Celebrations Galore

The end of August and beginning of September brought about a number of occasions to celebrate for us. For example, we were able to celebrate the upcoming re-opening of the Ogden Temple by attending the open house with my family on Labor Day. It was especially nice to have the opportunity to take Austin inside the temple, although he tired of our tour before it was finished. During the tour, we also kept hearing a young boy behind us loudly singing "I Love to See the Temple" in a rough exuberant voice, which made us laugh. The temple was really beautiful inside and we enjoyed admiring the fantastic craftsmanship we saw there. Today we were privileged to attend the dedication from our stake center. We are so happy that this temple will be opening back up!

A number of my favorite people have birthdays right around this time of year too. In fact, after returning home from the temple, we celebrated a couple of those birthdays that are in the family, including Nate's, my brother Nathan's, and Gram's.

Nate with his new laptop desk

Austin gave his dad the latest Vocal Point album

Our good friend Lori also had a birthday. It wasn't an official birthday celebration, but we did get the opportunity to hike with her and her family that next weekend.

Unfortunately, we headed up the wrong trail. Instead of a fairly flat, easy, short hike to a waterfall, we found ourselves scrambling along a slick rocky trail up the steep hillside. We have no idea where the trail we were on went to, but after a good ways we decided we had gone far enough. We enjoyed the view from our vantage point on the hill, and even noticed a bench across the ravine...probably along the trail we intended to take. Hopefully next time we will get it right...

In any case, we had fun and enjoyed the company!

Additionally, we recently celebrated the birthday of our friend and neighbor Brother Zaug, who turned 100 on August 29. He has lived here almost his whole life, and we love hearing his stories about the area and the farm he was raised on covering the area where we now all live.