June 27

Today is Lindy's birthday--hooray!! She is so lucky to have a birthday that is a significant day in Church history. Other such birth dates would be July 24, April 6, December 23, etc. I am thoroughly enjoying this summer because summer is birthday season, and I've been gone for the last few summers, so it's nice to be able to celebrate with everyone here at home. Speaking of birthdays, I've decided that it would be best if we could stop having birthdays at oh, about age 15 --then we wouldn't have to worry about any grown-up stuff like insurance, finances, careers, etc. I've decided that growing up is exhausting and it gives me a headache! But anyway, back to today's date.

Besides being Lindy's birthday, June 27 is important because it is the day we commemorate Joseph and Hyrum Smith's martyrdom in Illinois. As I was thinking about Joseph today and then heard on the news about all of the levees breaking along the river in Missouri, I was reminded of something that Joseph wrote in a letter to John C. Calhoun on January 2, 1844. He said, "While I have power of body and mind--while water runs and grass grows--while virtue is lovely and vice hateful, and while a stone points out a sacred spot where a fragment of American liberty once was, I or my posterity will plead the cause of injured innocence, until Missouri makes atonement for all her sins, or sinks degraded, and damned to hell, 'where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.'" Ouch! Harsh words for Missouri.

Illinois Governor Thomas Ford is generally considered to be the "Pilate" of the martyrdom. Before he died, Governor Ford wrote a volume called History of Illinois. One of his closing statements is interesting. He said he feared that the names of "Nauvoo, and the Carthage Jail, may become holy and venerable names, places of classic interest, in another age; like Jerusalem, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Mount of Olives, and Mount Calvary to the Christian." He felt "degraded [like Missouri!] by the reflection, that the humble governor of an obscure State, who would otherwise be forgotten in a few years, stands a fair chance, like Pilate and Herod, by their official connection with the true religion, of being dragged down to posterity with an immortal name." Mmmmm, indeed.

Corporal Taylor

Today I got promoted to the rank of Corporal in the US Army! I was actually hoping to get to wear the hoop skirt today because it was so hot--and the hoop skirt at least has good ventilation. But, Jeri got the hoop skirt, so I got to don the wool uniform and be a soldier with Sergeant James. I've decided that all of the soldiers in Johnston's Army must have weighed like 60 pounds because they ran out of food, so they could only eat once a day, and they walked around in those wool uniforms, so surely they would sweat off a few pounds a day. We got all dressed up today because we had a school group to entertain. We also had a school group yesterday (I got to wear the hoop skirt for that one), so we were all pretty tired after two schools in two days. The school groups stay for about three or four hours, and we usually have between 50-100 kids, so it gets a little crazy sometimes. It's a lot of fun though. I love this job!

This afternoon I had the opportunity to get down and dirty and learn the process of cleaning muskets. Those things get nasty inside! From the look of the stuff we were getting out of the barrels, you'd have thought that the guns hadn't been cleaned since the Civil War--but they actually clean them about every week. Cleaning a musket is a pretty intense process, and you get a little dirty doing it, but it was actually quite fun. As part of my internship at Camp Floyd, I'm going to be working on a few special research projects. I was also given a new assignment today to create the text and come up with some graphics for a few wayside panels the park is going to put up along the road. That will be a really cool project!

This afternoon after work, I met Mom over in Lehi, and we had a fun evening enjoying the Lehi Roundup Week festivities. Tonight they had a boutique at the park as well as the "Family BBQ." We had some delicious BBQ for dinner and had a great time walking around and looking at things. Mom and I love fun boutiques like that! It kind of reminded us of when we went to the arts festival in St. Charles, Missouri a couple of years ago. Mom and I have tons of fun together!

Loony Lady in Lehi

Yikes! Today was a crazy day in Lehi--and thankfully I just missed all of the drama by a few minutes. I drive through Lehi on my way out to Camp Floyd, and after I got to work this morning, Mom called and wondered what time I had driven through town. I said that it had been at about 8:40 a.m. Mom told me that at 8:46 a.m., Lehi police had gotten a call about a crazy driver on Main Street who was acting like she was drunk, so the police followed her and pulled her over at the Texaco gas station next to the I-15 offramp at the Lehi exit. A policeman went over to talk with her, and she pulled out a gun and shot him in the head! His backup officers then shot and killed her. Luckily the police officer survived the ordeal, and after having surgery this afternoon, they think he will be all right. What a freakish lady! I realized that since she was coming east on Main Street, I probably passed her since I was going west on the same street just a few minutes before all of that went down. At first I thought that I should have noticed if someone was driving crazily, but then I remembered that a lot of people drive crazily in Lehi, so I wouldn't have noticed anything out of the ordinary if I did indeed pass her. They closed Main Street for a while today, but by the time I came home this evening the road was open again. What a sad and scary thing!

Books, Birthdays, Cannons, and Catch-up

I have quite the catching up to do on my blog! This past week has been consumed with finishing my Zion book, but . . . I DID IT!!!! I finished the book on Friday at 5:00 p.m.--which is the exact moment it was due :-) Two of the main things I learned at graduate school were 1) how to read very fast and 2) how to successfully finish a project at the last minute--literally. It feels great to have the book finished. I will get the page proofs in a few weeks, which I will then look over and make any changes that need to be made, then after that we just wait for the book to be printed. They're planning to have the books ready to sell in December, which will be cool!

As far as catching up goes, I never had a chance to write about Father's Day! We had a great time here last Sunday with the whole family. As you can see, Sidney especially enjoyed the festivities. We had a delicious grilled salmon dinner to celebrate our favorite dads. I am so grateful for my dad--he's the greatest dad in the whole world!!! He's also a wonderful grandpa, and all of his cute granddaughters love him very much, as do I! Nate and Joel are great dads too.

Eliza, sporting her "I Love Daddy" onesie for the big day, also enjoyed the Father's Day fun.












The next celebration was Camden's #6 birthday! She is such a sweet girl, and I can't believe how big and grown-up she is. Lindy whipped up a tasty dinner for Camden's family party yesterday, and the girls loved the pinata--which was, very appropriately, a fingernail polish bottle :-) Here's Riley taking a big swing--watch your knees, Nate!







Here's the birthday girl with her birthday "cakies"--birthday cake cookies. I am so grateful for all of my cute, cute nieces!








Yesterday I had the experience of participating in my first "History Adventure Camp" at Camp Floyd, for kids ages 8-12. There were 25 kids there, and the day was full of activities--including a Civil War battle. The best part was that I, decked out in my hoop skirt, got to fire the cannon (for real)! :-) First they give me a musket, then a cannon. What's next? Also this past week, on Tuesday, I helped out at Camp Floyd with a school group program. The program they have for schools is really neat and the kids get to make bricks and candles, learn how to march with a musket, learn about the Pony Express, and tour the park. Since we ran out of dresses that day, I got to dress up like an 1857 U.S. soldier! The only bad part about that was wearing wool when it was 95 degrees outside. It was a lot of fun though, and the kids bombarded the gift shop after the activities were through. We seriously sold $450 worth of stuff--most of which came from selling those crystal rock candy suckers. I think instead of going into the history field, I'm just going to open a crystal rock candy sucker store and get rich quick. :-) So, it's been a busy, eventful, and fun week!

Provo Rocks!

I was trying to write this morning, but I began experiencing a severe brain cramp, so I decided to get online for a minute. Sometimes when I switch gears it helps to alleviate my brain blockage. As I was reading the news, I discovered that Kiplinger has listed PROVO, UTAH on its Top 10 list of "Best Cities to Live, Work, and Play!" They said that in their search for "the ten best cities in which to live and work, we sought places with strong economies and abundant jobs, plus reasonable living costs and plenty of fun things to do." Hooray for Provo! Since Orem and Provo are pretty much the same place, hooray for Orem too! I seriously love Utah Valley--it's beautiful here and there truly are a lot of fun things to do (after you finish writing your book). Okay, back to work.