Category Archives: Landscape

Christmas Card 2022

We sold our amazing house in Indiana. It was located in the best neighborhood and we were all so sad to leave. May Bo was able to do the whole sale by herself. It was easy since the market favored the seller back at the beginning of the year. We packed everything up and we decided to do moving containers. It was much easier than driving a moving truck with all the kids.

Now we’re back in Utah! We’re hanging out at Popo’s house or the house May Bo grew up in. May Bo’s mom is so nice to take us in during a time when the housing market is not favorable for buyers and the cross country move was very expensive. We see ourselves staying here for the foreseeable future so we started on some remodel projects that is going to take a lot longer than expected. Half the house is down to studs so we are all cozy living in three bedrooms. One room is for May Bo’s mom, one room for Dallin & May Bo, and one room for all the kids! It was a really rough transition at first but we have all seem to have gotten used to it. It has actually made bedtime easier when all the kids have to go to bed at the same in the same room.

May Bo’s brother Aaron got married to Oliva and that was a huge highlight in our year.

Micah started middle school this year. He is the best sport dealing with all the little kids in his room and is really looking forward to having his own room one day. Micah got into the First Lego League team at his school. The tryouts were hard and only a few students got on the team. Middle school has been a really good for Micah and he has met some really great friends this year. He also started back up with swimming but we are still looking for a piano teacher for him.

Quentin has been utilizing the gift of the Holy Ghost in his life. The elementary school that we started out with here in Utah was not working out for Quentin. May Bo really wanted Quentin to stay at the school but after praying about the situation, Quentin decided he needed to leave the school right away. It was really good he did because the situation at the school only got worse and worse. Quentin actually didn’t mind being the new student again and is really enjoying his new school. He probably got one of the nicest teachers ever and he has made a lot of friends.

Emily started 1st grade. She loves her teacher and classmates. Her teacher reads with Emily everyday and she has grown leaps and bounds with her reading. She started to go to art club. Emily started piano lessons this year.

Jacob started his second year of preschool this year. It is a lot shorter than his school last year so he spends most of his time at home. He loves going to school and has had zero problems going to school. Thank goodness! He started swimming lessons this past summer and asks to go back everyday. He is an energy ball. Since Popo cooks for us almost everyday Jacob told us we live at “Popo’s Pizza and Steam Bun Restaurant.”

Cumorah is amazing at singing. She turned 3 this year and every one thinks she’s 5 or older. We started a TikTok for all her cute candid moments of singing. She is ready to start preschool, but not old enough to attend so we started preschool at home since she already knows the whole alphabet.

Lily Mei started walking! She can take 3-5 steps on her own. She still thinks crawling is a lot faster.

Dallin is working hard and long hours at Primary Children’s and is adjusting to be back in Utah. He loves to read Brandon Sanderson to the kids and work on remodel projects whenever he is home.

May Bo is having way too much fun making over 50 TikToks and Reels on Facebook. She used to make all the movies for her senior class in High School back in 2008 so this has been really fun for her to make movies again with much better and faster technology! This may be the first year she has taken more videos than pictures.

One huge miracle that happened to us this year is that Dallin’s sister gave us her 15 passenger van. We have already gone on several adventures with it. We have lots of camper van remodel ideas for this car and we’ll see if we actually get any time to make it happen in 2023. The kids love the van life. HAHA!

We decided to use Quentin’s 4th grade national park pass last weekend to go take a picture for this Christmas Card at Bryce Canyon. We hope we can see many more of the parks this coming year!

Here are our past years Christmas Cards:

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

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Trip to Portland

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Dear Portland, you were a big surprise to me. I’ve never been to a city like you. The pregnancy exhibit at the OMSI kinda freaked me out. 🧐 We tried eating at Voodoo Donuts and Pok Pok because everyone told us to. They were literally a hole in the wall and one time at those places was enough for me. However, Petunia’s Pies & Pastries was fabulous! Powell’s City of Books was a fun place to get lost. The tram was cool and I could see Mt. St. Helen. The best attraction was Multnomah Falls. Even in January Dallin convinced me to hike to the top with little Jakey in our arms. At the end of our trip, you really got us confused when we couldn’t pump our own gas. Well, let’s just say, Portland, you have succeeded to be the weirdest place I have ever been to. Sincerely, May Bo

#portland #thoughts #multnomahfalls #multnomah #keepportlandweird #photography

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It was fun pretending to only have 1 child again! HAHA!

Family Pictures: Emigration Canyon, Utah

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I had a vision of having our family pictures taken on the top of a snowy mountain so we drove up Emigration Canyon in Salt Lake City, Utah to take these pictures. I think they turned out OK for being impromptu! 🙂

Why is it called Emigration Canyon? Wikipedia says:

Emigration Canyon was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961. It is significant in Utah history as the original route used by pioneers entering Utah. It was part of the Hastings Cutoff route used by the Donner Party in 1846, and where the Mormon pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. As Brigham Young looked over the canyon, he declared, “This is the right place. Drive on.” These words have become famous in Utah history. The event is commemorated with This Is The Place Heritage Park at the mouth of the canyon. Throughout Emigration Canyon, there are several historic markers designating camps, trail markers and milestone where the Mormon Pioneers passed while on their way to the Salt Lake Valley. One example of these milestones is called Lost Creek Camp.

We used my brother’s Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM Ultra Wide Angle Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras.

Wide angle lens are great for landscape shots.

We took these with a tripod so that’s why my kids don’t always look at the camera. I’m going to create a device one day that will capture my kids attention while my camera is self timer on a tripod… lol!

Enjoy!

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Ireland Miracle #3

Sorry I realize that I never finished my Ireland miracles. I’ll just schedule these stories in once in a while. Better late than never right?

For the first month in Ireland, we solely relied on public transportation which was mainly double decker busses and the Dart which is a fast train. Dallin studied at the University College Dublin and we lived in Dun Laoghaire. It was about 45 minutes by bus but only a 15 minute drive. The bus system was fantastic and there really wasn’t much to complain about except for the fact that Dallin took 1.5 to 2 hours or more commuting everyday depending on traffic.

We felt like the Spirit was telling us we should buy a car. We researched it out and miraculously found an old Nissan Almera (aka Nissan Centra in the USA) for 1000 euros. We registered it and bought insurance from Liberty Mutual Insurance which was the cheapest insurance we found. Buying a car was easier than we thought it would be and it eventually ended up saving us money even though the gas tax in Ireland is like 50%.

Driving in Dublin, Ireland is super fun… well kinda. So you drive on the left hand side of the road and the roads are very narrow. Parking is pretty much just parallel parking. You have to get really good at parallel parking. You can use your native driver license for one year before you need to get an Irish license.

We took this old cheap car to every shore of Ireland and Northern Ireland. We drove this car from Dublin to Giants Cosway in Northern Ireland. Then to Cork, Cliffs of Moher, Dingle and the Ring of Kerry. Fortunately the only problem we had with the car was the windshield wipers and a mechanic in Cork fixed it for 10 euro.

On one of our last adventures in Ireland, we were driving to the Blarney Castle in Cork. A local guy rear ended our car and made a dent in the back bumper. The insurance company said that the car was totaled. They let us keep the dented car and gave us 1000 Euro. So in essence we got this car for free. This is what the bumper looked like and if you look around on the streets of Ireland…everyone has the same dent in their car because the roads are so narrow!

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We thought purchasing this car was a tender mercy of the Lord. We drove this car everywhere. We drove it to church and drove the Dublin area missionaries to their visits. Dallin used this car to go home teaching and we used this car to drive to the hospital when we had the baby. We ended up giving the car away to a friend and then he was able to use the car for a few weeks while his car was broken. After that he ended up selling it for 200 euro. We thought we got our money’s worth out of that car. What a blessing!

Writing about Ireland again brings tears to my eyes because I miss Ireland so much!

Donut Falls

We hiked to donut falls. It’s a really easy hike if you start at the Donut Falls Trail Head. It’s only .75 miles until you get to the waterfall. Then you have to climb the waterfall to to see the donut. I highly recommend the hike for little kids. We went with a 7, 5, 3, 2, 1, 0 year old kids and we seem to all make it to at least the waterfall. Then we left most of the smaller kids with grandma and grandpa so we can make it up to see the donut. Don’t forget to bring the donuts!

This is the the waterfall you have to climb to see the donut:

 

Glendalough 2

Went with our Brazilian and Romanian friends to Glendalough in Wicklow last week. We’ve already been once but we loved it so much that we had to go again (first Glendalough trip post)! We love hiking the Glendalough trails and having a picnic. It was such a nice day to be out at the lake too! I love the sun… I think it was the first time I felt like I should’ve put on some sunscreen.

37 weeks in this picture … moving right along. We hiked to upper lake… pretty good for being full term right? Ok so it was an easy hike but still. 🙂

I like to look for rainbows

It’s 50 degrees f (10 c) outside and the sun finally came out! I can definitely understand why Ireland is famous for their rainbows. It’s because it rains so much here! It rains pretty much everyday.

This is the most magnificent and brilliant rainbow we have ever seen! It reminds me of the primary song When I am Baptized.

I like to look for rainbows whenever there is rain
And ponder on the beauty of an earth made clean again.

I want my life to be as clean as earth right after rain.
I want to be the best I can and live with God again.

I know when I am baptized my wrongs are washed away,
And I can be forgiven and improve myself each day.

I want my life to be as clean as earth right after rain.
I want to be the best I can and live with God again.

My husband came home from work busting through the door. He told us to go outside quick! Micah was going to the potty. We ran outside and Micah had no pants on but at least I remember to grab my camera. 🙂

Glendalough

Lough (pronounced lock) in Irish means “lake”.  This is such a pretty tourist site.  We picked the perfect day to go see this area.  It was partly cloudy and around 45 degrees f (~8 degrees c) that day.  We toured the cemetery and the old watch tower.  I was surprised to see real mountains in Ireland! It reminded me a lot like Utah.  The hike is easy half mile to the first lake and then one mile to the second lake.  Glen in Irish means the number two so Glendalough means “of the two lakes”.

I’m not much of a landscape photographer but Dallin really likes scenic photography so I decided to give it a try.

Here are pictures of the cemetery:

Bray Ireland Pictures

Here’s some random pictures on our weekend adventures to the city Bray outside the border of Dublin. It was a really really cold day! In fact, it snowed right after we took these pictures. That’s why we all look like eskimos because we wore four layers of clothes that day. We actually starting walking from Dun Laoghaire to Dalkey. Then took the train called the Dart to Bray.

     

There are a bunch of Catholic churches here so we stopped by when they were having their mass on Saturday.

I thought these washing basins are similar to the ones in King Soloman’s Tabernacle. Way cool!

The architecture of the churches are so neat! I can’t believe how old they are.