Analee at General Conference

As per our family tradition of taking newly-turned-8 daughters on a Conference trip, we had the privilege of taking Analee to the 185th Semi-Annual General Conference in Salt Lake last weekend. We left the other girls with Grandma Susan and took off Friday evening to get to our hotel in downtown SLC.

Saturday morning, we walked to the TRAX station and rode to Temple Square where we walked around for a while (I had hoped to go to the newly renovated Church History Museum, but they don't open until 10 on Saturdays) before the morning session of Conference started.

 

Seth and Analee checking out the "Helping Hands" exhibit in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. Analee had read about it in the Friend magazine, and she wanted to see it while we were there.

Looking out the window on the 10th story of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

Sitting on Seth's shoulders so she can see/hear the sister missionaries talk about the inside of the Salt Lake Temple using the model in the South Visitors' Center.

We started listening to Conference outside, then tried finding three seats together in one of the theaters in the North Visitors' Center, then gave up and sat on a bench just outside the building.

Analee taking a break from listening by sliding up the handrail.

During the closing of the final talk, we walked over to City Creek where Analee chose Chinese for lunch. We took it with us to Pioneer Memorial Monument Park for a picnic.

Analee playing around the Brigham Young statue in the park.

Then we took Ana on a hunt through the Salt Lake City Cemetery to find her ancestors and the Latter-day Saint prophets buried there.

Prophets

Clockwise from top: Joseph Fielding Smith, John Taylor, Heber J. Grant, George Albert Smith, Willford Woodruff, Joseph F. Smith.

Brigham Young (in the Pioneer Memorial Monument Park), David O. McKay, Howard W. Hunter, Spencer W. Kimball, Gordon B. Hinckley. We also saw the grave of Harold B. Lee, but apparently I forgot to take a picture of us at it.

I tried finding out where the three most recently deceased apostles are buried in the cemetery, but I never did.

Ancestors

Last time we went to the Salt Lake Cemetery, we looked for and found nine ancestors' headstones. After some more careful research, we discovered that our children actually have 18 ancestors in the cemetery. We looked for all of them and found 16 (Thankful and Platt Banker were the exceptions).

 Here are the pages we took along with us so Ana could know more about the people she was looking for:

 Harlow Redfield, Asenath and Homer Duncan, Maria Dangerfield, Job and Harriet Neal, Lee and Emma Miles, Jemima Neal.

 James and Isabella McGhie, Alice Strong, Jacob Strong, Maren Jorgensen. I neglected to take pictures of Ana by Henry and Ann Grow.

After the cemetery, we drove back to the hotel to drop off the van, and rode TRAX in to the Clark Planetarium because, hey ... we had some time to kill before dinner.

Seth using the cold decals to see a design in the infrared screen.

Analee looking at meteorite bits.

Seth checking out a moon rock.

Then we took Analee to Tucano's and ate meat. Lots and lots of delicious meat. (And stuff from the salad bar too.)

The next day, we checked out of the hotel and went back to Temple Square to attend our session of General Conference.

Tablet selfie in the Conference Center.

We watched the Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearse (Mack Wilberg is amazing, and so is his falsetto when he's showing the ladies how to sing), followed by Music and the Spoken Word, followed by Conference. Analee worked on her Conference packet, and I took notes in my copy of James E. Talmage's Jesus the Christ.

It was a unique experience being able to hear from three new apostles during this session.

Seth and I both noted how President Monson started his talk out strong, but started relying on the sturdiness of the pulpit the further in he got. I actually closed my eyes during the latter part of his talk and prayed he'd have the strength to finish. Seth said he offered a silent prayer as well. We noticed the screen showed that as soon as the prophet said, "Amen," the video cut to an extra wide shot of the whole Conference Center. In person, we saw President Uchtdorf and President Monson's helper (bodyguard?) quickly step in and take him by both arms back to his seat.

Despite the ailments of age and his decrease in physical strength, the Spirit testified to me that Thomas S. Monson is still a prophet of God and as spiritually strong as ever.

The rest of Conference continued without a hitch, and we went straight from Temple Square to our van and drove the rest of the way home.

To see more pictures of our trip, start here.

Star Wars party

Considering Star Wars is the best thing ever, I consider it a tragedy that I didn't put more effort into my ensemble for the public library's Star Wars party. But alas, between shuttling a girl to a friend's birthday party, picking up prizes for the elementary school's raffle and dropping off a photo CD at someone's house, I didn't have time to make ears or find a walking stick. So I just wore my Yoda shirt.

But my girls were Star Wars-ified and fabulous!

Winnie as Wicket the Ewok. She was so dang cute, a random lady asked to take her picture.

Miriam as Princess Leia.

Rebekah as R2D2. She worked very hard to make that mask out of cardboard, tape and paint.

Analee as a stormtrooper. "Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?"

After eating snacks, playing Hoth freeze tag and making pool noodle light sabers, we posed for some photos.

At least Seth and I had T-shirts that fit in with the theme, right?

Gwenism #11

While listening to a Disney Classic CD in the van.

CD: "There may be something there that wasn't there before."
Gwen: What was there?
Andrea: Something that wasn't there before.
Gwen: Hm. (Thinks about it for a minute.) Maybe bugs were there.

Mishaps

It started with breakfast on Friday.

I opened the cupboard door to get out the cereal bowls when Analee's hot chocolate mug fell from the top shelf. It smashed into the counter. A shard flew up. It cut my left wrist. I exclaimed, "Dangit! Dangit! Dangit!" as I pushed the gaping cut back together and asked Seth to gauze/tape it up.

I sported the gauze and tape to the FAME meeting I was in charge of, then drove to Redicare to get three stitches.

I made it a point to turn away during the shots/sewing.

The downsides? I have three stitches in my wrist. It hurt a lot. I couldn't play volleyball today.

The upsides? I get to sport some of the super cute Scrabble Band-Aids I bought the other day. (My current one says "OWIE.") It doesn't hurt nearly as much any more.

The second mishap of this two-part series happened Sunday. Seth had barely left for Island Park to spend a week hunting. The girls and I walked over to my parents' house to visit. The girls were sliding around on their hardwood floors in slippery socks (they call it "ice skating") when I heard a loud bang. I turned in alarm to see Analee holding her face and crying. She had a bloody nose. And a good chunk of her front tooth was missing.

Her big, beautiful front tooth. A permanent tooth.

 See the tear running down her cheek? Poor girl.

After getting the other girls off to the school bus the next morning and dropping Winnie off with my dad, I drove Analee in to the dentist to see what we could do to fix it. They were so good to squeeze us in, and everybody was so sweet to Analee.

She's now sporting a big filling on that tooth, and you'd never know it from looking at her.

The downsides? She won't be able to bite into an apple for fear of pulling the filling off. Both her front teeth could "fail" (dentist talk for "die," I learned). She made need a root canal or two in the future.

The upsides? Even though the nerve of that tooth was exposed for a good 12 hours, she said it didn't hurt that badly. She got to keep her "space nose" from the happy gas. She got a balloon AND a prize.

The moral of the story: Keep us Grovers away from anything remotely dangerous. Like cupboards. And floors.

On second thought, roll us up in a mile of bubble wrap or give each of us a giant plastic ball to roll around in.

We're all Fancy Nancies

Whenever I dress up with the kids and park the car in the library parking lot, I feel a little panicky. "The themed party is really today, right? What if I got the time/date wrong? I'll look ridiculous going into the library like this."

I think that's how Seth felt today going to the library's Fancy Nancy party. But times 100.

Don't believe me? We took photos at the house before going to the library.

 

 

What a manly man, Seth is. As his wife, I can assure you that he has never worn women's clothes before. But when the library said, "We're having a Fancy Nancy party!" our girls said, "Great! We love Fancy Nancy! We'll dress up in all our fancy clothes!" and Seth said, "Super! I'll join the party!"

So go to the library we did. And good times we had.

Although Miriam kept giving Seth this look while waiting for the party to start.

Rebekah's colorful hair. Aunt Jessica told her minutes before we left for the party that you can use washable markers in your hair. She went to town.

Analee working on her project.

Miriam's acrostic with fancy words.

Winnie's fancy box.

Posing with fancy props.

Posing in fancy poses.

While I was helping Winnie with her craft, I spied Miriam teaching Seth how to scarf dance. It was a hoot.

After the party, Seth rubbed off the makeup and changed back to his own clothes. And he spent the rest of the afternoon mowing the lawn, changing the oil in the generator, irrigating the lawn and using a heat gun to remove the tinting from his truck's windows. You know, manly things.

So I guess Miriam's pre-party lunch prayer was answered: "Please help us remember that Dad is not a girl."

Wild Things party

As mentioned before, the library has some awesome parties. And apparently, I forgot to blog about this one last month.

The girls make-upped/masked themselves as various wild things, and the Wilde cousins joined us for a wild rumpus.

The girls love this book. We have Seth's copy from when he was a kid.

Miriam posing as a wild thing before story time.

Rebekah and Analee with their makeup. Ana made sure I thought the "blood" wouldn't be too scary for the little kids.

Winnie was our Max, or "Maxine," as I called her.

Miriam and Cooper playing "Max Says."

Rebekah, Hudson, Miriam, Winnie, Kelsey, Cooper and Analee as Wild Things and Maxes.

State fair

We treated the girls to some fair fare (gyros, cheeseburgers, fries, hot dogs, corn dogs, cotton candy, ice cream, snow cones) and enjoyed seeing the animals.

Winnie and Grandma Susan looking at bunnies. Grandpa is in Alaska, so we thought we'd ask Grandma to come along with us.

Miriam "milking" the "cow."

Analee, Winnie and Seth checking out the pigs.

Seth helping Winnie reach the baby pony. Her arms were too short to reach through the fence to pet it.

Rebekah petting the pig.

Miriam and the goats.

Fall Creek Falls

For Labor Day, we didn't go to hunting camp. We didn't go to the fair. But because everyone had the day off, we decided we should do something fun. I wanted to hike the 0.7 miles in to Fall Creek Falls. We never found the trailhead (Anyone know where it is?), but we found the falls regardless.

This picture shows how each of the girls felt about the falls. Winnie was totally unconcerned. She lacks a healthy fear of falling. Rebekah was terrified. Miriam was worried coming down the steep path to them. Analee was nonplussed. 

 It was a beautiful view, but we couldn't get the full picture from the top like this. I still hope to find the trailhead someday.

After driving to Palisades Dam and goofing off there for a while (Rebekah was scared it would break, so she tiptoed along the top. Seth was teasing her by stomping on it.), we went back to Swan Valley for square ice cream.

Seth: cookie dough. Analee: Play-Doh. Miriam: Play-Doh. Rebekah: Peanut butter. Gwendolen: bubble gum. Andrea (not pictured): lemon custard.

Gwenism #10

While looking at photos of insects on display at the Eastern Idaho State Fair.

Gwen: That looks like a worm.
Andrea: It's like a worm, but it has legs. It's called a millipede.
Gwen: No, it's called an L-M-N-O-pede.

School starts

When did my girls get so big?

Rebekah the 5th grader. She has Mrs. Campbell this year.

Analee the 3rd grader. She has Mrs. Martin.

Miriam the kindergartener. She has Mrs. Schuster.

Miriam's puppy backpack. She claims the puppies on the back are named Chocolate and Vanilla.

Showing off their new sneaks.

My three school-going gals.

It's a little weird just having Winnie with me in the mornings. When we went to story time at the public library this week, I kept trying to find my second child. Of course, she was busy writing 4s and Ds at school.

The big girls rode the bus to school the first day, but I dropped Miriam off so we could get these photos:

Getting her name tag in front of the school where the kindergarteners are dropped off the first week.

Mrs. Schuster with her morning class. (Miriam's the one at the far end.) 

Waving goodbye before going inside the building.

Hunting camp the first

Last weekend we visited hunting camp and helped with some of the setup. Of course, there was also a fair amount of four-wheeling, fork melting, BB shooting, snack eating, dutch ovening and other shenanigans. It was fun to play with Calvin and Lily (visiting from Boston), the Papworth cousins and the Wilde cousins.

Our girls get BB guns when they turn 8, so since Miriam is still 5, she borrowed Rebekah's gun to shoot at pop cans.

Rebekah taking her fork melting very seriously.

Mack pretending to be lassoed for Winnie's entertainment.

Analee posing on one of her cousin's four-wheelers.

Until next time, hunting camp!

To see more pictures, start here.

To my daughters

As our family walked along the beach of Lake Yellowstone and explored, I had the time to reflect on what a blessing it is to be a mother. Each of our girls is a special spirit, and it is a privilege to be their temporary steward. It was then I got the idea of writing an open letter to all four of them, telling each one thing I love about them right now.


Rebekah,

As the oldest child, you have responsibility thrust on your shoulders. We often ask you to fetch a child from the yard for lunchtime or to help someone get her shoes on. But even when you're not fulfilling a parental request, you exude authority. It's not surprising that toddlers seek you out for help finding a friend or that your younger cousins come to you when they want help getting on a swing. You are a helpful and responsible young lady. I can trust you to watch over your little sisters even when I haven't asked you to. I've come to rely on you for so many things this summer that I'm a little afraid of what it will be like when you head back to school next week.


Analee, 

I hope you never lose your ability to see things through fresh eyes. So many times I have heard you express appreciation for the area in which we live or the places we visit. "We're so lucky to live in Idaho Falls so we can walk the greenbelt." "It's so fun coming to Yellowstone. It's so beautiful here." "I'm glad we live in our neighborhood." Your gratitude is refreshing in a world where people take simple things for granted or have an attitude of entitlement. Yes, we do live in a beautiful area; it's just a small part of a beautiful world that God has made for us. My wish for you is that you'll be able to see many parts of the world and appreciate the beauty in all of them.


Miriam,

You have an imagination that rivals inventors, authors and scientists. Whether you're playing with Polly Pockets in your bedroom or sticks in the yard, you can create whole worlds. As you start kindergarten and encounter so many new people and ideas, I understand that you'll need to conform to behavioral standards, but I hope you can retain your ability to keep your mind free and open to new ideas. You are incredibly bright and vivacious. May you continue to find the fun in all situations, no matter how mundane.


Gwendolen,

You still have so much growing to do, and we have a lot to learn about the person you are. But it's already obvious that you have a love of words. You've proved that your vocabulary is expansive for your age, and your love of books will help it continue to expand. If you're feeling sad, you want me to read you a book. When you go to bed, you have to have a book. Even though you have years to go before you enter public schooling, you know exactly where the library is at Fairview, and it's your favorite place in the entire building. I hope your thirst for words is never satiated.


To all four girls,

Your parents love you so much. We see a glimpse of your potential and are overwhelmed by the possibilities your lives have. We know that, with your continued education — both spiritual and temporal — you will be an asset in the world and help others see the good in themselves. Thank you for sharing your personalities with us.