Our next stop after Idaho, was in Logan, UT. Brock and I were married there, and my extended family pretty much all live there. In other words, some of my most favorite people live there! We couldn't stay long, and we were there at a really bad time, so we only got to see a few of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. It was still great to spend time with them though, and I'm so grateful to be blessed with a close extended family who loves and supports each other no matter what!
I was really excited to be able to spend some time with my Aunt Charlotte, who showed me her treasure trove of family history. She has closets full of pictures, documents, and record keeping on my family going back hundreds of years. I have recently tried to get very involved with family history, but there is not much more work to be done on my family. Seriously, my family lines on all sides go back hundreds and in some cases, thousands of years. I've seen many of these people's names, dates, and information for a long time now, but it was neat to get to see actual pages of hand-written records that my ancestors kept. Aunt Charlotte and my Uncle Dave are busy trying to find a way to preserve all these memories, so that our ancestors can become more than just a name on a computer screen. They are scanning documents and pictures, and then creating a website where we can go to see all the images and information. I am SO excited about this, because the more I learn about my ancestors, the more real they become to me and the more I love them. I'm sure it will take her and her husband years and years to go through everything they have, but I am grateful they are willing to take the time to do it!
I also saw this picture hanging at my aunt's home, with a bit of recent family history:
Because you probably can't read the tiny writing on the blue piece of paper, I will explain what it says. This is a picture of my Grandma and Grandpa Lehman. You might be able to tell that my grandma's face appears smudged. This picture hung in my Grandma and Grandpa's house, and every morning and every night since Grandma died, Grandpa would kiss her picture and say "Good morning, doll," or "Good-night, doll." Those smudges are the kiss marks my grandpa left behind when he died. It's a sweet and visible reminder of the great love my grandparents shared.
Before we left Logan, we had to make two other visits. First of all, we went to the Logan Temple, where Brock and I were married. (The reason temples and family history work are so important to me is explained
here.) It is always a sacred experience to go to the temple, but this time was even more so. After seeing so much of my family history at my aunt's home, I was even more touched when Brock and I were able to do a session at the temple where most of my family was
sealed. It was also very touching to me, because there was a father attending the session who was pushing his young adult son in a wheelchair. I kept looking at the boy, thinking how that could so easily have been Flint. Watching this father and son, and thinking of my own sweet boy, I was suddenly overcome by the thought that I would have been totally fine to push my Flint around in a wheelchair and take care of him his whole life, if that had been required of us. Never before had I thought of that, but in that moment, it was very clear to me that if that had been our path, I would have loved the privilege of taking care of this precious son of God.
It was wonderful to be in the temple, and I'm so grateful to my Aunt Cynthia and cousin Kelli for taking care of the kids so we could go. We went and picked the kids up, then drove back up to the temple to get a few pictures.
It's such a beautiful place, and the kids enjoyed walking around, hearing stories about our dating life and wedding day. The other place we had to visit, was the cemetery. This cemetery is special to our family, because my aunt and uncle, all four grandparents, and a nephew are buried here.
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| My nephew Zach is buried right by my Grandpa Buss and Grandma Meg |
It's also a special cemetery to us, because Flint is NOT buried here. When I was pregnant and we knew there was a possibility that Flint could die, Brock and I decided that he would be buried near his cousin Zach, if he didn't make it. It was a sacred, overwhelming feeling to stand at that spot with our relatively healthy, very much ALIVE son, and know that this picture could have looked SO different! We are truly blessed!
After we left Logan, we went back to my brother's house in Layton, and the kids got some more cousin time there, even though I hardly took any pictures, once again! We got to go to the Davis County Fair, which was pretty darn good, especially for being FREE! We saw a cool elephant show and bear show, plus the kids got to go in a petting zoo and ride on ponies.
Another highlight of our stay here, was that we got to go to the Ogden
Temple open house. The temple had been recently remodeled, and so we were excited to take our kids on a tour. The Spirit was so strong there, and I loved watching my kids reverently taking it all in. It was beautiful on all levels!
After lots more cousin playtime, we finally packed the van up and started for home. "Starting for home," in this situation, really meant "drive home after taking a day to explore Salt Lake City and another day to explore Provo." We left Derek and Julie's house on Friday morning the 15th, and planned to slowly make our way to Provo by that evening. We took the kids to some of my favorite places! We went to Temple Square and saw the Salt Lake Temple.
We took a tour of the conference center, where the kids especially liked the organ inside, and the gardens on the roof. After seeing the conference room where conference is broadcast from, Duke was absolutely determined to come watch conference there someday. He was really touched!
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| I know this is a horrible picture, but it's the best one the sister missionary could get! |
One of my favorite parts of the day, happened when we went up to the roof of the conference center so we could look at the gardens. Gage did what any smart 6 year old would do and got his head stuck between the bars. Here's Brock and the sister missionary trying to get him out. HAHAHA! It was pretty awesome!
We also went to the Visitor's Center and the Church History Museum, where there's a great section for kids to explore and play with.
Once we were done with the Temple Square area, we took tours of
Welfare Square and the
Humanitarian Center. I am way too tired right now to explain what these two amazing facilities are, but if you go to those links, you will be able to read all about them. I had never been to either of these facilities before this trip, and I am so grateful we went and took the kids. Their eyes were opened to what others have to deal with and how good we really have it. It was a very touching place to be, to see the projects they do around the world such as neonatal resuscitation, free wheelchairs, immunizations, vision help, clean water, and agricultural training. They provide these free to anyone with the need, regardless of religion. This is where you see Christ's gospel in action!
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| Sorting clothes to be taken during disaster relief |
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| Anytime you're in the area, you can go by and help make a quilt. They especially like donations of already made quilts to share with people in need. |
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| Some of their main projects |
Davis just learned to crochet, and asked the missionaries if they ever needed donations of crocheted items. It was her lucky day, because the sister in charge gave Davis a hug bag of yarn, some knitting needles, and told Davis what she could work on that would help them. I thought it was so sweet wanted to contribute her talents in whatever way she could. She's completed two scarfs since then and is still going strong!
Once we finished our tours here, we drove up to the Salt Lake City Cemetery, where many of the prophets and apostles are buried. We found a few of their gravesites, and the kids were especially excited to find this one:
They still hear us talk a lot about President Hinckley, so I think they were pretty excited to get to see where he and his wife are buried. I didn't take pictures of every single one we found, but here's a sampling:
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| This one's hard to see, but it's Heber J. Grant |
Anyway, it was a fun thing to do, even though by this time we were hot and tired and ready to be done. Of all the days on our trip, this day was my favorite. The kids were awesome, and even though much of what we did that day was very adult and probably boring to them, they stayed respectful and listened with their ears and their hearts. As we talked about what we experienced that day, they each commented in their own way about the peace, excitement, or joy they felt at certain places that day. I doubt they will remember the details of what we did in Salt Lake, but I know that their spirits were touched and they were able to grow closer to their Savior because of what we experienced together that day.
That night we stayed at a hotel in Provo, and then we got up early the next morning for a few more hours of site-seeing. Brock and I met when we were in our final year at BYU (again, sometime I'll share our whole story here), so it was fun to show the kids around a little bit of campus. Brock and I were in the same ward when our ward held a talent show at the Varsity. We had been on two dates when this talent show occurred, and I was singing in it with my roommates. Come to find out, Brock was singing too, but he needed an accompanist. It just so happens this music major was able to help him out! After the talent show, members of our ward were hanging out in the foyer talking. Brock and I were both trying to act like we weren't looking for each other, and somehow we both just HAPPENED to time it perfectly that we left to go to our cars at exactly the same time! He walked me to my car, then I drove him to his and went home. As I pulled into my parking lot though, I realized he was right behind me. We both got out of our cars and proceeded to have a long talk in the parking lot (with lots of girls from my apartment complex looking on from their windows). That little talk ended with us telling each other we were going to get married. What-the-WHAT?!!! I hated those kinds of stories...until it happened to me. Trust me though, there's a LOT of preliminary stuff that happened before that night in the parking lot. Anyway, we had to get a picture at the Varsity, and I loved the Spiderman/ Maleficent comparison. HA!
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My apartment complex where the big talk took place on Monday, November 5, 2001.
Mine was the very top floor on the right.
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We took the kids to the bookstore and then to some of our favorite buildings on campus. The kids especially loved the Eyring Science Building, and of course Duke had to get a picture with the rocks!
After a fun morning exploring BYU, Flint started to go from looking like this:
To looking like this:
And with that, our Utah vacation was over. We loaded the kids back in the van, stopped at JDawgs for a hot dog lunch and Stan's for a milk shake, and then we hit the road. It was great to reminisce about so many important parts of our lives, but by this point we were ready to get home. We spent the rest of the day driving, and got back home around 3:00 am Sunday morning. Brock got about 3 hours of sleep before getting up for his Bishopric meeting, and I got about 3 hours of sleep before getting up to get myself and the kids ready for church.
This vacation was all totally worth it though! We had the perfect mix of time with family, site-seeing, relaxing, testimony building, and reminiscing, and we all came home so grateful for the experiences we shared together. YAY for summer vacations!
And now - bring on the school year!
