Tree of Life

This is the 'Tree of Life' located in the Draper City Park. Some business puts up these lights to the tune of $40K every year.
We decided to check it out instead of fighting the crowds at temple square this year.

It was pretty amazing.

The ride there tho, was the best part of the night. Chris took a wrong turn just in sight of the park, which ended in a lot of U turns and circling. Which we of course likened to the 'wilderness' and being led off course by Satan. Ella and Zeke provided the murmuring necessary to earn them the Laman and Lemuel titles. Chris was our Father Lehi-- aka: crazy visionary/driver. We contemplated running across the UTA tracks line at one point, which then turned into the river of darkness-- and Luke offered to push Ella and Zeke off the tracks. We didn't tho. Just as we were about to pull in, Luke pointed out the Walmart, sitting on a hill overlooking the park and likened it to the great and spacious building where all the mockers were pointing fingers of scorn as they did their holiday shopping. We were all laughing by this point. We kept driving, in circles, till we eventually found the entrance to the park. Of course, we didn't take the straightest course across the lawn, wandering around the BBall courts and lanes, again, someone said we should just find the iron rod, and Luke and Rachel led off in a straight course to the tree. When we reached the tree, we saw the rod of iron-- it was encircling the tree, no doubt to keep us from partaking of the fruit. LOL. We all laughed some more, took a few photos and then jumped back in the car to go get the hot chocolate.

Chris complained, "What?! We just barely got here! And now we're leaving!?"
"It was always about the hot chocolate dear, get in the car". Treats are the best part of FHE, right?

So here we are awaiting our hot chocolate outside the Pop Shop. Delicious gourmet hot chocolates. Mine had Andes mints, candy canes and Hershey's kisses in it. Yuuuummmm!

A little religion + little appreciation of God's wonders (the tree) + a treat 

= FHE success at our house

Isaiah... and Christmas

So I've been studying Isaiah. Did you know he is the most quoted prophet in the Book of Mormon? Even Christ told us to read him. I never have. Oh I've tried. But it was always 'greek' to me! Then I read where Nephi tells us that Isaiah is easy if you have the Spirit with you, and I was like, "Oh. Bummer. No Spirit obviously." So I gave it up... like for a decade.

BUT I've found a new lease on Isaiah, and I'm LOVING Him. I think the difference this go round is that I am actually studying, not just the obligatory 15-min.-a-day-scripture-study/reading-to-get-it-over-with-so-I-can-check-it-off-my-list. Ya know?

So I kinda get him now. I don't profess to have a large measure of the Spirit, by any means. I've also had a lot of help too. I highly recommend reading Isaiah Decoded, by Avraham Gileadi. He's a Mormon Jew, and an Isaiah scholar. If you don't want to read his book though,  you can also just go to his website:

http://www.isaiahexplained.com/isaiah_ch_01.html

And start reading Isaiah. Gileadi has re-tranlated much of the book, that he feels have been mistranslated, or that has been found in the Dead Sea Scrolls more accurately, and that in itself, makes a huge difference, but he also gives a verse by verse explanation. It's amazing how much a little bit of history and context can give meaning to a verse! For those of us who 'lack the Spirit' in our study, Gileadi is a must. I've read 2 other books on Isaiah, one by Skousen, one by Clark. But were just 'eh'. I didn't gain much understanding, but Gileadi has been like a Urim and Thumim to me. Light bulbs are coming on left and right. It's amazing.

Anyway, as you know, Isaiah is very apocalyptic, so reading him gives you a feeling that maybe, just maybe, the end is coming sooner than we think, and maybe, just maybe, we're -- none of us-- not ready.

I've been giving my standing before the Lord quite a bit of thought these past few months. I've been weighed in the balance and found wanting. He's showed me how much I had to repent of, and how much I have been neglecting Him and His word. It's been a very painful/stretching/humbling experience.

The Lord loves me though. And you. He's just waiting for all of us to 'leave Babylon' and seek His face.

At this time of the year, it's a challenge to leave Babylon. Christmas may be all about Christ, but an honest reflection tells me, it's really been all about stuff. Giving to each other, sure. But who do we give to that really needs anything? No one on my Christmas list, that's for sure. This year we've decided to give more to the truly needy and way less to each other.

If you are looking for a good charity this year, I recommend this one:

http://www.liahonachildren.org/#/home

The rate of starving/malnurished LDS children in So. America is appalling. Don't want to send off a check? Go downtown with a roll of cash and give money to the homeless people begging outside our own temple. It's what Christ would do. And remember, judge not, lest ye be judged. Just give. Till it hurts. The Lord compensates you for it a hundred fold.

Do me a favor and go read this one chapter of Isaiah 58.

http://www.isaiahexplained.com/isaiah_ch_58.html

Go ahead. It will take you 5 min. Count it as your daily scripture study.

If that doesn't change your ideas about what I've been talking about-- well, I hope it will.

May we all be less distracted by Babylon this season, and try a little harder to be a true Zion people.

Merry Christmas to all God's children.

And Now We Wait

I know I haven't blogged in a while. Like forever. I just haven't had anything to say. Truly (stop rolling your eyes). I've been consumed with studying and reading, and well, blogging just seems pointless these days. So why am I blogging tonight? This:

We just hit 'SUBMIT' on Luke's mission papers.

Waaaaaaaahhhhh!

I'm not ready. But he is. So I better pull myself together I guess. His availability date is March 1, 2015. Our Stake Pres. is notoriously slow to turn in the papers, so I'm guessing it will be close to a month before he turns them over to the church to make his assignment. I hope he goes somewhere they need a lot of holes dug.

So… there you go, a blog post. I'll at least post again when he gets his call. Other than that, no promises.

Trunk or Treats

I HATE trunk or treats. Hate them.

I mean, I appreciated them when we lived in Las Vegas and I wasn't about to let my kids roam the neighborhood, but WE LIVE IN THE FREAKING TRUMAN SHOW! My kids can wander this whole subdivision by themselves and I have ZERO anxiety over it.

How much sugar do we want our children ingesting in a two week period? And it's not just about their impeding cavities, it's about ME! I have to buy TWICE as much candy. I have to deal with TWICE as many sugar tantrums, candy wrappers left lying around and policing the rationing, up to TWO WEEKS BEFORE Halloween!

Please. Someone just shoot me.

And heaven forbid I should say 'NO', I would have an immediate 3 child melt down over here. And don't even get me started on how Chris somehow manages to get out of this ridiculous Mormon tradition EVERY FREAKING YEAR. That's IT! I'm putting my foot down. I'm NOT signing up to make Chili and we ARE NOT going to ONE MORE DAMN TRUNK OR TREAT!!!!

And NO! I have NO pictures. Wait till Halloween!!

And if that rant wasn't enough, here's a much cleverer one…

http://bycommonconsent.com/2014/10/22/if-you-like-trunk-or-treats-you-probably-dont-have-a-testimony/

Fall at the Zoo

The girls had a week off school for Fall break, and the weather was gorgeous. I haven't been to the Zoo in a few years, as my Mom usually takes the kids for me. :) I decided to be the 'fun mom' and take them. We invited our neighbors and off we went. Here's Ella and Will, the two 'class clowns' of the group.

Zeke and Annie on the train. Zeke was alarmed at the train's whistle.

Zeke was finding his 'inner Lion' here. 

The whole gang of Johnson's and Holmes'. 

We watched the elephants for  some time, they were very entertaining, hoarding their food from each other, trying to steal from the others… it was fascinating. Of course, the next day, my brother puts up photos of his family actually RIDING elephants in Asia somewhere (I forget, they are world tripping for 4 months), and our Zoo day paled in comparison! Oh well, what my kids don't know, can't make them envious! 

Zeke was half way through a melt down by this point. He's going to be throwing tantrums into his teens at this rate…  I'm too old for this. 

One of the most memorable moments of the day was seeing two porcupines mating. Wow. That guy deserves hazard pay! Luckily, only Sunny and I witnessed it, as the kids had already moved on! LOL. 

Fun mom… check. 

Catch up

Some photos from our last family hike, sans Luke, on conference Sunday. Luke wanted to go listen to conference with his girlfriend. This is Bells Canyon, just before you get to Little Cottonwood Canyon. I've never done it before, as it's a bit on the challenging side.

This little lake is about 1/4 of the way up. Gorgeous. I am continually amazed by the beauty that is literally minutes from our front door. 

Tess and Ella having a leaf throwing moment

We only made it about half way to the water falls. This little stream provided a nice rest. 

The water was freezing though. Foot numbing cold, as you can see Zeke's face here. Oh, and he's wearing 2 hats, because we found one on the trail and he wanted to wear it too.

We also found this camera by the stream. It's at least a $1K camera, so we didn't want to leave it there for someone to take. I posted it on craigslist, ksl and lost camera.com, and by the next day, the owner claimed it. 

Canning sans Brain

My 12 tomato plants are FINALLY starting to produce… just in time for the frost… ugh. 

But, I'm using them as fast as they ripen. I made Spaghetti sauce with the first ripe batch of Roma's. Yum. ( I got 8 different varieties of Heirloom plants this year from a nice lady in the homeschool group. I love the persimmon colored ones, and the purple ones, and those little green cherries are SO sweet!) 

The second batch was reserved for Salsa. We've been out of the good stuff for 4 months and I'm SICK of Pace's. I had all my supplies. Rubber gloves? Check. Swim goggles? Check. I'm sure I looked ridiculous, but I've learned my lesson with those jalapeños. Those suckers will burn your skin and eyes right off! I need a gas mask to protect my sinuses, but alas, I don't have one.

Well, I got the batch going and then had to run get the first carpool, then home to turn off the timer and stop the processing, then out to get the next carpool. You might be able to guess where this is going. I had too much going on for my feeble mind to work correctly, and somehow, missed putting the salt in. 

I should really taste stuff BEFORE processing it. But, it's like, the temperature of lava, and I can't tell how stuff tastes when it's that hot anyway and I didn't have time to let it cool what with carpool timelines looming… 

So I didn't taste it, till the leftovers were cool, and I immediately noticed the lack of salt. 

Dammit. 

So, this batch needs a teaspoon of salt added to each jar when opened. And I hope the lack of salt won't mess with the preservative aspect and make all 7 jars go bad before they get used. Ugh. I'm losing it!

Next batch in a few days… I WILL remember the salt this time! 

A hike in the rain...

Sunday was Stake Conference. I had wanted to skip and go hiking, but rain was predicted, so we went hiking on Saturday before the storm. Sunday dawned dark and stormy, but I still wanted to get out into nature. I convinced 4 of the 6 to go with me. Luke and Chris stayed home for a nice nap.

Hidden Falls. Literally, a 3 min. hike from the road. So, after seeing this, we decided to hike up the trail and see what we could see-- at least until we got too wet.

Like how Kate cut out the waterfall? LOL.

At one point the trail crossed this bed of shale. We had at least 5 minutes of discussion on the difference between the words 'shell' and 'shale'. Zeke still didn't comprehend. LOL. 

One cool thing about it being wet, the rocks really pop when they are wet, showing all kinds of different colors that would normally not appear when dry. 

As you can see, it was wet, but the kids were still hot enough to take off their jackets. It really was just a drizzle, we didn't get soaked. An hour of hiking and we were done.

We had a good time. On our way home, we stopped at an Einstein's for bagels. I got to the check out and realized my wallet was not in my purse. "Cancel that order." I said, but not fast enough to stop Zeke from opening his chocolate milk. Ugh. Now what? We searched the car and the depths of my purse to find some loose change, but to no avail. *Awkward* The lady told me to just pay for it next time I was in. Next time? This one was CLEAR across the valley from us. Ugh.

So, on our way home from the Fairy Forest, reminded by the kids, we made the detour to stop and pay for the milk. I drove through without ordering anything and explained I just needed to pay for the milk we took on Sunday. The cashier was flabbergasted. She turned around shaking her head and said to her co-workers, "I love honest people!" and then gave me 2 free bagel cards.

Honesty pays people. Honesty pays.

Fairy Forest

We drove up to the Uintah's 2 Saturdays ago (pictures on Chris' phone, post to come) and hung out at a beautiful little lake, on the way home we stopped in Kamas to get pizza. Kate left my hoodie there. I really liked that hoodie. It was brand new(to me--Savers find), SOOOO… Tuesday when the kids were whining about school, I decided it was a good day to play hooky. I had recently been made aware of a place called the 'Fairy Forest' in that area, so I decided to be the 'fun mom' and take the kids up there, then stop and get my hoodie on the way back through. The kids LOVED it. It is pretty amazing, and with the nice crisp fall weather, it was the perfect day for a hike through the forest!

Fairy sun dial? 

Ella loved this little penguin family

Not sure what this is… fairy grid lock?

Found this very scary painted rock-- seemed a bit out of place in the heart of fairyville

Fairytropolis

Minion territory

Fairy Stonehenge

Look closely. This tree fairy is playing a saxophone

Our little contribution to the forest. We painted rocks before we left home, and left them in this little fairy hut for the next homeless fairy to come along...

Somebody spent a lot of time putting this little village? together. 

Fairy Ranch. See all the spotted rocks? Cows. LOL.

Every fairy child needs a swing set…

Anyway, it was fun. We stopped and had MORE pizza (this is the new lunch place for Christmas tree cutting day-- really good, inexpensive pizza) and after a 15 minute search, the nice pizza lady found my hoodie in a closet. *whew* I was starting to think the whole trip was for naught. Well, not for naught, the kids had a blast wandering around the fairy forest. Want to go yourself? Here are the directions: 

http://utah.todaysmama.com/2013/07/18/utahs-hidden-secret-enchanted-fairy-forest/