Oquirrh Temple Open House

The day after Father's Day, we had the opportunity to attend the open house for the new Oquirrh Temple. Grandpa Young, Grandma Tsukamoto, Tyler, and Andrea went with us. It was a great experience especially for Megan and Ian. They were impressed with the intricate chandeliers, the Celestial Room, and the sealing room. Erin's favorite part were the cookies at the end of the tour in the refreshment tent.

Sister missionaries are available to take photographic evidence of your family's visit to the open house.

Dallin fell asleep in the backpack partway through the tour.
He woke up when we went outside again.

Angel Moroni got struck by lightning in a rainstorm a week ago.
Sure enough, he looked a bit scorched.

Human interest photo taken by Ian:
the highly enthusiastic volunteer who will direct you to a parking place

Father's Day 2009

To start off Father's Day this year, Megan & Mom made Belgian waffles
topped with whipped cream and strawberries for a special breakfast
for our awesome dad.

Following our Sunday meetings, we went to SLC for a family party at the Young's house. On the drive we discovered that our air conditioner was not working. Fortunately the weather has been unseasonably cool.

We had a great time eating and visiting. Emmy managed to evade the camera, but notice her darling baby Betsy on Kevin's lap. Gabe and Erin watered the flowers and bushes and sprayed each other with the hoses. Nancy talked about her upcoming retirement on Friday (CONGRATULATIONS!), and we heard stories about Rex's and Tanya's vacation to Arizona. Brad tried to explain to us what he is doing for his PhD (something about synovial fluid in joints of arthritic patients--ask him for more clarification). And Diane told us all about her new cookbook that Tyler has been helping put online.

Bearded Tyler, naked-faced Kevin, and Randy doing their best to look manly--should they sign a modeling contract?

Ah, Tyler and Andrea are the perfect photogenic couple!

Dallin says, "Look! I, too, can pose and look very cute while sitting on the rocks,"
or perhaps he's telling a story about a big fish he caught.

Later, a huge windstorm blew in and scattered napkins, plates, and cups all over the yard.
It was close enough to the end of Father's Day, so the men were all assigned clean-up duty.

Long Live Boba Fett

As our faithful readers already know, we are a family of Star Wars geeks. We have passed this on to our offspring, who participated in the very first Boba Fett Appreciation Day with the Crooks and Wallises. Most people think that Boba Fett died in the stomach of the sarlacc, however, he survived as documented in this article.

For our contribution, we decorated this cake based on the above photograph.

The Crooks' house was decorated with Star Wars action figures and Lego models.

Participants dressed in available costumes or Star Wars shirts (except for Erin who chose pink clothing for some reason). They had light saber duels, played Star Wars themed games, and ate food made from The Star Wars Cookbook.

They also watched Attack of the Clones, since that episode introduces Boba Fett into the series. However, they did not watch it using this R2D2 DVD Projector, which apparently was only available in Europe.

Eclectic Mix

Dallin cruising around the living room

Ian handcuffed by the king snake

Brothers enjoying the sunshine and a momentary lapse in the rain

New baby Maren
April had the amazing experience to assist with a friend's home birth.
The attending midwife was Chris Miller (same midwife who helped Ian, Erin, and Dallin
enter this world). It was truly incredible, and much more fun to be on the non-laboring
end of things.

Our home as shown on Google Earth...hmmm...should we trim the trees?

Camp Fife

Ian attended a cub scout camp again this year. The theme was "Space" so they learned about constellations and the solar system. They got to play a lot of games, shoot BB guns and arrows, take a ride on a giant zip line, and climb a climbing wall.

Aurora's Wedding

Aurora and Adam
5 June 2009
Logan Temple
Reception in Cub River, Idaho

Parents of the Bride

They are rejoicing in the fact that the wedding day is nearly over and that there will be no more wedding plans for at least a few more years. We don't have a good photo of the groom's parents. Sorry!

Siblings of the Bride (plus a couple of friends)
Arthur, Luke, Melody, and Amelia

The Food

The Cake

The decorated car--we didn't get to help deface this one, much to Ian's dismay.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar and the Very Slippery Boy

As we were walking home from church last Sunday, Kevin stopped and commented on the "Very Hungry Caterpillar" he saw crossing the sidewalk. Erin wanted to take it home and keep it. As you can see, she has already bonded with it. It is a tent caterpillar and will eventually turn into a moth.

This is our "Very Slippery Boy" who refuses to sit in the bathtub, but must instead crawl around, chewing on foam alphabet letters and fish, while splashing water everywhere. It is great nighttime entertainment.

Stop Animation Workshop

We've had an adventure the past three days participating in a homeschool stop animation class. This project involved eleven families where the children divided into groups, created plots, acquired/made props, filmed, and edited. The end results were creative and fun movies (about 10, I think). One of the families is going to put them all together on a DVD.

We couldn't have done as much if Dallin wasn't such a mellow child. He sat, ate grass and dandelions, and did his army crawl around the yard while watching all the activity. He did spend some time in the backpack when I was filming.

The alphabet movie was a project for the toddlers and younger children. They each got letters to decorate and then chose an item starting with their letters to film. The moms helped with the filming and editing (I volunteered for that part--it was fun! I got a bit carried away with the sound effects!).

Ian and two of his friends made this Star Wars movie. They did all the filming themselves, and then the parents helped a little with the editing. We need more time to teach the children editing techniques.



Megan and 3 other girls made a delightful fairy movie, but we don't have a copy of it yet, as it was created on another computer. They painted a background, hand crafted their own fairies, and included poetry and Celtic music. It was a nice change from all the battle movies made by the boys (though the boys tend to disagree).




It was amazing how well everyone worked together. We had our fair share of glitches (i.e. Windows Movie Maker crashing repeatedly, troubles burning the movies to discs, etc.), but overall it was a very positive experience. We already have plans for another movie workshop, a week-long one this time to give us more time to work around the difficulties.