Most Amazing Summer Ever!

I am FINALLY getting around to sharing pictures of our awesome trip that we took this summer. If you wait until the end you will see that I have a very good excuse for why it has taken me so long to update this blog. 

We bought a car topper and loaded 8 people in an 8 passenger minivan. This picture was taken on our second full day of driving. The children were amazingly (surprisingly) well behaved. Mt. Rushmore was our first tourist stop. Neither Barry or I had ever been there and it was fun to take our family to see one of the wonders of the world.

We had downloaded a youtube video/documentary about the making of Mt. Rushmore and watched it in the van on the way to the site. That saved us a lot of time so that when we got there we could look at the sights without paying for 8 headsets and doing the "guided tour". 

A pathway leads you to the base of the mountain. This is the closest you get to the heads. I was very impressed. I didn't think we would be able to get this close to it. 

We had to stop at Wall Drug for ice-cream cones! 

Even though most of our days were longs days of driving, we were able to break them up with various stops. The second day's stop was at the Union Pacific Railroad museum. The museum was smaller and less exciting than we were expecting, but it broke up a long traveling day and was worth it.

Marianne, Maddy,and Ben are comparing traveling seats in trains, planes, and automobiles. Cars win.

And we made it to Nauvoo, IL. Barry had been to Nauvoo, but I never had. This was a wonderful opportunity for our family to see the sites and experience what it was like to live where the Prophet Joseph Smith lived at a time when the church was just getting established.

The week we were there was the last week in June. The weather was perfect. Not too hot, not too cold.

Our first experience in Nauvoo was taking a horse drawn carriage ride around the outskirts and through the town of Nauvoo. The saints worked hard to make a swamp land live-able because they were chased out of everywhere else they had lived. They made this area great, then were chased out of it!

In all of the tours we took in the houses and buildings around Nauvoo, all of the tour guides commented on how happy the pioneers were. They were a happy, industrious people. As I pondered on this I decided that they were happy because they appreciated what they had in life. Comparing their life in Nauvoo with religious freedoms and friendship with fellow believers to where they had come from, some fleeing for their lives from anti-Mormon sentiments, made them happy and full of hope. We can learn from the pioneers that having a happy positive attitude comes from appreciating the things that we have and not dwelling on the things we lack.

 We learned how the pioneers made everything they needed, like rope, cloth, bread, etc. They were very handy, independent people.

Mindy, Makayla and Mackensey dressed up as pioneers.

Marianne is a cute pioneer girl! We dressed up at the Children's Pavillion and played games that the pioneer children played over 100 years ago.

We went to the temple with Maddy and Mindy and performed baptisms for the dead. Barry and I did an endowment session afterwards. The temple, just as the other buildings in Nauvoo are time-period replicas of the buildings that were built at the time of Joseph Smith. The interior of the temple was very beautiful, but slightly more plain than the interior of most temples. Where there is normally marble, there was wood. It made you feel as if you had stepped back in time.

The Wildford Woodruff home is still the origional home.



The pioneers made their own bricks.



They told Ben if he ran to the well, this was the pioneers "running water".



Our original plans were to be in Nauvoo during the times when the Nauvoo pageant ran, but we had too many conflicts and had to miss the pageant. We were able to watch the BYU dance perform on Saturday evening and that was spectacular! I was worried that after a long day of sightseeing that the younger kids might get bored, but not at all. Even Ben and Marianne sat quietly through the hour plus performance. I snapped this picture on the way home that evening.



One advantage of missing the pageant was the we were there before Navuoo's "busy season". We got to know the young performing missionaries who put on several plays a day that we went to watch. I guess our family of eight really stood out and we would talk with them after each performance.



By the end of the week they had memorized the children's names and ages.



Beautiful Missouri River.



Pretty flowers on the grounds.




We were at Nauvoo on the anniversary of the death of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum. We went to a special commemoration where they ended with two riderless horses walking the grounds around Carthage Jail. That was very powerful and emotional. We toured the jail and saw the bullet hole in the door where he was kept.

For many reasons the pioneers left Nauvoo using oxen to pull their wagons: they were cheaper, stronger, etc. We took a ride in the ox cart on our last day in Nauvoo. We had a terrific experience and loved every minute of it. The children were well behaved and a joy.

Our travels back home lead us through to a stop at Adam-Ondi-Amen. It was a beautiful place.

It was very peaceful and we were the only people here at the time, which made it extra special.

We toured Liberty Jail where the prophet was kept for many months and had a revelation that became scripture in the doctrine and covenants. It is one of my favorite scriptures and tells how all things we go through, no matter how horrible they are, will be for our good and make us better people. The Savior went through horrible things while he was on the earth, and he is here to strengthen us and help us get through anything.

Winter Quarters was where the pioneers stayed the winter after they were sent out of Nauvoo.

We stopped at the Ameritas headquarters to see where Barry came for his business trip earlier this year.

We spent the fourth of July weekend at an Olsen Family Reunion in Utah.

This is my dad and his 5 siblings. (My dad is the one hugging the girl with the blue hat). The reunion included my dad, his siblings, and all of their children and grandchildren. It was fun to see family and catch up. My children enjoyed meeting my cousins' children. They made many friendships that we look forward to rekindling in two years at the next Olsen family reunion.

We went on the zip-line at Uncle Melvin's place.

 

The candy bomber did a drop at one of the parks while we were in Utah. It was a neat experience.



We spent time with Barry's dad and his wife Sharon while in Utah. They took us swimming.

We went to visit Barry's mom and her husband Roger in their new mission at Star Valley Wyoming.

We also toured BYU-Idaho on the way home as well. It was a fabulous trip and I couldn't help but feel so blessed during the whole time we were away from home. I had a feeling that something challenging was going to pop up in my life since I have noticed a pattern in my life of being blessed, being "stretched", and then being blessed some more. My intuition was correct and the bishop of our ward contacted me on the last day of our trip asking if we could make it into his office that night. We got home, unloaded the van, then went to the church where the bishop asked me to be the Relief Society President. So that is my excuse for why it has taken me so long to organize the pictures from our trip and update this blog. I hope everyone else had the most amazing summer ever just like we did.

Teach a man to fish . . . and he builds a cabin in the woods - Our Spring Break project

Barry has always wanted to make a playhouse for the kids. This year it was time to make that dream a reality.

I told Barry that since out kids are getting older we couldn't call it a playhouse or they wouldn't use it. So we are calling it "the cabin". It is built in the woods on top of the hillside in front of our house.

It has been 6 years since we finished building our house and this was a good project to keep our skills sharp. Thanks to my dad and the many others who taught us how to fish,  build a house.

We set aside our week long spring break to work on the cabin, but two things got in the way of that plan. One: we all were sick the first few days of spring break and two: there was a mix up with our supply order and most of the materials were delivered the Tuesday AFTER spring break!

We still had plenty of things to do during spring break to get ready to build the cabin. We had old cedar boards that we used a planer to plane off the weathered part of the board so that we could use cedar for the interior. It will be able to be used as a sauna once we get a wood stove to put in there.

At one point we had all of the power tools that we own being used by everyone in the family.

Except Marianne, who thought it was just too loud!

We leveled out the ground, made a platform, and raised the walls.

The dimensions for the cabin are 10ft by 10 ft with a four foot front porch.

There is a front door and four windows, one on each side. The window on the back wall is able to open.

We built the bunk beds before putting on the trusses so that we could stand on them to position the trusses. That was a good plan and we were glad we did. 

Luckily it didn't rain before we got the roof on, but since the cedar boards were salvaged from an old deck, we figured it wouldn't be the first time these boards had gotten wet.

We invited the missionaries to come help us put up the trusses and nail on the boards for the roof. 

Elder Trosset proved to be invaluable and didn't mind the height. His dad was a general contractor and owned a construction firm. He was handy with the nail gun and we were happy to have his help.

Maddy used her skills that she learned in shop class. We followed Uncle Steve's advice to measure twice, cut once!

The roof has a nice, steep pitch so the snow will fall right off.

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The roof was so steep we had to put the shingles on while standing on a ladder. You can't see from this picture, but the ladder is fully extended, and set up in the bed of the pickup. That is me nailing on the final row of shingles. I have the black and blue thumb nail to prove it!

We decided to insulate the cabin to keep it cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

We had to juggle our schoolwork, sports practice, piano lessons, Barry's business appointments, but still ended up working on the cabin 2-4 hours/day.

We took a break from building to roast hot dogs and marshmallows.

It was still cool in the end of April when the kids had their first sleepover. 

We still had the siding and ceiling to go.

The outside is finished with tyvek. We'll worry about the siding later....maybe next spring break.

The cedar paneling for the walls and ceiling turned out looking very nice. One of the first things we had to do was make curtains since it stays light until 10pm in the summertime. 

I made super thick black out curtains that roll up completely out of the way. They can be easily removed for when we want to turn it into a sauna.

The kids have slept in the cabin many times, even in a thunderstorm!

Barry did a good job planning out and building this playhouse/cabin. It will get much use in the many years to come. I'm glad I'm married to such a clever, hard working man.

We got walkie-talkies so that we can communicate from the house to the cabin.

This is the view of the house and valley from the front porch of the cabin. Even without the walkie-talkies we could yell up to the cabin and be heard.