Goin' to the Temple, and We're Gunna Get Married!

Just a heads up to all you of who live outside (and inside) the Seattle area:

Zach and I are planning to be sealed in the Seattle Temple in August 2011. YAY!!

We especially want to share this experience with parents, siblings, cousins and close friends. (Even if your 'title' isn't on this list, we still want you to be there!!)

Please start saving now so you can join us next summer. We'll let you know more details as we have them, but for now plan on visiting Seattle next August!!

"Are you kidding me, Dad?"

Ok, I know that Callie is has a slightly worried,' "Why am I having my picture taken with a vegetable?" look' on her face in the exact instant that the shutter flashed, but it really was quite a funny situation as we made the zucchini into a face. You're just going to have to trust me that she really was being very cute about it!

These other two pictures I found on the internal memory of my camera that I had totally forgotten about. At least she doesn't look like she's worried about my sanity. She's not supposed to get to that phase until she's a teenager, right??

I have memories of blowing these things up to the size of Volkswagens and rolling down hills in them. Too bad we don't have any hills here that don't have either a big drop off or busy streets going by at the bottom, or both!
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Mom, as I promised here are a some pictures of Multmonah Falls from our trip up there.

Deb was brave enough to reach out past the railing to get this view of the whole thing from the top. I kept my distance!

The Columbia River

In this one, Debbie didn't even know she was capturing a picture of us waving back at her as we were coming down from the hike!

 This was my first time trying to do a picture-in-picture inset thingy.  I think I could've made the expanded view a bit bigger  but it just would've made our square pixels larger, it wouldn't have added any more clarity to our faces; anyway, there we are! 

Long time no see!

Well, I'm back to blogging and here is a quick record of our activities from yesterday. We went to Stokes Nature center up in Logan canyon they have displays of all things natural. Lots of books, pictures, things to feel and touch, fossils, etc. They had some bird feeders outside so we got to see some hummingbirds up close and personal.

We tried on some horns...

We went for a nice little walk and saw a cool waterfall

It was kind of hot and since we had forgotten our snacks in the car, we came home, cranked up the A/C and took a nap. It was a very fun adventure!

Pride

It is so wonderful to have pride in certain things and people in my life, like I'm proud that my husband is a kind and generous man; I'm proud that my daughter is highly intelligent, loving and happy; I'm proud of the myriad of things my family and friends accomplish in their lives; etc.

Pride can also cause a lot of heartache, anger and tension, like pride that I have in myself - "pride unto boasting". It is so difficult to be with me when I am prideful, and it is excruciating to me when I am around prideful people. When I am prideful, the pain of my own pride comes when I finally chose to humble myself and recognize that there is only One who is truly 'all that'! However, when I am with a prideful person, in that moment it hurts so much that I can almost feel my heart break. Either way, I oft times respond in anger, and the tension between 'me and thee' is so thick that it acts like an impenetrable wall keeping us apart.

When I am prideful, I need to be reminded of my thinking and actions toward others so that I can beg for forgiveness from those I have offended, and especially from my Heavenly Father for my offense. When I am with a prideful someone, sometimes it's all I can do to remain patient with that someone; my only other recourse seems to be to pray to my Heavenly Father to soften their heart, and pray for increased patience in myself until they and I are both humbled sufficiently to allow love to again flow between us, removing and blocking out the evil, hurt, anger, and offense that Satan would have us feel.

I write this as my own personal reminder and therapy to be more humble and prayerful in my life so that it will be easier to overcome pride in myself and the effects another's pride has on me; more particularly, to become more able to resist the temptation of pride in the first place.