Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons

We had a blast going up with my parents to Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons. It was just a short 2 day excursion, but we saw a lot. Joshua's favorite part was "Old Faithful". It was pretty windy, though, and he kept covering his face with his hood!


I think my favorite part of driving through Yellowstone was how every so often the cars would be backed up (since it was only a 2 lane road) and it would be because there was some sort of animal off to the side of the road. I got good pictures of some of them. We saw elk, a grizzly bear, a black bear, and bison.


Here's some of Mammoth Hot Springs and a beautiful waterfall behind my parents and the kids!


Our 2nd day we stayed the night in Jackson and went to Jenny lake and took a little hike up to these falls. The Tetons were so gorgeous. As we drove back to Logan down 89 by the Snake River, I decided that's where Justin and I are going to go for a little get away sometime. It's so beautiful!


Now we are spending a week up at Snowbird with Justin's family and we'll be heading home to Cali at the end of the week. I sure can't wait!

Justin is famous!

Okay, so maybe famous isn't the right word. But he presented his paper at the symposium for the Mormon Scholars foundation seminar that he's been attending for the past 6 weeks and there were a couple of reporters there. And this morning this article is on the FRONT PAGE of the Mormon Times (a part of the Deseret News)!!!

Literally or figuratively children of God?


Go Justin! I am so proud.

How well do you know Joshua?

Anyone who has spent more than 10 minutes with Joshua in the last few months knows that he is obsessed with clocks and bells. Specifically clock and/or bell towers that ding. Anytime we pass a building that has any sort of "tower," he automatically thinks that it is a clock and/or bell tower. For example, driving past the Logan temple this afternoon, Joshua noticed that there were "two bell towers" on the Logan temple. We have names for the different clocks/bells that are visited/talked about regularly in our daily life. I am going to make a list of a few of them and you can determine how well you know Josh if you know where all of them are.

1. The Square Clock
2. The BYU Bells (okay, obvious)
3. The animal clock
4. The Happy Clock (side note-- This is his all time favorite. Significant enough that since he has started saying prayers all by himself, they go like this: "Heavenly Father, Thank you for this day, And the happy clock. Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.)
5. Big Ben (okay, also obvious)

Because #2 is so obvious, I will show you some cute pictures from last week. Don Cook (who I took organ lessons from at BYU) did a Carillon concert at BYU for the Provo Freedom Festival. It was free and so awesome! Justin and I took Josh on a little "date" to go see the bells and he was so happy!



While most kids were running around playing tag or some other normal little kid game, Joshua just sat and watched.

And listened. After every song he would clap and say "please can it play another song?"

Lest you think he is not a normal 2 year old boy, though, there was some rolling down the grass hill. Poor Justin was a little queasy after 10 times of this...

Life by timer

We have discovered something recently. Josh thinks setting timers is cool. We can get him to do almost anything if we set a timer. He even reminds us. Our conversation this morning:

"You can watch a few more minutes of Blue's Clues and then we have to have lunch."

Silence.

A few minutes later.

"Okay Josh, time to eat."

"No Mommy. When the timer beeps, then we have lunch."

"Oh, we need to set the timer?"

"Yes, when the timer beeps, we eat lunch!" (Duh Mom)

Set timer. For 1 minute.

1 minute later. "BEEEEEEEP"

"Oh WAIT Mom!!!" (Josh's phrase when something reeeeally exciting happens) "The timer beeeeeeping!!"

"Oh my goodness, it IS beeping Josh! So what are we going to do now?"

"Eat lunch!"

I wish I could say that setting the timer meant no tantrums. But he's 2. But it at least helps me stay sane. :)

Gleeful :)

So this is something I have been wanting to post about for the past week, but in our craziness that has been preparing to go to Utah (which we are HERE and Uncle Phil is home from Sweden safe and sound!) I have not done it. So I say--

THANK GOODNESS for friends who blog much more regularly than me! Besides the weird grin that is on my face in our picture (I think I was a little too excited) Jaclyn's words sum up my feelings EXACTLY. Please read here:

Jaclyn's Glee Post

Though I think my favorite line from our little 11 year old friends behind us was (and this was literally a scream, that's why I am about to put it in all caps...)

THAT WAS CAPITAL A-MAZING!!!!

It's my new favorite thing to say. The end.

My little composer

Everyone always asks me if I teach Joshua any piano. The answer is NO--he is only 2. But he likes to play around on it sometimes. He composed a song the other day. I was pretty amazed. (still am!) Don't get too excited here, he's not Mozart or anything. A little background about my little 2 year old, though. He loves clock towers and bell towers. If it is a clock and bell tower in ONE, even better. He idolizes Big Ben. And the "happy clock" at Disneyland (outside It's a Small World). He's a little obsessive. Okay, a LOT obsessive.

Anyway. Sometimes he makes me play the clock tower chimes on the piano. And I do it for him. Because he's my son. Yesterday while I was making dinner, I heard him messing around on the piano. After a minute, he runs in and says "Mommy! I play-a-bells!" And this video shows you what he did.



Now, the cool part is that he repeats it. Over and over and over again. And if he starts on a note that would make the bells be in a minor key, he keeps playing the notes until he finds the major key. I am just so excited! My little musician!!!

P.S. Now you know what it takes for me to blog. I seriously have good ideas everyday about stuff to blog about. Here's my list over the past month or two of what we need to catch up on:
-my Mom's spontaneous visit
-many a trip to Disneyland
-Joshua's new best friend (or worst enemy), Simon
-Justin's acceptance to a seminar at BYU meaning we'll be in UTAH for 2 months starting next FRIDAY!
-daily cuteness from my 2 little boys

So stay tuned for more excitement (probably to come in another 2 months...ha ha)

The partying has just begun!

So we have had massive amounts of visitors/fun time here in So Cal. And its only the beginning. Next week Grandma and Grandpa White come back for Spring Break and then JACLYN will be here for her internship, and then June 1st, we'll be back in UTAH for a couple of months!

But. I digress. For the past couple months we had Mags come visit, then Grandma Snyder, and last week we spent most of it in San Diego with Emily and Penny...then Katie and kids decided to come for a couple of days last minute too. PHEW, we have had FUN!

I mean, seriously, I went to Disneyland once a week for FIVE weeks. Now that is what I call FUN. I have so many pictures I don't know what to do with, but I'll let you see a couple.