Visitors!

Mama and Papa Southwick came last week and it was absolutely wonderful. On Friday, Tyler and Taylor took time off from work and school to come see the Bloch exhibit at the Museum of Art on campus. BYU transported a collection of original alter paintings from Denmark to display at BYU. I had seen his work many times, but the beauty, size, and attention to detail in the originals was astounding. Here are a few of my favorites from the exhibit:





These pictures are borrowed from LDS Church News and some of them show the audio/ipad system they had set up for visitors to learn even more about the paintings.

Tyler and I loved seeing the paint globs, the brush strokes, the cracking paint, and flawlessness of detail in every shadow, expression, and bulging vein. It was also great practice as Tyler volunteered to carry little Nellie around with us in her car seat.

Sunday was another incredible day. It was an "ah ha" day in many ways. We started with Dallas and Jessica's baby blessing for little Kayla at 8:30. Tyler, Taylor, and a few of their friends from Anacortes were able to stand in for the blessing. Then we went to Taylor and Martha's blessing of little Nellie at 11, where quite a few pews were filled with Southwick family and friends. Both Kayla and Nellie were absolutely beautiful and so very loved. Listening to the blessings, sitting with family, sitting with friends, and knowing I have a husband who has lived his life in a way that he could stand in for those beautiful blessings and offer the blessing of our little boy when he comes, was wonderful. It was a reminder of my Heavenly Father's love as I realized how much I loved the people I was surrounded by. It was a reminder of the inherent and divine strength of families. It was a reminder of how happy I am to have an incredible husband and baby on the way to teach me how to love more purely.

Mama Jana then came with Tyler and me to our ward at 2 to help teach our primary class. Our little five year olds were extra reverent and attentive when they learned Tyler's mom had heard how good they were and wanted to come and see them. Tyler thought of an awesome lesson plan to teach the importance of prophets and the priesthood in Christ's church both anciently and today. We took plastic cups and built a "tower" or "castle" depending on which of our boys you asked. Each cup was a component of Christ's church as we see in the bible and what we have today. After building the cup building, we talked about how the people weren't so good after Jesus and his disciples died, so they no longer had prophets or the power of the priesthood on the earth. We let two boys pull the cups labeled "priesthood" and "prophets" out from the foundation of our structure and the kids loved watching the whole building crumble. We also tried to show them that there were still good things on the earth, like the Bible and the ability to Choose The Right and do good things, but a lot of other important things were lost. Then as the lesson went on we talked about how all of those components were restored and rebuilt our building cup by cup. It felt so good to feel like we had a productive lesson that kept their attention (mostly) for the hour that we had them.


We ended the day with dinner at Taylor and Martha's with lots of Nellie holding. We were sad to say goodbye to Scott and Jana, but so so happy they came. We're excited for them to go see the Jason and Leah family in Florida and for them to be there for Ollie's blessing.