The Days of 47 Parade

As many of you know July 24th (Pioneer Day) is a state holiday in Utah. Every year they have a huge parade though downtown SLC celebrating the pioneer heritage. In order to commemorate the holiday, Shannon and I decided to take the kids down to see the parade. My favorite part were the Seagulls. I tried to get picture, but I couldn't get my camera out fast enough. Luckily they were news worthy so I was able to download a picture for you all to enjoy. you wouldn't believe some of the floats the local stakes but together! After the fun of the parade we headed to the park where they had inflatable toys, street vendors and more. All in all a pretty great day considering I was on the "clock".

I have not spent that much time outside all summer, so I was pretty drained, but knew that I had to do some studying that day. I pulled out the books and tried to dive in, but then Cambree and I got to talking about maybe going to see a dollar movie that night. We looked at what was available and were having trouble deciding between 2 movies. Then we came up with the idea to catch them both, but I had to earn the second one. If I buckled down and studied for a couple of hours I could go to both movies: If not, I only got to go to one. You know you have a problem when you have to treat yourself like a kid by setting up a reward system for things you should just do because it is required of you.

I am happy to say I earned both!

This one couldn't wait till sunday

A couple of months ago Johan told me he wanted to paint fake money green. When I asked him why he said he didn't know, but was adamant about doing it. Unfortunately we forgot about it and it never happened. However, today he brought it up again. He thought through all these plans and presented them to me. I realized he wanted to try to use it as real money.

He thought that after it was painted no one would be able to figure out they were fake. Some of the errors of the plan, including the moral issues associated with it, but he seemed bound and determined to go ahead it. He then came up with several different plans to try to make it look real-including photocopying a real dollar bill. He wanted to make 100, 1 dollar bills. I told him you weren't supposed to copy money.

Finally we came up with the plan of tracing the bill. I traced one for him, with just a few of the many details of the bill. I asked him if it looked good; luckily it passed inspection. So we copied the traced bill so he could paint them.

By this point I thought he understood that the only way to get money to spend was by earning it, not making it. Then he got into the nitty-gritty of the project.

He hunted for supplies for 45 minutes, that is a lot of dedication for a 6 yr old. Then he carefully cut out each bill and asked to look at a dollar bill so he could paint it correctly.


As he started painting, he kept telling me not to tell anyone about it. I realized that he still had the intention of passing it off as real money. Luckily he couldn't get the right mix of watercolors to match the color on the bill, and he gave up, so for now our counterfeiting operation has stopped.

The Circle of Life

I went up to help my friend Dani with her new baby, 7 batches of apricot jam, fruit leather and general entertainment while her husband was gone. I had notice this dragon fly on her lawn and I was planning on taking a picture of it because it looked so cool

Dani turned it over and discovered that the insides were gone and there were a number of ants inside.

Pretty cool if you ask me. This experience also left me impressed with my camera's ability for super close up pictures.

In other news, in a crazy moment a few weeks ago, I agreed to go to the midnight showing of "The Dark Knight". So that is how I spent my Thursday into Friday this week. Luckily I could sleep in a little on Friday to make up for it. All in all it was a fun time.

I am also happy to report that I got my highest quiz score in Anatomy thus far! It is definitely hanging on the fridge.

Sunday is a Great Day!

Here are some highlights from the week. School is taking up most of my midweek, so for now, Sunday's are going to be my blog update.

The first thing of note for the week was a milestone in the life of my car.

In case you can't see the mileage the first says 99,999. Then the next picture is the 100,00. I thought that alone was a momentous day, but then I was on my way back from bringing Jonah to tutoring when I noticed a collection of cars parked along the road by the Draper. They were lowering the Angel Moroni into place, I was very excited that we drove by at that time.

The kids and I were in a silly mood that day so I taught them how to make the upside down face. They thought it was hilarious! I have to say, it hasn't gotten old for me either.

Way back when our Relief Society gave us little cups with flower seed in them. I transferred mine to a very small pot. After that Cambree took over loving them and on Tuesday night I noticed this itty-bitty blossom. Isn't it cute?

Thursday Jonah, Marie Claire and I went to Wheeler farm while Abe was at his guitar lesson. I love Wheeler farm so much! My favorite are definitely the little lambs.



Saturday night I took a break from studying to volunteer at the 4th annual fundraiser for the preschool I used to work for. It was a ton of fun. The other person in the picture is my friend and former co-worker Ashley. The fundraiser had a Luau theme. I was in charge of table decorating, raffle, and keeping track of the live auction. I had a last minute responsibility of demonstrating the joy of riding a baby-blue beach cruiser. It has been forever since I rode a bike!

Going Green

I was driving home from class tonight, and thinking about all the damage I was doing to the environment with all my driving, and I am not quite sure where my train of thought went from there, but this is where it ended up.
If everyone is so worried about "going green" I think one of the biggest impacts we could make it by doing away with billboards! Think about it, all the energy spent to light them up at night, some of them even have lights during the day. Then there is all the waste product produced when they change the signs. Additionally, most billboards are now just giant plastic signs hung over a board, have you ever thought about where that all goes when the sign is changed? Then there are the drivers that slow down on the freeway to view the billboards, and then accelerate after to regain speed, thus decreasing their fuel efficiency.
One last point, wouldn't the landscape look so much prettier without them? And if they weren't dotting the landscape, perhaps drivers would notice the smog in the valley more.



Well, there is my tree-hugger, and I think, quite ingenious thought for the day.