Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple

When Rob was working in Fairview we tried to meet him halfway between here and there for dinner and an activity as often as we could. There isn't much to do in Spanish Fork but we did visit the Krishna Temple.

It was rainy and the grounds and building were in bad shape. The pictures make it look better than it did in reality.

I couldn't be somewhere that incorporates Bhakti Yoga as part of their spiritual practice without practicing a little of my own.

Since it was Monday night this was our family home evening activity and our lesson was comparing the differences between this temple and our own temple that we had visited the week before. I'd like to say that it was a good, well-participated discussion but the kids were really only half listening. Aw well :) We had a nice time anyway.

Halloween 2014

We hope everyone has a good time for Halloween! We dressed up as Zarina the Pirate Fairy, a Ladybug, a basketball player, a cute chef, and Indiana Jones. Happy Halloween!

A Hike with Friends at Battle Creek Falls

A couple of weeks ago we were invited on a hike to nearby Battle Creek Falls on a nice October morning by some friends on our street. I was looking for an excuse not to go to work and this was it!

Here is a short video I put together from photos and video clips I captured during the hike. These kinds of hikes (short with a cool reward at the end) play right into our game plan of giving our kids great hiking experiences so they’ll love doing longer ones when their older. All part of the master plan.

Click here if the video does not show up (and remember to watch in HD). Also, you can download the video and photos from this gallery.

Fantastically Important Questions from Kids

As parents and teachers, we are constantly lecturing and asking questions and wanting kids to give a specific answer in a way that pleases us. I have been feeling lately that I need to set aside more time during my lessons for the kids to ask ME the questions.

I did sharing time in primary yesterday. The topic was on The Family: A Proclamation to the World.  I decided that I wanted to spend the whole time answering the children's questions about families. I invited a member of the bishopric to come and give weight to the topic, help me answer the questions, and to show support for the primary kids. I passed out pieces of paper and let the kids write their own anonymous questions and put them in a bag. After blindly picking out a question, I first let the kids come up with some of the answers and then the bishopric member and I followed up. We only had time to get through a handful of questions so I brought the rest home and read through them. I wanted to get an idea of what the kids were wondering about. I loved reading them!

I thought I'd share some of their questions with you so that you'll know what your kids don't quite understand about families and God's plan for them.

We had about 100 kids in church yesterday. Some of the kids said they didn't have any questions, which was fine. Here is a summary of what I got:

18 cute little drawings and "I love my family" comments from the youngest children.

2 (only!) silly submissions. Could've been much higher :)

• Eat! Your! Lunch!
• Moooo!!!!  real loud

3 questions regarding the millenium and 2nd coming.

4 questions about how and why the earth was made.

3 questions about my specific family (how many people, etc).

1 question about fatherhood:

• What is it like being a father? What's the hardest part? What's the most enjoyable part?

3 questions about how to be good members of our family and show love.

7 great questions:

• Why do families have to go to church?
• How do you know if you are doing something bad or good?
• How did the church get made?
• What does our spirit look like?
• Are we Adam and Eve's sons and daughters?
• Why do we get baptized?
• What is an ordinance?

6 trickier questions:

• Does the prophet see the savior?
• Why do kids get born with some difrint skin?
• Why do some familys go to a different church?
• Did Jesus ever marry to have kids?
• Why are some familys apart?
• Why is life the way it is?

4 questions about why we get married in the temple and how we can have an eternal family. 1 of those questions was simply "How do you get married? with a picture of a stick man and a stick woman kissing :)

7 questions asking about having children. 

• Why was Gods first commandment to multiply children?
• Why are children good?
• 2 "How was I made?" questions.
• 3 questions about why some families have lots of brothers and some families have lots of sisters. That was actually one of the questions I had to answer. First, I had a 5 yr old child try and answer it and he said, "Because sometimes moms lay lots of girls and sometimes she lays lots of boys!" This family had raised chickens for a time :) I skipped the science lesson and went with the fact that the families we have here are earth are the same families we had in heaven before we were born. Heavenly Father placed us each in the family that was most able to teach us the things we need to learn while here on earth.    

By far the #1 question asked, at 12, was "Why are families important?"

How poignant this question became to our family personally last night as we learned of Grandpa Williams passing away. How blessed his family is for knowing where he is, that he is happy, and that we will see him again someday. 

Growing up, and still, every once in a while my dad will ask me point blank, "Do you have any questions?" It's usually at some random moment like riding the train downtown. I am caught off guard so usually answer, "Uhhhh. Nooo?" But I appreciate what he is doing. He doesn't want to assume that I understand everything perfectly. No one does. He wants to give me the opportunity to ask about something I don't know the answer to. He wants to let me know that I have his undivided attention and can ask him anything. I appreciate the effort and will try to have a question ready next time :)

Since we were only able to answer a few of these questions during our allotted time we encouraged the kids to go home and ask their parents these same questions. I encourage you hold your own q&a sessions with your children. You'll never know what your kids don't understand until you ask! And when they ask, rather than being asked, they are more personally invested in the answer and will take it to heart. 

I love our primary kids!

Home Decor: Guest Bathroom

My kids are all potty trained and are getting a little neater in general so I went ahead and redecorated the guest bathroom. I call it "guest" but we don't have too many guests. Mostly the kids and their friends use this bathroom. But, it is on the main floor and when guests do come, this is the bathroom they use. So I wanted it to look nice.

I bought a gallon of paint last summer from the reject pile at Lowes. I loved the color and knew I'd use it somewhere. $5 instead of $33 was too good to pass up. The color in the can is a very dark teal and some of these pictures reflect that but when standing in my bathroom it looks like a very solid navy.

I like to use the Sherwin-Williams Color Visualizer before I paint in order to make sure I'll like the "after". It still takes a bit of time and obviously it always looks a little different in real life but using this tool gives me a much better idea of what I'm getting myself into.

Since it is a tiny room, I wanted to do something a little more cool and unexpected. I thought I wanted stripes. In the Visualizer I played around with stripes of all colors and widths, horizontal and vertical. To me, it ended up looking like a collegiate bedroom. Not what I was going for. So I started re-browsing my saved photos in Houzz and came across this. I love how this designer used paint geometrically to set apart this corner of the room. It is a clean line with a subtle but big impact. Can subtle and big impact be used to describe the same thing? Well I guess it can.

Contemporary Living Room by Portland Interior Designers & Decorators Jessica Helgerson Interior Design


So using that as inspiration I drew up a design (in Visualizer). I immediately knew I had what I wanted. It is different. It's not what you're used to seeing. But it doesn't look strange or unappealing. Not to me, at least. In fact, I LOVE IT!

The photograph over the toilet was moved from the master bathroom because it worked here. I took this in downtown Ogden a few years ago. The signs say 128 Roosevelt Hotel. Private Baths, Steam Heat. Restrooms are for tenants only.

I don't own a wide-angle lens so you'll have to look at the pictures and use your imagination for how the back wall looks. It comes to a point in the middle and then up and over the door on the adjoining wall.

The shelf was a wedding gift. It fits perfectly in the diagonal corner (again with the oxymorons). I'm not very good at decorating shelves because I don't really care for decorative items. But I had all these things and just put them on there. I had originally thought I'd be hanging a plant or diy mobile or something in that corner but then I remembered we had some peacock feathers that we got when we visited the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple a few weeks ago. Bingo!

Notice the new soap pump is the same one I raved about in my kitchen except here it is gray.

The rug was a little difficult for me. I'm realizing I'm picky with my textiles. I knew I wanted my rug to fill up the floor. I didn't want something small just in front of the sink or toilet. Something bigger would make it feel more spacious and finished. It was hard to find something the right size that was also machine washable (needed for obvious reasons). I looked all over including online and wouldn't you know I found it at Walmart. I like how the flowy-flowery pattern contrasts with the sharp lines on the wall but it took me a few days of mulling it over before I decided to keep it. I am hoping it looks cool and not old-fashioned. Anyhow, I like the visual impact it carries.

I used to want the bathroom door closed at all times but now I don't mind when the kids leave it open. It makes me smile when I go in there and that is rare for a bathroom, I've gotta say.

Summer in the Mountains - Part III

Here's the 3rd and final post on our Summer in the Mountains.

One beautiful evening we headed up to Brighton Ski Resort to walk around Silver Lake. Such a lovely area! I'd love to buy an A-Frame there one day.

We enjoyed the walk around the boardwalk. Well, we mostly enjoyed it. There was one tense minute. You know how, as parents, we like to tease our kids sometimes? You know how when you're around bodies of water you like to grab onto your kid and pretend you're pushing them in? Well, a few minutes after I did that to Madeleine she decided to do it to me. Except she actually pushed me. I was facing her and the boardwalk curb was directly behind my feet so I flailed! I was THIS CLOSE to falling into the water and mucky guck. My arms were instinctively trying to grab onto whatever was closest, which was Madeleine of course. So my instincts were saying HOLD ON! and my motherly sense was saying LET GO! After what felt like forever I finally caught my balance and was safe. It was a miracle. Buuuut...my reaction towards Madeleine was less than pleasant. I started yelling (later realizing that I'm sure it echoed around the entire lake to the ears of many other people) and had to walk away to cool down. She started crying. Ugh. I'm pretty sure Rob was quite embarrassed but he was smart enough not to say anything. After a couple of minutes and a couple of apologies everything was good again.

Halfway around the lake we decided to start going up another trail toward Twin Lakes. We only made it halfway because we weren't prepared for a longer hike and didn't have jackets. It was getting late anyway so we headed back down but not before getting a good look at 4 deer.

On our way down the mountain we stopped at a pizza place at Solitude. It was a perfect night. Except for the yelling.

This was in Fairview and at a lake up the canyon. She's getting so big.

We wanted to take the kids on the hike up to Timpanogos Cave and decided to invite our super fun neighbors along. We left the littlest ones with a babysitter and up we went. The kids all did great!

Nate looks so excited here.

Hehe.

There were two negatives about our venture into the cavern, though. First, a family who also went into the cave at the same time as us brought their tiny newborn baby who screamed the whole time. This family also kept touching and sitting on everything and the ranger had to keep saying, "Please don't sit on the formations." Haha.

The second incident was that Nate drank his whole camel pack on the way up so even though we stopped twice for a pee break before entering the cave, a third of the way through the tour he was needing to go again. Make that desperate to go. No, he was going to go! But what were we going to do?! We couldn't go backwards by ourself, the tour wasn't close to over, and we couldn't make the guide run us all the way through with everyone else who had hiked all the way up to see the cave. Obviously Rob would not have been game to let Nate pee on the wall in a dark corner so instead he pulled out an empty water bottle. Haha. Gross!! Then Nate had to pee again right as we were exiting. Sheesh!