Broncs, Bulls, and Barrels

 We have lived in Riverton for four years now and attended our first rodeo here the other night. Riverton hosts a rodeo every year around the 4th of July as part of their three-day "Riverton Town Days" event.

I remember attending rodeos while growing up in Spanish Fork. They were held at the fairgrounds during the Spanish Fork Fiesta Days which was always around the 24th of July. This got me started in liking rodeos.

One thing I liked about this rodeo in Riverton was that they made it very patriotic since it was held close to Independence Day. 

To start things off, there were two sky divers who landed into the arena. One carried the American Flag.

That was so much fun to watch.

To set the stage for the National Anthem, they brought the biggest flag I have ever seen into the arena.

It was pretty spectacular.

It's nice to see girls involved in a rodeo besides those participating in the barrel racing. These girls carried flags around the arena advertising sponsors of the event.

One of my favorite events is barrel racing. This picture wasn't taken by me, but it gives you an idea of what barrel racing looks like. I forgot to take pictures of this event. The horses are extremely fast!

Another favorite, but very dangerous event, is bull riding. We watched 8 men try to ride a bull, but none of them had qualified times. The bulls were just too hard to stay on. Brahma bulls are so strong and powerful. They usually get what they want.

Clowns are fun and an important part of a rodeo. They are used for entertainment as well as safety and diversion for the bull riders.

This might be the last rodeo we ever attend, but I'm glad we went. It was fun to get out and do something different. The rodeo was sold out all three nights, so you can see that it is a popular event.

Gardner Village

 There is a fun little village in West Jordan called Gardner Village that Alan and I visited yesterday. I had been there before, but it was new to Alan. The first thing we did was eat lunch at Archibald's Restaurant. It is a quaint restaurant built from what was once a mill.

We were seated in the circular area pictured above.

Although the food wasn't my favorite, we were able to enjoy a fun lunch together.

This month at Gardner Village they are having what they are calling a Woodland Fairy Festival. It's pretty cool that they have decorated the grounds and stores to look like a Fairyland.

Cheryl will be taking her kids there tomorrow with their cousins. I believe they will have a great time. According to this sign, my fairy name is Whispering Star Butterfly. Can't beat that!

There is a fun little train that the kids can ride around the Village in, and inside the Train Shoppe there are fun little arcade-type games & things for the kids to do.

It was fun to get out of the house and do something different yesterday. I think Cheryl's family is really going to love their time there tomorrow.

Finding The Tree of Life

 I was listening to a podcast today where a quote from Mark Twain was shared. He said:

I have been pondering about that quote today.

I guess it is an age-old right of passage to question three things in life - where did I come from, why am I here, and where will I go after this life. Thankfully, the Plan of Salvation within the gospel of Jesus Christ answers all of those questions. Since I grew up in the church, I never had to really wonder what the answers to those questions were. From my childhood, I have known that I lived in the pre-existence before I was born, I'm here on earth to gain a body, gain experience, serve others & God, and prove myself worthy to live with Him again. I know where I'm going after this life - back to heaven where we all once lived before being born on the earth. I've never had a reason to question these things. It has always made perfect sense to me. 

It is clear for me to see that according to Mark Twain I have, without a doubt, experienced the two most important days in my life!

Being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is something I've always been proud of and I cherish my membership in the Church. I'm so very grateful for the covenants I have made with the Lord at my baptism and at the temple. I will NEVER break my covenants, but there are many who make them and for whatever reason don't take the covenants to heart and end up breaking them. A covenant is a promise between you and the Lord, Jesus Christ. That's not something I take lightly.

I have a favorite piece of art in our home. It is hanging on the wall in the main bedroom downstairs.

It  might be difficult to tell, but this is a painting that tells the story of Lehi's dream in the Book of Mormon. In the dream or vision, Lehi is led to the Tree of life which is a representation of the love of God. After Lehi partakes of the fruit, he is anxious for his family to partake of it. Lehi describes the fruit as "desirable to make one happy." The fruit on the tree is a symbol for the blessings of the Atonement and the partaking of the fruit represents receiving ordinances and covenants so the Atonement can affect us in a positive way in our lives. 

When we partake of the fruit, we want to share the goodness with others. The thing is, we can't leave the tree and take it to them. Nobody who has partaken of the fruit can go over to the great and spacious building, knock on the door, and try to spread the joy. We can beckon them to come to us, but they need to have the desire to come to the tree themselves. That's why Lehi, in his dream, rejoiced when most of his family partook of the fruit, but he was disappointed when Laman and Lemuel refused to partake.

Now that we are getting closer to the time when the Savior will return to the world for the last time, it is ever more important and urgent to get all friends and family to partake of the fruit. A relationship with Jesus Christ is imperative in order to survive the turbulent times of the last days. We are each responsible to get ourselves into God's kingdom. Because of free agency, we can't make that decision for anyone else. They need to want it in their lives. I pray that the people of the world wake up to this fact and partake of the fruit of the Tree of Life before it's too late.

Dumb Luck or Tender Mercy?

 In August of last year, I wrote a blog post entitled "A Blessing In Disguise" about how an injury kind of cured a certain back pain that I had been experiencing for years. Interestingly, a similar thing happened to me just three days ago. On that evening, we hosted a dinner at our house to celebrate Ryan's  48th birthday. 

Even though Eric's family has been staying in our basement for the past 12 days while their kitchen is being remodeled and while Nicole recovers from a partial knee replacement surgery, most of his family couldn't attend the meal, but Cheryl's family (minus Parker) ate with us. After dinner, Cheryl needed to take her children home to get them in bed, but Kessler wanted to stay and have a sleepover at our house. With my approval and with Cheryl's approval, the sleepover was a go. I made a little foam pad bed for him at the foot of my bed. 

As I was stepping over the bed to get to the bathroom, I kind of tweaked my right knee (the one I had knee replacement surgery on about 19 months ago) and heard a pop. My knee throbbed for about 2 minutes and then the pain went away. I have had a lot of pain in that knee ever since the surgery. Even though I have been doing all of the physical therapy exercises regularly, the pain never went away and it has been very frustrating. After that pop, my knee feels better than it ever has since the surgery. Amazing! If I have to decide whether it was dumb luck that the pop occurred or a tender mercy from the Lord, I will choose tender mercy. I have prayed and prayed that the pain in my knee would go away. It never did until that pop occurred. I thank the Lord that my knee is doing so much better now. I'm thinking that maybe some scar tissue needed to be torn away for my knee to operate better. I'm glad it did if that's what happened. Sometimes good can come from painful experiences.

This is the Place Heritage Park

 Alan and I decided to get out of the house today and do something fun. We decided to go to "This is the Place Heritage Park" near the mouth of Emigration Canyon, which is very close to where Alan's family lived when they moved from California to Utah when Alan was a Senior in High School. 

On July 24th, 1847, Brigham Young first saw the Salt Lake Valley. We believe that Brigham Young had a vision shortly after the Saints were exiled from Nauvoo, IL wherein he saw the place where the Saints were supposed to settle to "make the desert blossom like a rose." Although Brigham Young was very sick with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, he rose up from the back of the wagon, looked around at the valley below, and declared that this was the right place for the saints to settle. The rest is history. The Salt Lake valley has certainly blossomed like a rose.

This is the "This is the Place" monument. I remember seeing it as a kid. I have a rich pioneer heritage, so going to this park helped remind me of the sacrifices the pioneers made to travel from Nauvoo to the Salt Lake Valley.

Alan & I ate a burger at the Huntsman Hotel on the East side of the Park. Also, they had trains come by periodically to transport anyone who wanted to ride to a different section of the park.

There were a lot of fun things for children to do at Heritage Park. They could climb and explore on this sail boat.

They could also pan for gold right next to the sail boat. It was so crowded with kids that it was hard to even get a picture of the little river and all the kids panning for gold.

The Indian Village was another fun spot. Tepee's are always an intriguing thing to see.

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This is what it looked on the inside of the teepee.

Part of the Indian Village

This was a fun wall inside the donut shop.  It had a "You know your in Utah if" display with funny quotes like: Green Jell-O with carrots mixed in doesn't seem strange; the U is not just a letter, neither is the Y (U of U & BYU); your first child was conceived on your honeymoon; people drive to Wyoming or Arizona to pick up a gallon of milk so they can play the lottery; you have two gallons of ice cream in your freezer at all times; you can pronounce Tooele; you think Jack Daniels is a country western singer, etc. Very true about Utahn's.

They had a special place to honor the pioneer children who passed away. 

Alan saw a list with three children with Burton as a last name. I don't know if I'm related, but I proudly wear the maiden name of Burton. There was even a Jane Burton listed there who passed away at the age of 14. Sure glad it wasn't my twin sister Jane.

Today was a good and a bad day to go there. It was good because it was Huntsman Day so everyone got in free, plus everyone got free ice cream. We had no idea when we left home that it was Huntsman Day. We were prepared to pay $22/person to get in. Going today saved us $44, but it was a bad day to go because it was sooooo crowded! There were crowds at most events and lines were long for the train ride and some of the children's events like the pony ride and petting zoo. It was also a bad day to go because it was so HOT! It was over 90 degrees by the time we left the park at about 2:00 p.m. Fortunately, they had a little water park and a little creek for some of the kids to cool off in.

Although it was crowded and parking was at a premium, I'm glad we ventured out and revisited Heritage Park. I'm so grateful for my pioneer ancestors who joined the church, including those who emigrated to  the United States to be with other Saints who believed as they did. They had a rough life and had to make many sacrifices and I am a beneficiary of their sacrifice. I'm grateful to belong to the same church they did and believe the same things that they did. It connects me to them in a special way that we couldn't have connected in any other way. All 16 of the my great-grandparents were early members of the church. That knowledge makes my heart swell. I love them and can't wait to meet them one day in the future.

"Rock The Block" Block Party

 I love to watch shows on HGTV. Rock the Block is their most popular home renovation competition and is definitely one of my favorite shows. The premise of the show is that four teams are each given a budget of $250,000 to renovate identical modern properties within a six-week period. The winning home is the one that appraises for the highest amount at the end of the competition.

The most recent season of Rock the Block was shot in Grantsville, Utah, and after the season aired and the winner had been announced, they invited viewers to go there to view the homes in person. I jumped on the idea of going, shared my idea with Cheryl (who also loves the show) and she was on board with going, too. The event was only for two days - Friday, May 30th and Saturday, May 31st. We went on Saturday and it was so much fun to see the homes in person. It was quite crowded. I guess there are many fans of the show in this area who wanted to see the homes as much as Cheryl and I did.

We left Kessler and Wesley in the care of Grandpa Alan and Cheryl, Lainey, and I headed to Grantsville. It took almost an hour to get there, but it was well worth the time & effort to go.

The competition this season was Veterans (teams who have been on the show before) vs. Rookies (teams who have never been on the show before). Each week at the end of the episode they would post the winner on this sign:

This is the winning house, won by veterans Alison & Michel! It was appraised at $1.4 million.

Here are some pictures of the inside of their house. Their kitchen won on week one.

This is the Primary Bath & Shower

Downstairs Kitchen & Pickleball Court

Below are some pictures from some of the other homes.

Cool play area for teenagers

Theater Room

Band room/Recording Studio

Unique backyard additions!

Hot Tub

Patio Hot Tub

Kids Play Area

Greenhouse/Entertainment Area

ADU (Additional Dwelling Unit) Outside & Inside

Goat Barn. Lainey loved the baby goats.

Some pictures from iconic rooms.

After we toured the homes, I got to have my first experience eating from a food truck. I guess there's a first for everything.

Street Tacos

This little Saturday event turned out to be the most fun thing I've done in a while. I guess I need to get out more! I'm glad Cheryl & Lainey went with me. Good mother/daughter/granddaughter outing.