First Tooth

Khora finally lost her first tooth!  What an adorable smile!!  Isn't she beautiful!

Trek 2014

Jacob was able to have a wonderful trek experience this year.  Our stake went to Martin's Cove June 11-14th, 2014. The only negative experience was the wind and the issues with the bus breaking down.

Jacob was one of three boys in his family group.  His Ma and Pa were Brother and Sister Barnes.  They were the best parents!! The best part was doing the Hokey Pokey! It was a little tradition that there family had.  After everything was loaded and ready to go they did the hokey pokey.

For FHE Jacob shared some experiences with us that he had.  It was very spiritual for him and he felt the spirit.  He even took the opportunity to bear his testimony not only on trek but to our family.  It was a great experience.

Taylor's Farm

Afton's 4H group went on a field trip out to the Taylor farm Thursday night. I drove with them out to Genola and brought Khora and Bonnie with us. The Taylor's just started raising some mini herefords about a year ago and he was giving us the rundown on showing and raising these smaller sized cows. They got them for their grandchildren to show, since they aren't as intimidating. Apparently they are more docile and even tempered and you can raise 3 of them for the same price as 1 regular sized hereford.  But he said when it comes to selling them there is only about a 10% difference in price. He bought some Dexter's (some black cows) to use as segregate mothers while they were building up their herd. So these $800 cows could have $1,500 calf's. It was interesting! We loved it out there!  You should have seen Bonnie, that girl was in heaven! She got to sit on top of one of the cows they were showing us and thought that was pretty neat! They were feeding a cow some hay and one of them licked her hand with its really long tongue.  She wasn't too sure she like that though. On the ride home the girls and I were fantasizing about living out there with just enough space and land for horses and chickens and a dog! And then if there was a little fishing pond close enough Isaac would be in as well.  I was actually getting really excited about it.  Their farm was beautiful! A girl can dream.  You can take the girl out of the country but you can't take the country out of the girl.

These miniature herefords are very gentle by nature.

Just the right size for this little cow girl!

These guys won't get much taller than this just wider.  These girls were 1-2 years old.

Feeding regular sized hereford cows.  This one had a small calf.  He was a little shy.

Bonnie loved feeding them. . . until she got slimmed by her big tongue.

At 2 years they are required to put a ring in the bull's nose so they can control them.

The big guy! Regular size hereford.

Beautiful day at the farm.

Khora's Day

Khora turned 7 years old this year.  She is a beautiful, sweet, tenderhearted, funny, intense girl! I love watching her develop her talents and skills.  She has become quite the reader over the past year.  She has discovered that she has an amazing talent for gymnastics and tumbling.  She is the peacemaker and likes to make people laugh. She can get pretty intense at times, and is a very sweet thoughtful girl as well.  Her best friends are her sisters.  We love Khora so much and are so glad that she is a part of our family.

Afton wanted to make Khora cupcakes.  She did a great job all by herself.  They were yummy.  Happy birthday Khora!!

Birthday Girls

Afton and Bonnie celebrated their birthdays on May 16th. We had a fun day celebrating with these two beautiful girls.  Dennis and I went out with them to eat at the Cracker Barrel.  They both really enjoyed our birthday date together.  Afton had to wait all day for her birthday present to be delivered, but was pretty excited when it finally got here.  She got a kindle fire.

One of Bonnie's Favorite treats are Smarties.  She was thrilled when she found these giant ones!  Afton used her birthday money to buy this dalmatian BeenieBoo. She already has quite the collection.

Two birthday girls.  They both got tiarra's to wear for their birthday.  Love being a princess!

Bonnie's new bike!  We decked it out with a bell and a basket.

Boys actually photo-bombed this one!  Guess the girls couldn't have all the fun.

My Girls!

The Phoenix City

Dennis and I went on our anniversary trip the last week in April. It was the location of the national APA conference this year.  I've never been anywhere near the south so I was very excited for this trip! We got into Atlanta on Friday night around 10:30pm.  We took a shuttle directly to the hotel because it was so late. We stayed at the double tree downtown.  They were doing a bit of remodeling inside, and it smelled like fresh paint.  The style reminded me of the 70's with the green carpet (yes it was new) and the geographic shapes.  I kept thinking about the show Three's Company for some reason.  Dennis and I had breakfast there every morning.  They had a guy there that would make omelets right in front of you. I liked sleeping in.

On Saturday Dennis had to check in at the conference, so we headed to the conference center which was also where our 3 hour bus tour of the city began. My first impression . . . I would never want to live here.  The guide on our tour kept mentioning that Atlanta is like a phoenix, born from the ashes over and over again.  That is probably the best description that I could give.  The old buildings are gone, there is not any patriotism for the city, and nothing before the 1960’s is mentioned in any kind of positive tone. “Old” is from the 1920’s. Apparently all the history including the Martin Luther King monument is in the “bad” part of town where we were told to not even go to at night. 

One statistic given to describe the city that I remembered, 1 in 4 people that live here moved in after 2004. I find the lack of accent disappointing, but I guess that is explained by this statistic. The other statistic was that Atlanta has the highest Gay and Lesbian ratio per-capita in the nation. Hmmm.

We both really enjoyed our time there. I had a really fun tour buddy, Shauna Eccles. I actually met her at the APA conference in Boston a couple years ago.  She was so much fun to go around with.  I thought it was so funny that she touched everything.  She even made an alarm of some kind go off in the civil war museum, totally unaware of what she did. haha!   I later found out that she is color blind, which explained it. We were able to go around and visit places while our hubbies were in their meetings. We walked a lot!! Thank goodness for the rail system.  We used it all the time to get around.  It took me a little while to get my bearing but once I did it was no big deal.  We stood out quite a bit but it didn't really bother us at all.

These steps were so deep.  We actually saw people working out on the stationary stairs in the middle! 

1. The Swan House

This beautiful mansion was one of my favorite places to visit.  It was gorgeous!  It's called the Swan house because the swan is a running theme throughout the grounds and house. We learned that it was also the location of some filming for the movie The Hunger Games.  

Swan House, traditionally known as one of the most recognized and photographed landmarks in Atlanta, is an elegant, classically styled mansion built in 1928 for the Edward H. Inman family, heirs to a cotton brokerage fortune. The mansion, designed by famed Atlanta architect Philip Trammell Shutze, provides a glimpse into the lifestyle of this Atlanta family during the 1920s and 1930s. 

The main house was amazing and we also enjoying walking around several gardens with fountains, and breathtaking views on the Swan House grounds. There was also an interesting play house near the mansion completely furnished with electricity, wallpaper and glass windows that reminded me, at least in size, of the pioneer homes here in Utah.  Another play house in the park included a little kitty door for the family cat.

2. The Smith House

This was another house in the park representing the farmers.  It included several out building and barns. Everything needed to run a small farm. This was also where my camera battery died and it  was only then that I realized that I had left my charger and spare battery at home . . .  charging!  Grrrr!!  Luckily Dennis and Shauna had their phones and shared their pictures with me for the rest of our trip.

3. Parks and Art

My brother in law said that Atlanta comes in 50th, dead last, for the amount of money spent on arts.  Another fun fact although not too flattering.

The Olympic park was just a block away from our hotel so we walked there quite often. The 1996 Olympics played a very prominent part of our Atlanta experience.  There was a fun fountain pad and place for entertainment in the middle of the park.  The first day we were there they had a march of dimes marathon so it was packed!  We also noticed on all of our walking around that there were lots of these dolphin statues placed around the city. I found out that the city had 50 uniquely painted statues all around the city made for the opening of the Aquarium and called it the dolphin parade.

4. Georgia Aquarium

There were several main attractions in Atlanta including the Coco-Cola company and CNN.  We didn't have time to tour either of those places like we would have liked but we did make it to the Aquarium.  I really enjoyed it because it wasn't very crowded.  They had a pretty nice dolphin show that was kind of like a play and catered to younger audiences.  I loved sitting at the wall of the coral reef exhibit.  I told Dennis that I wanted to include one of those in my dream house!

There was also a 4D kids cartoon about saving the ocean and then a dangerous creatures exhibit that was a lot like the Human Bodies  exhibit that came to Salt lake. Several  oceanic creatures had been dissected and then turned into some kind of plastic.  Very cool, but a little weird too.   

5. Atlanta History Center

This building housed about 5 different exhibitions.  A very impressive Civil War museum, the Atlanta Olympics, Indians, Art, and textiles from the south.

6. Food

We heard from another planner in our group that the Atlanta tour is also know as the eating tour.  We had several new tasting experience while out there!  I tried fried pickles, okra and green tomatoes.  My favorite place was called Patty's Porch.  It was an old house turned into a restaurant. As you walk into the seating area we watched the cook making biscuits as walked past the old man at the piano just playing away!  It had some yummy southern food complete with colared greens, biscuits, cornbread and blueberry muffins.  I really liked the Cajun mac and cheese but passed on trying the jellied watermelon rinds. It offered real southern hospitality for sure. Our waitress' name was Big Mamma "although I'm not big". It symbolized my vision of what I thought Georgia would be like.

On Dennis' birthday we went to the Cheesecake factory.  I told our group that it was his birthday. He was given a little birthday sundae, and took his cheesecake home to eat.


7. Margaret Mitchell

One of the things I was looking forward to was going to the Margaret Mitchell house. She was the author of the book Gone with the Wind.  I had actually watched a American Masters episode called American Rebel.  It was a biography about her life. She was asked once about the characters in her book and she said that she wrote about those who had gumption and those who didn't.  It is the 75th anniversary of the movie so they had some fun movie displays as well. Our tour was given by this adorable girl with a beautiful southern accent. When we comment on it she said, "but not redneck right?"  She said that she was from farther south.


8. Atlanta Temple

Atlanta Temple

9. Tornado Warnings
While we were there Alabama was hammered with tornadoes.  There were lots of warnings on the news and I admit I was a bit worried about it.  But the next day all I witnessed of it was a few small twigs on the side walk.  We had a lot of rain while we were there and on Sunday it came down in sheets.  I actually loved the humidity even if it made me look like drowned rat.

10. There's no place like home!

Phase 2 and Politics Week

We have been taking it easy during our last phase of our spring break.  We have enjoyed the beautiful weather so much.  These are some of my favorite days of the entire year.  No more heater running during the day and very little if at all at night.  I love having the windows open, airing things out and the purely delightful cool evenings!




Today I spent half of the day in Orem for the Utah County Republican nominating conference.  It was a very educational experience for me.  I admit that I was a bit nervous when I left this morning, not knowing a thing about what I was doing. I had what homework I could on my own because they entered my email in they system wrong.  But either way,  I managed to get there and sign in and get my credentials by myself. Not soon after that, I gratefully I ran into a girl that I know from Santaquin.  She's done this a couple times and she was so nice to let me go around with her.  She taught me her system of going through the fliers and collecting swag.  I met a lot of the candidates and even shook Mia Loves hand!

I feel like being a delegate is the perfect opportunity for someone like me who doesn't have political aspirations necessarily, but still wants to have a voice!  And the candidates definitely want to hear what the delegates think!! I learned how important it is to be involved at the grass roots level.

It was a long day, and it looks like most of the seats are going to go to primaries this June.