What could be more important than this?

This is probably one of the neatest places to be with family. At the Living Christ display at Temple Square in Salt Lake City. You walk up a long twirl staircase and there is Christ with all the galaxy painted on the walls and ceiling. It is beautiful!

The pictures aren’t the greatest, as you can tell I used my phone. But you can see here Adam & Eve and Trace. He really liked the guard ropes! Although I’m not sure they did much good. ;-)

Lisa and I came to temple square once while we were dating just for something to do. It is huge and has many videos, displays, and museums and things that visitors can walk around and see.

We were on a date

About 3 years ago and happened to go into the “Families are Forever” display. It is AWESOME! We started out in a small room where it showed a video of a young couple who had a couple kids .

Then you go to the next room, and it progresses a few years into their life. They were older now and were talking with their parents (The Grandparents of their kids) about how much love they had for them and how their Grandparents still loved each other. Apparently, even after being married 40+ years, people still want to be together! How great it is to know that they can be together forever.

The next room, years later, was after the Grandpa had died and they were talking with the mom (or Grandma) about how much she missed her husband. She talked about how much she loved him and he loved her. It really made me think of all the blessings and things I have in this world,

what could possibly be a greater blessing than knowing that we can live with those we love as a couple, man and wife, forever after this life? Awesome is an underestimate.

The next room, years later. Both Grandma and Grandpa we had passed on and only their kids and grandkids were left talking about them. The talked about the peace they felt in knowing that they would see them again and the confidence and faith they had that and they knew

they would see them again after this life.

Anyway, Lisa and I went through this display when we were dating and noW…

Here we went through it again almost 3 years later,

with 2 kids and it was just as awesome. What was really neat was to think about how we too are progressing along life's journey together and more importantly how important our eternal marriage is.

That we can be together as a family forever.

There really isn’t anything in this world that can compare to this gift a loving Father in Heaven gives to be able to be with our families.

It was just an hour of our trip, but well worth it!

Here, Trace and Lisa are posing in front of the conference center. Trace was really good but like usual, he was ready for a nap by the time we were done. ;-)

This week = What a mess! ;-)

You be the judge.

Exhibit A…  Delicious Home-made ice cream gone wrong!

A 1/2 gallon from Albertsons was looking pretty darn good right about now!

I don’t think the ten second rule applies to ice cream. ;-)

   
The good news was there was enough left for both Lisa and I to have a small bowl. It was the first time we tried using the machine and it didn’t quite snap together the way we thought it had. ;-)

Exhibit B…  Apple Jack Surprise!

Oops!


On the bright side. Trace didn’t notice that the ice cream was a flop (since he was happily tucked into bed by then) and he also didn’t mind the mess of the Apple Jacks because unfortunately its not to un-common for him to pick things off the ground and eat it. ;-)

Big bro posing with sis.

Kendra is getting bigger and bigger. Its funny to think she is only three months old because its hard to imagine our family without her now.

 
Trace with his new puzzle.

Kenya is such a good sport.  He insisted on giving her this on her head and she just sat there. I’m not sure if she was just too lazy to move or if she was having fun too.  They are fun to watch. ;-)
 
The rest of the pics below were taken on Saturday. One nice thing about General Conference is the time you get to be with your kids all day long while you do nothing but sit, relax, and listen… and eat… and maybe nap a bit. ;-)

  
A Kendra Sandwich!

Is there anything better than this? I doubt it.

Exhibit C…. To be continued!

A Jumpstart to Spring @ Jump Creek!

Lisa and I have always loved hiking on trails.  Another thing we both enjoy  is exploring new places.   A couple weeks ago she told me about “Jump Creek”. Its past Marsing (about 40 minutes from Meridian).  Anyway, after checking it out online we decided to check it out. Well worth it!

Trace was a good sport.  He ended up eating a few too many gummy snacks on the way but he didn’t seem to mind. ;-)

Here is cute Lisa and cute Kendra on the trail.

Lisa and I went to St. George on our honeymoon and being at this place reminded us of the beautiful rocks and mountains we saw on our honeymoon.

Free-rider

This cave opening was pretty neat. If we didn’t have baby packs on we would have crawled through the opening. I guess we’ll have to see whatever is on the other side of this cave another time.

There were people climbing on several different trails. There was a lot to see and a lot to explore.  We heard there was poison ivy but we didn’t see any (and I’m not itching) so that was good.

Kendra was so sweet. She eventually fell asleep in her little pack.

This was the hardest part of the trail.  A small creek with stones you have to cross. We carefully and SLOWLY made it across without falling on our cans.

This picture does not do this justice.  You have got to check this out some time!

Lots of rocks. Some people swim here but I like to just look. I didn’t feel the water either but I’m guessing its pretty dang cold!

Kendra & Lisa…. We’re here!    Its only about a 10 minute hike to get here.

 
On the way back, Trace started to get a bit sleepy. Even with all the sugar he ate with those gummies he was ready for a nap.

We definitely plan on coming back here this summer. Its a fun place. Only next time we want to bring a picnic or something to eat other than gummies. ;-)

6 Whole Eggs! Trace’s first Easter Egg Hunt!

 Sarah & Shawn invited us to an Easter Egg hunt.  It was very fun. There were tons of eggs and Trace did pretty well.  Since he likes picking things up and putting them in containers this was just perfect for him.

I was hoping to get some more eggs. ;-) I think if Trace realized what was inside of them he would have been a little bit faster with the collecting. We had all the candy eaten before we left. lol.

The good news… Since its still a week away there will probably be another Easter Egg hunt next Saturday so we had some good practice today!

Feels like Spring!

It was so nice outside today we felt like going for a walk. Kody has always wanted to get to this bridge because we see people fishing off of it. We finally found it going a really obscure way and then found out it is right off of Fairview!

This is the fallen firefighters memorial. It is pretty cool.

This is the happiest picture we could get of Trace considering it was his naptime!

Country dancing & a few other things!

Last night Lisa and I did something we had never done before. Country dancing! We both had gone before we met but this was the first time we had gone together. We had a good time.

They even had door prizes. Lisa won a weeks worth of tans.

Lisa the line dancer. http://www.treasurevalleycwda.org/

Trace LOVES being outside! He is a big explorer.

The hard part is getting him to come back in.

Kendra is getting bigger every day. She even slept through the night (once) this week. ;-)

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We tried something different with dinners this week. We tried to not use any pantry food (like the nearly 3000 mg of Sodium we used to eat in just one of our stuffing chicken meals) ;-) So we decided to get our vegetables at the market and try and turn over a new leaf.

The burgers were my favorite of course but we used wheat buns and Lisa made oven sweet potato fries. We also had Chicken with Thai peanut sauce & brussel sprouts, asparagas, squash, green beans, home-made spaghetti sauce, and one I missed was Chicken with apples & cider. They were yummy! except next time I want more sweet potato fries! I had no idea vegetables can actually taste good with the mystery of what Lisa calls “camelizing”. Sounds sugary!

A Mailbox, A Rock, and a Bowl of Hummus

What do these three things have in common? Not much actually.

5 random Stories

1. When we came home from the hospital last month, our mailbox was found in a million pieces on the road along with a black tire mark on it. It was a sad yet not surprising sight. Our rickety mailbox never was that secured to the post and we actually were warned by our mailman to secure it. It finally fell and I guess was ran over. ;-) Two days later there was a brand new mailbox there (even secured with precarious wiring)! We have been trying to figure out who the kind person was and haven't figured it out so to whomever it was that replaced our mailbox, thank you! I wonder who it was..... the mailman? ;-)

2. Someone put a large rock behind the back wheel of the Scion a couple days ago. I noticed it when we pulled into the driveway in the Explorer. I was glad I saw it because it probably would have damaged something since the car is so low to the ground and it was a huge rock. How weird! My dad is sure that it was some punk kids playing around. I told my dad (a retired police officer) that I would have liked to have been there waiting with my paintball gun when they came but he insisted that wouldn't be a good idea. lol.

3. Lisa bought a container of hummice the other day and insisted that I would love it. It looked odd but it tasted so good (at first). I began to eat and eat. I even posted on facebook about how delicious this new treat was. Then Lisa showed me the container and I realized hummice is made from garbanzo beans. Sick!!! I couldn't eat another bite. Just the thought of it made the flavor somehow change to something gross. I will return to regular chip dip instead.

4. Trace fell asleep in his little toddler bed tonight! This is the first time he has ever showed interest in that bed so we were pretty excited. He did of course fall out of the bed since then and now is asleep on the ground so we’ll have to figure out what to do with him before we go to sleep tonight.

5. Its time to hit the sack and I can’t think of a 5th thing to post so I’m going to skip it and just share 4 random things. Hope you aren’t too disappointed. But if it makes you feel better we have a half a bowl of hummice over here. The first one to come over and pick it up gets it! ;-) Good night!