Whirlwind Tour of Nauvoo

When I made the decision to go back to West Yellowstone for the summer, I decided that I wanted to take a vacation before the summer begins. Working in West Yellowstone has its perks, but one of the disadvantages is that you don't ever get to take summer vacations. In fact, you don't hardly leave West Yellowstone for four months. I love it, but I miss out on a lot.

I've never been to Nauvoo. When my family went a few years ago, I was working in West Yellowstone (see?). With Kris living in Omaha, I decided that was the best place for a quick trip. I wanted to see what everyone was talking about. Mom caught wind of the plans and decided to join.

So the two of us spent a couple days in Omaha with Kris and his family where I went to Winter Quarters and Kanesville Tabernacle (Council Bluffs).

On Saturday we drove to Illinois and spent just over 24 hours in Nauvoo...

...and made a quick stop at Carthage.

We then drove through Quincy and stayed the night in Hannibal, MO. Before leaving, we caught a quick one-hour history of Mark Twain.

We breezed by Adam-Ondi-Ahman...

...and learned about the Community of Christ and Harry Truman in Independence.

We flew over to Liberty Jail.

Finally, we got a quick bite to eat at the Cracker Barrel and then made our way back to Omaha. And we did all of this in three days and in pouring rain. After a day in Omaha, we are now sitting in the airport getting ready to return to Utah.

We had a great time. I wish there was more time for all of this. I could spend 2-3 days in each of these spots, but I'm glad we did it. It's like a cruise. On a cruise, you go in and out of ports quickly, only getting a taste of what the location has to offer. But after you leave, you know what it has to offer if you want to go back. And I will be going back.

Weekly news from Vancouver

Not much has been going on with us here in Vancouver. We are hearing a lot about the Winter Olympics that are going to start this week in that other Vancouver--and we wish we could go--but it is not going to happen. We will watch it on TV--but it brings to memory the time we went to the Winter Olympics in SLC eight years ago. Cameron was just leaving the MTC for Hong Kong and we just found out that our good friend, Becky had cancer. Thankfully she survived treatment and is still with us and Cameron served an awesome mission.
We just got some good news a few minutes ago. Chase just found out that he has been accepted to BYU-Idaho and he and Shyla will be moving to Rexburg next summer to start school there in the fall. CONGRATULATIONS to them.
Like I said --not much going on with us this week. I made several trips to the Dr. for various reasons and everything is pretty much up to par for me. My liver is still huge with 10-12 cm cysts and a CT scan just showed that there may be a cyst on one of my kidneys. The dr. doesn't seem to be too concerned and I will get re-checked in 6 months. We went to see Avatar on Saturday and that was pretty awesome. We didn't see it in 3-D because the theater we went to didn't show it in 3-D--but it was still awesome. I was more impressed with the scenery and the technology of the Avatar's than the story-line--but the whole thing was still pretty fun to watch. I would recommend it.
The super bowl was yesterday--but really--who cares. It doesn't really matter much in the whole eternal scheme of things. While studying in Alma this week for my Institute class I came upon a thought about faith from President Joseph Feilding Smith. "If we want to have a living, abiding faith, we must be active in the performance of every duty as members of this Church". Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin taught, "Faith exists when absolute confidence in that which we cannot see combines with action that is in absolute conformity to the will of our Heavenly Father. Without all three--first, absolute confidence, second, action; and third, absolute conformity--without these three, all we have is a counterfeit, a weak and watered-down faith". I am trying to do better about understanding what my Heavenly Father wants me to do with the time that I have left on this earth. I know that in order for my faith to be strenthened, I must do all I can to obey the commandments and serve in my callings. My hope for my family is that we can all try each day to gain a stronger faith in the things that really matter. Love, Mom

Trip to the Olympic Penninsula

The weekend started with a camp-out with the Young Women of our Ward in the lodge at Camp Merriweather on the coast near Tillamook, Oregon. Baxter even got to go and he loved romping on the beach. He didn't want to get his feet too wet and didn't like the taste of that salty water when he tried to drink it.

Saturday we brought Baxter back home to stay with the Elders and unpacked our camping clothes and changed to our traveling clothes and headed up to Marysville for some scrabble playing, eating, and hanging out with Rick and his family. On Sunday after attending church to hear Josh give his homecoming mission talk, we headed south to Edmonds to catch the Ferry across the sound to Kingston on the Olympic Penninsula. We hadn't ever been on a Ferry before and it was lots of fun.

This is the upper deck which is inside with comfortable seats and even a snack bar. The ride only took about 25 minutes.

The view from where we were sitting in our parked car. We were on the upper level for cars and sitting on a steep slant with 3 cars in front of us--and then the water.

I am standing outside on the upper deck in the front of the Ferry. It was a little breezy--but not too bad. I can't wait for all the family to come do this with us sometime.

The view as we were coming into port in Kingston.

Just a couple of miles from Kingston is this little restored port village called Port Gamble. They used to ship a lot of logs out of here. There were a lot of cute little shops but we didn't spend much time here because it was Sunday and the off season and not much was open.

The Post Office in Port Gamble.

The bridge crossing more of the Sound from Port Gamble to the rest of the Olympic Peninsula.

We spent Sunday night in Port Angeles. Some of the events in the book TWILIGHT took place in Port Angeles. They weren't really filmed here--but the people in Port Angeles like to say that this is probably the movie theater where Bella and her friends went to see a movie.

This is where Edward took Bella to dinner after rescuing her from the sleaze gang of guys. Business is booming because of all the Bella and Edward fans that want to eat here. We didn't try in because it seemed a little pricey.

Dad is standing at the end of the pier of Port Angeles with the Olympic Mountains in the background. It was all so beautiful.

A rangers information cabin close to Crescent Lake. We were thinking about taking a hike up to a waterfall--but decided we didn't have the time. We want to go back sometime soon to do it. This is on the road between Port Angeles and Forks.

The sign that Esme Cullen leaves for visitors that come to the Cullen house in Forks. It is really a bed and breakfast place that visitors can stay in. The owners leave a message from Esme on the white board outside the house every day.

The beach at La Push. This is where Jacob and his Dad lived and where he and his friends jumped off the cliffs. It wasn't really filmed here and it is not safe to dive off these rocks. There is a Quilleute Village right there and some camping spots. It is very pretty.

Dad finally let me take a picture of him. This whole area from Port Angeles to Forks is in a beautiful rain forest. It is not just this green in the winter. The rain forest gets an average of 16 FEET of rain each year. In Vancouver we average 16 inches. So many places to explore!!

This sign is outside a little convenience store about a mile from the beach at La Push. On the other side it says something about Vampires Welcome.

Enough said. Forks High School. It is going to be torn down soon so it is good we got out picture there. The outside high school scenes were really filmed at Kalama High School about 25 miles north of our house in Vancouver.

Bella's truck outside the Forks Visitors Information Center. Inside one can get a map of all the TWILIGHT points of interest in the area.

It was a fun trip. We could have done a lot more --we would have liked to have continued down the coast but we were running out of time so after leaving Forks we headed back home. Hopefully soon we can go back. I hope everyone who reads this blog will have a good week and your prayers will all be answered in the way that you want them to be. This morning in Sacrament Meeting the talks were centered on President Monson's talk about "Have you done any good in the world today". I decided to challenge myself to consciously try to do one nice thing for someone each day and record it in my journal. Saturday we had a Stake Relief Society Conference and it was dedicated to providing service in our community. After gathering together and hearing some remarks from our Stake President, we were given the choice of 20 different places we could go in the community to provide service. They included singing in nursing homes, preparing meals in homeless shelters, cleaning and painting, etc. Most of my friends had just about decided that they weren't going to go--but I called a couple of them and we went anyway. We ended up going to the Vancouver Genealogical Society--that I didn't even know existed--and cutting vital information(births, deaths, marriages, etc.) out of the local paper so they can be copied and put on file for anyone who wants that kind of information for their genealogical research. We only stayed for a couple of hours but it was fun and good memories were made that we would have missed if we had all stayed home. The lady at the center was just thrilled that we would come to help her. Like my Grandma Hanks used to say--if you skip a meeting or fireside you might miss something that Heavenly Father wants you to know. I know this is true. Have a good week. Love, Mom

Future Jazz man

Here's the highlight from JK's last game.

Joseph's First Birthday

Here are a few pictures from Joseph's 1st Birthday.

Here are the boys after lunch. Jordan insisted that he wanted to come home for lunch so he could be with his brother.

Here's his first cake.

Not sure what to think quite yet.

It didn't take long before he was digging in.

Cameron's Grown-up Christmas List

UP DVD (widescreen)
A Quick Cam or some sort of camera for my computer to use on Skype
An ITrip for my Ipod Nano
Kris Allen CD
New Michael Buble CD
Itunes Gift Card
Angels and Demons DVD (widescreen)
Amazon Gift Card to use for my Kindle


That's a start for now.

What we've been up to in Nebraska

Here are some pictures from our neck of the woods. These first few are from when Mom, Ashley, and Jonny came out to visit.

Kris, Jordan, and Jonny working on a fire truck as part of a free kids class at Lowe's.

Okay, this is a tough one, but which one of these two is six years old?

Jordan and Grandma

Jordan sitting in the Creighton helicopter that landed in the parking lot.

Jordan and his friends Dallin and Michael with the ball toss games they made at the Home Depot kids class. This is for Chase, who isn't very pleased when we choose to go to Lowes. But we are not a respecter of home repair stores.

Jordan and Joseph enjoying a book together.

Jordan lost his first front tooth about a month ago...

And then lost the other front tooth two weeks later.

Yes, that's snow. On Oct 10. Well, before the start of winter. We got about 3 inches that didn't stay more than a day (thankfully)

Joseph, looking as cute as ever.

Joseph in one of his favorite spots (under his bounce toy)