Solar Eclipse

Sunday, May 20, was the second cool astronomical event of the month! There was a solar eclipse, which was conveniently best viewed in Utah!

Ryan and I made an eclipse viewer with aluminum foil and a cereal box. We were pretty excited about how well it worked! We were at Rara & Papa’s for dinner, so we went outside there to use our eclipse viewer. Their next-door neighbors were outside (including their two college student kids), with the eclipse viewers from Clark Planetarium. We had a lot of fun passing around our different ways to view the eclipse.

It was so cool! Here is an article about it from National Geographic, and here is one from Space.com.

Here are a couple of cool pictures from these websites:

As we went back into Rara & Papa’s house, the eclipse was obvious as the sunlight came through the front windows. It created several crescents in the beveled glass. It was beautiful!

Fathers & Sons and Boondocks

Our stake Fathers & Sons outing was at Willard Bay on May 18-May 19. Papa took Ryan up for the evening. They enjoyed talking and playing games with good friends there. Our bishop and his family have a side business making incredible Dutch oven meals. They did the dinner Friday night, which sounds like it was amazing.

We always have several families offer to have Ryan stay overnight with them. We had planned for him to stay with one friend, his dad, and his two brothers. But then Ryan’s student council ended up having their end-of-year party Saturday morning, so Ryan and Papa both came home Friday night.

Saturday morning Ryan went to Boondocks with the student council (8 girls, 1 other boy), their teacher/advisor, and the assistant principal. Ryan loves those two adults, and they have been so great to give him so many leadership opportunities this year. They had a great time together celebrating their accomplishments and friendships the past year.

Super Moon

The moon on Saturday, May 5, 2012 was dubbed a “super moon,” the closest and therefore the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. At 11:34 p.m., the moon will be about 221,802 miles from Earth. That's about 15,300 miles closer than average (from this article). Of course, we had to go check it out!

It was a beautiful view from our house, but we decided to drive the few minutes to the Bountiful Temple to take pictures there. So did half of Bountiful. We found our spot in a vacant lot just west of the temple, chatted with others there, and took some pictures.

Most of the other people were there for the night. They all said that they wanted to wait until the moon lined up with the Angel Moroni. Since my new deacon was passing the sacrament (and collecting fast offerings) for the first time the next day – at 9:00 am – we decided to take a few pictures and then call it a night.

Here are some AMAZING professional photos of the “super moon” from famous landmarks around the world (from this article). Obviously I do not have the same camera lens.

Ryan’s 12th Birthday

Ryan had a pretty hectic birthday!  He had a student council meeting before school, so he got up bright and early to get ready and be there on time.  He took birthday doughnuts to share with the student council.

I mentioned in this post that he gave his 7^th grade officer speech right after lunch.

Toward the end of the school day (after the speeches and voting), I took donuts for his class.  I was hoping that they’d announce the winner of the 7^th grade officer campaign while I was there.  As I was getting ready to leave, the teachers called together all of the candidates to tell them the results.  It was my carpool day, so I decided to just go and read in the car until the school day ended.

One of Ryan’s friends came up the stairs toward me first.  He let me know that another girl had won.  This girl has been one of Ryan’s good friends over the years, and will be great as an officer.  But that doesn’t make the disappointment any easier.  Ryan came out to the car and was very upset.  Once we dropped off the other kids, we talked it through.  He has an interest in trying out for many of the school sports teams next year.  When we met with his junior high counselor and told her he was running, she made a comment about how difficult it is to participate in sports when you have so many after school responsibilities as an officer.  After our discussion, he decided it was ok that he didn’t win.

Ryan’s only birthday request has been a cell phone.  I have gone back and forth about it, to be honest.  But he is involved in so many things, especially during the summer, that I think it will actually be easier for both of us if he has one.  The new Android phone was released today.  No, he didn’t get one.  But representatives were there with balloons and gift bags full of stuff.  We mentioned that we were there to get a phone for his birthday, and they gave him one of the gift bags, too!  You know I love free things!

That evening, we picked up Rara and Papa and went to Ryan’s favorite restaurant – Brick Oven.  We ALL love Brick Oven!  (And…speaking of free…we got his birthday meal free.  Yea!)  Ryan enjoyed the attention of having the cute waitresses sing to him. And that dessert!  Good thing they brought four spoons!

Ryan also decided that he wanted to go to scouts one last time before moving up.  They have a campout this weekend and were going shopping for the trip.  The leaders told Ryan that he could choose all of the food for the campout, since it would be his last one with the group.  How could he resist?

At the end of the day, Ryan reported that even though there was the initial disappointment of losing the election, it ended up to be a great birthday!

“Birthday Suit” Shopping and Temple Square

Over the past year, Rara, Papa & I have bought THREE different suits for Ryan! He is growing so fast that he quickly outgrows them! It is also hard to find one “off the rack” that fits, since his chest and shoulders are so broad from swimming. Since he is turning 12 in a couple of weeks and will be a deacon, I really wanted to find something that looked nice and fit him well. I finally decided that we needed to just go to Mr. Mac and have him measured by the pros. There, they could tailor a suit to his size now, and take it out when he outgrows it (like, next month!).

We were well taken-care-of at Mr. Mac. Ryan tried on five different jackets and three different pair of pants. I won’t embarrass him by posting the size we finally ended up with, but let’s just say it wouldn’t be one you’d expect to purchase for an 11-year-old! It is a stunning black suit. Ryan picked out a (tasteful) purple & black striped tie to go with it. We left the suit there for the alterations, and will pick it up next Friday.

We had fun walking around City Creek again. When we finished there, we went to Temple Square. We always go for the lights at Christmas time, but it has been a few years since we went to the Visitor’s Center. Mom had told us about a couple of the neat new displays, so we went to check them out. We had a lot of fun!

General Conference Weekend/City Creek Center

On Saturday, March 31, Papa took Ryan to his very first General Priesthood Meeting – in the Conference Center! Marc was able to get tickets and gave them to Papa & Ryan so they could go together. Thanks, Marc! The guys looked so handsome as we left!
Rara & I dropped off Papa & Ryan at the Conference Center, and then we went to the new City Creek Center. This is the two-block shopping area that was the ZCMI Center and Crossroads Mall when I was growing up. It is BEAUTIFUL!






We went into Mr. Mac to look at suits for Ryan, and ran into my long-time friend, Marianne! We grew up in the same stake, and went to school together. She worked at Mr. Mac while she was in college, and they still call her back every once in a while, even though she is now a teacher. It was so great to see her and talk with her for a while! We’ve stayed in contact through Facebook, but I hadn’t seen her for years.

Rara & I walked around City Creek for a while, and then went into Deseret Book for their semi-annual “ladies night” (during Priesthood Meeting). We put our names in the drawing, and walked around for a while, then sat near the window display to listen for the winners of the drawing. As we were sitting there, someone walked in that I recognized. It was my former BYU roommate, Jody! I yelled at her (it was loud in the store). She turned around, and was so shocked to see me! Jody and I had also reconnected through Facebook, but I don’t think I’ve seen her since we were roommates! She lives in California, but had posted on Facebook that she & her husband were coming up for conference. I’m so glad she had posted that! Otherwise I would have doubted myself that it was really her!

Papa & Ryan met us at Deseret Book, and Jody was able to talk with Rara & Papa again, and met Ryan. Our family was also able to meet Jody’s husband, Will.
Rara, Papa, Ry & I walked around City Creek a little bit so the guys could see it.
We especially liked the fire & water fountain, choreographed to music by the same people who created the Bellagio fountain in Las Vegas.



What a fun evening we all had together!

Christmas Eve on Temple Square

Frances was on call on Christmas Eve, and, unfortunately, got called in to work…more than once. We had plans for dinner together, and then going to see the lights on Temple Square. She got called as we were getting ready to eat dinner.

We missed her at Temple Square! Here are a few pictures of our evening…

Candlelight Christmas at This is the Place State Park

On Friday, December 23, our whole family went to the Candlelight Christmas at This is the Place State Park. It was pretty cold, and almost everything was outside (and dark), so we bundled up!

We loved looking at real reindeer (apparently having a territory battle)…

We enjoyed listening to traditional Christmas stories by the hearth…
Made some crafts...

Watched a puppet show…

Danced…


LOVED the live nativity…


Had fun on the train…
And warmed up with hot chocolate at the hotel…
What a fun addition to our Christmas season!