SLC Conference Center

We took a day and went up to SLC with Grandma. While she was in the family history library with Uncle Trevor, the kids and I toured the massive Conference Center at Temple Square.

 Here we are on the roof of the conference center. It was an impressive tour. The gardens on the roof are bedded with shale and peat moss because it is lighter than dirt for the structure to support. And the gardens represent the way the saints would have found the Salt Lake Valley when they arrived in 1847. They are not beautiful and manicured, but more of a wildflower look. Here we are in front of the fountain that is directly over the place of the pulpit in the building below. This is the source of the water for the water falls coming off the roof, and this represents the way the gospel goes to all the world, beginning with the prophet as the Lord's spokesman on Earth today.

On the other end of the roof, overlooking the Salt Lake Temple.

(David couldn't keep his eyes open in the bright sunshine. By the end of our trip, he didn't mind the sunshine one bit.)

This building seats 21,000 people without any obstructed views from support beams.We were told that President Hinckley went to the church architects and said, "I want a building that seats 30,000 people without any support posts in the center of it so each seat has an unobstructed view of the pulpit." The architects said, "That's impossible!" To which President Hinckley quickly replied, "No it's not. I've seen it." In the end, the prophet had to be talked down to 21,000 seats instead of the originally intended 30,000--which would have needed a bigger lot to extend the building another 30 percent deep. The entire building is an architectural feat of its own.

This little boy was beyond excited to see all the switches, wires, speakers, lights, etc inside the auditorium. I'm glad that he relates to this location, because he'll be seeing it on screen every 6 months for the rest of his life when General Conference is broadcast worldwide.

Free Time

 After the chores were done with Grandma, David had a hundred different ways to spend his time.

Like running through the sprinklers.

Or watching the laundry through Grandma's window lid. Seriously, this was 63 minutes of uninterrupted wonderment for this mechanically minded boy. Start to finish, he stayed put and watched the machine work.

 He came up for a picture only because he was in the process of explaining to me what he was seeing--then his face went right back down to the glass.

 The bug jar. I have never ever ever seen so many bugs in one bug jar.

 One time David came from the back of my parents' lot with a bug pinched between his fingers. "Grandma! Look! I found a colorful one." The source of his excitement? A box elder bug. Which is funn-nny because my parents had box elder bugs in their home for about 10 years until they convinced the neighbor to cut down the tree that housed them all. The bugs are harmless, but funny to see so many bugs crawling up the walls of a beautiful home. (Mom would vaccuum her walls to mediate the problem, even if guests were over, she'd pull out the vaccuum extension and take care of the little crawlers.) So David's excitement of his box elder bug was ironic. Clearly, Mom, you don't have the bug problem indoors anymore if David had to go to the back of your lot to find his pretty bug.

 A perfect climbing tree.

 With plenty of adventure in that boy to see how high he could go. 

Hours on end, David would be lost in these activities. We had about 10 days at my parents' home before any of David's cousins arrived. It made for some great time with Grandma, Aunt Dacia, and Aunt Capri.

In fact, my sisters work together at a Provo hotspot for employment. As one of the perks of their employment, they got tickets to eat at the corporate "cafe." We joined them for a meal, and had a great time. Yes, David tripped while taking his dish to the dish washer--but he stopped, scrambled to pick everything up, then kept going without hardly skipping a beat. He didn't know he was the only kid in the cafeteria that night. As far as he was concerned, he felt welcome.

Aunt Dacia is checking with David to see how he likes his cheese burger and waffle fries.

 Just when we thought we had reached the pinnacle of fun, David was introduced by his Aunt Capri to the dish washing room. Machines and rollers and sprayers, oh my! It was hard to pull him away from this sight.

The Little Worker

 David has a special love for his Grandma. The same can probably be said of the other 30 grandchildren in our family, each one thinks they are her favorite. And truthfully, they are all right. She inspires with her love, and always expresses confidence in the ability of her grandchildren to make good choices. She has the perfect way of drawing boundaries with David while still lathering on all the love to draw him in. David absolutely loves his Grandma.

Which is why it was easy for David to set aside all else when Grandma invited him each morning to work with her in the yard before the sun grew hot. David stuck with her in chore after chore after chore. And while David would sometimes get distracted by the trampoline, or bug net, or the sprinklers, he would eventually remember what he was in the yard for, and return for duty.

 David was thrilled to be introduced and entrusted with a few new tools--such as the "loppers." And when Grandma got stuck in trying to loosen sprinkler heads for their clean out and repair, David helped her figure out which way was "righty tighty and lefty loosy." David felt important in this role--he could figure it out when the situation turned in to a laughable experience for his Grandma and Aunts. From sprinkler heads to window washing equipment, David grew in confidence by being the one to figure it out.

 While they were working on this patch of weeds-turned-dirt ready to plant with grass, Grandma and David had this conversation:

G: You know, David, I pay kids to pick weeds in the sand pile.

D: Oh. Ohhhhh nooooo. You can't pay me to serve my Grandma!

 Which is a true David expression of just how he feels about his dear Grandma.

Traveling

 The kids and I recently took a trip to Grandma's house. We welcomed home my sister, Capri, from her mission. In a family of 10 siblings, we are spread across 8 states and one in the Philippines. Our gathering time is precious, and it doesn't happen without a lot of planning. I'm so glad that we were able to spend time with our extended family.

Oh, how I toiled over the decision to use these tickets. I didn't decide to go until about 15 hours before our flight left. The tickets were intended to get our whole family to a gathering of extended family so we could have Alina's sealing in the temple. When paperwork didn't pan out the way we hoped, I had a hard time deciding whether or not to make the effort. In the end, it was time David would have with cousins that made the decision for me. I want him to have lots of memories with his cousins, and having so many of them together made all the difference in getting us on the plane.

 So these sweet kids put up with flying through the night and well into the next day so we could go to Grandma's house. 

It turned out to be well worth our effort.

Tooth

I took the following pics in an attempt to capture the single tooth that came in first on the bottom of our little lady's gums. As far as teething goes, she's been a dream. Very little drooling, just a cold with each of her two teeth and a little more clingy than usual.

Studs

Fact: When I was 16, I used the word "studs" from the pulpit at church.

Fact: I got in trouble for lack of wisdom in  using said word in church. (I think my parents got flack for it, too, from other church-goers.)

Fact: We had an extra set of winter tires with studs that were too far worn down, but the tires were still good.

Fact: We needed new summer tires on our car.

Fact: Sam and David tackled the project by removing one stud at a time with their screwdrivers.

Fact: This was the most perfect work project for our screwdriver loving boy.

Fact: David got to stay up until 10 pm because he was being such a happy and focused

helper.

Fact: David got a nickel per stud that he removed from said tires.

Fact: We ended up with 388 studs in our bucket, plus a few more that fell through the cracks in our deck. (David nearly finished an entire tire by himself, while Daddy did the other three.)

Fact: We didn't put a hole in any of the four tires (Yay!)

Fact: "We" is a loosely used term here, as I was only the photographer.

Davidisms--May

• David perked up from the back seat a little while ago and said, "I know! If we want to get to the Westons house, we go West, and if we want to get to the Eastons' house we go East." Up to that point, I hadn't realized that we have friends named Westons and other friends named Eastons.
• Daddy was driving, and David called out, "Dad, don't crash the car so the ear wax doesn't come out and smack us in the face." Huh? I don't know where that came from, but it was perfect timing for comical relief in our day.
• David has started asking specifics about any machinery we come across. He knows where I draw the line in him taking things apart, so he asks, "Mom, is this _____ flammable to take apart?" 
• We were at the Dr's office, and David started inspecting the levers on the doc's table/bed. He let out a few "hmms" and "sighs" as he had his head poking in and out of the compartments then he declared, "Well, if we can find one of these at the broken store, that would be great--because it's definitely not flammable." Uh, son, I don't think we'll find a doctor office "table" at Value Village.