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!!!

More Catch-Up

 

In my recent period of blog slacking, I neglected to write a Mother's Day post! I am so lucky to have the BEST mom in the whole world! This is one of my favorite pictures of us--because it is so funny :) We are standing in front of the "American Gothic" house in Eldon, Iowa in 2008, doing our best impressions of the couple from the famous "American Gothic" painting. Mom and I have had so many (and will have many more!) fun adventures together. Thank you for everything, Mom! I sho' love you!!!

 

 

After I returned from Baltimore, the St. Louis Cardinals AAA minor league team (the Memphis Redbirds) was in town playing the Salt Lake Bees, so Greg and I were sure to go to the game! It was our first Salt Lake Bees game, and we had a great time. It was especially fun because we got to sit right by the field, and we got to see several players who we had seen play for the Cardinals in St. Louis. They even signed some baseballs for us.

 

And we had a really nice Memorial Day around here. Unfortunately we had more people to visit at the cemetery this year, with Grandma F. and Grandpa T. having passed away since last Memorial Day, but we had a very nice time putting flowers on the graves, cleaning the headstones, and telling stories.

 

We also managed to find a little time to relax too! We had a fun and delicious BBQ at the Barrett's and enjoyed the perfect weather. 

 

I've also been working on a few projects around the house. The big one was repainting these two cool ice cream parlor chairs that I picked up at an antique store in Illinois a few years ago. The chairs had seen a lot of wear and tear and were getting pretty rusty, so I cleaned them up and repainted them. We are quite happy with how they turned out! Greg and I also planted some herbs, tomatoes, and jalapenos on our back porch--we'll see what happens. We haven't had the best of luck with growing plants during our marriage (I think over the last four years, we've only managed to successfully grow one single tomato--not even tomato plant, just one tomato). But I am feeling quite confident that our porch garden will be a great success.



Four Score and Two Cities Ago . . .

I know that I have SO MUCH to catch up on!!!! I have really been slacking in the blog department lately. But I thought I would start my catch-up by talking about the fun, exciting, educational, and amazing trip I took to Philadelphia and Baltimore with some of my co-workers to attend a museum conference and get museum ideas for our re-design project.

 

On May 16 we flew to Philadelphia. In keeping with my usual tradition, the delicious food that I ate shall be mentioned several times throughout this post :)

 

 

We discovered a wonderful place in Philadelphia: Reading Terminal Market (as seen during one of the chase scenes on the first "National Treasure"). One of the food vendors was serving these DELICIOUS crepes filled with Nutella, bananas, and strawberries. They were so good that I ate them for breakfast both days we were in Philly.

 

We spent our first morning exploring before going to the National Museum of American Jewish History. This museum was the main reason we stopped in Philly--because the designer who created this museum is the same designer we are using. So we wanted to check out things that we liked/didn't like about the museum. Before the Jewish museum, we saw some cool Benjamin Franklin sites--like the original post office he created! Later in his life, he would sign his letters "B. Free Franklin"--pretty cool! That evening we went to a reception at the Barnes Foundation--a world-famous art museum. They have a great collection of impressionist paintings, featuring works by Monet and Renoir. Those impressionist artist sure liked to paint naked people!

 

The next morning (after another delicious Nutella crepe), we visited Independence Hall--the birthplace of our country! It was so cool to be there in the very room where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were both signed. We also visited the Constitution Center which was also cool.

 

After our Constitutional morning, my supervisor/friend Maryanne and I broke off from the rest of the group (they were going to more art museums, and we were a little art-ed out after our evening at the Barnes Foundation!). We had a great afternoon eating PHILLY CHEESESTEAKS (yum!) and visiting Betsy Ross' house and Christ Church (where all of the founding fathers attended church). We even got to sit in George Washington's pew!

 

Here we are at Christ Church--I just noticed that we are standing on someone's grave. Oopsie! Sorry, person! That evening we met back up with the rest of the gang for some dinner, then we all employed various means of transportation to head to Baltimore. I was in a car with Maryanne, Alan, and Laura. We made a slight detour to visit Valley Forge--which ended up not really being on the way--but it sure was cool. When we got there the park was closed and it was dark and kind of rainy out, but we snuck into the park (am I incriminating myself? I suppose as a former park ranger I should know better!) and walked around. It was kind of creepy at night, but it was also REALLY cool! That was actually one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. We climbed split rail fences and eventually found our way to Washington's headquarters. What an adventure!

 

On Sunday morning we went to church and then a group of us drove to one of my favorite places: Gettysburg! Once again, we were on official business because we were checking out elements of the visitor center--which our designer also designed. This was another favorite part of the whole trip. Here we are with Lincoln. Beginning in the back row, from left to right: Alan, Wayne, Sallie, John. Front row: Abe Lincoln, me, Maryanne. Good times!

 

The next couple of days in Baltimore we spent most of our time at the American Alliance of Museums conference where we learned a lot of great things. We also got to spend some time sight-seeing. On Monday we visited another of my favorite places: Fort McHenry! And on Tuesday we got to check out some of the awesome historic ships in Baltimore Harbor. Here is the USS Constellation from the Civil War.

 

I even got to walk through this submarine: the USS Torsk! This sub sunk the last Japanese ship of World War II. It was pretty awesome.

 

Here is some proof that I did actually attend the conference. As I was walking through the expo area at the convention center, I found Abraham Lincoln . . . eating seafood and drinking beer with Frederick Douglass.

 

On Tuesday evening Carrie and I went to Babe Ruth's birthplace.

 

Then a few of us went to a Baltimore Orioles game at Camden Yards . . . where I got to meet up with my good friend Angie!!! It was so great to see her. We have been friends ever since we worked together in Natchez. We had a great time at the game, and the Orioles beat the Yankees!

 

On Wednesday morning, I attended the last sessions of the conference, then it was time to pack our bags and check out of the hotel. Thankfully I had a little time before heading to the airport, so I was able to meet up with another of my good friends, Emily! It was wonderful to see her too! We have been friends for 10 years (we can't believe it has been that long!) since we were roomies during the semester in Nauvoo. We had a delicious lunch at a seafood restaurant with a funny name: the Rusty Scupper.

 

I had many crab cakes on this trip (yum!!!), and I decided that my favorite was at the City Tavern in Philadelphia, but this picture of my crab cake sandwich at the Rusty Scupper was the best crab cake picture I had (it was also really tasy). After lunch with Emily, our group headed to the airport and flew home that evening. It was such a great trip--I had a lot of fun and learned many good things. We decided that the most important part of the trip was just being able to see and talk about different museum design ideas, as we are currently in the middle of planning the design for our re-designed museum. I am so fortunate to have a job that doesn't even feel like work. This trip was extra fun, but each day at work is also fun. I feel really fortunate to work with such wonderful people at the Church History Museum!

 

Since returning from my trip, we have also been having a lot of fun around here with baseball games, Memorial Day, and projects around the house . . . pictures to come soon!