Temple Tour

Ogden, Utah

Temple Stop #3

This was especially cool because it was the first day of the open house. My kids have been to two other open houses (Bountiful and Oquirrh Mountain) but that was a few years ago. It was even more neat because Kaly's close to being 12 so we got to talk about baptisms for the dead and just the fact that my kids were older they had more questions and recognized more things from our previous discussions and lessons. 

Jordan River, Utah

Temple Stop #4

One of my favorite temples!!! I grew up near this one so I had the opportunity to go often. Plus this is the one that I had hanging in my room. And Heidi and Anthony got married here.

Oquirrh Mountain, Utah

Temple Stop #5

Tarl and my mom took the kids through this temple in the summer of 2009. (I dont know where I was.) Kalyana also remembered that one of the statues of Angel Moroni got hit by lightning. When we were researching it we found out that it was the one on this temple.  They were able to replace it right before the dedication as it had left his face, trumpet and arm singed black.

We also learned a few other fun facts. 

-There are eight temples that dont have the statue (St. George, Logan, Manti, Laie Hawaii, Cardston Alberta, Mesa AZ, New Zealand, and Oakland CA.)

-There are six versions, by five scupltors. Some hold a scroll, gold plates some only a trumpet. 

-The tallest (on Jordan River) is 20 ft. The others range from 18ft to a bit over 6.5 ft. 

-The one Angel Moroni statue not on a temple is located at The Hill Cummorah Monument.

Mount Timpanogus, Utah

Temple Stop #6

Provo, Utah

Temple Stop #7

Provo City Center, Utah

Temple Stop #8 ish

Authors & BBQ

I have been waiting for this huge event at my library for over two months. They hosted a Childrens Festival and invited over 31 authors to come out. Kalyana and I went almost the entire day and had a great time (She was such a trooper. We had to wait in a few long lines and she was doing so good!).

I had such a great day. We first stopped by the librarys used sale where Kaly found about 20 books that we bought for only $6. Then we went to hear the keynote speaker Laura Seeger (Dog & Bear). Afterwards they had a breakout session and we choose to go to the fantasy panel. Pic 1: Dean Hale (Rapunzels Revenge), Shannon Hale (Goose Girl, Austenland), Jessica Day George(Dragon Slippers), J. Scott Savage (Far World), Brandon Mull (Fablehaven, Candyshop Wars), Brandon Sanderson (Alcatraz Portal) and James Dashner (The 13th Reality--he also gave us a sneak peak to Maze Runner cover. Sweet!). It was so fun to hear their thoughts on their industry and why they write Fantasy. They had a great time together and it was fun to get to hear them tease each other.

Pic 2: Nathan Hale (the very same from Hale Center Theater) who illustrated Repunzels Revenge and has no relation to the other guys. Dean & Shannon Hale who wrote Repunzels Revenge (plus Shannon has written a bunch of others). Kalyana, me, Shauna, Jenni.

I had Shannon sign my books and I told her I'd been following her blog and told her one of the latest things I thought was funny. She saidd, "Oh yeah you comment as Debbie right? That comment about 'snizzle' was so funny!" Then she signed it into y book. Pic 3: Looks like we're gonna give a high 5 right? I dont remember what we were doing but that wasn't it. Haha.

There were so many great authors there. We got some books signed by the Hale's, Brandon Mull, Laura Seeger and Sydney Salter. Kalyana picked up some books and we got them all signed but one (by Brad Wilcox).

(These were some of the authors there: Brandon Mull, Shannon Hale, Jessica Day George, Nate Hale, Kristen Crow, Anne Bowen, Sharlee Glenn, Mette Harrison, Guy Francis, Dean Hale, Aprilynne Pike, Sherry Meidell, Laura Seeger, Ann Dee Ellis, Emily Wing Smith, Will Terry,
Ann Cannon, Carol Lynch Williams, James Dashner, Brandon Sanderson, J. Scott Savage, Will Terry, wendy Toliver, Rick Walton, Brad Wilcox, Mette Ivie Harrison, Sydney Salter Husseman, Alvina Kwong, Carla Morris, Louise Plummer, and Maryn Roos)


Afterwards we ran home and got the rest of the family and headed to the park to have a bbq with the Frank family. Sadly I didnt get any pictures of us adults. Brie and Adam invited us to the park and cooked us some super delicious food.

The kids had a great time playing on the toys (Tyce is a crazy good climber and could scale this ladder all by himself). It didn't take long for the kids to find a tiny little mud puddle and cover themselves with their spoils. Thanks for an awesome afternoon guys. Can't wait to do it again!

Recent ways I've been rotting my brain.

Tarl and I are big fans of Hulu. You can watch so many shows (Lost, 24, Chuck,Arrested Development, House, Firefly, etc), some in full seasons. If you register you can even queue your shows and it'll run right through them (helpful when I'm cleaning at night and can watch a few shows) or save them for you for later viewing. This is one of the reasons I no longer watch broadcast tv. (I mean I still see some shows, but since we don't have Tivo or anything this is a nice alternative.) Plus they have a TON of free movies too.

I got birthday money last year to sign up for Netflix but waited until a about a month ago when Xbox added it to their dashboard which is nice because we can 'watch instantly' a ton of movies on our TV (because it's streaming through xbox instead of having to watch it on our little computer monitor). It's been fun for Tarl and I to have date nights without having to run to the movie store. If we divide all the movies we've watched so far and how much the basic price is it's only like 15 cents a movie! What I love about this is all those random movies that have been floating in my brain I can add to my queue and I wont forget when I get to the store to rent them. Plus I've added a bunch that I've heard of but never got around to watching because there were the new releases I needed to catch up on.

Signing Time with Makayla

Makayla's vocabulary has totally exploded in the last few weeks! I totally owe it all to sign language and these wonderful DVD's! My sister Heather introduced us to this awesome product back when Kalyana was little.

At least a few times a day Makayla will bring me the TV controller and sign 'boy'--it's her way of asking if she can watch the sign language movies. The movie has a song called "I'm proud to be me" and goes, "I'm a boy, I'm a boy, I'm proud to be me yeah. I'm a girl, I'm a girl, etc. (Hence why she signs 'boy'.) I just pulled them out about a month ago and usually we'll try to watch it a few times a week to help us all remember the signs (and lets face it, to be entertained!). However we were teaching the girls a few sings (milk, more, food, all done) when they were a little less than a year old).

Not only is Makayla actually trying to say more words (instead of just pointing or crying) but we're actually able to understand her! She loves signing to us and Tarl is so cute to work with her on it whenever he can.

Most of the words that she can sign/say are: Eat, Milk, Water, Ball, More, Bird, Cat, Dog, Fish, Car, Airplane, Want, Shoes, Flower, Mom, Dad, Baby, Sleep, Friend, Play, Train, Doll, Bike, Bear, Please, Share, Your Turn, My Turn, Thank You, Book, Read, Socks, Yes, Thirsty, Drink, Dirty, Clean, Potty, Wash Hands, Bath, Hurt, Sorry, Stop, Go, Wait, Grandma, Grandpa, Hungry, Apple, Cookie, Cereal, Banana, Bread, Cheese, Cracker, Ice Cream, Candy, Help, Full, Hot, Cold, Dry, Wet, Like, Don't Like, Day, Sun, Night, Moon, Stars, Happy, Laugh, Sad, Cry, Boy, Girl.

I even heard that sign language helps alleviate the "terrible two's" because the kids are able to communicate what they need and the adults are able to understand.

These shows are actually even fun for me to watch too (Tarl even gets into it and we both know all the signs as well!). I took a few ASL classes in college and loved the language. I think it's so beautiful. Last year I believe, the company was even able to put episodes on television so if you're interested you could check their website/or listings in your area to see if you can catch a bit on TV.

Shelfari

A few of my friends told me I'd love this site. I had been hearing about it for the last few months but I didn't think it was for me so I never got around to trying it out. About a month ago I was asking around to see what my friends were reading and they finally talked me into joining. I got on, added books I've read to my shelf, put books I want to read on my wish list and added books I'm currently reading to my reading list.

I love it! I can add comments, reviews, and tags so that I can find my books easier. Not only is it fun, it helps me keep track of my books and makes it fun to find other good books to read also. Plus I can read other peoples reviews and see what they have to say which gives me an idea if I should give the book a chance. It's a very fun alternative to what I was doing before (writing down the books I wanted to read and not even keeping track of the books I had read). A sampling of my shelf:

Ten million strong.....and growing!

Before I left for elementary school in the morning, my mom would give me one of those chewable Flintstones and I'd pop it in my mouth and move it to the side of my cheek. I'd walk out the front door and dislodge it with with my finger and toss it behind the large bushes adjacent to the sidewalk that led to the doorway. I was careful about where I threw it because I didn't want my mom to go walking by and see it in the dirt. I don't think I ever told her I disliked them but perhaps I did and I was still asked to take them. I just couldn't bring myself to chew it up though and to me this was the next best idea.

Fast forward several years later when I got pregnant with Kalyana, I couldn't handle the prenatal vitamins. Not only were they the size of horse pills (very easy to gag on--not a good thing when you're trying your best to keep things down), but the high iron would make me so nauseas if I got it down it wouldn't stay down long enough to do any good. The cute nurse at my doctors office suggested I take two Flintstones instead. This time I tried to be brave and do it. I realized though, they're not that much bigger than say a Tylenol so why not just swallow it? (I think you really are supposed to chew them but I figured better in my tummy this way then not at all.) So thats what I did, no problem! And in fact thats what I did each subsequent pregnancy too. In fact I actually loved it! I still take them-(now it's just one though.) I'm guess I feel like I'm not quite old enough for those 'woman one-a-days', haha!

My kids are old enough to start taking/needing them too so I tried, just like my mom did with me, to give them to Kalyana. She thought it was great at first and would suck on it like candy but after a few weeks she wasn't interested and said they tasted weird. Well I had heard of a similar product on the news that was a gummy pill and went to the store to check it out and found out that my beloved brand is made in gummy fashion!

I was so excited. My kids love it! I'm really good about keeping the bottle where they can't get to it, plus it has a childproof cap (just in case they want to eat it like candy). I love that even my little Makayla begs for one! I love fun and healthy stuff! The only problem is that we're so on top of taking them (the kids even remind me when I forget) that we go through them pretty fast and have to keep replenishing our stock. I'm especially grateful for it now though as the weather is changing and Kalyana is around other little kids all day. Our family has really been blessed to not get too sick yet, I hope it stays that way for a while! Thank goodness for Flintstones.

**I just found out that it's actually made by one-a-day! Thats a riot!**
I'm not trying to be a commercial, I just listened to this song and it made me nostalgic so I thought I'd share...

Why I laugh. Brian Regan.

Brian Regan is so funny! My brother-in-law Flin gave us his CD for Christmas several years back and we just could not stop laughing. Our whole family loves him and whenever we get together everyone always quotes his jokes.

For our 5 yr anniversary in January, Tarl and I got tickets to his concert. My knee hurt from slapping it (I always thought 'knee slapping' that was a figure of speech but I literally couldn't stop myself...) and my jaw hurt from smiling/laughing for so long. The best part is that he's a clean comic. Since we first heard his original CD, we've now gotten both his DVD's. Luckily for me his second DVD came out just after I had Tyce. Just in time to help me get through some of those baby emotions. Since I hit a pretty low low I've really been trying to find things that make me feel good. Example #1. (More to follow...)

If you want to laugh, if you want to smile, if you want some of those super happy endorphins flooding through your body...check him out! For those of you who live close to me, we have both DVD's and would be willing to let you borrow them!

I thought this one was only appropriate to post since my parents/sister work with UPS.