Restoration Scavenger Hunt

This year is the 200th anniversary of when Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith in what is known as the First Vision. It started the Restoration of Jesus Christ's church on the Earth again- that same church He established when He was alive and before He died and was resurrected. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is commemorating this bicentennial all year. There are many resources to learn about Joseph Smith's experiences on churchofjesuschrist.org and our April General Conference focused on the First Vision and the Restoration.
In preparation for this, our ward encouraged us to do something fun. Anyone who wanted to was invited to put something on their house (in windows or wherever) or in their yard that represented the Restoration. We let the ward leaders know what we were going to contribute. They put the list together with a map of the ward boundaries then emailed that out to everyone. We were then encouraged to go on a walk between sessions of General Conference to find what people had put up (the map told us what to find at each home that participated), maintaining appropriate social distance of course.

It was a nice activity and good to go for a walk as a family. What was weird was when normally it is considered rude to cross the street when you see someone coming along the same sidewalk as you, currently it is considered safe. So there were greetings from opposite sidewalks and we got some nice sunshine as a family. It was also great to see what others put up from pictures in windows to missionary ties in trees.

Our family contributed two missionary balloon sculptures. By the end of Conference Weekend, they were a little worn out. Poor missionaries.

We also celebrated the holidays for April 4- Walk Around Things Day, Love Our Children Day, and Vitamin C Day. That last one was celebrated as we had our traditional General Conference nachos. Mmmmm, bell peppers.
General Conference was wonderful. I was even able to take some notes.

Again, things are different right now. All the music at Conference was taken from previous recordings- no live choir. The First Presidency and speakers were not in the Conference Center but in an auditorium with a small amount of people. There is so much for us to look back on when this is all over. My children will be able to tell others, "I remember when..." just like I tell them, "I remember when I had to get dressed up and go to the church building to watch General Conference. I couldn't just watch it in my living room until I was a teenager."
We all did get dressed up for the Sunday morning session, where there was a solemn assembly and our prophet, President Nelson, presented a new proclamation to the world about Joseph Smith's First Vision. The proclamation can be read on churchofjesuschrist.org and there is also a video of President Nelson reading it from the Sacred Grove, where the First Vision took place. This is another thing our children will be able to say. "I remember when President Nelson presented the Bicentennial Proclamation on the First Vision."

What We Did to Beat the Heat

It has been hot this Summer.  Yes, hot.  We've had to think of ways to beat the heat.  One way is by driving in our air-conditioned van (something I am very thankful for) to the Orem Library where it is also nice and cool.  One day we went out in the heat before going down to the library.  We did have a good reason, though.  For about a week around and after the 4th of July, our city had flying in a local canyon (hiking area) a gigantic American flag.  Huge.  Enormous.  Record breaking in size- "largest American flag to ever fly."  78 feet wide, 152 feet long.  We decided to go up to see it, though technically it's so big we can see it from our living room window through the trees.  To get a better look at it, we drove up to the trailhead then walked up a bit to get some pictures.  It was so neat- and big.

Afterward we did drive down to the Orem Library.  Jeremy got some work in, the kids and I got some reading in, and the kids went on a scavenger hunt.  They searched around the library for paper constellations then took their results back to receive a special prize.  The reward?  Solar glasses for the upcoming total solar eclipse in August (90% in our neck of the woods).  Jeremy and I also earned solar glasses from the library by answering trivia questions.

 It was a nice way to beat the heat.

Not Going to Do It

Oh, so much catching up to do on my blog.  Lots of celebrating we've done.  I'm not going to catch up right now.  I will say what we did today.
This evening we got together with relatives for Family Home Evening.  We met at a park in Payson to have a lesson on birds in the scriptures then we went on a scavenger hunt looking for certain birds.  And we played and ate cookies and did some catching up.  It was nice to see these cousins.

Read a Birthday Book

September 6 is Read a Book Day.  We celebrated by reading books.  Really, we did.  I just didn't get any pictures of it.  I have taken many pictures in the past of us reading books and put many on this blog.  Feel free to look around, go on a scavenger hunt, find those pictures of us reading books.  That's a way for you to celebrate this holiday.
We also celebrated my dad's birthday by having cake and ice cream for the kids and brownies and ice cream for the adults.  Yumm.  I did get a picture of that.

Church Hunt

Trying to figure out how to keep my 4-year old calm during Sacrament Meeting.  Since last Sunday, May 24, was National Scavenger Hunt Day, I told him I would draw pictures of items for him to find.  When he found them he could circle them.  I figured that way I could still listen and he would have a quiet activity to do.
After a while, however, he decided he wanted to be the one to draw the pictures of items for me to find.  Sigh.  It didn't work as well.  I couldn't recognize all of his pictures and couldn't have him telling me out loud what they were.
Oh well.  At least we tried.