Spring Has Sprung

On Saturday, Jonathan went to a Big Data Conference in Salt Lake. While he was nerding out, I explored Temple Square and enjoyed the spring weather.

I took a tour of the Conference Center. (Don't worry Mom, I didn't get lost this time!)

Everything was so green and lush. I've really missed this.

The flowers smelled heavenly as I walked around. I love all of the tulips, dafodills, poppies, and English buttons. I told Jonathan when we grow up and have a house we will have all of these wonderful flowers.

You can't see it, but there were people EVERYWHERE! I can't blame them. It was a gorgeous spring day.

 I am so grateful that it's spring!

When I saw the ducks, I thought of Jonathan's brother Thomas. He likes to go duck hunting. These ducks were lucky he wasn't around.

After Jonathan finished up, we did a session in the temple. This was my first time ever in the Salt Lake temple. Jonathan can tell you that I was giddy to be there. It is such a unique experience in this temple because it is live. In the vast majority of temples, there is a combination of video and audio instruction. The video was just recently updated and is amazing, but there is just something about being in a live session. I can't find the words to describe it.

Jonathan was sitting next to a man and shared that it was his first time at a live session. The man said that he almost always goes to a live session and that he hasn't even seen the new movie. He wished he lived closer to a temple that had the video. When Jonathan told me I couldn't believe my ears. From our apartment in Orem to Salt Lake, we pass by 5 temples in the 40 minute drive. Apparently that's just too far away!

Anyway, it was a wonderful experience. I can't wait to go again.

Welcome Home

I haven't been feeling good for the past few days and I just had to get out of the apartment today. I went for a drive wandering the streets of Orem and Provo. As I came up on Provo there was a sign "Provo: Welcome Home". A wave of homesickness came over me. Utah is certainly nice but it's not Roseville. I thought about all of my nieces and nephews there and what they would tell me about. 

Ryan would tell me about how Minecraft works (again).

Tyler would teach me some big words that he knows like stupendous and precipitation.

Kyle would tell me he's not Kyle but one of the Avengers.

Lyla and I would have chips and other snacky foods instead of whatever we were having for dinner. 

Garrett would tell me how doctors are terrible people that give you shots.

Charlotte would show me how she can walk everywhere and now get into cupboards.

I'm so excited that Easter is coming soon. We're planning on spending it in Idaho with Chris's family. It won't be the madness that I miss, but it will be a little bit more like home.

Oquirrh Mountain

For Family Home Evening this week, Jonathan and I went to the Oquirrh Mountain temple. This was our first time being on the temple grounds. We've seen it dozens of times from the freeway, but it's easy to see temples along I-15.

We were there as the sun was setting and so we got to watch the color of the temple change from grey to a warm beige.

Since it was Monday, the gates were locked but we still were able to enjoy being there. I was at first surprised by the number of families there, but then realized that they were doing their own FHEs at the temple as well.

One of the families was a dad with his young teenaged son and daughter. He was asking them questions about ordinances that they have already participated in. It made me think about how we will do very similar things with our kids.

As we were taking pictures, we heard a helicopter. Jonathan quickly recognized that it wasn't just an ordinary one, but an Apache helicopter. I didn't see it at first, so I handed him the camera to get some pictures.

I am so grateful that we have the opportunity to live close to so many temples at this time. As we were looking at schools, a couple of them were 3 hours away from the nearest temple. In Utah, you can drive 3 hours and drive past about a dozen. It is a wonderful reminder to make sure that we go to them, not just to enjoy the grounds but also participate in the ordinances provided inside.

This Weekend

This weekend we have the opportunity to listen to living prophets. In preparation, I'm making a list of questions. I know that they will be answered.

Last Saturday was the General Women's meeting. All women 8 and older were invited to be there. The spirit was just incredible and General Conference is the same way. When we gather together, there is a very real power that comes with it. Here is a snipet from the General Women's meeting.

I invite you to join General Conference. Click here to watch it.

It's Offical!!!

Our degrees are here and hung up on the wall!

The top one is Jonathan's Computer Science degree. The middle one is my Physics degree and the bottom one is my Natural Science degree. It's so nice to have them up! The next one will be Jonathan's Bachelor's degree!

St. George

On our way down to visit Hannah in Vegas, we stopped off in St. George to visit the temple. This was my first time in southern Utah and I must say it has stolen my heart! I still can't get over the beautiful colors in the stone. I've seen some pictures of places around there, but they don't do the colors justice. I hope to move there some day.

I still can't get over the beautiful colors in the stone. I've seen some pictures of places around there, but they don't do the colors justice. I hope to move there some day.

The temple was amazing. So far, we've been to 5 temples and I really love this one. When you first go into the temple, it feels like it's just another temple. It's beautiful, but nothing special beyond that. Then when we were in the ordinance room, you started to get a better sense that this was a unique temple. This temple was the first one completed after the pioneers left Illinois and so there are still much of the pioneer workmanship in this building.

One of my favorite parts was the celestial room. There are windows that let in the beautiful desert sunshine in. The details in the room were in some ways overwhelming.

The thing that I remember the most is the feeling that I had in that room. I just felt an outpouring of love. I was grateful to see such a beautiful temple. I was grateful for all of the labor that went into it. I was grateful that I could be there that day to do the temple work for someone I didn't even know. I felt a much stronger connection to this sister that I went through for than I usually do. 

Temples are such wonderful places. I love the feeling that I have when I am there. Things are just more clear.

We love to see the temple!

It was such a wonderful experience to go to the temple as we started our trip to visit Hannah.

Vegas Baby!

We finally made it down to Las Vegas to visit Hannah! We started planning a trip in August, but things got crazy until now. It worked out perfectly because she needed to come up to Utah for a job fair, so Jonathan and I went down and played and then brought Hannah back with us.

This was Jonathan's first time in Vegas and my second time. My first trip was a whirlwind trip with Sac State Marching Band. We didn't get into the city until like 3 am and had to check out of our hotel by 9. I literally only laid down for 6 hours in a 52 hour period of time. It was crazy!

My first Vegas experience.

The first thing we did in Vegas was meet up with Jonathan's trainer from his mission. This was the first time they had seen each other for about 10 years. It was great to see them catch up on all that has happened and remembering some great mission stories.

Thanks to Pinterest, I was able to find more things to do in Vegas than just hang out on the strip. First thing we did was head over to Hoover Dam. It was amazing and overwhelming how big it really is.

This is the spillway on the Arizona side.

I love how you can see how high the water level can be.

Jonathan's in Nevada and I'm in Arizona. After this picture Jonathan said he didn't like long distance relationships and jumped back on to the Arizona side of the dam.

After being at the dam, we headed back into the city so Jonathan could visit Fry's. There aren't any in Utah and he has seriously been missing it. Then we visited Hannah's classroom. It is so cool that she is a real teacher! Jonathan was able to better align her projector. She showed us her favorite spot to watch sunsets on campus. It was so gorgeous!

Then we headed down to the strip for dinner and to see some of Hannah's favorite spots. She took us to a secret pizza place inside the Cosmopolitan for dinner. There's no signs for it, so we had to search for it for a little bit but it was worth it! After dinner, we watched the fountains at the Bellagio. They are magical at night. We walked around Caesar's Palace and then headed back home because Hannah had work the next day.

The three of us taking on Vegas!

I pretended to be Buddy the Elf moment with the moving sidewalk.

On our final day in Vegas, we went to Red Rock Canyon. The scenery was stunning! We drove through the loop to get an idea of what the park would actually be like. We thought that it was a closed loop, well we were wrong. We were back out on the highway and a little upset that we didn't get the receipt to show that we had already payed to get into the park. We were prepared to pay the $7 fee again because it would be worth going through the park to take pictures. We pulled up to the same gate that we had initially paid at and explained our situation. The man was nice enough to let us go without paying the fee twice. We stopped off in the visitors center to get a better idea of the park and then we took a lot of pictures.

We each took turns wearing bunny ears.

Thanks to the visitors center, we learned that various people that lived in the area and left drawings in the stones. We were able to see a grouping of hand prints.

There are 4 hand prints in this picture.

Sorry Ty! That rock was too big to bring home.

It was interesting to see the layers of stone.

This looks more like a martian landscape.

I love how it looks like these rocks were painted.

I am so grateful that Jonathan and I were able to visit Hannah before she leaves Vegas. After finding all of these cool places to visit in Las Vegas, I can't wait to spend more time exploring the natural wonders in Utah!

Mount Timpanogos Temple

Jonathan and I are having so much fun visiting and taking pictures of all of the temples in the area. It's crazy how many are so close to us. Last month we took pictures of the Mount Timpanogos temple.

The first time we actually went inside was a super rainy night and we had to park really far away. We literally ran from the car and we still were soaking wet by the time we made it inside.

This temple felt really similar to the Sacramento temple. I really love the color and texture in these stain-glass windows.

I'm slowly getting used to how big the temples are out here. There are lots of stair cases and hallways, so I'm never really sure where I am. Thankfully there are people all around to help guide me or I would never get out! Anyways, even though each temple is different, the important things are the same.

I Don't Know Idaho!

This weekend, we made our first of many trips up to Idaho. Jonathan had a crazy week with tons of stuff due and late nights of getting everything done that we decided a weekend away was in order! Thankfully, my brother's family was prepared to indulge us.

The last time we spent time with them was back at Thanksgiving, so I wasn't sure how well the kids would remember us. Before we even got all of our things out of the car Seth came out and gave us big hugs. Clara and Annie were out running errands and when they got home, Clara ran right up to me and gave me a cuddly hug.

Both Seth and Clara have grown up so much since Thanksgiving. Seth absolutely loves everything Star Wars, with the exception of the Emperor who he calls the boss. Clara is just a little chatterbox! She repeats just about anything that she hears.

Clara in her Sunday best!

It was also a lot of fun spending time with Chris and Annie. We haven't lived close to them for over a year and so it was nice being able to talk with them. They taught us a card game they learned from their sister-in-law and we ended up playing it for about 3 hours.

We also had a tea party with the kids. I love having nieces! In the 10 years I've been an aunt, this was my very first tea party.

This trip, though quick, was so much fun. I can't wait to go back for another visit!