Time Travel

November has been an exciting month! I have traveled across the country and, it has seemed like, through a time warp which began with going off of daylight savings time. Shortly after "falling back" an hour, I went back an additional hour when I switched time zones while traveling to Reno, Nevada for a conference.

I went to Reno with my supervisor Maryanne and the museum's art curator, Laura. We had a great time at the National Association for Interpretation conference and learned a lot of interesting things. Reno was not a place I had ever thought of visiting, but it was actually pretty fun. A few days after returning from Reno, I switched time zones again with Mom, Dad, and Rich when we went to New York to visit Sarah, Joel, and the kids!

One of the most exciting parts of the New York trip was getting to meet Baby Sawyer for the first time! He is such a cute, cuddly guy. He was a little suspicious of Rich and me at first, but we quickly became fast friends.

On Friday we had a fun time touring Sarah and Joel's new town in beautiful upstate New York. On Saturday we visited some of our favorite Church history sites. Sawyer took his job as a tour guide very seriously.  

Here is the crew at the E.B. Grandin printing shop in Palmyra, where the Book of Mormon was first printed.

For lunch we had a picnic at the Sacred Grove. It was an absolutely beautiful fall day--perfect for walking through the leaves and enjoying this peaceful, wonderful place.

Next we climbed the Hill Cumorah.

And that evening we ate at the Coal Tower Restaurant on the banks of the Erie Canal. Sarah and Joel live in such an awesome place!

On Sunday evening, Joel, Sarah, Richard, Eliza and I ventured to the shore of Lake Ontario. It was pretty windy, but absolutely beautiful. The Great Lakes are amazing--they look like the ocean!

On Monday while Eliza was at school, the rest of us ventured to Fayette, New York, and visited the Whitmer farm, where the Church was organized in 1830. On our way there, we passed beautiful Lake Seneca, where our ancestor Parley P. Pratt was baptized. 

For lunch we picked up sandwiches at this great Amish grocery store: Sauder's. If I lived in New York, I would do all of my shopping there! Here I am posing with a 10.03 pound candy bar--too bad it was too big for my carry on bag!

One of Grandpa's and Leo's favorite things to do during our trip was play trains. I can't believe how big Leo and Eliza have gotten . . . 

. . . and how cute little Sawyer is!

Here is Leo with his pals, Grandpa and Grandma, on Tuesday before we flew home.

And Eliza with Grandpa, Grandma, and Mom, waiting for the bus (in the snow!). We had such a fun trip to New York--it was hard to leave!!

This weekend, we got to go waaaaaaaay back in time to celebrate the first Thanksgiving at the appropriately named Thanksgiving Point near our house in Lehi. Mom, Rich, Greg, Camden, and I met up with some of my friends from the museum for our first annual "Eat Like a Pilgrim" event! Camden and I had a great time dressing up in pilgrim armor--but we are glad that we don't have to dress like that every day.

Mom and Cam had a great time playing pilgrim-era games like fox & geese.

We had a delicious Thanksgiving feast of salad, cider, salted bread, corn pudding, stewed pumpkin, pork, turkey, and berry cobbler. It was a little tricky to eat some things because we didn't have forks!

Miles Standish put Greg in the stocks for failing to eat his stewed pumpkin--because we have to be grateful for all food that we are given!

I ended up in the stocks for failing to wear a petticoat. The funny thing about that is that I actually own a petticoat, but I only wear it with my pioneer outfit at the museum :)

And Miss Cam ended up in the stocks for "showing her hair in public"! Thankfully none of us were publicly shamed like some of the poor folks who ended up in the stocks. We had such a fun evening, and we got our stomachs all warmed up for this week's upcoming Thanksgiving feast! Happy Thanksgiving!

Anniversaries and Fall Adventures

I have been really bad about keeping up on my blog! I still have much to catch up on, but I'll begin with our most recent fall adventures, starting with . . . 

. . . our annual fall picnic up the canyon! It was such a beautiful evening, and we had a wonderful time eating KFC, playing games, and enjoying the amazing fall leaves.

Later that week we got to celebrate a very important occasion: Mom and Dad's 40th wedding anniversary!!! To honor this important milestone, we celebrated with some frozen yogurt at Orange Leaf. You can tell that Ben was especially excited. We are so happy that Mom and Dad were married 40 years ago and are grateful that they are such wonderful parents and grandparents!

The day after Mom and Dad's anniversary, I flew to Springfield, Illinois for a fun visit to see friends. Here are Laura, Emma, Jenn, John, Linda, Rose, Chris, and me at Olive Garden. It was great to see everyone!

I had an especially fun time staying with my cute friends, the Atkins. Laura, Emma, Connor, and I got into the fall spirit by carving pumpkins for the annual Spooktacular at Washington Park. Connor and I made a pretty amazing Batman pumpkin :) We also got to celebrate Emma's fifth birthday while I was there, so that was extra exciting. We had a great time watching movies, having dance parties, going out for doughnuts, and just hanging out together.

Laura Atkins is a really dear friend. I'm so glad that I was able to go visit her and her wonderful family. I have missed them a lot!

This past weekend, Greg and I got to celebrate our #5 anniversary! For this special occasion, we spent a couple of nights in Park City. The weather was perfect! We ate some delicious food and had a wonderful time together. We were especially excited that the St. Louis Cardinals won their game on Friday night and secured a spot in the World Series!!!!!!

This morning we left Park City bright and early so that I could make it back in time for our ward Primary program. As we were driving, we saw this beautiful fall scene--what a pretty place!

Labor Day Birthday

Happy Birthday yesterday to my cute niece, Riley! Her birthday was extra fun because it was also a holiday :) I can't believe that she is already nine! Time flies when you're having fun ...

Summer Sentiments

I realized that I should probably write about the summer before it's over! I have been a major blog slacker lately, but hopefully this catch-up will help to bring everyone up-to-date. 

Showing how behind I am, I didn't do a Father's Day blog post back in June--sorry Dad!!! I am lucky to have the greatest dad in the whole world! Thank you for everything, Dad!

I also neglected to post about Camden's birthday back in June! June was a month full of birthdays including Camden's, Lindy's, and mine. We had a lot of fun parties!

In July, we got to watch the July 4th fireworks from our front yard!!! Greg and I really do live in a great location--we are close to restaurants, the train station (I can walk from here), and we have a perfect view of the Thanksgiving Point Christmas lights and fireworks! I think that this will be our new Fourth of July tradition.

Also in July, Mom, Dad, and I went to the classic car show for the American Fork Steel Days celebration. I think that Mom and Dad need a '57 Chevy!

Right before we went on our fun Grand Canyon/Zion family trip for Pioneer Day (which, amazingly, I did blog about!), the new Boy Scouts and Norman Rockwell exhibits opened at the museum. For the exhibit opening, we had a fun celebration outside on the museum plaza. One of my main jobs was to serve popcorn. I love my job!

Greg and I have been enjoying going to baseball games this summer--the Salt Lake Bees and the Orem Owlz. At the Bees game pictured here, we were actually cheering for the team playing the Bees: the Omaha Storm Chasers, since they are the affiliate of the Kansas City Royals.

This summer, Mom and I have loved going to the farmer's market at Gardner Village. They have yummy food, tasty produce, and lots of fun things to see.

It's also been fun to hang out with the Barrett kiddos this summer--they are as silly as ever!

The other night, Camden, Riley, and Sidney joined us for an Orem Owlz baseball game. We got to meet hall-of-famer Rollie Fingers before the game. He has quite the mustache!

The girls weren't sure about the giant owl :)

Mom has been spending a lot of time this summer going through Grandma's things. She has found a lot of great pictures, including this one of Sarah and me with Grandma in the background. The funny thing is, this morning when I dried my hair with the blow drier, it looked almost as big as the wig I'm wearing in this picture!

Rich had his birthday earlier this month, and Riley's is coming up in September, so there will be more celebrations to come.

It has been a great summer, and I look forward to the last couple of weeks before fall arrives!

Zombies

Preparations for the upcoming Fantasy Football season are continuing around here. I re-designed the Utah Yellow Jackets logo:

...and created one for Rich's cool team--the Detroit Zombies. It should be a great season!

Oh wait, I came up with an even cooler one for the Yellow Jackets:

And here is the logo for my fantasy basketball team: the Salt Lake Skullzz:

Fantasy Football

Greg and I have had a great time playing fantasy baseball online with our friends this season, so we've decided to keep the fun alive by playing fantasy football during the upcoming football season. I am uploading our team logos here so that I can paste them to our team pages. 

 

 

Greg will be the Kansas City Chefs, a name which comes from the funny Snickers commercial where a guy is painting the end zone at Arrowhead Stadium, and he accidentally paints "CHEFS" instead of "CHIEFS". When he realizes what he has done, he says, "Great googly moogly!" Then the tag line of the commercial is, "Gonna be a while? Grab a Snickers."

 

 

And my team will be the Utah Yellow Jackets. I've always thought that Utah should have a professional football team and that their mascot should be the yellow jacket--it's perfect mascot for the Beehive State, and goes well with the Salt Lake Bees. I have also always thought that when the New Orleans NBA team was the New Orleans Hornets (before they became the Pelicans), they should have switched mascots with the Utah Jazz, so then it could have been the New Orleans Jazz and the Utah Hornets--that would have been awesome (and made more sense)! :)

A Grand Trip

I know that I have SOOOOOOO much to catch up on--birthdays, exhibit openings, the 4th of July, and all sorts of other summer fun. But I'll start with our most recent adventure: a wonderful trip to St. George, the Grand Canyon, and Zion!

 

 

Last Saturday, the Barretts and Mom, Dad, and I headed to St. George. It was SO hot!! So it felt extra nice in the swimming pool. Look how strong the Barretts are!

 

 

We had a nice time in St. George swimming, going to dinner, and walking around the temple. The coolest thing was that after dinner, there was a beautiful rainbow!! We knew that it was a message from Grandma Farnsworth letting us know that she was happy we were visiting St. George, her home for many years. It was sad to be in St. George without her there, but we had this nice rainbow to help us remember her.

 

On Sunday we went to church and then headed over to Jacob Lake, just north of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Jacob Lake is Mom and Lindy's old stomping grounds--they both worked there when they were in college. Here are the girls at the actual lake in Jacob Lake, although it's more of a pond than a lake :) Greg and Richard (who both had to work on Saturday) joined us Sunday afternoon.

On Monday we headed to the Grand Canyon! The kiddos were pretty excited. My favorite part of this picture, besides just how cute they all are, is Ben's funny smile :)

 

Here's our crew, ready for hike. We missed having the Agates with us, but we're glad that they arrived safely in New York, ready for a new adventure there!

 

Ben wasn't so sure about riding in a backpack on his dad's back, but he eventually decided that the "king's chair" provided a pretty sweet ride.

 

Rich and Sid!

 

Poor Greg was pretty uncomfortable being up so high above the canyon. He was not a fan of the hikes that we went on, but he was a trooper and toughed it out.

 

Here are Mom, Dad, and me trying not to blow off of the mountain!

 

Mom and I took a picture at Jacob Lake before we headed out on Tuesday.

 

Before leaving Jacob Lake on Tuesday, we stopped at a sink hole where both Mom and Lindy used to hang out with their friends when they worked here. It was a fun area, perfect for frisbee golf and fossil hunting.

On our way to Zion, we stopped at the best park ever . . . the Kanab city park! The kids (and Greg  and I) had fun playing on all of the playground equipment.

 

On Tuesday afternoon we arrived at Zion and checked into our hotel. It had been nice and cool at the Grand Canyon, but it was hot, hot, hot in Springdale, so our first stop was the pool.

 

Swimming tuckered everyone out!

 

 

We woke up to an absolutely beautiful morning at Zion on Wednesday--Pioneer Day! This is seriously one of my favorite places on the whole planet.

 

We had a fun hike to Emerald Pools, and then we all hit the road, sad that our fun trip adventure had come to an end. But I guess we have to go back to work sometime . . .

 

 

On our way home, in honor of Pioneer Day, we stopped at the cemetery in Summit, Utah, where many of our ancestors are buried. My g-g-g-grandpa, Sylvanus Cyrus Hulet, owned a home in Summit. We stopped by his house and then enjoyed visiting his and other graves at the cemetery. It was a wonderful way to remember our pioneer heritage! Thank you for the wonderful trip, Mom and Dad!!!