Temple Celebration!

Whenever a new (or remodeled) LDS Temple is dedicated, the night before they have a "Cultural Celebration" and invite all the young women/young men of the temple district to participate.  It is a HUGE undertaking and a lot of work.  Just imagine trying to coordinate 4000 twelve to eighteen year olds in a dance production!  Crazy!

Ally was able to participate in our stake's dance "Harvest Celebration".  Isn't she a cute celebration girl?  She was really excited to participate in this once-in-a-lifetime event.  M. Russel Nelson and L. Tom Perry of the Twelve were in attendance that night.

I got the lucky opportunity to be a chaperone for the whole day.  That's right, from 6:00 am to 9:00 pm on September 22, I hung out with these girls (and a few boys from our ward, too).  So fun, but so exhausting!

Running on to the field to perform "Harvest of Faith".

They had a special dance that celebrated the Bird Refuge and Ally got to be in that as well.

She was "wind".

Between the dress rehearsal and the evening performance, Ally got interviewed by Carol Mikita from channel 5 news.  Unfortunately, they showed her interview on the five o'clock newscast while we were still at the celebration so we didn't get to see it. :(  She remembers saying that she was excited to dance for the temple and her Heavenly Father.

One of my favorite moments was when the entire 4000 kids were singing "I Love to See the Temple" and they all pointed towards the Brigham City Temple and sang "we love to see OUR temple". So touching.

This was Ally right in front of the official LDS camera man.  They broadcast the performance to the Stake Centers in the Temple District.  Unfortunately, because of copyright issues, they can't ever show the broadcast again.  Lame.  All those kids didn't get to see their performance. Kinda sad.

But it was definately something they will never forget and made them feel a bond with our Temple.  I'm so glad Ally and I got to participate!

Our Temple

For the past three years we have been anxiously awaiting the day that "our" temple would be completed.  It was such a wonderful surprise when President Monson announced the temple in Brigham City.  It has been so fun to be a part of the process and watch it grow.  It was always fun to see how things changed every time we went to Brigham.

Josh and I had the privledge to serve as ushers during the open house.  We got to work the opening shift together.  We started out on the Temple grounds, basically just standing there, directing people back to the buses.  Then Josh got moved to the hospitality center where he watched the video over and over and over and guided people to the next part of the tour.  Then they gave me the most wonderful job!  I got to open the doors for the visitors to enter the Temple.  I felt like I was welcoming them into "my" Temple!  It was so fun!  I was one of the few people who got that experience because the next day they replaced that job with a door stop!

Josh ended up doing almost the same thing every time he ushered-kinda funny.  He also got to do the closing night shift.  It was neat for him to be there opening morning and closing night.  My second shift was kind of...shall we say....not very fun.  I got stuck in the parking lot.  At first I was just directing people to the buses.  Then they needed help in the corner of the lot.  They told me they would switch me off, but they forgot about me. :(  I stood there directing cars in the August heat for 3 and a half hours.  I didn't even have a chair or some water.  But it was okay.  People were super nice and you could still feel the special spirit of the temple clear out there.

My last shift as an usher was my favorite.  At first they put me by the water fountain up front.  I basically became the official temple picture taker.  It was really fun!  Then they needed someone "young" ( I like that I still fit that category) to help with the wheelchairs.  I spent the next three hours kneeling on the floor washing wheelchair tires.  That sounds miserable, right?  Well, it wasn't.  It was such an amazing experience to be able to "wash people's feet" so they could enter the temple.  Simply wonderful.   Then for the last little bit I got to stand in the baptistry and direct the visitors where to go.  It was an exhausting day, and I was very sore the next day, but I loved it!

Here's the cornerstone.  They put a picture of every ward in the temple district in the cornerstone.  So our family is in the Temple!  Pretty special.  It really is "our" temple.

The bus ride.  We could only get a morning time to go to the open house so the kids got to miss part of school.  They loved riding the bus to the temple!

Too bad the sun was in our faces.  It was awesome to share this experience with my Mom and Dad.  What a blessing this temple has been for our family.  They took all the Young Women in the Temple District to see the beautiful bride's room.  They talked to them about the temple and I'm so glad Ally got to see it.  She can now picture what it will be like to be married in the Brigham City Temple!

Back to School!

Just imagine me singing "It's the most wonderful time of the year".  Only I'm not refering to Christmas, I'm refering to the first day of school!  Yup, the summer ended and they returned to the class room.  I remember the days when I missed them....just kidding.  I do miss them.

 Kinda.

Jensen is in 2nd Grade and has Mrs. Ensign.  He and Logan are in the same school for the first and only time ever.  It's nice having them be able to walk to the bus stop together.  We just had parent teacher conferences and he is doing great!

Logan is in 5th Grade and has Mrs. Singleton.  He is turning into such a character and knows his own style. He loves his new purple shirt.  He is also doing great in school.  I am a lucky Mom.

Ally is in 7th Grade and is on the Student Council-hence the ugly green shirt.  She wasn't too thrilled to have to wear it the first day.  But she is loving the Student Council.  She got selected as one of the two students to be a school representative for the Governing Youth Council.  They have monthly meetings with all the schools in the Bear River District to talk about drug, violence and smoking issues in schools.  She even gets paid!  Quite an honor to be chosen!

*Side Note: I got to help out with the student council on the first day of school, so I was sneaky and took a picture.  I helped with the Back to School Assembly.  I went and watched it and there was a talent section and they had Ally play the piano.  She played part of Beethoven's Turkish March and did awesome.  She did so good, the kids in the audience thought she was faking it!  Too funny!

 

This was my first time not going to parent teacher conferences with Ally.  We've reached the "optional" stage and I know she does great so I didn't go.  I kinda missed hearing how wonderful she is, though. :)  I'm glad I still get to hear it about my other kids. :)

Before you think I'm too full of pride about my kids, let me just remind you that Holden will be entering school at some point and he makes me nervous. If you've met him, you know what I'm talking about. ;)

 

Willy Wonka

I knew we weren't going to be able to do much this summer so I knew we would be around for Ally to be in Willy Wonka. Believe me, it was SUPER time consuming!  Because she was understudy for Violet, she had to go to twice as many practices.  In fact, she probably put more effort into this play than any other kid.  She was Matilda, in the Cooks Chorus and Violet.  No one else had that many parts.  She is such a trooper and I was proud of her.  It was really hard to be the understudy-all the work with none of the glory!  I was glad she got to perform as Violet a couple times though!  She was awesome!

"When it comes to candy, Willy's the conquerer."

She amazed me with her singing!  She used to hate to sing, but her newfound acting talent has brought out a whole new side of her. 

Cooks Chorus.  She can dance, too!

Violet Beauregarde

"Is this some kind of joke?  We'll be crushed!"

"That looks like gum!"

*side note: Ally hates gum!  She had to do some real acting for this role!

Solo time!

"I'll chew it 'til I'm dead!"

Violet the Blueberry.  So fun!

It was so fun to watch her shine on stage!  Such a "Proud Mommy Moment" for sure!

I have a gazillion pictures and I made her a book for her birthday.  It was such a neat experience.

She tried out for "A Christmas Carol-the musical" a couple weeks ago.  Of course she made it in!  They had more of an "open" audition process and we were able to listen some of the auditions. After watching a few, I leaned over and told her to just go for it all the way.  She did and she blew everyone away!  I'm so glad she has found something that makes her happy!

Our Summer

So the summer of 2012 was not the funnest summer we have ever had.  To make a long story short, owning an extra house that we didn't want, seriously cut into our ability to have fun.  We spent A LOT of time (and money) at the other house fixing it up after it had been trashed.  However, we are making it through it.  Thank heavens we pay our tithing-I know that's the main reason we have been able to make it through this trial.  Anyway, we didn't have funds for a lot of extras this year so it was a summer of staying home.  And the kids did surprisingly well!  I was proud of them.

Kool-Aid Stands-they love them and they learned it's all about location.  Grandma Braegger's house is the best spot it town.  They also got creative with their products.  Homemade sugar cookies, cotton candy and fun-da-middle cupcakes were all hot sellers.  And the Kool-Aid, of course.

We made a trip to Kangaroo Zoo.  Two hours of running, jumping and playing wore them out!

 

Just a cute picture of Holden.  Sunglasses and a "tie" shirt.

Of course there was baseball!  We love our baseball nights!  Logan was on the Orioles again this year.  It's so fun to watch him improve.  His team didn't have a very good season, but he still had a lot of fun playing and learned a lot.

Jensen was on the coach pitch Phillies team again.  He is such a good hitter and is going to be great when he gets to Little League.

 That's about it for pictures.  Pretty lame, I know.  Just ask the kids.  They will tell you it was a BORING summer.  I think they were actually kinda glad to go back to school!

The Fourth!

I'm not sure why, but I haven't been able to upload any pictures to my blog for a couple months.  So now it's working again. Yay!  That means I have a lot of catch up to do.  So now that it's October, how about a post about the Fourth of July?

I love the Fourth of July in our little town. It's seriously the best and it's alway such an enjoyable day. We were in Colorado last year on the fourth so we were extra excited to be at home this year. I think this was the first year that I wasn't on the Tramcor Truck for the parade. The kids were each doing something different in the parade so I decided to just take pictures this year.

Jensen wanted to decorate his bike and ride with the Primary kids.  I didn't realize how hard it is to put the crepe paper in the spokes, and the baloons lasted about five minutes, but he was happy and it looked great!

Logan was invited to ride on the Little League boat float.  They were weilding water guns and they knew how to use them.

Our Young Women also had a boat float, but Ally and her friend Emma decided to ride a tandem bike along side instead.  However, the Young Women also were weilding water guns and I was completely soaked by the end of the parade.  Love those girls!

Josh is NEVER on the Tramcor Truck for the parade.  So it was fun to see him and Bubby in the parade this year.  Holden had so much fun throwing candy at people.

Ally participated in the festivities at the town square.  Here she is fighting with a boy. ;)

She beat him, too.

Logan and Taden tried really hard to climb the greased pole to get some cash, but did not make it to the money.

Holden enjoyed riding the airplane ride this year.  Josh didn't enjoy helping out with the airplane ride though.  It was hot and some of the kids were heavy.

The water slide is always a hit.  Or at least it was until Holden landed in the water at the bottom.  Then he wasn't a fan.

Later in the day, we headed up to the East Park and watched the Little League game and then waited for the candy drop.  I'm not really sure what they were doing in this picture, but they were having fun.

Holden was screaming "It's the candyland (candy man)" when the airplane would fly overhead.  He was so excited!  I was a little nervous he was going to get trampled in the crowd, though.

After that, we hung around at the park waiting for the city fireworks show.  We normally watch the fireworks from my parents or Josh's parents houses, but we were already at the park so we decided to try something new.  It was way fun!

After the fireworks we headed to Josh's parents house to let off our own fireworks.  It was a long day, but so fun!

Here Fishy, Fishy

We had our annual fishing trip to the Uintahs the last week in June. The kids were so excited to go, and we had so much fun.  Holden was so excited to catch a fish, he could hardly contain himself! The Kotters (minus Gwen and Blake) were able to join us for the afternoon.  It wouldn't be the same without them!

As the parents, we spend 90% of the time fixing poles, bating hooks, untangling lines or casting poles, but it's worth it to see their excitement about catching a fish!

Ally and Katelyn.  Ally sure tried to catch a fish, but the fishing was kinda slow this year.  She got skunked.  Katelyn ended up with the biggest catch of the day, though!

Jensen caught the first fish!

Holden was SO happy to finally see a fish. He kept carrying it around and talking to it. And he called them "trouts" not fish-so cute. He didn't end up catching one, but he didn't care as long as he got to carry them around for a while.

Dad, Holden and Fish.  Does it get any cuter than this? I think not.

Okay.  Maybe this is cuter.  He was wrapping them up in a towel like a blanket and carrying them around.  So stinkin' funny! He was a little miffed when we gave the fish to the neighbors when we got home.  I think he would have been upset if we would have eaten them ourselves, though!

Logan pretending to fish on a stump.  I don't get it either...but we love him anyway. ;)

Josh and I didn't end up catching anything, but it was still an awesome afternoon.

We love fishing in the Uintahs!