I Love to See the Temple

The Twin Falls, ID temple has recently been completed and they have been hosting an open house.  This gives anyone the opportunity to walk through the temple and see it.  This is wonderful for children or those who are not members of the LDS church.  Some of my family members were already planning on attending and we ended up making it a family affair.  I was excited to be able to take my kids to see the temple.  This doesn't happen very often and I didn't want to miss the chance to go.  Twin Falls is about 2 1/2 hours away so it wasn't bad.  I think the kids enjoyed it, once Alys was done screaming!  She found out that she had to wear paper slippers over her shoes while walking through the temple and literally was screaming bloody murder because she didn't want to.  Imagine that...the temple is usually a quiet, peaceful place and instead we are being serenaded by the lungs of Alys screaming.  Needless to say, it was still beautiful as they all are.

After the temple we had some lunch and headed for Shoshone Falls, which is in Twin Falls.  Evidently, there is not always water running over the falls this time of year.  I guess it depends on the amount of rain/snow received during the year.  So, this was a treat.  The falls are beautiful and it really does look like a mini-Niagara Falls.  There is a big canyon and just below a small dam the water flows over these beautiful rocks.  It is definitely a site to see.  

To finish off our trip, what's better than a little ice-blocking?  Some of the kids and adults tried it out from some ice blocks that others had left behind.   Benjamin tried it, by sitting on the block of ice; probably until he realized how cold it was.  The rest of us opted out this time, but I'm sure it will be on our list of things to do.

Birthday #6 for Ethan!

July 20, 2008 was a day of celebration for Ethan.  He turned 6 years old!  Wow!  I can hardly believe it; my oldest is going to be a first grader.  This years celebration included a "Jr." car cake from the movie "Cars".  When Ethan told me that he wanted a "Jr." cake I didn't know what he was talking about.  He told me it was in the movie and I asked him to describe it.  "It's red, " he told me.  Since that gave me a lot of information...I ended up having to watch the movie again to find out who it was.  Come to find out it's the Dale Earnhardt Jr. car and it only appears maybe twice in the movie!  Thus, the Jr. cake.  Ethan enjoyed all the celebration and was excited to open his gifts which he loved.  He also enjoyed running and playing with his cousins.  Happy Birthday Ethan!  We hope you have another great year.  As your mom, I'm so proud of you in all that you do.  I enjoy watching you grow and learn and am so glad your a part of our family.

What's Life without Friends?

I recently had the opportunity to visit with a couple of my friends.  We simply met for lunch and just chatted; caught up on life's moments.  It was fun to just chat, relax and laugh.  These are a couple of great ladies and I could probably chat with them everyday if life allowed it.  Life is so busy for all of us and I realized how grateful I am to have such good friends.  Friends that you can count on for pretty much anything, even at a whims notice.  My life has been blessed by these great friends and I enjoy watching their families grow as well.  I look forward to the next time we get together and the moments where we just have time to say "Hello".  After all, what's life without friends?

Happy Birthday America!

It was a great 4th of July this year!  It was filled with family, food, fun & fireworks.  We all met at my sister Tammy's house, relaxed and had a good time.  We dined on BBQ, salads, fruit, flag cake and homemade Root Beer Float and Maple Nut ice cream.  I think those were the crowd favorites!  Once it finally got dark...around 10pm we started a few small fireworks, only to lead up to some big ones.  In a small town, we didn't go anywhere to watch fireworks, we just bought and lit off our own.  The small kids enjoyed some sparklers and the ones that jump around on the ground.  We had a few fountain fireworks and then launched off some huge bottle rockets, courtesy of my brother, Curt.  Needless to say, you can get by with a few extras around here. 

Between us and the neighbors I would say we had our own pretty good little fireworks show.  All we needed was a big boom box; next year we'll add that to the list.  As I was enjoying the festivities I reflected on the joy of being with family and realized that's what the spirit of America/4th of July is all about is families and friends getting together and just having good fun and creating those "moments in time".  I look forward to next year!

I Can Sleep Anywhere!

On a hot summer afternoon, the kids were outside playing.  As I was upstairs doing chores, I realized that only Ethan and Alys had come in as I did not hear Benjamin's voice.  After a few minutes I asked the kids where he was and they said he was outside playing.  I was not surprised as he loves to dump out the dogs water and then sit in it or put her food in the water, etc.  You name it, he'll try it.  I decided that I'd better go check on him and make sure all was well.  Here's what I found...

sweet little Benjamin, sound asleep on the cement patio.  I know, poor kid!  I guess he was too tired to come inside.  We really do have beds for our children, although they do like to crawl into the dog kennel.  Hey, maybe I don't really need a house, just a cement slab, some dog kennels and we'd be good to go...for about an hour!

The Alys Comics

Recently, Alys tends to come up with silly thoughts and/or sayings.  I'm not sure where they come from or what she's really thinking but they make us laugh nonetheless.  One night we had gone to a Chinese restaurant for dinner.  As we were about finished, with chinese food sitting on the table, Alys says, "Next time can we have Chinese food?"  Another day I was looking at some photos I had taken of my sister-in-laws family.  I had a few poses of couples giving each other a kiss or kiss on the cheek.  As she was looking at them she said, "They need to get married in the temple!"  Now that's one I think I'll use on her when she starts dating.  You're so cute Alys!

A Home Run Season for the Mustangs

Well, baseball season is over and Ethan did great!  He had lots of fun and at the end of the season was learning to hit well and catch the ball pretty well.  It was a joy to watch him play and learn new skills.  His cousin Creed was also on his team so it was great to be able to watch him as well.  Great job 'lil sluggers!

Visit to Grandma Pepperdine

In the month of June we took a day trip to Grandma Pepperdine's house (Woody's mom). We had not seen her in a while and now that we live a little closer, we wanted to go visit.  We left on a Saturday morning and got there in the afternoon.  We checked in at our hotel first and then met up with Woody's mom.  It was a rather HOT day so we spent some time at their pool.  The kids had a lot of fun and Benjamin, our water boy, loved it as well.  Alys & Ethan tried the things they had learned at swimming lessons the year before and enjoyed playing with the other kids in the pool.  That evening we all went to a place called Archibald's for dinner.  It's a cute old fashioned place with an old water wheel outside that still works.  There are also little shops that you can walk around and look at.  The food was good and it was nice to have dinner with grandma.

The following day was Sunday and it happened to be stake conference for Vickie's ward so we joined her there.  It was an unusual conference in that we were sent home after the first hour to continue conference in our homes.  The subject was "Our Homes are our Sanctuaries".  We were to go home and read the first message in the Ensign, share our testimonies with one another and then talk about how we can be better at making our homes our sanctuaries.  Once we finished, Vickie had prepared a nice lunch for us and we took some time to visit.  At around 2pm we headed back to Idaho.  We were also able to bring some food storage home with us, which Woody's mom and friends graciously gathered for us.  We had a good visit and now have a start to our food storage once again.