Claire's Talk

Claire gave a talk today. She was extremely nervous, but did fabulous.

Here's her talk:

President Uchtdorf shared an experience he had as a youth and being sealed in the temple. He said, "I can still remember when my parents took our family to the newly built Swiss Temple, the first in Europe, to become a forever family. I was 16 then and the youngest of four children. We knelt together at the altar to be sealed on earth by the power of the priesthood, with a wonderful promise that we could be sealed for eternity. I will never forget this magnificent moment. As a boy I was quite impressed that we crossed country borders to be sealed as a family. To me it symbolizes the way temple work crosses worldly boundaries to bring eternal blessings to everyone on earth. Temples are truly built for the benefit of the entire world.”

Our family relationships are so special to Heavenly Father that he has given us the ability, through temple ordinances, to be with our families forever.

I bear my testimony that I know the Church is true and that Joseph Smith really did see Heavenly Father and Jesus. I know that when we get baptized we receive the Holy Ghost and if we follow the commandments we will live with Him again. I know that families can be sealed together in the temple to live together forever. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

4H Success!

It was a stressful week as the girls needed to get EIGHT record books ready for fair. Their projects were made (except their food projects which need to be made the early morning of), it was just getting all the final touches together.

We worked on Wednesday from 9 to 5, and we almost finished- but not quite. The record books are quite intense- they need to write essays, include labeled pictures, show all the things they did over the course of the year. It's a lot. A LOT.

Camille is what is called a Cloverbud, so she doesn't need to do a record book, thank goodness. But, she can do an interview and turn in a project just for fun- which she did. She turned in the rocket that she made a few months ago.

On Saturday, the girls got up early and Audra made her rolls, and Claire her gingerbread men.

Then we headed off to fair.

Claire turned in 5 projects, so she had 5 interviews. She can get really nervous. She didn't tell me much about how they went, but she was smiling after all of them.

Audra had 3, and she was pretty nervous, but she felt like she did well on her interviews. She was more positive than last year about it.

We won't know for a couple weeks how they are judged. But I think they are awesome! They have both done so much work this year to improve their talents!

And now it is over, and we can all breathe a sigh of relief.

All of their record books, representing hours and hours of hard work!

Camille didn't turn this in for fair, but she did make this pillowcase which turned out great:

Lair O' the Bear

Our hikes are gradually coming to a close as summer is already reaching its sad conclusion.

So we made the most of it today. We went to Lair O' the Bear. We hiked for a couple miles (that were surprisingly easy- I can't believe how much better of hikers the girls are now!), then the girls spent THREE hours in the river with their friends.

It was bittersweet today as we said good-bye to our dear friends who are moving to California next week. Mia and Claire have been best friends since we started homeschooling 5 years ago. They are two peas in a pod- they get along so incredibly well. Their moving is a tremendous loss to us. I know that change is the only thing that is constant, but it still hurts.

Nevertheless, they had a last day together- and they took advantage! Even trying to get in trouble, as usual, but purposely staying far behind on the hike so they could take a "short cut" without us knowing. Such stinkers!

 Claire and Mia:

Top Hogs

Oh, man- today started out pretty miserable. A lot of things are going wrong right now- broken down car, fruit fly infestation that will NOT go away, a myriad of health problems coming to a head. Blah.

But, then today I met an old colleague for lunch. She just went through breast cancer, and it was incredible to catch up with her. I LOVE it when I see old friends, who I haven't seen for years, and we can just talk for hours without missing a beat. What a blessing good friends are!

Then, I took the girls to Top Hogs. The library was hosing this pig talent duo, and it was AWESOME! One, the show was great- he was actually on America's Got Talent (YouTube it- the pig Mudslinger got kissed by Heidi Klum, it's awesome).

But, the man who does the show just exudes JOY. He was such a wonderful entertainer, and we could all just tell that he loves bringing happiness into the world. It just made me so happy and grateful. It's so easy to get bogged down in life's trials, but in reality- it's the little things. Friends coming into town and having you act like a tourist. Lunch with old friends. And, pigs riding on a skateboard.

Claire LOVES pigs, but she wasn't the only child in absolute Heaven. All the kids had such a great time!

Last Day

For the last full day of having our friends in town, we went swimming, and then of course- to Casa Bonita. After Casa Bonita, I felt like we gave Danielle the full Denver experience! It's always fun when I can show my new town of Denver to friends and family from home. I've been here for SIXTEEN years now- which is ridiculous since I am not that old- and it's not very often that my Seattle peeps can make it so far east, so this was a treat!

AFA and Garden of the Gods

 One of Danielle's goals was to see the Air Force Chapel, so we headed down!

It really is an incredible building with amazing architecture. I had never been, so it was great to be a tourist and see such an impressive emblem of the AFA. I also learned a lot about the AFA, and how I never could have gone there!

 Then we headed out to Garden of the  Gods. It started out as a disaster. It was extremely crowded- I have never been there when it was so crowded before. Finally we found a pull off parking spot. We were all starving, so our next step was to find a place to eat. Well, I started trekking us to where I thought we could find a good place to eat. Finally I found a flat area that seemed fine. We sat and started eating, only to realize we were basically eating on top of an ant hill. Mission fail.

We headed back to the car, only to discover that there was a perfect picnic area about 20 yards from our car- in the opposite direction that we had walked. Oops! Like I said- a total fail.

At least the hike back to the van was pretty and provided a couple rocks for Claire to climb.

 

But then, as we started driving through the park to head home, Danielle spotted a perfect parking spot, and we were able to go rock around the formations and climb the rocks in the actual park. We were hot, and there may have been a little bit of reluctance, but the kids ended up having a great time.

More climbing- the kids were in heaven!

Denver Mint

After SIXTEEN years (gasp!) of living here, a dear friend came out to visit for the first time with the sole intent of going to the Denver Mint. So, we made it a top priority!

Turns out, however, it is actually quite a pain in the rear end to get tickets. Initially I thought we would all just head down around 6:15. Tickets are first come, first served.

Last night as I did research, though, I learned that people start lining up at 5 AM! Ben said, "haven't people realized it isn't that cool of a place to see?" Regardless of Ben's opinion, this was the entire reason Danielle came to visit, so we needed to get tickets!

Each person can get 5 tickets. I decided to wake my incredible trooper Audra up. I did so at 5:15 and said, "Put some pants on. I'll explain in the car!" She and I drove down and got in line- we made it by 5:45. We were about #20 in line. At 5:45. By 6:15 the line was very long- we most assuredly would not have gotten tickets if we got there at 6:45.

Thankfully, we were next to very friendly and wonderful people. A couple from New York, and a homeschooling family from Texas! Audra made friends with their kids Rachel and Isaac and we exchanged addresses so she has new pen pals!

 Audra is the best- she never complained! I can always count on her to be my partner in crime! I can't wait to traipse through Europe with her by my side- she is simply the best at being adventurous and willing to do hard things for great rewards!

I was quite grumpy about this archaic system of not being able to reserve tickets in advance, BUT- it ended up being totally worth it! The tour was fabulous, and I learned so much about how money works in America (for the record, zero tax dollars are spent on the making of money. In fact, the US Mint earns about 4 billion dollars of profit a year. It's incredible). The Denver Mint has about 50 BILLION dollars worth gold in the basement! WOW!!!

I would definitely do it again! I'm so glad we played tourists with our tourists today and had such an incredible time at this place!

After the tour we walked over to the capitol so N could stand on the 5,280 marker. Then, there happened to be some kind of food truck festival going on, so we ate there.

Oh, shout out to Ben: Children under the age of 7 are not allowed, so Ben took the day off work to baby-sit Camille and 5 year old C, our guest.  It was very nice of him to help us out, but I told him that he needs to go to the Mint as an adult. He did not enjoy it as a child, but I think as an adult he would really like it.