total blast and when Sheri and I rode I thought we were going to laugh ourselves right off the tube it was so much fun. Unfortunately my camera battery died just after Ced got done wakeboarding so no tube pictures and only 1 of the jetski. It was a super fun day and we didn't eat dinner until 10 PM because we were having too much fun!

Hiking Willow Creek

Grammy and Pap came up to Idaho for the last 5 days of our stay there. We always have fun with them and this time was no exception. Pap wanted to take us up Willow Creek because there was a large fire up there last year and he wanted to see how much damage there was. It was a beautiful hike even with all of the fire damage. Most of where we hiked--2 miles up--was only burned on one side of the mountain. The fire hadn't crossed the creek and burned both sides.

Pap and Lew

Most of my pictures are of Lewis since I was bringing up the rear with him. He refused to be carried or let you hold his hand. Griffin age 6 and Ani age 5 both whined and wanted to be held and it was too far to walk etc but not Lewis he pitched a fit when I put him on my shoulders so we could catch up with the group. (He isn't the fastest hiker) We had a great time and it was such a beautiful hike, it is great to be out in nature.

Map

Stopped by the creek

The Handsome Prince

The whole gang--yes I like to match!! :>

Grammy and Pap

fire damage

Lew walked all the way, what a trooper

after the hike snack and water break

Featherville Fantasy

If anyone wants to rent a beautiful home on the Boise river for their family vacation, family reunion, family snowmobile trip or just to get away, in beautiful Featherville, Idaho please check this listing out.

When I tell people that my bother and his family live in a cabin in Idaho and their kids go to school in a 1 room school house they get little-house-on-the-prairie pictures in their head.

What I should say is that my bro lives in a luxury home on the south fork of the Boise river with views to die for and his kids get home schooled without Sheri or Michael doing the teaching. They have a school with the latest technology and a teacher and aide for 8 students. My niece and nephew's have excelled in everything having to do with school. Malcolm and 2 other students won a contest which netted them a free trip to South Africa in 2008 to discuss their environmental study with students from all over the world. Willow has been invited to Washington DC for a leadership conference this September. They have been living the dream with motorcycles and wakeboarding in the summer and snowmobiling and skiing in the winter and now they are willing to share it with others for a small fee. Don't worry about them, when they get people to rent their home they only have to go 1/4 mile down the road to this tiny shack and hang out there for a few days. It is one bummer of a life!