Open House

Last night I finally stopped to take some pictures of the temple as the sun was setting. I've wanted to get some good pictures with a sunset since the outside and landscaping are close to completion. Every day tons of people take pictures of the progress, and pull up to take a look. Some college kids go up at night and sit on the sidewalk by the temple (the grounds are off limits). It'll be nice when the construction is done and all the dirt goes away!!

The open house was announced a couple weeks ago for December 29 - January 26 with the dedication on February 3. They're doing the same ticket thing they did with the Manhattan temple, which I assume is just to make the flow of people more efficient.

This temple has been a fun one. My uncle's architectural firm designed the temple, and I've heard that they probably will not want to do another temple. Lots of hassles and nit picky things, but I guess that has to happen to make the temple perfect. Our home teacher has helped put up some decorative rock inside, and said that one day it was taken down (thus ruined) because it was placed 1/4 inch to the edge instead of 3/4 an inch. Crazy stuff.

A couple interesting things are that the inside of the temple has been cleaned every day. All saw dust and construction trash left the building each night. And as the foundation was going in, the dirt surrounding the foundation on the outside was cleaned of any trash or debris and clean dirt was then placed next to the foundation.

The temple is a mile from my parents house, so none of us will have an excuse for not going. Not that the Idaho Falls temple is super far away (30 miles). :)

Goose Egg

Tonight Audrey was standing up at the counter watching my nephew paint a picture and somehow slipped and landed on her back, head first, on the tile. Her poor little head now has a very good-sized goose egg on the back of it. She has a low tolerance for pain, so this little accident initiated some pretty big wails. I'm not sure how she fell, but the big thump is not something I like to hear. When she laid down on her pillow to go to sleep she said, "ouch my head." So sad. I sang her a song to try to make her happy, and when I was done she goes, "good job momma." Thanks. :) Tomorrow I've got an appointment to get her pictures taken, so I hope she will smile. Fixing her hair might be an issue!

The Big 3

Happy Birthday to Audrey! It's amazing to me that three birthdays have come and gone. Audrey finally figured out what birthdays were all about this year, so the cake and presents were fun. She is obsessed with care bears, so I ordered a care bear cake from Albertsons and she definitely loved it. She won't eat cake, but the care bears on top were probably her most favorite thing. With each present she would ask, "what is it?" and then would continue unwrapping it while humming her happy hum. (She hums when she eats her favorite things and also hums when she is in a certain playing mode). She wouldn't look at the camera or smile right, so I gave up after a few. Today was a fun day with Audrey realizing that the whole day was all about her. Happy Birthday to my beautiful little three-year old!!

Nikon Coolpix

This is my new digital camera I picked up today. As I was taking pictures of my flowers on Sunday my camera broke - wouldn't record the image taken. Since Audrey's birthday is tomorrow I needed a new camera asap. So I did a little research and with some cameras being out of stock at the store, this was my choice. My camera is navy blue, so I guess I can't be like most people and have a silver camera. :)

Flower Garden

This was my attempt at a little flower garden this year. I found some funky looking flowers/bulbs at Walmart back in May and thought it might be fun to see how they turned out. This side of the house was just a bunch of weeds and dirt last year. I think the flowers might have needed a bit more sun because the orange and yellow flowers just barely bloomed in the last 2 weeks. I planted 15 white flowers in the middle that were supposed to smell good. One plant finally bloomed last week and 4 more are about to bloom, but with the frost coming I'm not quite sure they'll make it. Once I get my own place, I think I may go with something other than these flowers. :)

Zoo Time

Yesterday I got a little stir crazy and decided to take Audrey down to the Idaho Falls Zoo. The Zoo is pretty tiny - nothing to write home about. Audrey liked the penguins, otters, and monkeys the best. I should have made her walk the whole time because she was more concerned about riding in the stroller than seeing the animals. We saw the entire zoo in an hour, but at least we went and did something! Just before bedtime I looked over and saw that she had zonked out, so maybe our tiny adventure was tiring.

The Lion

Funky Birds

Crashed Out

3 weeks & counting

Now that it's September, the countdown is on for all the premieres of my tv shows. I haven't had a lot to keep me busy the last year or so, and I don't have many hobbies to help me stay entertained in the evenings. So, I have watched a bit of tv and have gotten addicted to quite a few shows. Audrey is an excellent self-entertainer (especially at night), so relaxing & checking out in front of the tube has worked out great.

Grey's Anatomy starts 3 weeks from tonight and I can't wait - mostly because the finale kind of sucked and season 4 needs to redeem the show, but also because the writing/dialogue is so clever. Hopefully McSteamy gets more airtime this year. :)

My other favs are Heroes, Prison Break, Desperate Housewives & Survivor.

Shows I watch because nothing else is on: The bachelor, Dancing w/the Stars, Men in Trees.

Shows I may check out: Private Practice, Big Shots (Michael Vartan - duh!), & Pushing Daisies.

Bear Lake Reunion

This weekend I went with my family (minus all my brothers) to Bear Lake for a Mortensen family reunion. My phone died the first night we got there, and I never broke out the camera, so I didn't take any pictures of anything we did. It was fun to hang out, visit with family and play games. Audrey threw up twice the first night we were there, and I didn't sleep real great for 3 nights, but other than that I had a good time.

Saturday we went boating on the lake for most of the day. Audrey loved the "beach" and totally loved walking out into the water since it is so shallow around the beaches. Bear Lake is beautiful, and we definitely plan on going back. Saturday night we went to dinner and a play at Pickleville Playhouse. The melodrama was about Pirates, which Audrey liked, but the play was a bit cheesy for me. It's hard to watch those kind of things after going to Broadway shows.

Sunday we took a tour of the Minetonka Cave. The tour consists of nine rooms of stalactites, stalagmites, ribbon rock, lots of creative descriptions and 440 steps each way. My dad and I got a pretty good work out carrying 33lb Audrey up and down those steps.