Christian visit to the Children Museum

My sister Cheree, her children, Christian and I went to the Gateway Children's Museum. All the children had a great time.

Christian decides to try the carrots.

Baby will you drive my Car.

Madison and Christian on the horse.

Look a Christian Monster.....with horns!!!

The little construction worker

Building a city.

Kaden and Christian on the Crane

Christian decides to surprise me and stand up in the wheel borrow. He is growing up so fast.

Christian in the boat. He decided to stand up in the boat too.

Christian in the hut. I think he likes it well enough to live in it.

Reunion Time

On Wednesday, we started our journey to our reunion. This reunion for my side of the family was by Pinedale, Wyoming. Since Chris got off work at 5:00, we decided it would be smart for us to go only half way. We stayed at the Wyoming Inn at La Barge, Wyoming(population 431). We were somewhat concerned that we would find our night's stay a disasterous experience, but everything was just fine. By the time we arrived, Christian was so ready to get out of the car. He kept giving me kisses, almost like he was saying thank you for getting me out of the car. While we were unloading our luggage, we had a chance to talk with the guy next door, named Larry. Larry, a Schawn's man, talked to us about our adoption, and we talked a little bit about the Church. Larry said he was a jack-Mormon; He smoked outside his non-smoking room and mentioned drinking coffee with his breakfast. Regardless of these habits, we could tell religion meant a great deal to him. Larry teared up when we mentioned that the adoption has helped teach us that we are all brothers and sisters. He was very friendly, and even took the time to knock on our door and let us know our car's interior light was left on. Once we got in the motel room, Christian was excited to play on the floor. Christian did pretty well for his first motel experience.

On Thursday, we finished our journey and got to the reunion spot around 10:30am. Once everyone was there, we at lunch. At 1:30, we played Steal the Flag. Everyone had a lot of fun. I have to say that my team won. Chris and I were on opposite teams. After Steal the Flag, the women in the family went into Pinedale for a special get away activity. Tiffani taught us how to make these really cute scrapbooking books. While we were gone, the men played some games with the children. One of the games was a beard making contest. My brother Nathan had to get into the fun. Here are the pictures:

Nathan

Ashley

Analiese

Camille

Tyler

Madison

Jacob

Kaden

Rachel

That night we had dinner and then we had a little fire side. We had skits, stories, songs, and a little spiritual message.

Smooth and Creamy.......I love it on my blog

On Friday, the men went fishing while the women played with the Children. Melanie and Sarah came up with a cute treasure hunt, played sticker tag, made pet rocks, and sang songs. Once the men were back we had lunch. We had a funny picture contest. Kaden won for the kids and Chris won for the adults. We then all played games. Some played shuffle board, fumbley pegs, and Settlers of Catan. My favorite game was fumbley pegs. This game is a lot like spoons. We might have pictures of shuffleboard being played, as it was one of the most popular reunion pastimes, but Chris protested my doing so, much to his later regret. After the games, we had dinner and then had our little fire side again. After the kids were in bed, the adults played more games. It was alot of fun.

On Saturday, we had a devotional and then had breakfast. We then got ready to go home. After every thing was clean and packed, we played Mafia. We all enjoyed this game and would have played it more if we didn't have to go home.

I wanted to show two other cute pictures:

Partners in crime

Christian's future partner in crime, Luke

08/10/2008 No good title for today.............

I apologize up front for the title of this blog. If you are anything like me, you find it mildly annoying when vague, almost cheesy titles are used for things blog entries or chapters of books or what ever. So today, rather than use a title like: "Some Recent Thoughts" or "Latest News", I simply elected to use the date and state there is not a good title, because that is my fact and feeling today.

Today is another Sunday. We went to church. I got a new calling. I am to be the Scoutmaster for our local ward/neighborhood. I have known about the change for sometime, and in a recent conversation with a co-worker expressed some of my anxieties and hesitancy in participating in Scouting. My co-worker asked me why I told them I would do the job when I was not very excited about it. I thought for a minute......what do I say? Then I proceeded to explain that everything in the church is done on a volunteer basis, and so you do what you are asked to do and do your best with it.

I will do my best with the Scouts and I am sure that we can have fun I am just not sure how good I will be in getting them their rank advancements and merit badges, as I was awful at this as a kid.

I am not a shining example of explaining my beliefs, I know, but have tried to mention my participation in the church in casual conversation. My personal feeling is that here in Utah most people are aware of the LDS Church and have an opinion about it, either positive, negative or neutral. Most of my co-workers, from what I have observed are of other faiths or not religious at all. Nevertheless, these people are awesome and are my friends. I admit I am passive in sharing some of my beliefs, but I just don't want to be a fire hose, when a sprinkler is needed. I do however try to live my ideals, and I think those who I work with see that.

The subject came up at work some time ago that we should ban all discussion of religious activities at work. I hold this idea as counter-productive to building understanding between individuals of varying backgrounds. I rather share the opinion, that all people, of whatever religion or philosophy should be free to express themselves, and we all need to learn to tolerate such and ideological environment.

As Heather mentioned before in the blog, Christian's adoption will be finalized on August 25, 2008. This means we can have him sealed to us in the Temple. My belief as a Latter-day Saint is that families can be sealed together for eternity through the authority of the Priesthood. We have chosen the Bountiful Temple for the sealing location and this great event will take place on August 30, 2008.

I decided I would post a few of my experiences today because it was the second Sunday in a row that either a lesson or talk heavily referenced Elder M. Russell Ballard's recent article in the ensign "Sharing the Gospel Using the Internet". Of course that is not the only reason, but I found this an oddity and thought I should include something along those lines in this blog.

Finalization here we come...

Today we got news of when Christian will be finalize. The great day is August 25 @ 9:00 a.m. I wish it was tomorrow but I guess I will have to wait the two and half weeks. I am also excited about having Christian sealed to us and also blessed. We haven't set up those two things yet but hope it will be soon.

Christian has brought alot of joy to our family. He now walks in his walker like a pro. When he has to back up, he backs up like he is driving a car. I think it is so funny. Chris and I already can tell that he is going to be full of trouble. His favorite thing to do now is to walk over and pull on our sliding blinds. I fear one day he will rip one off before I can stop him. I know we are in for more trouble. He is starting to be in that scary phase where he tries to pick things off the floor and eat it. I thought it would take him longer to do this but he has prove me wrong.

I will stop babbling and show some cute pictures of Christian:

I love this picture because if you look close, you can see his new teeth.

I was getting Christian ready to eat and thought this would be a funny picture.

A Fun Weekend

Chris's Family came up to visit it this weekend because Chris's dad is doing his final National Guard duty. He is retiring from National Guard on August 10. We are so proud of all he has done for our Country. Our great adventure started on Thursday. Thursday night most the family went hiking up Mount Timpanogos. I stayed at Kari's house with Shirley, Tami, and Rahel. We had fun just talking.


We went to Snowbird resort. I will show the adventure at Snowbird. There was a climbing wall, a trampoline bungy, alpine slide, zip line, and the tram that took you to the top of the mountain. I want to go again when I don't have Christian so I can play. I took care of Christian and talked to Tami and Shirley.

Chris's brother (Jared) climbing the wall

Chris's sister climbing down the wall

The Tram Ride



Chris going on the zip line.

Chris going down the Alpine slide

Chris, Shirley, Gene, Tami, Christian, and I went to Joe's Crab shack. This is my favorite Restaurant. It was Christian's first time going. The waitress thought he was so cute that they took his picture. He is so famous, he is on Joe's Crab shack website. Here is the picture:

The waitress was so nice they gave Christian some Crackers and apple sauce. I thought he looked so cute in that crab bib. After Joe's Crab Shack, we went shopping. We went to Ross, Old Navy, and IKEA. It was fun to go to IKEA because that was the first time we have gone to that store. Tami came with us and showed us all around. You can get lost in that store. We went back to Kari's and ate and played games.

On Sunday, we went to Kari's house after Church. We had fun taking it easy after a full exciting weekend. We talked, ate, and played games. We played blockus, chess, and quiddler. My favorite game was quiddler.

It has been a hard adjustment to get back to our schedule of work and house work today. Christian is happy to be able to get more sleep. He did really well for the lack of sleep and also cutting teeth. I loved this weekend because I got to spend more time with Chris. I just love him so much. He is such a great husband and father. I feel so bless to have him in my life.