I Love to See the Temple, I'm Going there Today!

We had the wonderful opportunity to go down to the LDS Conference Center for our Regional State Conference (it was broadcast to 65 stakes, ours just happened to be one that got to come to the conference center).  It was one of the rare times that children (under 8) are allowed in during a performance.  It sure was a lot noisier in there with so many kids, but it was still great!

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf spoke to us as well as Elder Holland of the 12 Apostles, Elder Bowen of the Seventy, and Sister Burton of the General Relief Society.  They had some inspiring words and messages for us!  The kids did great at being fairly quiet though they were getting antsy by the time President Uchtdorf spoke.  However, we felt that it was still a really good experience for them, especially Avery who understood more.

Afterward, we went and ate lunch at a park with people from our ward and then we walked around Temple Square.  We also were able to go on top of the Conference Center and see the gardens, which was really neat.  We walked over to the Temple of the visitor centers there as well.  Avery was so excited to see the temple- or "Jesus's Temple" as he called it.  He was really bummed that he couldn't go inside it and see Jesus.  However, we went over to the Christus at the North Visitor Center and he really liked that.  He was so reverent and we all really felt the spirit.  It was such a neat experience to be there as a family.  We also went to the south visitor center that has a model of the temple and we learned a lot from that!  Then we finished off with some time by the reflection pool.  The kids loved it all and were so tucked out that Lily fell asleep before we got out of the parking garage and Avery before we got on the interstate.  We love Temple Square!

Fireman Avery!

A couple of weeks ago Avery got invited to a birthday party at the fire station for one of the kids in his Sunbeam class. (there are only 3 kids total, all boys).  Their Sunbeam teacher is a firefighter at the West Point Fire Station and for the party, he gave a tour of the fire station and let the kids get on the trucks and ambulance. They heard the sirens and got to try on his teacher's fireman suit (which had been in a fire just the night before and smelled all smoky) It was so much fun!  Avery could have stayed on the firetruck all afternoon.
Later, when we got home, he asked Amanda, "Can you be a fireman daddy?" After explaining she could only be a mom, Ave asked, "Can you be a fireman mommy?"   Then he preceded to ask if Brian could be a fireman daddy.  He's convinced that is what Brian should do.

The Prophet Said to Plant A Garden...

so that is what we'll do (or did)!!!
After a lot of debate and thinking over where we wanted our garden, we took out the sod, then decided that we didn't like our spot and moved the sod and planted elsewhere.  A little more work, but we think we will like it better this way.  Avery thought planting was the bomb!  He did a really good job planting the peas, beans and corn.  Planting the corn is what he was most excited about and that happened to be the last thing we planted.  We can't wait to see the fruits (or vegetables) of our labor!

we planted: carrots, onions (late but we'll see how they grow), beets, broccoli, sugar snap peas, regular peas, green beans, squash, zucchini, potatoes, and corn.  We will plant tomatoes and peppers a little bit later.

Fencers

The Entire month of April was dedicated to putting up a vinyl fence on the corner side of our house.  Wow, it sure was alot more work than we anticipated, but we are sure glad that we did it!   We went the "cheaper" route and did it ourselves, with plenty of help from our awesome neighbors.  We had to plan it out (took us a whole day), dig holes, discover that our sprinklers were in the way, decide to do a concrete mow strip, dig a trench, pour mow strip concrete, set posts (alot of leveling involved), cut panels/rails, install panels/rails,  install 2 gates, and finally put the post caps on!  Our kids were getting pretty sick of hearing that we were busy doing the fence.  Avery even talked in his sleep about building a fence...

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 Here is a photo of Avery & his cousins in the post holes.  Its just like one of Amanda's brothers in post holes when they were little.  The grass that is cut out in front of them was going to be our garden (we had someone come cut and haul it away for free).  However, we changed our mind and moved the garden along the road side of the fence (instead of the south side).  We are a little fickle like that :-)

The Nature Park

We decided to go to a nearby nature park one Sunday afternoon.  The kids really loved the ducks, the pathways, and especially the little canal running through the park.  Lily and Avery could have sat by the canal  all evening.   We love that it has been such nice weather that we can go and enjoy the outdoors as a family!