Joe's Baptism

Joe was baptized October 13, 2012 into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  He was so excited to be baptized and literally counted the days until the date!  It was such a special day! Anyone who was there could feel the power of what was happening and I have no doubt ancestors were there to witness.  Joe is such a good natured boy with so much energy.  He has so many friends and is loved by so many.  Joe's Daddy baptized him and confirmed him with his Grandpa Johnson and Brother Anderson from our ward in the circle giving him the gift of the Holy Ghost.  His Grandma Johnson gave a beautiful talk on the Holy Ghost, and the spirit was so incredibly strong, bearing witness of the truthfulness of what he was doing.  His sisters sang a song and his best friend Aiden gave the closing prayer.  It was a beautiful day!

My Christina...yes...my...took some amazing pictures of Joe.  We had so much fun during this "photo shoot".  At first Joe felt a little silly posing for the camera but warmed up quickly.  Christina and I are such goofs that we were doing all kinds of silly things.  I love how the pictures turned out and am so grateful for my buddy!  

Moab

During the second week in August Dan and I had the opportunity to go to girls camp with Hailey and Abby. When the girls in our church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) turn 12, they join with all the girls in our particular area (ward) ages 12-18 and attend a camp every year together.  It is the highlight of their year full of all kinds of neat activities and opportunities to draw closer their Savior and form friendships that last and help them as they enter school where many of their other friends values and standards do not match their own.  Here are some pictures of our experience! We hiked Delicate Arch, Corona Arch, camped for 4 days, 3 nights under a beautiful cliff along the Colorado River, spent 6 hours lazily rafting down the Colorado River, swimming in a pretty little waterfall/pool area.  It was such a fun and memorable trip with our friends and girls!

 Me with a couple of women from our Ward

 Abby and Hailey on the Manti temple steps

 Dan, me and Hailey at Delicate Arch

 Our young women group with leaders at Delicate Arch

 Hailey (center) with a couple of friends at Corona Arch

 Abby (center, in blue) with friends who helped her on this difficult hike

 Me, in all my unshowered glory at Corona Arch.  Such a beautiful hike and view!

 Dan hiking down from Delicate Arch

Ensign Peak

We have a beautiful little hike on the East side of Salt Lake City that is pretty darn steep, but has an incredible view of the city at the top.  It is the place where Brigham Young upon arriving in the Salt Lake Valley surveyed the city and mountains and deciding this was the place to set up home.  I am so grateful for this beautiful valley we live in and for the incredible mountains I see every day and hike every summer.  I took the kids who wanted to go, and my cousin Erica!  We also went with our neighbors.  It was so much fun!

Look At Me!

Ruth's new favorite thing to say is, "look at me!"  Don't you just love this look?  Joe's shoes and the stroller on her head, LOL!  I just love this girl.

Rachel The Hiker

Rachel and I hiked to Red Pine Lake this week.  I have taken the other kids with me before and major whining ensues.  Rachel, however, always wants to push ahead, so I decided to take just her on a hike to see how she would do.  I planned on not making it to the lake as this is a 7 mile round trip hike and is very strenuous toward the top.  There is a picture of Rachel sitting by the river/stream that flows down the mountain and this is the 1 mile mark with about another 2 1/2 miles to go.  She made it to the river, no sweat!  She never complained and we laughed, talked and sang songs the whole way up.  I LOVE children. They notice things us grumpy adults don't, like the beautiful flowers and the view.  I tend to keep my head down and plow through my hikes and enjoy the view at the top, but not Rachel.  She would stop for a second and just sigh and say "Mom, this is just beautiful".  It would just make me smile.  I thoroughly enjoyed doing this with her.  As many of you know, I adore hiking!  I'm so excited I have a buddy to hike with!  Here are some fun pics of us along the way.

 This is the view from the trail down into the valley.  Kind of smokey this day, but still incredible.

 At Red Pine Lake

 Our pretty toes soaking in ice cold water.  It felt great!

 Rachel standing by a field of very beautiful blue flowers.  

 Rachel wanted to take pictures of all the different varieties of flowers on our way down the mountain and on this picture, I had it in focus and at the last second a huge bumble bee landed on this flower.  

 There were butterflies everywhere!  We finally caught a picture of this one.  Isn't it pretty?!

Joe and Sonic

Joe (age 7) has a hobby...well, many actually.  He LOVES to draw!  He is ALWAYS drawing.  For about a year it has been Link from Zelda.  Dan and I won't let him play very many video games because his mother (me) has a tendency to be seriously addicted :) So, I really do understand how much they can monopolize your life and kids just need to be kids before they even begin to understand how many things we can become addicted to in this life.  Instead of playing the games, Joe draws them.  We love to see his pictures posted all over our house.  He is getting quite good!  Just this week his friends have been talking Sonic video games, so instead of playing them, he is now begging me to look up pictures of Sonic on the computer so he can draw and color them.  I just love this kid.  I love that he makes the most of every situation!

Romeo and Juliet

Above is a super cute video of Abby performing as a narrator in her 6th grade Romeo and Juliet play.  She has been looking forward to this for months!  She is on the far left in turquoise. We were all so excited to go and watch her perform.  If you know anything about Abby, you'll know that she LOVES to perform!  She is constantly making up songs and performing them.  I love this about her!  We all had fun watching the kids play for a minute on the playground outside the school.  We went home afterwards for dessert.  We had Raw Brownies and homemade Banana Ice Cream.  I'm not sure I mentioned here on this blog that we changed the way we eat around our house.  We have been Vegan since February and are loving it!  Many things led us to this choice and if you want to read more, feel free to check out my new website called Go Plant Yourself!  I will post this dessert soon!