Cousin Temple Outing

Tonight we did something pretty cool!  We went to the Jordan River Temple with a total of 10 of us -  some of my cousins and some of their significant others.  We did a sealing session with some names that I have been working on and some names that my aunt Lori also gave us to get finished.

The temple is always a great place to go, but why was this experience extra neat?  For a couple of reasons . . .

This was the first time I had actually taken names to the temple to do sealings.  I have been working on some of these names since last summer and I finally finished them!  I love to do the nerdy family history work, but it takes time.  My parents and Annie and Ross helped out earlier in the year by doing an endowment session for some of them.  Meranda and Pedro each took a card for me, too.  To finally get all of these cards completely finished felt pretty good.  I don't know that all of the people whose names are on these cards are interested in accepting the gospel, but to think that I had a small part in their ability to finally be able to choose the gospel if they want . . .  that was awesome!

Second, I am so proud to be a part of my extended family.  The cousins of mine who came tonight are a great group of people.  Not all of them could make it, but 10 is a pretty good amount.  Unfortunately, some of my cousins are not interested in the blessings of the temple, but most of us are and that's pretty great.  I think my grandma would be proud of us.

Next, Parker and Natalie have just recently been endowed and this was their first experience with sealings.  It was great to see the nervous excitement on their faces and also the concentration and attentiveness to doing something new and important.

Next, our sealer was a character.  He was from Argentina and was a bit difficult to understand.  He had a hard time pronouncing and keeping track of some of the easier names, like Wood, but actually did pretty well with Binggeli.  He did several sealings in Spanish.  Meranda ended up being a proxy child for a woman named Miranda.  When she pointed that out, he said, "beautiful."  He talked to us about how we need to learn from the ordinances and it is not just the names on the card, but also to remind us of what covenants we have made.  Not only was it a special experience, but it was just fun.

Finally, the most memorable part of the experience may have come from Parker.  Perhaps he was extra nervous.  Perhaps he had been kneeling too long.  Perhaps the super hot room had gotten to him.  From various accounts and reports from witnesses at every angle, we know he started to shake and get very sweaty.  His pupils enlarged to a crazy size.  He began to sway back and forth and went stark white.  Fortunately he said, "I think I'm going to pass out" before he actually did.  (That would have been quite the thud off the alter bench.)  We got him up from his knees and onto a chair.  After a few seconds, his color started to return and he seemed to snap out of it.  It was a little scary at that moment, but afterwards was quite comical.  I couldn't even look at him without laughing.  Oh Parker!  What are we going to do without you when you go on your mission?!?

Anyway, that's my temple story.
Testimony builder.
Temples are important.
Families are forever.
God loves us all.

The end.

Camping makes my hips hurt

Yes, camping makes my hips hurt. There is a reason I was not a pioneer (many reasons actually). I don't camp. Laying on the ground is not fun, even if that ground is the nice, beautiful green grass in your backyard; even when the tent is placed gently next to the hum of the air conditioner as it cools the inside of your lovely home.

It is 4 am. My children are sound asleep, but I lay awake because I thought I heard the sprinklers. I unzipped the door as quietly as I could. I didn't want to get caught in the rainstorm beginning once the cycle hit station 6. I worried about the noise of the zipper and leaving them at all. Waking up on a camp out without a parent could have proved disastrous. I moved quickly for fear of the potential screams.

Phew! It was only the neighbor's sprinklers. However, I turned our's off just in case. Enjoying my new found hip comfort, I decided to take my chances and use the bathroom, too. Should I get a quick drink as well? Nope. I better not press my luck. 

I returned to the hip torture device to find the children silently snoozing and the crickets chirping as if we were really in the great outdoors.

Sleep for the mother? Ha. Instead I picked up my satellite honing device (which works because the router is just inside my nearby home with beds) and record the events of the last few minutes.

My hips still hurt. Sometimes making childhood memories takes a little bit of pain.

Oh what have we done in the summertime (part 2)?

We met some friends at the Zoo one day. James even went with us.  We were there longer than we normally are at the Zoo and kind of lost our friends, but we still had a good time.  We even watched the bird show. 

Molly and Emily pretended to be dinosaur food.

 

James put on his best Gomer Pyle face to test out the weight limit on the wagon while the kids rode the carousel.  

 

 

We tried out Aunt Cindy's new swimming pool.  The kids had fun!

 

We went to this crazy jumping bounce house place.  The kids had fun.  Jack did get stuck in one contraption and I had to climb up and pull him out.  I don't think we would go here often (I felt like it was a bit of a germ factory), but it was worth the one-time groupon and we could go back next summer. 

 

One afternoon our Idaho cousins surprised us with a visit, so we went downtown and had a little excursion around Temple Square.  We wandered through both visitor centers, the Assembly Hall, and the Tabernacle.  When we'd had enough, we went to the City Creek Food Court for dinner.  It was a fun evening.  We're excited to have Preslee added to this group of cousins and we're also excited to have Joesy move closer to home.  Hopefully we can get a picture in the near future of all 8 Binggeli grandkids.

 

 

 

Oh what have we done in the summertime?

We started Round #2 of KOPFC swimming lessons.  The kids started out doing really well, but the last few lessons were a bust because of kids not feeling well.  Miss Kimberly was our teacher and she remembered teaching Molly last summer (because she was so memorable)!  However, the good news is that Molly DID finally pass level 1 (seahorse) and is now allowed to officially register for level 2 (clownfish).  Hooray!  Unfortunately, I could not talk either kid into signing up for another round.  I guess 6 weeks of swimming lessons is enough for one summer.

We play in the sandbox . . . a lot.  Grandma and Grandpa Binggeli (and Jason) came to visit one night and the kids pretty much dumped out the sandbox and added enough water to make real sand castles.  It was a mess, but they had fun.  The make cakes, build roads, and do all sorts of crazy imaginative things in the sand.  Plus, now that they'll take a shower and not just a bath, sand cleanup is much easier.

One day we went on a TRAX adventure downtown to meet some Spartan Station friends at the Clark Planetarium and then lunch at the City Creek food court,  I decided we would go on a longer train ride so we caught it at 5400 South and rode all the way in.  It took about 30 minutes to get downtown and the train was definitely the best part of the adventure for the kids.

My mom took a few days off in July to host "Grandma Camp."  Grandma Camp is a bit crazy and involves whatever Grandma decides it involves.  One day was spent at Build-A-Bear and then driving around the valley collecting Tags for a staying active campaign for kids, ending at Grandma's house and putting up a tent in the basement.  The car ride was entertaining to say the least, we didn't crash into anything, and the kids were mostly all well-behaved (they wouldn't dare not be with Grandma at the helm).  

Some days during the summer we just sit at home and build forts while watching movies we get at the library, TroTro, or Nanny 911.  Some days we actually go find new librarys and play with toys before selecting new books and movies to get.

One day we went to Michael's Craft Store and made Minion picture frame crafts.  It was only $2 per kid and Molly, especially, had a lot of fun.  On the same day as the minion craft, my sister was selling her wares at a craft show in Lindon.  My mom, the kids, and I drove down to see it.  It was small and obviously not really kid friendly, so we hung out on a couch in the lobby for a while.  This was the best picture I could get of the goofballs.

On the 24th of July we celebrated pioneers by reading books about pioneers (from the library, of course), watching the Days of '47 Parade on TV, going swimming, and lighting some fireworks once our dad got home from work.  

That's a long enough post for now!  There is still some more summer left and we plan to execute our time as well as possible!

Galoon - It's What Fun Is!

This summer we went to Lagoon!  My mom took us.  She had some discount passes.  My dad opted out and Willie wasn't exactly there, but the rest of us went.  My mom has been talking about going for quite some time.  We finally figured out a day that worked (of course, after we figured it out, a funeral came up that my mom needed to go to - a cousin of Grandpa Huber died) and we went!

I have not been to Galoon since before my kids were born.  The last time I went, I rode the bus from Tooele Junior High to Lagoon, back to Tooele Junior High, and then home.  It was a long hot day filled with 8th graders.  I was actually impresssed that Lagoon has improved quite a bit since then.  The kid area was much better than I remember as a kid.  There were new rides, trees, benches.  It was great!

Molly and Jack had a lot of fun and we actually were planning to go again with bounce back passes, but then the July super sickness (see other post) hit us and we ran out of days.  Oh well.  Maybe next time.