Beauty, Family and the Gospel

We had a great time this weekend counting our blessings as Jared and I got the chance to go to the Temple Friday night, take the kids to enjoy the amazing beauty of Zion's National Park ablaze with fall leaves on Saturday, and spend the day in SLC on Sunday with a lot of Looslis for the blessing of Aaron and Michelle's new baby Parker. We did a quick surprise visit to Gramme and Grandfather on our way out of town Sunday night and got back to St George at a pretty decent hour, ready to hit the new week. This weekend gave us a chance to really think about some of the most important blessings we have back to back - the blessings of the gospel with all the sacred ordinances and and wonderful traditions it offers, the blessing of immediate and extended family, the blessing of the beauty of nature. Here are a few pictures to sum it all up.

We all love hiking, but the twins LOVE hiking. They skip and gallop along the trail with such glee. They collecting leaves and got really into noticing everything from dead crumbled pieces of leaves to really lovely brightly colored ones with pretty shapes. As we wandered around outside Aaron and Michelle's church yesterday (the twins had to be taken out from Sacrament meeting for wildly climbing over the benches to see cousins and loudly exclaiming over everything in sight - we do occasionally make it through a sacrament meeting but only by actively and constantly entertaining the twins and putting on a pretty good show for everyone around us), Silas plopped down on the church steps and said "Mommy and Olber, let's sit down here and look at all da butiful leafs." He waved his hands up to the sky as he said this - then noticed the leaves on the huge tree we were under were already gone. "Oh wew (well)," he said, "no leafs, just owie sicks!" These guys are talking more and more every day!



One of the big highlights of Zions for the kids was seeing deer - 4 of them - grazing right nearby - then they leaped through the fence and crossed the path right in front of the kids to their great delight. The twins were especially excited. Silas exclaimed "Elephants!" Close, buddy, close.

Isaac and Liza loved holding baby Parker. He's such a cute little guy! It was great to be with so many Looslis and for Jared to be there in the circle to bless Parker. We haven't been able to go to many Loosli baby blessings - and Parker is probably the last or second to last - Aaron and Michelle are the only ones still having kids. Aaron and Michelle fed scores of people at their house after the blessing and the kids had so much fun with their cousins. The weather was amazing and it was just a really nice day. We finished it off with a surprise visit to Mom and Dad and Eli who showered the kids with some quick love and attention and food and we were on our way. What a great bunch of extended family members we have!