Spiritual Sunday

I've decided to do a reflective post on my blog every Sunday with thoughts I'd like to capture before I forget them. I'm going to call it Spiritual Sunday. Here are some thoughts for the week:

• I never realized until lately the power that is found when one praises the Lord in prayer.  And by that I mean literally I say "I praise Thy name and Thee."  Wow, try it sometime.  The power and reverence that is found in that sentence is quite overwhelming.  It's a hard feeling to explain.  It puts me in my place in a way and the best way that I can describe it is it makes me feel like I have said this sentence for billions of years and it feels right, soooo right to praise the Lord and say it out loud.  I picture all of us in the pre-existence saying those words.
• I've been listening to the Mormon Channel a lot lately.  I LOVE it!  They have the best interviews and you gain so many nuggets of wisdom from it.  Here's one thing I loved.  A missionary was being interviewed who said she was not even active until she was 18.  She said what changed her mind is that her young woman leader told her "Yes, you can probably be happy with the path you are following but it will not be the life you always dreamed of having."  Powerful statement, no?  Something I must remember and it's true.  This path is the true path and only path.  The life I am living now is a life I have only ever dreamed of having and I praise the Lord for that.
• We've begun the 30 day Book of Mormon Challenge again.  This time, we are reading it together and I really like that we need to carve out an hour of out time to read together.  Not a better way we could spend our time.  Well, I think that's all for now but I really look forward to these spiritual Sundays.

What we've been up to in July

It's been a fun but busy month.  The first real week we were finally settled (read:  almost all boxes unpacked)  Paul and I decided to invite everyone and his brother (literally, lol) to partake of the joy we find in Heber.  It was a wonderful week but I am officially done entertaining people for July.  It's like I packed all my hospitality into one exhilarating week.

It all began on Sunday.  We my cousins Jemmy and Jeidy and their husbands Brennan and Carlos and all of Jemmy's kids over for a delicious BBQ after church.  YUM!  Carlos is starting a restaurant so he made us so much tasty food.  Lizzie had a lot of fun with Jeidy and Carlos' sons.

I got to become better friends with Jemmy's new husband Brennan as well.  He is really funny and nice. Then, the next day we had my cousin Jocelyn and her kids and Andy and his family and Aunt Iza and Uncle Stacey over for a bbq dinner.  Yum.  The next afternoon, Paul's whole family came over and we had a sleepover.  We watched a movie on the projector downstairs and people upstairs played cards and we had more bbq.  It was just good times all around.  The next morning it was July 4.  We had scones for breakfast and then Martha put together a carnival for the kids all around our home.  They really liked it.  Look how cute they all look here with their July 4 outfits!  Lizzie cried so hard every time I put her on Grandma McAllister's lap.  Poor thing is starting to figure out she is independent of me (they say it happens at 15 months) and she cries at a lot of stuff lately.  I think she wishes she had the words to express herself more.

Lizzie loved the pool the most but then she tried to get into the old bumbo she used to use when she was a baby.  It was so funny watching her squeezing into it.  Haha.

The following day was our day of rest and then the next day, Paul's mom came and spent Friday and Saturday with us.  We took her to see a production of Fiddler on the Roof in Midway in the open theatre which was on a field with the gorgeous view of Mt Timp.  Simply a stunning evening and a great little production too!  I think this will become a tradition.  The next morning, we took her to eat at Cafe Galleria in Midway, my new favorite Midway restaurant.  It's a pizza place that plays Dean Martin music.  My mother and I discovered it and fell in love with it. It even has an ice cream shop in the back, one of those old-timey ones.  After breakfast, we explored Midway and then Kamas and went into the Uinta National Forest which is beautiful.  We went all the way to Mirror lake and have decided to go camping there next week.  Excited!!

After our tour of the area, we went home and rested for a little and then Paul's mom went home and then we went to Provo for little Hayden's birthday party.  That was awesome.  We walked in to the smell of Hawaiian BBQ going on and a ton of little kids running around in swim suits.  It was great for Lizzie.  A ton of different little pools and one of those big kid jumpy slidey things too.  We ate like crazy and I was sad when I was full and couldn't eat more because it was so darn tasty.  I don't usually say that about food but I was seriously sad that I was full.  How funny, huh?  But at the same time, I was happy, of course.  Lizzie liked it and got to play with her Johnson cousins.  

So, we came home that night and just crashed.  What a week!  Good times and memorable times though.  Here's to a wonderful summer at our new home.

Living in Heber

I'm sitting here watching Mt. Timp and here's my view:

What do you say??  Breathtaking isn't it? I still can't believe I live here.  I have to pinch myself.  I feel very blessed.