Goings on

The kids have joined forces to write a book. Tyler started it and entitled it "Zoo Life." It doesn't have much to do with zoos, except there is a tiger and a penguin. The zookeeper is shot, and the kids have to escape from the zoo because the new zookeeper is really mean and will shoot the animals. They end up traveling through a desert, getting stuck in a sand storm. The kids have to hide the penguin and the tiger under their shirts to get them through the sand storm. They spend a lot of time in the desert, finding an oasis and a waterfall. They start to run out of food, but one of the kids is lucky enough to have a box of Mac and Cheese! When Emma read what Tyler had started, she said, "It doesn't make any sense!" Which is true. But then she started adding parts to the story, so now it doesn't matter to her if it makes sense, just if it is readable. Even Anna has added a page or two to the story. We go through tons of paper!

After church today (which, by the way, was testimony meeting day) Anna announced, quite loudly, "I want to go home, and that is my testimony!"

Josh had to help out in nursery today. When I went in to get Sophie to feed her, Josh was on the floor with all the nursery kids surrounding him and playing with him. Little kids seem to flock to him.

We went to the Draper Temple open house on Friday. It was absolutely beautiful. It was nice to be there with all of the kids. They were perfect all evening. Well, there were a few tears since we had to wait for 20 minutes for the bus to take us back to the car and we hadn't eaten dinner yet. But overall, it was a wonderful evening. Even Sophie was fascinated by the beauty in the temple. Ryan looked at the baptismal font and said, "There's the water and there's the cows." After the open house we went out to Applebee's. (We had promised the kids, so even though it was late, we kept the promise.) We were supposed to have a wait of 45 min. for a table, but Josh talked them into moving around some other tables which made the wait 3 minutes. We were very grateful. Emma and Tyler had a gift card for a free meal since they had participated in a poetry festival a couple days before. They each recited a poem in front of many other people. They did great and we all got to enjoy their reward.