“Two-ups”

We visited the Tulip Festival for Family Home Evening last week.  It was beautiful as usual.  The tulip fields were really muddy thanks to all the rain we’ve had lately.  Thankfully the night we went was clear, but it was also really cold.  So, we donned coats and put boots on Isaac and Grace and we were ready to go. 

Emma always loves the tulips, and she went crazy with the camera.

Isaac and Grace were happy to run free and the were in awe of all the “two-ups”, as they called them.  They loved pointing out all the colors and stopping to smell the flowers.

We had fun exploring and being together as a family.  Lee and I loved watching Emma run around with Isaac and Grace.  She is such a good big sister.

The tractors were a huge hit with Isaac and Grace.  Isaac was especially excited by them, much more so than last year. 

Lee made me pose in front of this tractor, I’m not sure why….

It was a fun night, we enjoy our tradition of going to see the “two-ups”.  It was especially nice to spend time in the outdoors and to discuss how blessed we are to be surrounded by so many beautiful things in the world we live in.  Isaac and Grace have loved to point out all the “two-ups” everywhere we go and they are quick to tell us that “Jesus made them for us”. 

P90X for the Family

Lee completed P90X last year.  The results:

Pounds lost: 20

Inches lost: lots

Looks: awesome

I completed P90X last month.  The results:

Pounds lost: 0

Inches lost: ?

Looks: the same, maybe a little more toned

Depressing!

We may have had different results, but one thing was the same: 
It was fun for both of us to see how it affected our family.   Lee usually works out during his lunch hour at work, but he would do his Saturday P90X workouts at home.  Emma was always happy to join in.  I loved watching them sweat together.

I did the workouts at 5:00 in the morning, well before any of the kids were awake.  A few times I had to do it when the babies were awake and they loved to “exercise” with me.  They especially enjoyed the yoga.  (I, on the other hand HATED the yoga.) 

Even though Lee isn’t doing the whole P90X program right now, he uses a few of the workouts to supplement what he is doing right now.  Isaac and Grace always get excited to “exercise” with him too.

They have since been bitten by the “exercise” bug.  They love to do their own brand of yoga, and they are sure to tell us when they are “exercising” as opposed to just running around.  They crack us up. 

Look at that runners pose!  They aren’t too bad, even in their church clothes!

Hopefully all three kids will continue to exercise.  And maybe I will try another round of P90X and get better results.  For now, I am happy to sleep in until 6:00…

General Conference Weekend-UTAH!

A couple weeks before General Conference Emma made the comment that it would be cool to actually go to Conference.  When she said that I had to snicker to myself and give a silent cheer because Lee and I had already made plans to surprise Emma with a quick trip to Utah for General Conference.  We had a hard time keeping it a secret from her, but she was genuinely surprised when we woke her early Friday morning and rushed her out to the car.  Once she woke up all the way and realized what was going on, she was excited.  She was a little shocked that Isaac and Grace weren’t coming with us, but happy to have us all to herself.  What made the surprise even better was the present sitting on her car seat.

Emma has been saving up to buy her own iTouch for several months.  We have been trying to encourage her to buy a cheaper used one rather than saving for an expensive new one.  She was a little hesitant to do that, thinking she wanted a brand new iTouch.  When a friend of ours (thank you Ashlee!) let me know she was selling her iTouch and wondered if Emma wanted to buy it, we decided to take the risk and buy it for her (actually, it wasn’t much of a risk, Lee would have happily kept it for himself).  When she saw that iTouch she was thrilled, and even happier when she realized she already had enough money saved to cover the cost of it.  (Yes, her present definitely had strings attached-she paid us back when we got home from our trip.  It also has LOTS of rules attached to it…) She was even more excited to see that we had already downloaded lots of music for her, a few games, and even the movie Tangled.  The iTouch and her books kept her very happy on the drive to Utah.  Lee even took the opportunity to watch Tangled with her while I drove since he hadn’t seen it yet.

What a cinch that drive was.  I can’t even begin to describe how pleasant the short drive to Utah was with only an 11 year old in the car who loves travel since it came shortly after our long drive to Arizona with two year old twins in the car.  We had such a great time and shared a lot of laughs.  We almost couldn’t believe we were already there when we pulled up to our friend’s house that evening.  We stayed the weekend with the Morgan’s.  Emma, Talmage and Julia picked up right where they left off when we saw them last July, they had so much fun together.  Lee and I probably kept Matt and Elasha up way too late talking that night, but it was so nice to catch up.  Thank you for letting us crash with you!

We spent all of Saturday on Temple Square.  We watched the Saturday morning session of General Conference in the Tabernacle.  After that session we had lunch in the shadow of the Salt Lake Temple.

It was such a pleasant day (albeit a little windy) and the grounds were beautiful.   After lunch we did a little exploring around Temple Square, including a tour of the Beehive House.  We had a neat experience there.  One of the sister missionaries who led our tour was from Japan.  She had been very touched by all the comments of love and support for her country during the first session of conference.  She was very emotional and thanked us for the help and prayers that have been sent to her people.  

All the flowers even smelled good, especially in this spot.

We had tickets for the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference in the Conference Center.  We made our way through the throngs of people, waited in line, and then found our seats.

It was amazing to watch that huge Conference Center fill up.  We couldn’t see any of it’s 21,000 seats empty.

Emma tried taking several pictures inside the Conference Center before the session started.  The lighting made it difficult to get a good shot, this one was the best. 

Even more amazing was how all those people immediately got quiet and reverent when President Monson walked in the room.  What an experience to stand in the same room as him.  It was a little disappointing to be at the session that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir didn’t sing at, and to not actually hear from the prophet, but it was still a spirit-filled session.  We just soaked it in.  I was extremely impressed with Emma.  She took very good notes during both sessions, even going back after each talk and giving it a one work topic.  She did all that without any nudging from us.  In fact, I am not a good note taker and tend to just listen.  She got a lot out each talk and we referenced her notes a couple times as we later discussed different talks we heard.  I hope she will keep those notes and remember how she felt to actually be at General Conference.  She loved actually being there for Conference, we all did.  I was so glad because Emma was a little worried about being bored, and she was also a little bummed to be missing out on our usual General Conference weekend traditions.  It was ok in the end, and far better to be where we were.  I’m so glad she felt that way.

After that session we explored a little more, taking a quick walk through the Church History Museum. 

Lee and Emma lifting a replica of the Gold Plates.

Then Lee was off to the Priesthood Session, which gave us girls more time to explore.  We were a little tired by then, so we spent some time relaxing on the top floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building with the beautiful view of the temple.

Then we were off again.

We spent quite a bit of time at the Deseret Book flagship store.  It was a total madhouse since it was Ladies Night.  I don’t know if I would recommend going on that night.  Although we did get to hear Josh Wright play the piano, and we got to talk to Kate and Sara from my favorite food blog Our Best Bites.  That was fun.  At one point a lady in front of me picked up a book, turned around and said to the lady standing behind me “Sheri, this was the book I was talking about”.  I realized when she turned around that she was Wendy Watson Nelson (Elder Russell M. Nelson’s wife), and that “Sheri” behind me was no other than Sheri Dew.  I was sandwiched between two women I’ve heard speak many times and been impressed with.  My claim to Deseret Book fame!  =-)  Once we finally made it out of there, we walked back to our car where Emma read and I took a nap!  We got there just in time because it started to rain so we felt lucky to be in our dry car.  After we felt rested we drove around the Utah Capital building before trying to pick up Lee.  It was quite the sight to see thousands of men in suits and ties as they descended from the Conference Center.  Emma made the comment as she was looking at the mass of men, that it made her proud to be a member of our church.  I couldn’t have agreed with her more!  We finally found Lee and he told us all about the wonderful meeting as we drove back to the Morgan’s house.  On the way we had to make a quick pit stop at Café Rio for dinner.  We bemoaned the fact that we don’t have Café Rio in Oregon as we at our delicious pork. 

Back at the Morgan’s we again stayed up too late chit chatting, but that’s what vacations are for, right?  The next morning Elasha made a delicious breakfast, and we watched the Sunday morning session with them.  Right when the session was over we hit the road and listened to the afternoon session as we drove.  We were a tad bit nervous as we drove away from their house because of weather conditions.  When we drove into Salt Lake on Friday, it was a beautiful day.  The temperature was in the 70’s and everybody was wearing shorts and t-shirts.  Saturday wasn’t quite as warm, but still pleasant and nice.  That night it was pouring down rain, so we weren’t prepared for what we woke up to on Sunday morning.

By the time we left there was about 14” of snow on our car.  Thankfully the roads were all clear and there wasn’t that much snow once we got away from where the Morgan’s live. 

Our drive home was almost as fabulous as our drive there (we were a little more tired this time around).  The whole weekend was just wonderful.  We felt the spirit, we had some great one-on-one time with Emma, and we returned home refreshed and uplifted.  We love Emma so much and love spending time with her.  We definitely made some good memories on our little trip, memories we can share for a long time.  Of course we missed Isaac and Grace and we were so happy to see them on Monday morning.  They kept asking if we were in Utah, and asking about the snow.  We didn’t have to worry about them at all while we were gone since they were in the capable hands of Aunt Kaitlin.  Thank you Kaitlin, you did an awesome job!  It really was a perfect weekend, well nearly perfect.  We had two little problems that came up.  As we pulled up to the Morgan’s house on Friday night, Lee gasped and said that he thought he may have forgotten his toiletry bag.  Sure enough, he had.  So he made a quick trip to Walgreens to stock up on deodorant, a razor (he usually uses an electric razor), a toothbrush, etc.  He loved carrying around his Walgreens bag and teasingly calling it his toiletry kit.

The other little downer was this, courtesy of the Idaho State Police:

They were out in force on our way down to Utah.  What can I say…Lee shouldn’t have let me drive so he could watch that movie….

Piñata!!

For playgroup in March one of the moms helped the kids make piñatas.  She started out the first playgroup by reading a story about piñatas.  That day the kids got to make the paper mache piñatas.  Well, actually the moms ended up doing a lot of that.  Isaac and Grace did not like the texture of the glue and didn’t want to have anything to do with it.  I enjoyed it though, it took me back to elementary school!  The next playgroup the kids decorated the piñatas with tissue paper.  Isaac and Grace took to that much better.  Grace especially loved it and spent a lot of time gluing on little pieces of tissue paper.  Isaac spent a little bit of time decorating, but decided the toy fire truck was much more exciting.

 Grace and her friend Seoul working hard on a piñata

The kids got to actually break the three piñatas they had made for the next playgroup.  It was so fun!  Isaac and Grace loved it.  Grace gave a couple good whacks on one piñata, and that was enough for her.  Isaac on the other hand, wielded the bat several times.  Can you tell the difference between the two? 

Waiting their turns to hit the piñatas

Those piñatas were surprisingly strong and they needed some adult assistance to break, but once they did neither Isaac or Grace were quite sure what to do.  As soon as they figured out candy and toys were all over the floor, they quickly filled their bags.

After all the piñata excitement we ate some Mexican sweet bread.  It was yummy and fun to try something different.

The babies talked about those piñatas for days.  They spent the next two days spreading their loot all over the kitchen table.  They were proud of their catches! 

Thanks Katie for a fun month!

We Seek After These Things

It was totally weird to be invited to New Beginnings last month (actually, it was in February, which was last month when I started this post…).  Yes, I know Emma is getting older, but old enough to be in Young Womens this year?!?!  Crazy!  The theme of the evening was We Seek After These Things and was based on the 2011 Mutual theme which is the 13th Article of Faith.   It couldn’t have come at a better time.  We had just had a family home evening on the 13th Article Faith.  We had a discussion that fulfilled a requirement for Emma to achieve her Faith in God award.  Lee made a huge poster for Emma that helped us to learn what things we should seek after and how we can seek after them. 

We were able to put many things on our list.  In the weeks following we were able to add even more.    The Portland Art Museum was something good to seek after, whether or not she liked it.  =-)  Emma and I went to the local high school production of Peter Pan.  It was a great show and we had fun together.  We decided that good, appropriate theater productions are something to seek after.

Emma has also started swim team again and is loving being back in the pool.  In her words “it feels like home at the pool”.  We decided exercise and swimming are good things to seek after.

Just after New Beginnings she had an Activity Day Girls activity that focused on the 13th Article of Faith.  She made a picture that represented other good things she could seek after.  Emma is such a good kid.  We are so proud of her and we are excited to see all the good that she seeks after in the coming years.  Yes, we are a little scared to be entering the coming teenage years, but we know Emma will make good choices and continue to grow into a beautiful young woman.