Manti Temple, Alpine Loop, Bargaining, Hiking the Y, BYU Homecoming Spectacular, Clark Planetarium

Home Sweet Home. I love being back in Utah with family and friends, and the beautiful Fall weather too! I flew in last Saturday and enjoyed a weekend of General Conference (even though I was very distracted by my cute nephews).

On Tuesday Dad and I drove to the Manti Temple. What a beautiful place!

Doing a little scripture reading with Soren and Anders

On Wednesday we all jumped in the van and drove the Alpine Loop. These mountains are majestic. Even more so in the Fall. This is granny (my Mom) with the newest little man in the family (Karsten).

Fall colors on the Rocky Mountains

Lizzie with her baby boy. He is such a happy, smiley boy.

Anders tells me that "you have a hole in your hair."

Soren brought some of his art to sell to Uncle Daniel, so I taught him the art of bargaining.

He started out offering me his pieces of art for 7 cents, 25 cents, etc, so I taught him about starting high and then bargaining from there.

He definitely went high. 79 Dollars?! That's a little too much for me, my friend.

How about $1.50? Nope, not gonna do it.

Ok, maybe $3.27?

Here are the names of Soren's pieces of art and the final prices he gave me:

The Funky-Looking Picture - 10 cents

The Crazy Eyeball Lion - $2.00

The Mommy-Head Balloon Bomb - 9 cents

The Soccer Crazy House - 7 cents

The Colorful Space Bomb - $7.00

Sticky Space Marble - 50 cents

Hard Roll Ball - $1.60

Stick Wood - $3.22

Hit Me Bunny Mustard [my favorite!] - 41 cents

Super Sun - 36 cents

Amyy Gun [He meant "Aiming" Gun, but he told me it's spelled "Amyy"] - 41 cents - Soren started out by telling me that this drawing was 41 dollars. I offered him one dollar. He countered with 41 cents. Deal! :) Obviously I didn't teach him how to bargain very well.

Delling (Design Yellow Green) - 16 cents

Celojungle and Ladder a Blue Path - 45 cents for both of them!

Different Strands ("Strands" stands for "Street Mans") - $2.20

Best Mist Nest - $1.55

Fancy Shmancy - 32 cents

Longest & Tallest Person With Noodles In His Hand - 75 cents

Knock How - Free gift!

Total: $21.19

I should mention that the weather here has been pretty crazy this week (heavy rain, thunder, etc.), but only when we weren't on our little outings. We've been lucky. On Thursday we hiked the Y. Soren made it up and down all by himself. Lizzie carried the little man the whole way! Anders made it most of the way by himself . . .

. . . and when he couldn't keep his little legs going any longer, he got a ride.

We did it!

Dangling our feet off the edge of the world. Lizzie got some great shots.

Happy to be a Cougar fan!

Thursday night Granny and I went on a date for her 96th birthday (which was actually Friday). We watched an amazing two-hour program (the BYU Homecoming Spectacular) featuring the BYU Ballroom Dance Company, Contemporary Dance Theatre, Cougarettes, Percussion Ensemble, Philharmonic Orchestra, Women's Chorus, and the Young Ambassadors. Stephen Jones (remember the guy who did BYU's copy of the Old Spice commercial?) was one of the emcees, along with Brad Wilcox. They were really funny together.

My hot date

Dan (my brother-in-law) flew in Thursday night. On Friday we went to the Clark Planetarium.

We played on the moon

Then we went to Mars

We watched "Black Holes" in their little dome theater

I have to mention that Lizzie (my sister) took most of these great shots and they'll probably show up on her blog too, but I'm preempting her.

Next Week: Oregon and Washington