a place of love and beauty

I love to see the temple.
I'm going there someday
To feel the Holy Spirit,
To listen and to pray.
For the temple is a house of God,
A place of love and beauty.
I'll prepare myself while I am young;
This is my sacred duty.I love to see the temple.
I'll go inside someday.
I'll cov'nant with my Father;
I'll promise to obey.
For the temple is a holy place
Where we are sealed together.
As a child of God, I've learned this truth:
A fam'ly is forever.

 

Sometimes I forget how blessed we are to have so many temples surrounding us.  So many people have to travel long distances to the temple and some will only go a handful of times in their lifetime. But not us.  Pretty soon we are going to be fortunate enough to have two in our city.  That is awesome!  I'm so grateful for the temple and the peace that I feel when I go there.  It truly is a house of God.  And I'm grateful for a husband who takes me there often.  I love him so. 

 

 

If you follow me on instagram, you probably already know but I was released from one of the best callings in the church: Primary Teacher to the 8 year olds.  Luckily, I was called to the next best calling in the church: Beehive Advisor.  As devastated as I was to leave those cute little kids, I'm excited to see how much fun I will have with the young women.  On Saturday last week, we got up bright and early and visited the temple with one of our sweet young women.  I can't adequately describe what is felt within the walls of the temple but it is nothing short of amazing.  If you haven't ever visited a temple, I encourage you to do so, if possible.  The Ogden Temple Open House is happening soon and anyone can go in and tour it during that time.  Go! You will not be disappointed. :)

xoxo, Syd

Hawaii: Day 5

Our trip to Hawaii is becoming more and more of a distant memory so I'm trying to get my booty in gear and get it all documented. 

Day five started off nice and early for most of our group.  Preston, my bro in law Stephen, and my parents set out in the early morning to swim with the sharks. Yeah, you heard that right - sharks.  As you can probably guess after reading this post back here, I didn't attend.  But after hearing about the adventure, I'm pretty sure I could have done it. (Except for when they all got sea sick on the boat - I can live without that) They were in a metal cage with snorkel gear the whole time. I assumed that they would have to throw bait out to attract the sharks....nope! They just flock (do sharks flock?) to the boat all on their own! And their were tons of them! Like at least 30!! The thought of that alone kind of freaks me out. I try not to think about it too much so I don't become even more paranoid.  But they had a blast. If I can figure out how, I will post a video Preston took while he was in the cage. It doesn't even look real with as many sharks that there were!

When they got back from their excursion, we headed down to Hanauma Bay to snorkel. After driving about an hour to get there, we arrived only to learn they are closed on Tuesdays!! Talk about frustrating! So if you plan to visit Hanauma Bay, make sure not to go on a Tuesday! That is the fishes day of rest, apparently. 

With snorkeling out of the question, we stopped for lunch at Zippy's where we were introduced to a "plate lunch".  Basically your choice of meat with rice and pasta salad.  And oh man, Hawaii has got it down with the pasta salad.  I don't know what it is but it is SO GOOD! I'm in search of recipe that matches how wonderful it was. 

 

We then ventured down to Sandy Beach.  Little did we know that the waves are HUGE and it's not family friendly.  We know this only because we stuck out like sore thumbs and had the life guard come down and tell us so.  Haha so we headed down the beach a few miles and found a beach full of sea turtles! It was so fun and the beach was absolutely gorgeous! We finished up the day with a quick stop by Giovanni's Shrimp Truck (definitely worth it - try the shrimp and the hot dog!) and relaxing in the beach house.

See here for Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, & Day 4.
xoxo, Syd

Hawaii: Day 4

Monday morning was spent on the beach.  We sunbathed, read, played in the sand, boogie boarded, and got visited by a seal! Everyone was pretty excited about that seal, except for me.  I like to think that there aren't really fish or other sea life in the ocean....so when I get surprised by something like this my initial reaction is definitely not excitement.  Usually I'm freaked out and irritated.  How dare that seal swim onto our beach!! ;) Normally this scares me out of the water for the rest of the day but I couldn't stand the thought of wasting precious beach time in Hawaii so before long I was back out in the water, boogie boarding with the boys.  For some reason, I was feeling brave.  I got one good wave, turned around to swim out to another one and what do I see? A FIN!!! Poked right out of the water right in front of me.  Just like on JAWS. Most likely it was a shark.  Just kidding, it could have been anything.  My luck it was the dang seal from earlier playing tricks on me, but I really didn't want to wait around to find out.  I paddled my little heart back to shore and was glad to find out I wasn't the only one who had seen it.  My brother in law had too and he agreed - no matter how brave you are, you don't really want to be surprised by a shark.  Needless to say, it scared us out of the water for the rest of the day. :)

 

We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at the Polynesian Cultural Center.  I honestly didn't know what to expect before we went there but I was thoroughly impressed!  It was like a Disneyland for French Polynesia! :)  I loved learning about all of the different cultures.  They are so neat and have so many cool traditions that it makes me think our traditions are pretty lame, in comparison.  My favorite thing by far was watching the Samoan climb the palm tree.  INCREDIBLE! And the night show was awesome.  I do have to say though, the buffet was just okay.  Not really all that special.   Other than that it was a blast! I'm so glad we went!

 

See here for Day 1, Day 2, & Day 3.

xoxo,

Syd

Sunsets & Red Rocks & Haircuts & Super Moons & 100+ Degree Weather

Our weekend (the weekend before last - I forgot to post this, oops!) was a tad bit crazy, as usual.  Preston's buddy who now lives in Australia was visiting the States so we met up with him and another friend in Moab for the day.  We like to keep our Moab trips interesting by only staying for 24 hours at a time and seeing how much we can possibly fit in while we're there.  With both families there and this time friends to visit, it was a bit nuts.  But we survived and I don't think I drove Preston completely crazy by the end of it {I hope}.  Sometimes I can be a tad selfish (we all are at some point, right? right?!?) and may have acted a little irrationaly at some point or another.  There are times you don't want to be an adult and let's just say I may have experienced one of those times. 

 

ANYWAYS... back to the point.  We had a great time, even in the 100+ degree weather.  My sister and I stayed up until 2am while she cut my hair.  I hadn't had it cut in over 6 months and I was in dire need of a cut.  We took 9 inches off!! It's definitely the shortest my hair has ever been.  But I love it! It's fun and feels so much better than that horses mane I was working on growing.  But as much as I love it, I still think I'm a long hair girl.  Let the growing out process begin! :)

 

The rest of our trip was spent with Preston's friends 4-wheeling in the red rocks.  It was fun but I will be the first to admit that I was dying of heat.  We did the Fins N' Things and Hells Revenge Trails.  Tons of fun to go out and play tourist for a day but my vote is that we don't do it in the dead of summer next time.  Okay, boys? :) It really was so fun to catch up with old friends and get to know their cute families better.  Too bad they have to live so far away.  Guess we'll just have to visit them in Australia sometime. :)  Thanks for the fun, Curtis' and Stucki's!! :)

 

 

 

^Pre hair cut :)

^Don't I look so happy?? HAHA.

 

^Post hair cut! :)