This last Monday we had a great time together. We were all scheduled to have our teeth cleaned. So that meant we were going to have to take the girls out of school early – but we combined the chore of going to the dentist with something really fun. We went to Fifer Orchards for their corn maze.

We had a map and Tori acted as our navigator. She did a great job. We made it through the maze in 23 minutes with very little back tracking. They had six stations within the maze with interesting bee facts. We found them all!
They also had a great slide, a soy bean sandbox and a John Deere trike course. As much fun as we had in the maze, the slide was a huge hit and probably the girls’ favorite activity.
On the way to the dentist’s office, we talked about the maze and likened it to our lives. We talked about how difficult the maze would have been if we didn’t have the map, how easily we could have been completely turned around and lost. Then the analogy continued that the map was like the scriptures. We had a really nice discussion. Family Home Evening on the road. We all agreed that it was a lot of fun and a great object lesson.
Our friends, the Menasco family, had us over a few weeks ago for family home evening and we were introduced to their tradition of each family member sharing a compliment for each family member. We decided to adopt the same idea in our family. I got many compliments that night for planning that activity!

Time Out for Women

On Saturday, I was able to go to Time Out for Women in Philadelphia. It was the 2nd time I’d had the opportunity to attend one of these events. It was really nice. Kind of a Mom’s mini-version of EFY. It had wonderful music and inspirational speakers.
www.deseretbook.com/time-out/ ( I hope this link works -- deseret seemed to be having problems when I tried to test it -- but maybe they take it down on Sundays)

I highly recommend it. If you have the opportunity, Go! Our ward had sixteen sisters attend. It was great to be there with the husbands at home holding down the forts, and just enjoy sister time!

My favorite quote was from the book The Uses of Adversity by Carlfred Broderick: The gospel of Jesus Christ is not insurance against pain. It is resource in event of pain, and when that pain comes (and it will come because we came here on earth to have pain among other things), when it comes, rejoice that you have resource to deal with your pain." This book is actually a talk Brother Broderick gave -- I haven't read the whole talk yet -- but I found it online here:http://rusch.files.wordpress.com/2006/09/the-uses-of-adversity.pdf So I'll save you the price of the book! Enjoy!

General Conference

Sorry to have missed a week of blogging. Last Sunday was the end of Conference weekend. For my friends who are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, twice a year our church comes together via television, satellite, and the internet in a worldwide broadcast. I love conference! Funny but when I was kid I dreaded it – it was too long and boring! Even though we only attended the Sunday sessions. We watch the Saturday and Sunday sessions now and with satellite television we get watch from the comfort of our home. I love BYUtv all through the year – but especially on conference weekends.
This conference was especially exciting because President Monson announced the building of five new temples. Temples are special places of worship for members of our church. A new temple is to be built in Philadelphia!! That will be our temple district. It cuts our travel time by half. It will be a smaller, vertical temple like Manhattan’s. It’s currently a parking lot, I got to see the sight on Saturday when I was in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is an interesting city that I’m looking forward to exploring. The temple site is only a couple of blocks from a kind of scary neighborhood. It will be interesting to watch the influence of the temple change that neighborhood.

Manhattan Temple

When we lived in Alaska the temple was seven hours away in Anchorage. But we were grateful that we could drive there, since we were overseas before that flying was our only option. When we moved to Delaware we were thrilled to be just two hours from the Washington DC temple. Barry and I still love the DC temple – it was the one of our youth, our first temple experiences and so beautiful!

Washington DC Temple

I’ll post a picture of the Philly temple just as soon as one is released. It’s hard to believe it will only be an hour away (traffic permitting)!! It is an amazing evidence of the growth of the church in this area and the faith of the members worldwide. We're so happy to have a part in it.