Life after vacation

So, if you've been counting, we have been back from our trip, which 5 of the last 6 most recent posts have been about, for 3 months. Here is what we've been up to in that time...

Our ward boundaries changed. We've made some new friends!

Thomas got me flowers:

Peruvian Lillies

Progress continues at the Provo Tabernacle/Provo City Center Temple:

On the ground are the 4 tower roofs...

Thomas did another day of filming. Filming ended for the year.

We saw the play Xanadu:

At a party hosted by my employer, Thomas came in third place in bowling. All 3 top scores were by employees' spouses.

I started my last semester at BYU!! I am taking 4 classes but they are upper-level courses and a couple of them are pretty challenging. I am currently working on some really awesome projects though, and I am truly grateful to be at such a wonderful school, where my faith is strengthened, not mocked, and where aspiring to be a wife and mother is still considered by many to be a worthwhile endeavor.

• Within a couple weeks I will be calling on anyone who reads this blog (and friends/family that do not) to participate in a family life education course (it's free & online) I am building with some classmates. It is for an assignment and I think you will find our treatment of the subject matter beneficial!! Stay tuned.

We got new neighbors. The ones upstairs are related to some of my friends back home!

Thomas' dad visited us a few times. Here are some pictures from his visits:

We made sweet & sour chicken with fried rice

Jeff took us & Samuel to Gloria's Little Italy.

On a walk, we saw the apartment complex where Jeff & Kathleen lived early in their marriage.

It is just down the street from where I lived when we were dating! Arcadia has a new sign.

On another visit, Jeff treated us to dinner at Banana Leaf. It is a Sri Lankan and Singaporean restaurant that opened about a year ago. It is in an old converted house on University Avenue. We loved it! Beautiful decor and plenty of delicious food.

Everything is served on actual banana leaves!

We ordered a party combination (the "Magical Kondatum") and got to sample quite a few different dishes! It was all delicious. And we had a lot of leftovers.

One of his trips was for the Temple On Mount Zion Conference in September. You can see his presentation here. This was the second meeting of this conference, where LDS scholars present research related to temples. Topics range from Old Testament connections to symbolism in current temple architecture.

We went to the Brigham City Temple dedication (broadcast to our stake center).

We went to a regional stake conference (broadcast) where Elder Dallin H. Oaks spoke.

We watched General Conference, where we listened to inspiring addresses from the current President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and sustained Prophet, Seer, and Revelator Thomas S. Monson (including exciting news about missionary service!). If you are interested in finding out what an authorized servant of Jesus Christ and true prophet has to say to us right now, you can watch/listen/read here:

• Consider the Blessings
• See Others as They May Become

We went to Megan's house for a Roommate Reunion:

We lived together in Arcadia 1 my first year in Utah. One other roommate moved in for a short time after Trista got married but she lives out of state now.

We cooked:

Lasagna with zucchini & onions inside

Sweet & sour shrimp

Cheesecake brownies. Easy and delicious.

 We explored:

We helped out at the ward Halloween party:

We carved pumpkins for Halloween:

We went to the eye doctor and ordered new glasses.

We went mini-golfing again with some friends:

Anyway, life is good -- albeit busy -- and we are looking forward to the upcoming holidays. I will graduate just before Christmas and then we will see where life takes us.

oxox

LDS History Tour (part 5)

This is the fifth and final post about our 2-week LDS Church History Tour trip in July of this year. We really had a blast, and if you would like to learn more about our trip and see lots of pictures, you can find the other posts here:

1. Days 0-2: Manchester, NH to Palmyra, NY
2. Days 3-4: Palmyra, NY to Nauvoo, IL
3. Days 5-7: Nauvoo, IL and surrounding area
4. Days 8-11: Nauvoo, IL to Doniphan, MO to Kansas City, MO and surrounding area

 The last three days of our trip, (12-14) we covered a lot of miles as we drove back to Utah from Missouri.

First, we headed north into Iowa again to see the Kanesville Tabernacle, a replica of the original tabernacle where Brigham Young was sustained as the second President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1847 in Council Bluffs.

I think the missionaries said that about 1000 people were present when President Brigham Young was sustained. It must have been a tight fit!

A neat little trio of portraits of Brigham Young and his counselors, Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards.

Statues depicting the new First Presidency outside the tabernacle.

I was really excited to watch the video presented in the Visitors' Center next door: it detailed the travels of the Mormon Battalion, including discussion about the Mormon Emigrant Trail and the establishment of Pleasant Valley, named by Henry Bigler. I grew up in the Pleasant Valley ward! In fact, I participated in a commemorative pioneer trek that began at Tragedy Spring, also mentioned in the video.

After this stop, we headed west into:

We stopped for a quick look around the Winter Quarters Temple:

Behind the temple is a pioneer cemetery. We walked around there a little bit, and Thomas snapped some pictures of this statue he likes a lot:

We went into the Mormon Trail Center briefly. I don't remember the story behind this artwork, and this is the only picture we got of it:

After this stop, we headed to Lincoln, where we met up with some friends of the Bradshaw family. We continued on our journey the next day after staying in North Platte for the night.

Here are some of the things we saw the next day:

Court House Rock

The Platte River

Chimney Rock. Couldn't get very close to it; this picture was taken with a very good lens.

We had to go back to snap a picture of the Wyoming sign:

We walked around the wagon ruts at Guernsey State Park:

Then we checked out the nearby Register Cliff:

After what seemed like forever in the car, we made it to Independence Rock (which, honestly, is like a glorified rest area... and not even as fancy as some we saw further east. There's lots of parking, some bathrooms, some informational signs, and the rock...):

The sign here in front talked about how at different periods in time, there have been different standards of preservation. While it used to be that anybody could put up a little plaque on the rock, they don't allow that now.

We briefly saw Martin's Cove and Devil's Gate:

Coming up on Devil's Gate

Entrance to Martin's Cove

Devil's Gate from its better side (photographically)

We were so hungry, though, by this time, that we just got out of the car, took a few pictures, and continued on our way.

It's very faint, but there is a rainbow beyond that profile :o)

We had to laugh when in Rawlins, WY, where we stopped for the night, our grocery store checker was "Jesus C"...

We drove to Rock Springs, WY for church the next morning. The people in the ward we visited were so nice. We felt so welcome, and almost everyone we talked to asked, hopefully, if we were new in the area. While it's nice to live somewhere where the church is strong, it would also be nice to live somewhere with fewer members just to feel "needed" :o)

Maiden name!

We thought the church was a high school or something at first, until we saw the steeple...

Afterward, we headed to the cabin in Utah.

Random cool rock formations

"Judgment Day, May 21, 2011" -- um... nope! And anyway, "Of that day and hour knoweth no man..." But here is some information about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and what we can do to be ready for it!

The red rocks of Utah...

We fed the hummingbirds at the cabin

This little guy chased all of the other ones away, though :o(

We spent the last day of our trip at the cabin before we had to get back to the real world of work and responsibility. Although it at times felt like a whirlwind trip, it was nice to get away from our routines and see so many cool things together. If you ever want to try a similar journey and need help planning it out, we can share some information with you! One of the best parts about seeing so many Church-owned sites is that it's free to do so. You don't have to pay any fees to see the replicas of buildings or walk through the visitors' centers -- the tithing contributions of church members pay for them, among other things, and the "staff" is made up of mostly missionaries who are not paid to be there.

oxox