Spring Break!

 We spent a day of our Spring Break visiting the BYU campus. I thought that it would be a good idea to show the kids where dad went to college. Jeff was able to tell the kids some stories and show us where he lived. Apparently, back in the day he did a lot of rollerblading to get around town. It's for the best that we didn't meet until a decade later. I'm quite certain it wouldn't have been an endearing quality I would have embraced.

We spent a few hours at the Museum of Art. The Carl Bloch exhibit was incredible. I'm so grateful that I've been teaching Gospel Doctrine for the past four years. It's given me such an appreciation for the bible. There were several pictures which I wish I could have stayed and studied--the kids were good, but not THAT good.

I also wanted to see this original nativity piece by Brian Kershisnik. It's probably my most favorite piece of artwork. Jeff gave me a print for Christmas. I rarely look at it without being incredibly moved and given a small breathe of the Spirit. I'm always moved by the blood on the hands of the midwives...the mortality of Christ and the necessity of caring and skilled women to help him begin his mission on Earth. [sigh] Amazing.

After lunch we drove by the tabernacle/temple downtown and were able to see that they were going to place the Moroni on the temple. I thought that they would expand the size of the tabernacle to make the temple a bit bigger, but it seems to be about the same size.

The next stop on our cities tour was downtown Salt Lake.

 We visited the Church History Museum. I have such great memories of the museum. Grandma Carver was a docent here for many years. I remember coming and having her give a special tour and sharing her love for church history. I had forgotten this large angel Moroni--it's two inches shorter than an actual statue--I was probably only a bit older when my mom took a picture of me and my sisters in front of it. There was a "Women of Charity" art exhibit. The art was wonderful. I wanted to take some pictures but it was heavily guarded.

 All my life I've wondered about the view from the top of the Church Administration Building...here it is. I thought for certain that you would be able to see out over City Creek, but the south view is completely blocked.

 The view to the North.

 We toured Temple Square, City Creek, and the Beehive House. The tour of the Beehive house was cut short when I realized the kids didn't have a clue who Brigham Young was, or what he did, or why we were even there. In fact, this trip highlighted a number of critical pieces of history they are missing. They know about pioneers, but they didn't know Joseph Smith was murdered. They knew people crossed the plains, but didn't know they came to Utah. After touring Temple Square for 15 minutes Lachlan thought, "it looked like the place we went to see the Christmas lights."