Shark Bait Ooo Ha Ha

I decided to get Pearl a pet Betta fish for her birthday. Because we need another stinky animal to feed and worry about.

I thought it would be educational and teach her some responsibility. Little did I know, Jeff would soon claim Pearl's fish as his favorite pet. Why? Because he doesn't have to clean up poop, it doesn't make any noise, and no wet dog smell. And wouldn't you know it but Jeff has trained that dumb fish to swim right up to him in the same corner to eat. One pellet at a time as I've been told numerous times when caught feeding him wrong.

Meet Shark Bait, middle name Ooo Ha Ha.

I still think we should have called him Jaws in honor of "my" Betta in college. I say "my" loosely because Jaws was technically my grandparents' fish. When they left on their mission to Nauvoo and I moved into their house for 18 months, I inherited him. He was in this vase with a plant in it so it got really gross, really fast. My grandpa made me swear I'd keep that dumb fish alive until they got home. And when I'm given a challenge, I usually live up to it. That poor fish barely hung on until they got home. It probably didn't help that I avoided cleaning his tank or that he narrowly missed a horrible death down the sink's disposal {I made Jeff grab him because his flopping around always crept me out}. But I kept him alive. And the day my Grandpa came home and I proudly showed him I'd kept Jaws alive, he laughed and said, "Girl, I wanted you to kill him! I hate that fish!"

Maybe Shark Bait is a better name after all.

True love

True love is spending an hour driving from Smith's to Walmart to Target back to Target and finally Chevron in search of Jeff's favorite lip balm. And then buying all but one on the shelf... I figured another desperate soul might come in after me. Admittedly, I did take his last one a few weeks ago but still, I love that man!

Swimming lessons

I sure hope this little monster learns to float on his back for 10 seconds by himself soon or we'll be stuck in the red swim class forever!

Candy dishes and the temple

We took the youth to the Ogden Temple open house. I've been pretty lucky to have gone through eight temple open houses {that I can remember}... Las Vegas NV, Bountiful UT, Mount Timpanogos UT, Nauvoo IL, Orquirrh Mountain UT, Draper UT, Brigham City UT, and Ogden UT. I love seeing all of the different and unique features in the temples.

The Ogden temple was beautiful. I loved the vintage white color of the granite. It was just gorgeous against the blue sky.

And the before and after renovation on the Ogden UT temple can't be beat!

 

{Image curtosey of the Desert News}

Not only did I get tickets for the Young Women and Young Men, but I drug my own family along. And yeah, we can't get a single picture of the four of us all looking or smiling at the camera or in this case, with the actual temple in the background.

My parents were married in the Ogden temple on November 17, 1978 on a very snowy wintery day! My Dad's family wasn't active in the church and the Logan temple was closed at the time. So he drove down to the Ogden Temple with a friend for his own wedding. When I found out the open house was happening and that the re-dedication was going to happen on my Mom's birthday, I took it as a heavenly sign to get them tickets for the open house.They don't have any pictures of them at the temple on their wedding day, so I told them this was their chance!

Cole was so funny about the open house. He kept asking what things were and Jeff obliged his many questions with answers like, "that's a door. Those are stairs. Yes, that's a picture of Jesus." Cole was super pumped to know the temple had drinking fountains on every floor and in every spot a little boy could get thirsty. When we got to the Celestrial room, he asked us, "Why is there no candy in the candy dishes?" Meaning the fancy, decorative, well, candy dishes. It was HILARIOUS! And when he found out Grandpa, Grandma, and Uncle Kurtis has finally made it, he decided we were going to go through the temple again. So back we went with Cole as our personal tour guide {now that he'd seen everything}. He explained to my Dad that you get to watch a movie in the temple {the endowment session}, there were lots of drinking fountains, and that there was no candy in the candy dishes in the Celestrial room. We laughed! And to be quite honest, it's a very good question/observation... in fact, I submitted a comment card for President Monson to see.

Kurtis and I decided to send Kimmy a temple selfie so she knew she was missing out on the fun. Oh, did I mention she up and got married?! What the?! To a guy none of us know? After she moved to Colorado? Yeah. Kind of weird but it made me laugh and smile... so Kimmy. Oh, and so she wouldn't feel bad about not being with us, we also took an ice cream selfie after the open house. You know. When we walked over to Farr's Ice Cream for a treat {along with everyone else in town}. And stayed too long, having our car get locked in the temple parking lot! Oops.

We watched the "super moon" rise over the mountains behind the temple... it was a beautiful way to end a lovely evening!

British Invasion {Saying Goodbye}

Tonight we said our goodbyes to the British Invasion. I can't believe they're leaving tomorrow! It's been so fun having them here. We had a nice dinner at Jeff's parent's house with everyone. Even if no one was in the mood for a forced family picture. But I insisted and practically yelled at everyone to stand there and smile. With how expensive travel to and from England is, not to mention the fact that Aurelia is going to University soon, I didn't know when the next time we'd all be together again might be.

The kids were happy to help me test out my camera settings though. There was a storm coming so we had to do a longer exposure to capture enough light. Goof balls!

All the grandkids. At least Cassie is always happy to get her picture taken. 

Not too shabby for a forced family photo!

{Left to right: Kylee, Mataya, Susie, Cassie, Ty, Jacob, Wally, Alexis, Gwen, Glen, Samuel, Aurelia, Vickie, Pearl, Roy, Cole, Jeff, Jenny}

I'm really going to miss my nieces! Their personalities were so fun to see. Since Aurelia always has her nose buried in a book, poor Alexis had to endure my picture taking.

Vickie also brought everyone a gift. Our traditional Bristol Blue Glass ornament. We love our Bristol Blue Glass! If we didn't have to worry about some little boy who thinks our furniture is his personal wrestling mat and that anything can be shot at without notice or care, we'd get out our vases and milk jug again.

We let the kids stay up really late playing games. No one wanted to go home.

I'm really going to miss the British Invasion. I sure hope it's not another eight years before we get to see each other again.