I voted early!

If you already know what your vote is going to be, you might as well go and vote EARLY. But if you thrive on the feelings you get of standing in long lines in a stuffy room with hoards of people, then by all means wait until election day. Either way, don't pass up the opportunity, blessing and privilege to VOTE.

Let them eat cake...

My mom is the best mom ever! Almost every year since I have been married (which seems like quite a few), I have purchased or made my own birthday cake. Perhaps that isn't any different than most women, but Brad's birthday is the day after mine, so when I buy my cake, it is his too. Anyway, this year my mom made me a cake of my very own. She gave it to me last night. My nose enjoyed the tempting smell all day today, so tonight I asked my family to sing "happy birthday" to me so that we could eat it. Tomorrow, my actual birthday, we will be going out for dinner and most likely will not want to eat cake afterwards, so I talked them in to eating it tonight. Boy, was it yummy! Thanks MOM!!!!

Into the Woods

Noah and I went to the Hale Center Theatre production of "Into the Woods" tonight. WOW what a great show! This was my first time viewing this musical- a little confusing if you don't know what is going on, but very enjoyable. The special effects used were terrific!
Winner of 3 Tonys! Sondheim and Lapine joyfully weave a fantastic, fractured fairy tale of princes and paupers, of plainness and beauty and of wanting…then losing it all. Familiar children’s tales magically enchant and even teach—will the child in all of us listen? A not-to-be-missed theatrical event…laced with spell binding music, ingenious humor and soul searching heart! http://www.halecentretheatre.org/press/intothewoods.php

Church Art Competition

Brad's brother Gary has many talents, one of which is painting. This year he has devoted many hours a week to a painting that he submitted to the Church Art Competition earlier in October. We have only seen this copy of the original, but are very impressed with his work. We thought that you might be interested in it as well.
We hope that he doesn't mind that we share this beautiful work of art with you along with the story behind the painting. ( Click on the picture to see an enlarged version.)
Gary's Story
It began at family home evening in February. I selected one of my favorite hymns, How Great Thou Art, to sing as the closing song. I said “someday I ought to paint a picture of that hymn”. Since I was in the midst of painting two deer in Rocky Mountain NP, I sketched out the scene I envisioned from the hymn and placed it with my other sketches for future paintings. Someday I said.

In March I noticed the Church Art Competition. I realized it must be the one I had attended three years ago while in Salt Lake visiting family. When I saw the theme Remembering the Great Things of God I couldn’t believe it. I think I was supposed to paint my idea.

I pulled out my sketch which showed me kneeling before Christ at the Second Coming in the center, surrounded by forests, lakes, mountains, a bird singing in the trees, with Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross.

I went back to the hymn and wondered, “Are these all the great things of God?” I began pondering the other things that really should be included if I truly wanted all the great things of God.

The first three versus were written by Carl Gustaf, a Swedish pastor and editor. Stuart K. Hine, an English missionary, sang it to a Swedish folk tune at an evangelistic meeting. He translated it into English and later wrote the fourth verse as a triumphant message of life eternal.

Although inspired, for the words are wonderful and full of meaning, there is so much more that the restored gospel brings. What about prophets and the temples and family and the ordinances and scripture… Once I got started, I couldn’t stop. There are so many wonderful things that God has given us to enjoy. Some may say I have tried to include too much in one painting, but that is the point. There are so many wonderful things.

After making my list of things to include, I began drawing and painting. I said “someone ought to add a few versus to the hymn to make it a true LDS hymn”. As I thought more about it, the words started to come. Having never written the lyrics to a song before, I was hesitant.

The two new versus which should be sung between the current second and third versus are as follows: (go ahead and sing it, it’s ok)

Thy church restored, the fullness of the gospel,
Thy priesthood power, returned to earth to stay;
Book of Mormon, together with the Bible,
We know thy will, our prophet speaks today.

Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee;
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!

The promises, and temple ordinances,
Both for the dead, and our posterity,
Together bound, husband and wife and family,
Not just this life, but all eternity.

A fun day away

Our family drove a few hundred miles and spent time together having fun on Friday. The kids had never seen the Logan temple, so we decided that we would drive up and take a look.

We have made it a tradition to visit temples wherever we go and take pictures of the kids in front of them. Then we place the pictures in a special "temple book". Yesterday's picture will be number 27 for Elijah. (The other kids have a few more than him.) We also stopped in to have some "squeaky cheese" at the university.

On our way back from Logan we stopped in at Fat Cats in Ogden. We had dinner there and only had time for a game of bowling.


We definitely want to go back a try the Glow in the Dark miniature golf. They also have a rock climbing wall, the Flowrunner (indoor water current that simulated a surfing atmosphere) and iFly (indoor facility to simulate sky diving). Brad has always wanted to jump out of an airplane and I have wondered WHY unless there was something wrong with the plane. This may be the perfect opportunity for him to experience this in a more controlled environment.