Erik's Court of Honor

Erik received his Eagle Scout rank on Sunday, March 20, 2011 at our church building. Greg Atkin was the master of ceremony and Bellamy Brown introduced Erik to the friends gathered there. Greg and Jay Simms presented the Medal to Erik and Erik presented the Mother and Father pins to me and Lars. Todd Smith gave a wonderful talk to and about Erik and also made a slide show of pictures of Erik over the years in Scouts that was wonderful! Granny, Betsy Simms and Carrie Moyle made yummy desserts for refreshments. We had cookies, cupcakes, brownies and punch. We laid out a display of pictures of Erik over the years as well as some of the projects he made during his years of Scouting. It was a great celebration, and we are very proud of his accomplishment!

Pawn Stars

While we were in Las Vegas, we wanted to go by the pawn shop that is featured on History Channel. It's a show called Pawn Stars about 3 generations of family who work together in this pawn store on the strip in Vegas. The show is kind of cool because people are always bringing in historic items like Civil War weapons and money, etc. They also bring in fakes and so it's fun to watch because the pawn stars know most of the time when something is fake and they tell you why.

Anyway, Old Man is the grandfather, Rick is the father and Big Haus is the son. There's also a childhood friend of Big Haus named Chumlee. They are kind of like tweedle dee and tweedle dumb (although I think they're actually pretty smart and just play dumb for the show). We wanted to meet them in person, and their sign says they are there from 9-3 weekdays. We got there at 1:00 pm on a Friday but they weren't there. Sarah was really disappointed, especially after waiting in line to get in the store! But some of these pictures are of objects that were featured on the show at least.

Vegas Baby!

On the way back from Utah, we stopped over night in Las Vegas since Mom nor the kids had been there before. We stayed at Circus Circus for the night. We caught a circus act and then walked down the strip all the way to The Bellagio. They usually have a neat water show timed to lights and music, but it was cancelled last night because they were shooting a commercial. Inside the Bellagio though is a great Chihuly glass exhibit on the ceiling. They also have a seasonal exhibit every quarter. This season is of course spring, and the gallery was filled with spring flowers like tullips, gerber daisies, etc. There was a butterfly aviary and pictured is a decorated tree full of flower butterflies.

Rosson House in downtown Phoenix

On the first day of Mom's trip to Phoenix, we went down to Heritage Square. We wanted to tour the Rosson House, which is a Victorian home on what is left of the original downtown Phoenix block from the late 1800's. It's a beautiful home that was built by a doctor. There was gorgeous wood work on the hard wood floors and tin tiled ceilings. It was ultra modern for the time, containing a door bell, an intercom system, a telephone, and electric lighting. After the tour, we went over to ASU to see where I work and ate lunch in the dorm cafeteria. It's an all you can eat buffet for $5. Sarah was in heaven!

In the Wasatch Mountains (Kolob Canyon)

Our "hotel" in Salt Lake

We were going to stay at Lars' sister's apartment in Salt Lake City while we were here, but a friend of mine from church offered to let us stay in her family's rental house that was currently empty. It is a duplex so we had our choice of five bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and two kitchens. It was really nice! What a blessing to have so much space and comfort.

The Tabernacle Choir

The most beautiful music I've ever heard was on Sunday by the Choir and Orchestra. They were going to record a two hour session after Music and the Spoken Word, so I think we were lucky that we got to hear the Orchestra too. These people are all volunteers, although they are professional level musicians. We got to hear them rehearse the show once through and then they went on the TV live for another run through. It was Amazing!

The Tabernacle is also an amazing building. It's acoustics are incredible. They demonstrated that you can hear a straight pin drop on the pulpit no matter where you are in the building, all without microphones. There is a new conference center now across the street that will hold 20,000 because the Tabernacle only holds about 5,000 people, so it's not large enough anymore. The organ in the Tabernacle has about 11,000 pipes. We heard a recital by organist also.

We also toured the new conference center and this is the organ there, which has I think 7,000 pipes.

The Salt Lake Temple

I've seen the temple on TV and in pictures, so it was a real treat to finally see it in person! Words are hard to describe the beauty of it and the feeling that exists there.

The Great Salt Lake

We rode out to the Great Salt Lake and had a picnic. It was kind of foggy so it's hard to see the water in the distance, but it looks similar to an ocean in that it goes on and on forever. There is a bison herd on the island that we went to - Antelope Island - with about 600 animals that roam free. I think the lake is 75 miles long and 25 miles wide and has several islands in it besides Antelope Island. It is very rural out there, and the water is about 15% salt so you wouldn't want to swim in it, although I think you can in certain areas. There are no fish, but a lot of flies and brine shrimp which the birds eat. There are seagulls there, which seems strange because it's inland, but then again, the Lake is more salty than the ocean so I guess seagulls make sense. The Lake is an important resting spot for many other migratory birds.

Historical Salt Lake

We went to several historical sites on our trip to Salt Lake.

The first three pictures are of Brigham Young's home, including the children's play room and the former parlor.

The next picture is of the lobby ceiling at the Hotel Utah, which used to be the 5 star hotel here, but was bought by the church in the 1990's to create business offices in the upper floors. The main floor lobby, however, is still as it always has been. Amazingly beautiful! People use the dance halls and conference rooms for wedding receptions, meetings, etc. There is a great film in the theatre here also on Joseph Smith's life.

This is the Place is a whole pioneer town, which during the summer season, has actors that work in all the shops in costume, so you really feel like you're back in the 1870's. Unfortunately, they have all but one building closed during March so we didn't go through the tour. There is a statute there (pictured) of Brigham Young who, when he came over the last mountain into the Salt Lake Valley, declared that it was the place for the Latter-Day Saints to settle.

Another day we went to Gardner's Mill, which was a working farm and mill at one time, but had been turned into a restaurant and village of cute little shops. We had lunch in what was at one time, the grain silo. We went to the quilt shop, doll shop, candy store and a bunch of other little shops selling clothes, trinkets and jewelry.