a place where forever is promised to you

how many times will i attend the brigham city lds temple open house? so far twice...and i have one more time scheduled to go. i was only planning on going once. but when my friend who lives across the street from the temple received a vip invitation to attend a special neighbor open house and invited me to come with her i couldn't refuse! she is not a member of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints. i was excited to answer any questions she had (and she had plenty!). she went to the open house to find peace. she was moved to tears more than once going to each room of the temple. her family joined us. they, too, are not members. they also had a lot of questions. my favorite part of the tour was when we were all in the celestial room. i looked at my friend and her family and saw the blessings of the temple right there...eternal families. it was beautiful. her family also took the opportunity to look into the "eternity mirrors" and see what eternity looks like. they asked me if those mirrors were special mirrors or if you would get that same effect putting two mirrors across from each other...i smiled and joked that they were special temple mirrors (like us mormons have some crazy power or something ha ha).

today i attended the open house with my family. currently i am the only sibling active in my church. my mom really wanted all of us to go tour the temple together. once again, it was beautiful. (although we had no tour guide & went through the temple without stopping in each room for an explanation of why the room was significant & had to be silent! the vip tour really was vip.) i remember going through the temple for the first time and being greeted by many of my families members in the celestial room. the tour of the temple with my family reminded me of that time, except my best friend (my sister) and my favorite 16 year old (my nephew) were there. these two are very special to me. i want so badly for them to partake of the blessings of the temple. the temple is a place that is so dear and close to my heart. i have had more spiritual experiences there than i can count. my hardest trials have been eased there. it is a place that has helped me with some of my toughest decisions. and, most importantly, it is a place where my family became (and will continue to become) eternal and forever.

temples are one of my most favorite places to go. i am reminded what is most important when i go there. and i am given strength to keep moving forward.

fourth times a charm?

i love my job. promoting health to my community is so fun. each year my work put's on a 5k, which i am the director of. my first year was horrible. every year since has been better, but there has always been something that goes wrong (normally it has something to do with the timing...oh, the blasted timing!)

this year was smooth. the other staff that helped went above and beyond their assigned duties. we had no timing issues (i can't even believe it!). we did have to call 9-1-1, which was a first, but it really wasn't an emergency and everything turned out okay. the fire department that comes to squirt off our kids from our mud race also did show up because they were called to an emergency. but we found another way to rinse the kids off (which i heard from the parents that it cleaned them off better than the fire hose).

all in all, this was our best year yet! and we had fun doing it (i have the best 5k committee ever!).

funnel cake & deep fried twinkies

weber county fair

where we:

ate fair food (deep fried twinkie, funnel cake, fresh mini donuts with vanilla dipping sauce, and homemade root beer)

walked around the petting zoo

paid 50 cents to see the world's smallest horse (which was just depressing) and world's largest pig (which was just disgusting)

did some sittin' and people watchin'

and ended the evening in true fair fashion: with a demolition derby.

we felt like true rednecks and hillbillies by the end of the night.

a fair success!

up in the sky

 

8.4.2012

4 seat mini airplane ride

my friend, mandi, her dad just got his pilot license.

while she was visiting (she moved to texas!) he took us for a ride.

her dad is an excellent pilot.

take off and landing were as smooth as they could be.

he invited me to "get high with him" anytime.

and he said maybe someday he'll be able to fly to texas.

that would be super!

an addition to our group

little baby mason has stolen our hearts. he's a little slice of heaven that we all just gushed over. i may have arrived a tad earlier than the others giving me extra time to snuggle with him. we can't wait for katherine's little guy to arrive in just a month or so, and then ally's little lady will round out the group (for now). (katherine wasn't able to join us this time. that little man of hers is trying to arrive earlier than scheduled so she's laying low, literally, making sure he develops all he can before coming into the world. keep them in your prayers).

i will be friends with these girls forever. we saw each other just about everyday for two years while attending weber state. and even though we don't see each other near as often as we planned, we're there for each other for these great milestones in life.

shaved ice for a good cause

gordon's cousin, annie, owns shavy jones.  we've had this shaved iced.  it's good.  go and support a good cause.

dinner and a show

wicked.
we really liked this show.
the story is fantastic. (i no longer take offense when people call me the wicked witch when i'm riding my bike)
the evening was a lot of fun.
i finally got to see city creek.  didn't shop, but we ate yummy food there (sounds an awful lot like new york...)
and i now crave frozen rose lemonade all the time.