Ultimate Parkour

Why go around a field full of sprinklers when you could just go through the sprinklers?

Why stay on the ground when you could climb up the wall? UVU was very kind to let everyone from the PG Library climb for free one night and the kids were very excited.  I was a designated belayer instead.

Why solve a written puzzle when you could do several very physical escape rooms?  Miles has been wanting to go back to Labyrinth for a long time since they got new rooms. In very good news for me, only one person in your group has to achieve some of the hardest obstacles and the kids are much better at that sort of thing than I am.

                                       

Ultimate Mission Prep

Our stake recently hosted an activity for 16-18 year olds with a full day of mission prep.  Miles was sad that he had to wake up at 7 AM for an early start at the stake center.  He was assigned to the Houston Texas mission, which looks suspiciously a lot like our stake.  He was assigned to a companionship with Brother Snyder, who is a year older than Miles and lives in another ward. They prepared a short lesson and then did potentially nepotism-guided service (Miles wrote this, by the way. I think you can possibly guess) to help clean up the rodeo grounds which are owned by another stake president in the area. It was actually really fun even if it was technically the worst part.  Next, they ate hot dogs and then went to church and sang Army of Helaman.  After church, they were assigned a list of people to give lessons to from our ward.  They went to everyone except one person who was not home, and one extra, which was us because Miles wanted a water bottle, which is how I got this lovely picture.  (Mom's note: They did a great job talking about how Jesus can help us through our trials!) They went to their "mission president's" house to play games and eat snacks and had a lot of fun playing Psychologist.  After games, they had a delicious Houston-inspired dinner from a member who served in Houston with fully loaded carne asada tacos.  Miles ate four, and they had a cute dog so Miles though it was a win.  They had a fireside at the end and then it was fun but he was tired by the end.

Drone Show

 Gerrit has wanted to see a drone show for a few years now, but they're always very late and never close to our house.  He was so excited when they had one for the grand opening of our new city park!  Here's some of the cool drone shapes that feature local city landmarks or elements of the park:

Lift Up the Hands Which Hang Down

 I LOVE the international church art competition so I was so excited to go see it!  We stopped to have lunch at Feldman's on the way because we had wanted to go for Miles's birthday but it didn't work with the schedule, and then we tried to have ice cream at Normal after.  They were out of half their flavors so it was kind of disappointing.

The church history museum is always fun and we had a great docent at the printing press section!

The theme for this year's art show was "Lift Up the Hands Which Hang Down" and I loved seeing all the different interpretations.

This portrait of Abish is made of different rocks and shells and it's amazing!

The top picture was made by a former coworker at the BYU bowling alley snack bar and the bottom picture was made by someone I used to teach flute lessons to.  The kids thought this was cool but also made fun of me for knowing "all the artists" (Three.  I knew three out of 100. Not all of them!)

I loved this one about times when you feel like there is a message or song in sacrament meeting just for you.

I also loved this one.  The artist made several string arts that represented times she had seen someone serve others around her, and then she also reached out to multiple friends so it's a group collaboration.

We were walking past City Creek right as the fountain show went off so we stopped to watch.  We also found out they were having "Paw Palooza" that night, so we stayed around long enough to see lots of dogs walk around City Creek.

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I have the small version of this caterpillar so it was fun to see the enormous one!

The ice cream earlier had been disappointing so we also got a sampler from Rockwell.