Free Zoo Day

Wednesday was free zoo day! So Kasen skipped preschool and we went with Ashley, Hazel, Hyde and Grammy Tammy to the zoo. It was even better weather with less people this year.

The kids spent the longest time looking at these monkeys and watching them eat their cucumbers!

Kasen loved learning all about which snakes are venomous or not.

And we rode on the carousel like we always do. That only happens on free zoo day. Or when Grammy paid :) Tai wanted to ride her favorite animal, the giraffe again and this time she wasn't as scared. She rode the moving giraffe and Grammy said that part way through the ride Tai moved Grammy's hand so that she wasn't holding her anymore.

Kasen's favorite animal is still a cheetah, but he wanted to ride on the green praying mantis on the carousel this year.

He was cracking me up having so much fun on it, acting like it was going so fast. Haha

Right now Kasen is really into taking pictures on rocks. I think he asked me to take his pictures on at least 5 different rocks that day. I love his smouldering poses too!

I just love them.

Valentine's Day in Arizona

Road trip woo woo!

I love roadtrips! And Kyle gave me the best gift by planning one for us. Most thoughtful thing ever and the perfect surprise. He even packed the kids and stocked the car with snacks. Oh how I love him.

A week or so before we left he told me we were going to Monticello (another roadtrip I have been wanting to go on!) but about the time we were passing signs for Page, AZ when we should have been to Moab I figured we were going to visit Josh and Marissa in Glendale! I'd been asking when we could go visit since we missed his white coat ceremony and a couple months ago Kyle planned the trip with them. Best husband ever!

So we were in the car for 9 hours and my kids only needed TWO bathroom breaks! Best roadtrippers ever! We looked at clouds and played eye spy while we drove and I even stayed awake with Kyle the whole time. Eye spy was my favorite though because whenever we guessed what the kids were spying or they guessed right they would both gasp and laugh hysterically.

My favorite part of the trip was trying to find the caramels for Kyle in my box of chocolates. Those papers they put in to show you what the different kinds look like are not helpful though! Two times in a row I ended up giving him the raspberry ones! Haha

 Josh and Marissa have the cutest little guest room that I've ever stayed in and the morning after we got there we got to go do a session at the Phoenix, AZ temple together!

Then we went to a park where Josh picked us some oranges right off a tree there at the park and they were so good. Like super good.

For dinner that night we went to Culinary Drop Out and one of my mission companions, Shannon Stapley, came to have dinner with us too.

 Friday was Valentine's Day so Marissa and Josh made some heart sugar cookies with Kasen and Tai and then decorated them with mount sprinkles!

Kasen calls these jungle trees :)

 Then we went to the pool! Which was by far the world's coldest pool that there ever was. So the kids just swam in the hot tub and played shark. Kasen jumped in the pool and could barely breathe trying to get back out. Surprisingly he jumped in a second time to let me film it, although I have no idea how anything could convince him to jump back in there!

 Tai had to go to the bathroom so we took her life jacket off, but Kyle had to run back to the chairs to grab his shoes to take her. While he was getting his shoes Tai decided to jump in the hot tub without her life jacket and Marissa noticed her underneath the water. Kyle ran over and pulled her out and I think it's the most scared he's ever been, even though nobody else would have ever been able to tell. He's been worried about dry drowning for the past few days with Tai's coughing and saying her throat hurts, but she hasn't had a fever or vomiting so no more worrying now that it's been 72 hours!

 Later we played a couple card games and after that Josh took Kyle fishing at the pond behind their condo. They weren't there long, but Kyle tried out his new pole and caught a bass for the first time!

 Saturday morning we packed a lunch and went to go hiking! First we stopped to see Montezuma Castle and the kids were having so much fun!

 It's a super short walk, but the rangers gave the kids a tic tac toe board to mark off the different things they saw, so they would get so excited to see something pictured on their board.

 They got a rangers badge for getting tic tac toe and I let them pick out a post card too. I think it will be a fun thing to collect for them and write on the back what we saw and did on different trips.

 Kasen requested a picture on this rock :)

Then we headed to Sedona to hike Bell Rock.

This is the pink rock Tai found the day before and carried with her the rest of the trip too.

We didn't hike very far, but I still wore my new hiking boots that Kyle got me for Christmas! And Kasen and Tai had fun playing on the rocks for a little while.

We ate our lunch after that and had Red Rock Gelato for dessert.

The good thing about the drive home is that we didn't listen to sports radio the whole way. Instead we listened to the Joseph Smith Papers, a great talk by John Bytheway and a few episodes of the Better Than Happy podcast by Jody Moore. So much good stuff! And sang to Moana of course.

Now that we're home Kasen is still asking me for a Google. He loved asking Google questions at Josh and Marissa's house! Like "Why are cactus pokey? Why do we have to eat? Why are farms big? Are hot dogs a vegetable?" etc...

I love roadtrips woo woo! Can't wait for the real Monticello one ;)

Elsa Sloth, Jazz and Buster Snowman

 For Tai's birthday Jake and Kristi's family sent her a giftcard to Build-a-Bear that I finally took her to use! I showed her all the cute Frozen bears they had and the cute unicorns and even the My Little Ponies, BUT once she saw the pink sloth it is all that she wanted! She still named it Elsa though and picked out the 'Into the Unknown' song to put in the hand. She tells me all the time how much she loves Elsa "slofff"

That was our date night while Kyle was taking Kasen to his first Jazz game, but while we were at the mall Kyle asked us if we wanted to come because Melanie and Hayden weren't able to go. So we hurried to meet Kyle and Kasen and all went to the Jazz game together!

 Kasen was having so much fun cheering and clapping for the Jazz for the first half and then I think he got tired. Tai was having more fun playing with her earplugs too. But it was fun, even though the Jazz were up the entire game then lost by 3 points in the last few minutes!

 The next day we actually had enough snow to go sledding! (After having a "snow day" on Monday when zero snow existed at our house.) The kids all made a snowman together that they named Buster Woody Gleue.

Kasen had all of his class Valentines ready early because Kyle planned a Valentine's roadtrip for us that made Kasen miss his Valentines Day party at school. I love that he thought of the friends in his class and wrote most of their names all by himself.

Tai even requested to write a couple Valentines to Dad and Peeka and Wissa.

We also make some pink, strawberry milkshake cookies to take for his snack day that week.

For Kyle's Valentine's gift we all went to Cabela's to pick out a new fishing pole for him, since his last one fell off the boat at Flaming Gorge last summer. We were there for over 2 hours! Which gave Kasen plenty of time to name most of their fish in the aquarium. There was Dory, Ursula, Itchy, Schluter, and lots of other funny ones I can't remember.

Other things I want to remember:

-Tai telling me all the time "I love you" but now it's "Mom, I just love you and I love your baby."

-When Kasen told me that chicken nuggets are croutons with chicken inside and that is why they are called chicken.

-How Tai calls people "Goosey" when she is being silly, how she pumps both her arms when she blows her nose, the way she says "uh-huh" to affirm anything and her crazy eyes when she rolls them to the top of her head.

-I love that Kasen loves watching AFV with me and wants to make funny videos to send in now.

-When Tai asks for a PB&J she really only wants a jelly sandwich. After so many times of her peeling her PB&J apart and eating only the jelly side I finally learned! Although anything she can pull apart to eat piece by piece she will.

-This week Kasen went running to the bathroom to go pee. Tai must have been in there because when I heard the loud slamming shut of the toilet lid, Tai gasped, "Kasen! Your pee pee almost got smoooshed!" It was the hardest I'd laughed all week.

-She bites her nails, has passed out from crying too hard before breathing twice now, and comes in our room in the night to let us know we didn't check on her, but she is still the cutest ever!

-Kasen puts his blanket over his heater vent to get warm when he finds in on and is always amazing us with things he remembers from a long time ago. He's too smart.

What's the Point?

I just finished reading the book, Where There's Hope by Elizabeth Smart and I really liked some of the topics she interviewed people about, in regards to hope.

I thought about how a lot of the people she interviewed are not LDS and still have hope. I do not believe that the LDS church has some sort of monopoly on hope or spirituality. I believe that we have answers to a lot of questions that can't be found anywhere else, but if people can still have hope without having all the answers that members of the Church have then what is the point?

On my mission I felt like sometimes the point was just to baptize people. If they could only receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and have a clean slate then they would have everything they need to make it and be happy. Then the point seemed to be getting married in the temple. Once you get married in the temple you have arrived. You have "tasted of the fruit" and there is no chance to fall away. Which we all know isn't true. So then is enduring to the end the point? Well, no. Laman and Lemuel endured to the end. They didn't endure well, but they did make it to the promised land.

And I don't think even making it to the Celestial Kingdom is the point.

I think the point, the goal, is to become like God. To become complete, to become perfected and have true joy.

Jesus Christ died for me. I could never come close to earning the grace and mercy that He offers me.

But I want to try.

I want to know Him, I want to be like Him, I want to follow Him.
Which is why I am so grateful that Joseph Smith restored the gospel, because living His gospel is the ultimate how in becoming as He is. Our covenants made through sacred ordinances bind us to Him and give us godly power.
So for me the hope of the gospel is that through our agency, repentance and Christ's Atonement we are never lost to where it is that we are meant to end up.
We can do hard things knowing that we are not alone doing them.
That is how big God's love is for each one of us.

More than anything what resonated with me were her thoughts on her religion, because I feel the exact same way and loved reading it put into words.

"At the end of the day, if all religions prove to be wrong, I won't regret believing, because it has made me a better person and had helped me live my life in such a way that I will never need to be ashamed of any part of it. I think most religions are that way: a set of beliefs that help provide hope, healing, and a meaningful way of life.

"Each one of us strives to find peace and happiness in the life, and we hope for a better future in the next. For me, my faith and my religion provide me with the peace and happiness. It's not always easy, and I have been asked how I would feel if I found out it wasn't true.

My answer is simple: It's my truth. It makes me a better person. If at the end of my life I die and find out it isn't true, I will have lived life being the best person that I can be- hopefully someone who is kind, compassionate, and patient. Knowing I will never regret my dedication to these ideals- that's what faith is for me."

"I suppose that's the definition of faith, in a way: to know, I'll live through this, even if I don't know how. So often the how comes first, and if we let it, that question can talk us out of our faith and undermine our strength."
Faith and prayer must be accompanied with patience.
"Faith isn't just what you believe in; it's how you live, how you love and how you move forward."

My faith has to be in the Lord, not in the Lord meeting my expectations.

So thank you Elizabeth, for all the reminders I needed to hear and be inspired by :)
Live a happy life- no regrets.