The Life and Adventures of Six Little Monkies: 8/7/11

Saturday, August 13, 2011

The Best of EFY (Jade's Perspective)

The first guy talked about the importance of family. He said without family we would not be here. The son is Adam, the moon is Eve. Adam means man, and Eve means life. Without an Eve we would not be here, and if Adam and Eve had not eaten the forbidden fruit we would not have a purpose in life.

I learned today that two days after Adam was made he became very lonely so Heavenly Father made animals out of the ground. All the aminals there are today and he named them. To Adam how people say dog is man best friend. None of this cheered Adam so God put him in a deep sleep, took a rib and put him to sleep. The cool thing is Heavely Father could have taken any part of his body but he took a rib from close to his heart. So this means that Eve is clease to his heart.

And soon after Adam awakened from his sleep, Adam found Eve, then the fall came because they ate the fruit. We read Genisis 2:4 D&C 28:15 Those to scriptures stood out to me.

The second guy talked about the importance of family and love. Without love there would be no church and the would be like black water. As he talked he pulled up 3 boys. Christian, Dan, and Greg. He asked them what families meant to them. Greg said families are a mom, dad and children without any of those we would just have peoiple and spiritis wandering around. Without spirits there would be no love, mom, dad, or priesthood. When Jesus was on the earth he taught that we are supposed to have families help make the priesthood stronger. Without the priesthood we would not have families or Heavenly Father.

Mr Scott taught us that names do not just pop up they mean something like the naming of the church. Like the name The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints was made before the earth was even made. And it actually means the one and only Son of God, The Savior, Beloved Mosiah, Belongs to One (I think I got it right). That is what the church's true name means.

And then he talked about famous celebreties. This one celebrety he renamed himself as Fifty-Cent (I forgot his real name) and Jack Black his real name is Thomas Black. Then there is someone whose name was just pink, she changed her name too. He went through a lot of people then told the story of his first child Jacob, he was going to name him Skywalker (something). They had picked out the name Jacob Skywalker. But when I looked at my wives eyes I could not so I named him Jacob Scott.

Apparently, there is a secret rule that babies love to be bounced. The second kid was Ryan Conner. They were orriginally going to name him Larrs Cogar, and again he made the mistake using eye contact with his wife. Her eyes said you will die with that name/ So he named him Ryan Conner. His third kid they were so hoping it was going to be a girl. When they found out it was going to be a boy at family home evening they named the last kid. They voted. The names were Hunter, Luke, and Ashton.

They taped the names to balls and let the dog pick the name. Threw the balls down the stairs and let the dog bring the balls back. He brought back Luke Ashton twice.

The final was the testimony of a bishop thanking us for being here.

The dinner was pizza, burritos, and water.

My favorite part was when this guy had to do a prayer three times because he kept messing up. On his final try he remembered the words and blessed the food.

Oh we also learned a song from Mr Scott, called "Let this Light of Mine Shine"

Discovery Park

Discovery Park is a really neat park that was built by the local community in Utah. Many families and buisnesses came together to create this one of a kind park for the local Utah communities. This is one of the favorite parks for the kids to play at when we visit their Utah cousins.

Look at these xylophones

Visiting Temple Square in Salt Lake City

During this trip we took over 300 pictures so here are my most favorite from around Temple Square. I can't share all because that would be to many pictures. We had a blast. The kids loved the South Visitors Center where they learned about the hisotry of the church, saw a model of the inside of the temple, The North Visitors Center let them see the spiritual aspect of the church. The kids LOVED seeing the Book of Mormon and Bible table in so many languages. They saw displays covering different sections of the scriptures and different messages.

The Jospeh Smith Building was fun to explore with the cars inside and take the elevator to the top the look over the temple grounds. The older kids enjoyed seeing how many brides they could find dressed up and getting pictures taken. At one point they found 6 couples.

The old conference center was so pretty but small compaired to the new one. The new conference center is simply amazing and can hold so many 21,000, I think they said.

But the time we were done the kids (and parents) were exhausted, after looking at the pedometer we understood why. We walked nearly 8 miles total during the day.

All the kids lined up waiting and looking for the next tram

All but one looking down the track

Our kids were thrilled to be on the tram. A new experience for them. Their cousins however, have been on the tram many times, just not with their cousins...

Arriving at our stop. Oh by the way the Olympics were held here in SLC in 2000 (see the rings)

love this statue

the kids thought this was the coolest car ever!

wow another one and both started with a crank in the front of the car. That puzzled the younger kids...

seeing the temple

Look it is Angel Moroni!

pretty pretty flowers

the boys standing so nice and looking handsome together

AWESOME shadow! I got the youngest on his uncles shoulders giving his mom a high five and the shadow was in the middle! LOVE THIS part of the picture!

This has always been my most favorite picture and I have never known why. Well I just learned that this was painted just for the World Expo in the mid 70's in Spokane Washington. I know I was there from stories I was told. Having been there, this would have been the biggest and first real picture of Jesus I would have seen as a child.

To this day this is still my most favorite painting and one I would LOVE to have a printed copy in my home with smaller pictures of my children in frames along side this one.

On top of the conference center. The inside and outside are totally amazing. The kids were amazed by the pipe organ. The tour throughout was amazing. The rooftop was even more amazing. The greenery on top is kept alive using a man made soil like product that is very light and allows for less friequent watering. The plants on the ground around temple square changed about every 6 months, however those on the conference center rooftop are watered and let to seed and pretty much do what they would in nature.

This fountain circulates the water running the waterfall falling down the side of the building

Awesome mural that sketched using sand blasting methods in the stone wall

wild flowers and grasses that would have been found along the wilderness showing visitors some of what the wagons had to roll through on the trip across.

The kids were awestruck with the Christus. Zach shispered to me "are we in heaven in this room?"

Celidah took this shot

a black and white version of the shot

a replica of the Golden Plates Ellie wanted to bring this home

The cousins descending down the temple steps oldest to youngest. Had to be quick as the littelest is quick and just wanted to run and see everything

Friday, August 12, 2011

Olumpic Legacy Plaza Picnic and Splash Pad

After visiting the Planitariam we had lunch at mall with a really cool snowflake shaped splash pad. Every thirty minutes the splash pad is set to music and puts on a really neat show. The water dances to beat of the music and sprays and spalshes higher. The kids LOVED this splash pad so much. Their Aunt Melly grabbed my camera and took the pictures and she got some awesome pictures. Here are just some of the pictures she took.