Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House

We have been very fortunate that in the last 6 months we have had 2 temple open houses in our area. This is a rare thing anywhere, especially here. The kids were so excited to finally be able to see inside a place they have wondered and heard so much about. We went to the Draper Temple as a family in February. It was quite the production to get there, from parking at various churches to waiting for an hour to watch a video and then boarding a bus to the temple. It was worth it though to see the kids reactions and see their enthusiasm about the various rooms.

Well when the opportunity came to attend yet another one I wasn't quite as enthusiastic to get there. But my kids kept asking to go and then I realized how pathetic I was being. Here my kids were begging to go to the House of the Lord and I didn't want to because of the hassle it would be for me. After that wake up call, I scheduled a time and off we went.

This time around was a little more pleasant. We went early in the morning and it wasn't very crowded. We were able to enjoy our experience and it allowed us to talk more openly about the temple. We felt at peace there and our testimonies were shared. I am thankful that I didn't miss this great opportunity to be with my kids and strengthen our relationships and testimonies.

The temple was gorgeous of course, and the kids especially loved the Celestial room and the mirrors in the sealing room. I hope they always remember the beauty and feelings they had there and put it at the top of their goal list to someday enter the temple. Thanks goodness for my faithful children and their strength to keep me on the straight and narrow.

Summer Reflections

The weeks after our fun trip to Ohio were filled with readjustment to "normal" life and 90+ degree weather.

Since I was so enthusiastic about "life", we spent day after day in the yard playing with water balloons and the hose. Various friends and cousins came over and soaked up the water and the sun for many days in a row.



I even did some reading in the shade of our tree. ( I don't know which is more amazing; that I actually finished my first novel in many months or that we actually have a tree in our yard that provides enough shade for me to sit in). Either way it was wonderful.

Brianna wore her swimsuit day after day all day. It caused me to reflect on the freedom and innocence of children. How would it be to run around in a swimsuit without worrying about what others thought? And to enjoy the sun on your back and yet still remain cool enough to be perfectly content. Oh the life.

To see the contentment and joy in my children has brought me such a peace and happiness. My life is good and I know it.

COSI

Guess who? Yep, it's Alyssa again seeing my Mom is still not ready to pick up the slack and commit to doing her blog. Kids these days... Okay, so today I am here to write about our day at COSI (which stands for the Center Of Science & Industry). It is a really neat museum with cool exhibits, not the boring ones like the lemon battery (ooohhhh, acidic friut. Let's all pose for a picture). In these first pictures you can see us kids sticking our faces against these pushy red things that molds your face. You have no idea how much pain and suffering went into these pictures. We had to fight the kids who would ruin our designs, and we had to put our mouths over the red things. YUCK!

After the pushy red things, we went into a room and turned into producers and special effect dudes. Brianna was the star of the star of the show (big surprise there, right?), and Ryan and I worked the special effects. Of course the show was a smashing success. It was a show about a girl who liked to dance and giggle, in a magical snowland with penguins. Okay the whole smashing success thing? Yeah, it didn't actually work out too good. Awkward...

The Synopsis Of Our Show: 5 year old Saphira has a secret. Her whole life, she has longed to sing and dance with the Antarctic penguins. One day, she finally decides to defy everyone, including her loving sidekicks Bear-Bear and Elkie, to meet her goal.

Here we are at the passageway to Lost Egypt! OK, I wish it really were Egypt, but unfortunately, it was just the entry to the special traveling exhibit. This particular one was about Lost Egypt (NO WAY!!!) It was actually very fascinating, and had a lot of cool and REAL artifacts including jewels, pots, the original Rosetta Stone, and a real live (or dead) mummy! It was very neat, and a great learning experience.

Here I am riding my own sidekick, Camille Camel! I must admit, the fake camels are rather comfortable to ride, with felt fur and rounded humps. Soooo, the real ones must not be that different, right??? :)

Here are Brianna and Grammy watching a short video about uncovering Egypt.







Next we headed over to Inventions Through Time (or something like that anyway). Brianna and I grudgingly agreed to go, thinking it would be some boring exhibit, but it turned out to be two huge rooms, one that was set up like a town in maybe the early 1900's, and another that could have been inbetween the 50's and 80's. It had real shops and everything that you could interact with Here we are posing in a little carriage in the early 1900's!




There we are.... Time traveling in grace, style, and poise. Look at how good we are in front of a camera, and you will see what I mean!






Ahhh, my favorite picture. Here I am declaring myself conqueror of the early 1900's. I just gave me heroic speech, and am awaiting the appluase of my minion, um, I mean my townfolk.

The picture next to my conquering one is our first view of the next time period. Pretty retro, huh?




Here we are at the diner, awaiting the service of the new employee whose attention is otherwise diverted in the food containers.







Ahhh, finally our waitress has arrived with our order of... Nothing? I definitely will be contacting the manager.

There I am, declaring myself head news anchor (I have a thing about declarations, just in case you are a bit slow). I delivered a story about some guy that has something to do with space. Hey! I even started building up my fan base! Some guy who was watching kept complimenting me and patting my shoulder. Apparently my future is dependent upon my news anchoring skills.

Next we went into the gadgets room. It had a lot of fun things you could play and tinker with. In these pictures here, Brianna and I are testing our weight, and are pulling ourselves up to the top of this pole. "I'll make a man out of you..."

Brianna tinkering with these wheels that you are supposed to connect to make them all move.

Our last exhibit of the day was "Ocean". It has a few different exhibits including "Poseidon's Grove" and a few rooms that featured submarines and such. Poseidon's was the coolest though, because there was so much to do. For example, here we are shooting water at the huge statue (and each other if we could manage it).

War has officially been declared! Let the battle begin!

And finally, our last picture features Brianna and I balancing balls on top of fountains.

Overall, it was a very wonderful day. We learned lots of neat stuff, and even had fun doing it (Hey, is that even possible)!

Peace!

Alyssa

Columbus Zoo and Aquarium

Since my Mom is so desperately far behind on the blog, I, Alyssa, am taking over the writing job today.





Ahhh, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. One of the highlights of going to Ohio has always been going to the zoo. It is very big and the animals seem to be very happy there. As you can see in Picture No. 1, we are all very excited about the day ahead of us. (Including all the potential pictures. Yay...)








The first thing we did after renting a stroller for the coolers, purses, etc., was head over to the Asian area to see the baby elephant. Usually there is a very long wait to see him because of the certain viewing hours, but we timed it perfectly (my idea to go at that time :)) and had no wait at all. He was absolutely adorable, and I begged to keep him as a pet (as you may have guessed, request denied). He would follow his mother around and would copy everything she did. He was precious!








Next we went through the rest of the Asian area and saw a whole bunch of neat animals including Sun Bears, Red Pandas, Tigers, bats, and the illusive family members (see picture).

















We also saw Fluffy, a reticulated Python, who happens to be the largest in the world that is in captivity. Of course the boys and Brianna got a kick out of that, but the rest of us preferred to hang back to observe his, um, beauty?

After that we saw the lions before heading back into the main area. There, we saw flamingos, which according to Elizabeth, do not smell very delightful. Even though is Elizabeth is correct, the flamingos were actually pretty interesting to observe. They kneel like us, but when they kneel, their legs come forward instead of bending back!

There I am with a picture of Fluffy's girlfriend. Or cousin. Or parent. Or aunt. Or.......

Do you get the point yet?

Next came the Aquarium portion of the field trip. For the first part, we waited in a line and then got to pet creatures you would find in tidepools such as hermit crabs, pencil urchins, chocolate chip starfish, and conch shells. They all had really interesting textures, and I was wholeheartedly grateful they didn't have the pokey and painful urchins there. :)

Second came the fish room! YAY! We were on a roll with timing today, because when we walked in, we only had to wait a few minutes before the diver went in the tank to feed the fish. Man, those fish can be feisty when it comes to food! They would charge at each other and try to steal food from their friends. That is the kind of friendship that needs counseling, if you ask me.

There are Ryan, Brianna, and Elizabeth, guarding their viewing spots for the fish feeding.

Here is the diver feeding the ravenous and highly territorial and dangerous tropical fish. It was a nail biter all right.

After the fish room, we went to see the manatees. I have always loved the manatees for some reason. They are such (in my opinion) beautiful creatures, and I hate to see the scars from motor boats on their backs and tails. It breaks my heart to hear about these gentle, defenseless creatures getting hurt and killed. The manatees at that particular zoo have been saved from injury, and some of them get released back into the wild.

Once we were done with the manatees, we sat outside for a delectable picnic lunch of...... Sandwiches! But if we ate, we were greatly rewarded with Hershey's Chocolate Bars. YUM!

Us and the totally real (o.k., not totally real) manatees.









Since we had to get Elizabeth and Thomas home soon after lunch, we zipped over to the other side of the park to see..... The Primates! The gorillas were (as always) entertaining and pretty cute. But what really caught the attention of the people, were the Bonobos! They would go right up against the glass and make faces at you! One would slap the glass when a kid pressed their hand up against it, like it was giving you a high five! Another bonobo was carrying her little baby (it was seriously SO tiny) around as if she were showing off! Then she would sit by the glass so everyone would get their turn to see her little sweetheart.

For some reason, the statue of the Humboldt penguin was very fascinating, so here are the pictures of everyone posing next to "Pepe".

After the Primates, Grammy treated us all to Dippin' Dots Ice Cream before we had to say goodbye to cousins for who knows how long. The ice cream was very good, but it was sad to say goodbye to Thomas and Elizabeth. I really got to know them on this trip, and Elizabeth had finally started to open up to me, but then we left Ohio. It was a good experience though, all the same.

After Grammy left with the cousins, we stayed for a bit longer so we could see the Australia area, and go to the gift store. One of the highlights of that was that when we were looking at the Lorikeets, some lady gave me some food for them for free. But out of the generosity of my heart, I shared.

After we were done seeing the koalas and kangaroos, we headed over to the gift shop where Mom bought us all necklaces. Ryan has a bear paw that is a mood necklace, Brianna has a butterfly mood necklace, and I have a silver sea turtle that has blue jewels for the shell.

After that it was time to say goodbye to the zoo. We had had a wonderful time, and had made lots of memories. I can hardly wait till next time!

Peace!

Alyssa