Birthday Weekend

Jenna and I both have October birthdays, mine the 24th hers the 26th, so this year we had an extended birthday weekend. We began with mine on Friday, celebrated hers some on Sunday, and then had a party for her on Monday.

First, a few snaps from my celebration.

Before this first one, you should know that last year soon after High School Musical 2 premiered on the Disney Channel, I talked about it in a sermon -- specifically how I'm a dork because I liked both of the movies, and have watched them multiple times with my girls.

And HSM3 premiered in theaters on my birthday this year. So, one of the wives of a fellow staff member at church got me this for my birthday.

Very exciting!

Jenna made me several things, but this artistic rendering of her and me was a fave (one set for her, one for me):

Emily's home made certificate/objet d'art:

And new duds for Dad from Aunt LeAnne in Oklahoma:

The girls and Karen always approve of Aunt LeAnne's choices.

After a day of recuperation, we began Jenna's festivities, first with a present from the parents:

One from Pastor Dan and Miss Candi (it's kind of a kid version of a scrapbooking decorative cutting tool):

And Jenna's sisters made her a scrapbook of pictures of her and them through the years, along with commentary, encouragement, and silly captions on each page.

Jenna loves to go to the park just a few steps from our front door, but we don't let her go alone. Anya will occasionally go with her, but begrudgingly. So Anya gave Jen this highly valuable certificate:

And Jenna unwrapped her stylish outfit from Aunt LeAnne:

She had to wear it to church on her birthday, of course!

Monday brought her birthday party, with friends Hannah, Hannah, and Madelyn. We began by decorating our goody bags.

We made a quick trip to the Dollar store. Instead of gifts, each friend brought $3 and we went to the Dollar Store where they each picked out three things for Jenna, and had to tell her why they picked them for her when she received them later on at the party. Jenna also picked one thing for each of them that reminded her of them, and we added that to their goody bag.

Hannah picked this hat for Jenna, and Jenna had picked out the same hat for Madelyn!

After a few rounds of Hide the Beanie Babies, the girls ate homemade pizzas they put together themselves. Then it was time for candles on the cake. Uh, I think I caught Jenna off guard...And, the lovely birthday serenade:

After the cake, we played a couple of rounds of Mario Kart Wii, a kind of kart-racing video game. Hannah F was a Nascar Champion! She rocked the Kart!

Jenna and her friends...

Good times...good times...

And the parents weren't even that worn out!

Gardens, but not of the flower variety

We have this book called Utah Curiosities that lists interesting, cool, little-known, and sometimes just weird places throughout our glorious state. Last Saturday, we decided to hit a couple of those places in Salt Lake that we'd never visited. One I'd categorize as interesting, the other...at the very least, weird.

First, the odd ball.

Just a stone's throw from Trolley Square (you out of staters may remember Trolley Square from the mall shooting that occured there a little over a year ago), is a hidden spot in the backyard of several houses called Gilgal Garden. A guy named Thomas Child lived in one of the houses that borders this garden, and for years in the 40s-60s he brought in huge stones and created sculptures, all with some sort of religious theme. Now since this is Salt Lake City, most of that religious theme has to do with Mormonism.

Here we are perched in front of the sphinx:

"But wait," you say. "That doesn't look like the regular face of the sphinx, Rich."

Why yes, how very observant of you. And that's because, once again, we're not in Egypt, we're in Utah. And the face is?...Joseph Smith, of course. Founder of the Mormon church!

Can you imagine the time this guy put into sculpting and carving this? And this yard is full of stuff like this.

This one is some sort of monument to tradesmen, or masonry, or construction workers, or something. Note the guy's pants are brick. Very stylish. By the way, that's a self-portrait of Thomas Child, at least the head. I don't think he wore brick pants in real life.

A representation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the idol in the book of Daniel:

I know...kind of disconcerting. Body parts scattered on a small hillside in a backyard.

And that 's the thing. This is STILL in people's back yards. All the original homes still surround this. There's lots of other sculptures to examine, 12 in all, but here's one more:

And remember, he carved and assembled all these on his own over 50 years ago! The stack of books on the right is the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price (the last three are Mormon sacred writings, for you non-Utahns).

It was a memorable stroll. Odd, but memorable.

Next we headed a few miles west and just a little south to the International Peace Garden. This was created to help foster peace and create understanding of different cultures, or some such mumbo jumbo.

Basically it's several acres of a park with different areas dedicated to different countries, with various representations of those cultures.

For example, in France, a miniature version of the Eiffel Tower, small enough to put next to your fireplace.

In Switzerland, a remarkably accurate (if by accurate you mean "it looks like a 7th grade science fair volcano") rendering of the Matterhorn with a lovely Swiss chalet at its feet.

In China, we wondered, "why does this Lion have a ball in its mouth?"

Near the great wall of...Korea? I don't pretend to understand. I just report the news.

Another lion, this time sans a mouth ball, and protecting the entrance to Vietnam's patch of grass.

Evidently in Mexico hundreds of years ago, the people had really big heads. And could have used a good plastic surgeon for their noses.

After a while, Anya expressed a bit of weariness with the Peace Gardens.

We took that as our cue to leave.

David Copperfied?

I'm not a magician, I can't even do card tricks. But my daughters tell me that I do a magic trick.

I don't get this; as I do this so-called magic, it seems utterly ordinary. But when I do this, the girls are amazed, a-MAZED I tell you.

So much so that they had to get it on film:


I know...kind of a let-down, isn't it?

At least they find me fascinating. I'm highly doubtful that will last.

Red rock, sand, and arches

One of our very favorite places is Moab, Utah and Arches National Park. The girls had Thursday and Friday off this week, and David (G'pa) flew in from St. Louis, so we packed up the van early Thursday morn and headed down to southern Utah to see how much red sand we could bring back with us in our pockets and shoes!

We arrived at Arches at 9:15 am and headed straight for one of our favorite hikes, Park Avenue. At the end, we have a tradition of posing the girls with a monolith called the Three Gossips as a backdrop.

The girls also manged to "lodge" themselves into a crack.Don't worry...they got out.

Afterward, we headed over to Double Arch, a cathedral-like expanse where it's great to just sit and bask in the glow of God's creation.

Few locales I've been in have such a "sense of place" as Double Arch. Everytime I go I find myself stunned to silence at the majesty of these two arches joined togther. I simply sit under them and marvel. It is impossible to capture on film; it has to be experienced.

And, the alcove they create is really fun to climb in.

That evening we hiked in another section of the park to catch a view of the sunset, and especially the redrocked vistas to the east that get lit by that setting sun. On the way, we stopped by Landscape Arch, the longest arch in the park (over 300 feet wide!).

The next day we began by meeting some friends who were also spending some days in Moab. We went to the girls' mostest favoritest spot, Sand Dune Arch. It's not a fave because of the arch, though. It's because it's hidden in between some giant sandstone fins, and the area around and underneath is a giant sandbox! It is filled with the finest, softest, reddest sand, and perfect for hours of play.

You can also climb up to the top of the arch. Here are Anya and Emily with their friend Marissa (they're those little specs above the arch).

To end our two day trip, we and our friends hiked up to Delicate Arch just before sunset. It's about a mile and a half walk, climbing about 500 feet in elevation to a sandstone bowl with a majestic arch situated on the edge.

We brought some food along to enjoy as we watched the sun go down and the colors change as it did.

This is us with our good friends, the Robinsons (except Karen, who was, once again, taking the pictures). The great thing about hiking with another family is that none of the girls complain about how tired they are, or how long it takes, or how hot it is. They're having too much fun with their friends! And so much more enjoyable for the parents.

David and I with Delicate.

It really is an incredible sight.

We've hiked up to Delicate four times now, and each time I'm delightfully surprised by the immensity and grandeur of it when we come up those last few steps of the hike and finally see this glorious arch. Beautiful.

As the sun set, we hiked back down, jumped into our car and drove the 3+ hours back home.

And we managed to bring quite a bit of that red sand back home with us. Our dryer lint will be tinted a slight shade of pink for the next few loads.

Incredible Shrinking Snowman

So, last weekend we got our first valley snow. There's been snowfall up on the peaks, but this time we had some down here in the lowlands.

The girls ran out on Sunday morning before church and threw together this delightful figurine:

He was, alas not long for this world. By Tuesday, he was a bit, uh, droopy.

By Friday, he must have gone a little crazy: he lost his head.

Now, our little snowfall is nothing compared to our Montana family who, with the same storm, scored something like 2 feet over night.

But, you take what you get. When life gives you lemons make lemonade. When you get a couple of inches of snow, make a snowguy...or some facsimile thereof.

Pirates of the Living Room

Draw yer swords, yeh swarthy vermin! Stand and fight like a man...or a girl!

Sabres rattled as we locked steel in battle to the death!

Okay, pointy things clicked as we smacked plastic in a mostly silly fight to the giggliest.

We swung from mast to crow's nest on the most thread-bare of rigging ropes!

Or, maybe we just climbed on the living room furniture.

Deep sword cuts gushed blood as we valiantly fought against faintness due to the mortal wounds we sustained.

Well, we got a few scratches due to the broken plastic.

Neither pirate emerged the victor as both lay gasping their final breaths, surrounded by friends who lamented the loss of ones so courageous.

We both ended up on the floor gasping for breath, while Anya hid under the table to do her homework far from the flailing "sabres".

Dangerous? No. Fun? Most definitely, yes!

Cross Planting ceremony

About 2 1/2 weeks ago (I know, I'm so behind...better late than never? Maybe?) our church (click the link for our website) had what we called Cross Planting Sunday. We've bought some land and are finally ready to start doing something on this land. So, in order to kick things off, we started our service on Sunday Sept 14 at our usual meeting place, a local high school auditorium, with a video that included stories from people in our church and then a 3D video flythrough of the exterior, lobby and auditorium of the building we'll be putting on the property. The elementary aged kids, led by some high schoolers, started the service with an upbeat song that they did some choreographed actions with. These snaps don't really capture what they did, but you can see all of our girls anyway.

After the service, everyone drove down to our new land, which is adjacent to the interstate that runs north-south through our valley. We had a large tent set up there, and during part of that service we took the cross that had been on top of our former building and planted it on this new property, kind of "staking our ground" for all that the Lord has in store for us, not just a building, but all that He's doing in our congregation as we work to get this built.

It was a very moving, inspirational day in the life of our church, and there's a lot I could say about it, but some friends of ours from church have their own blog, and what she wrote about that day capsulizes the event perfectly. Click here to see what they had to say.

Being a "portable" church as we are now can be draining, but days like our Cross Planting are injections of excitement that keep us going.