Next Stop, Oakland Temple

This is now one of my most favorite temples. I love the carvings of the last supper and Christ's coming to the Americas. It was a perfect day to go too. The breeze was blowing just enough to make it nice and cool. On our way from San Francisco to here we were able to drive on the Bay Bridge. Awesome bridge! We went over so many bridges and through so many tunnels Aine is obsessed with them. I wish we had some around here so I could give her the pleasure of driving them again.

Anyways it was really nice to leave the chaos of San Francisco and go to this temple. Did you know that they have their own visitor center and a tri-stake center on the lot? Spencer thinks the center had like 23,000 seats or something. It felt like there should have been more going on with so many church buildings. But the temple was closed and they were working on the tri-stake center. So, it was actually kind of quite.

The temple, of course, is placed on a hill. You can see if from everywhere and the views from up there into the bay were beautiful. This was probably one of my favorite stops of the trip.

This part of the temple grounds was really cool. They had a scripture on the wall of the temple from the Book of Mormon in 3 Nephi 17 where Christ commands them to bring their children. It was sweet to have our kids their and to feel like they were wanted there. Sometimes the temple feels like such a sacred and quite place I feel a little nervous about bringing my noisy kids to see it. This was especially the case that day when they had been riding around a lot in the car and just wanted to get out and jump around and play. But after bringing them forward to the temple and reading this scripture I remembered how much Christ loves the children, even their playfulness and noise.

China Town

Next stop on our vacation journey was China Town and the Financial District. While everyone else went shopping, we hung out at a gated city park. A test city alarm went off right over the top of our heads and scared us all. After the park, we drove all over China Town and the Financial District. This is where I took all the pictures, from the comfort of the car.

Stolen Pictures :)

I have shamelessly stolen these pictures from Catherine to show you what I was talking about in my previous post. I hope you will forgive me Catherine!

San Francisco

On Monday of our vacation we made our way to San Francisco. It was more challenging than we expected to get out there. At first we had to turn around and retrieve the umbrella strollers we forgot to pack. We also had to make several stops for the kids. But it was a fun trip and once we got there it was beautiful weather. (Sorry, somewhere in all the mix of this we couldn't find our camera that night, so no pictures.)

We stayed across the bay from San Francisco and were able to drive the Golden Gate Bridge several different times, fulfilling one of Spencer's life dreams. That night we first visited Ghirardelli Square and tasted their chocolate. It was cold enough by this point that I convinced Spencer that we needed some hot chocolate. It was delicious. After our dessert we made our way to Fisherman's Wharf for some shopping and dinner. We ate some fresh clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls. We also visited Pier 39 and Aine was able to ride on their merry-go-round. We didn't get to see any sea lions but we did see Alcatraz. It was a fun night and the kids were troopers as the fog set in and the temperature dropped.

Arriving in Sparks, NV and the Reno Temple

We arrived in our resort in Sparks, NV Saturday evening and made a run for the grocery store to get food for the next couple of days.

On Sunday we went to sacrament meeting at a local ward. The meeting was really great. Their theme was on the pioneers and on sacrifice. I especially liked a talk a woman gave where she talked about how our true sacrifices and growth come when we go the extra mile. Which means going beyond making the initial sacrifice we are asked to make and giving even more. This made me think a lot about the current sacrifices I have to make right now in my life and the attitude I have about them.

She also spoke about how the advesary uses good things to crowd out the essential things in our life. This was humbling for me as I realized that this is truly what has happened in my life lately. I recommited myself to sacrificing the good things to make room for the essential things like personal scripture study and prayer. It was also nice to be able to listen to the talks in sacrament meeting with the extra hands to help with the kids.


After the meetings we made a visit to the Reno temple. This was the first of three temples we got to see on our trip.

Vacation Stop # 2

The greatest park ever! A park in Elko where local businesses each donated to build a section of the park. It was huge, but very hot! I think the key to our vacation of road trips included a lot of stops at parks. Mom, Dad, Catie and Anna were very patient while Aine and Tanner burned off energy at the parks. I can't say enough about it, but as a mom, I was really impressed with this extensive park. It had 3 or 4 towers and slides, tire swings, a boat and bridges. It also included plenty of room in the middle to run around from one to another.

Vacation Stop #1

The Salt Flats was our first stop on our family road trip. It was overcast, but with all that white salt it was still very bright. The Flats made a great place to run after some time in the car. I love all the wide open space to play. Just don't forget to wash your shoes off before you jump back in the car.

Flaming Gorge Trip

This last week June 24th thru the 28th I spent time with my family up in Flaming Gorge. We all had a blast. The water tempature was 58 degrees, 10 degrees cooler . That did not stop most of us from jumping in the water. The first day when we got to the lake it was raining. We got camp set up quickly and kept our stuff dry. Dan and Marci came up late Wednesday night. Mom cooked up some good meals both breakfast and dinner. For lunches we had sandwiches, chips and cookies. It was exciting to see Dan, Chad (brother in law) and Seth get up on one ski and be pulled by the boat all at once. Seth did try to pull off a trick by kicking his ski off and getting on Dan's shoulders. The attempt was almost a success. Later on in the day all us except Mom and my sister Rachael went and did some cliff jumping. Saturday we got up ate breakfast, took camp down and headed home. Thank you family for a fun and memorable week.
Dan and Marci it was fun to have you here in Utah. I hope you both enjoyed your stay the past two and half weeks. Look forward to seeing you both this Christmas.

Chilling In Park City

Spencer and I are spending some good quality vacation time with my family in their Park City resort. We came in yesterday right after work and school. Mom, Dad, Spencer and I went out to dinner at Spencer's Smokin' Grill. They had hats with their logo that said "Spencer's". I think it would be so much fun for me to wear one around and let everyone know that I belong to Spencer. :) We also dropped by ColdStone, thanks Mom and Dad! When we got back we played in the pool with Abraham and Catherine. Poor Spencer has to work from 11 to 7 today and I am missing him. We are having a birthday dinner for Dad tonight and we are looking forward to it. Spencer and I will be up here chilling out until Sunday morning. I love this place!

Last Day in New York :(

In our last day in New York we went to church with Marci & Dan and the meeting was spirit filled. Their was a confirmation of a new convert in French. It was wonderful to feel the peace and joy that came from the wonderful new converts and mission program of their ward. We also made a trip to the New York Botanical Gardens. They were a lot larger than we expected, but they were beautiful. As seen on Dan & Marci's Blog they had a whole walk way of fluffy cherry trees in full blossom. Dan later dropped us off at the airport and we were on our way home again. We were extremely sad to be leaving Dan & Marci and we hope to be able to go back and visit them as soon as we can. We love you two! Thanks for being such great hosts!

Coney Island Fun

Saturday we rested our feet and took a long ride on the subway down to Coney Island. This was the first time we saw the outdoors while riding the Subway, so we got to see a good tour of all of Coney Island. We first went to the New York Aquarium and it was amazing to see the different things they had. I liked the building full of Jelly Fish and Sea Horses. After the Aquarium we walked down the beach front...wow, New York has a beach? That fact is easy to forget when you are in the middle of the big city. After Coney Island we stopped by a visited Marci while she was working. We dropped by Time Square for some fun pictures before heading back to Dan & Marci's for a relaxing night.

Museum Day

Well, Friday was full of Museum visits. We went through The Natural History Musuem and The Met. Poor Dan was patient with us as we walked his feet off... and our own. :) We also visited the FAO Schwarz Toy Store and saw the biggest lego heroes ever! That night we went to an China town and Little Italy. In Little Italy we went to Alberto's on Mayberry Street. We finished off the night with one of the most unique restraurants I have ever seen. it was called Rice to Riches and it was devoted completely to different flavors of Rice Pudding...mmm, my favorite!

Some Pictures

Ellis Island on the other side of the water from Liberty Island.


Display of plans for the World Trade Center Memorial. It is going to have a floor for every death caused by the tragedies of Sept. 11th.

First Full Day In New York

Well, we got started really quick on our first full day in New York. We experienced the New York subway more on this day then any other during our stay. We were not going to waste anytime... well, expect for the hour when we were in line to get on the ferry to go to the Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island. Both were worth the wait. After spending the first half of the day checking out the Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island, we caught another subway and headed to Ground Zero, a sober experience with large blow up pictures of Sept. 11th and plans for the new memorial. We could see the construction going on in the areas where both buildings used to stand. We also dropped by the Manhattan Temple. It was fun to see the temple just dropped in the middle of the city. Later that night we were lucky enough to snatch up a couple of tickets to see Tarzan on Broadway. We were impressed with the flying and swinging through the air that was included in the show.

Our Crazy Run To New York

Well, last Wednesday was a crazy day. After finishing my last final in Algebra, Spencer and I headed to the Airport...(well, after a quick return trip home to get our forgotten boarding passes). We flew out on a fun filled plane, with games, movies and even TV. We landed in Newark, New Jersey at nearly 12 am and met up with Dan & Marci. The greatest part of the whole trip was spending time with them! They were so wonderful! They took us to their cute apartment and set us up for the weekend.

Spencer and I went to Arches National Park down in Moab with Charity, Dave, Morgan, Teagan, Abraham and Catherine back in February. We left Bountiful at 5:30 a.m. following the great Durfee tradition and made a day trip of it. (Crazy, we know) It was such a perfect day full of sunshine and red rocks. Spencer, Dave and Abraham also picked up several Geocaches along the way.