Thursday, April 1, 2010

Easter Eggs

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

When we reminisce about trips my family often remembers places by the food we eat.   The girls told Wilma and Dave about our Church history trip.  One day we had lots of driving to do.   As the day went on the girls complained that they were hungry and my response was that they just ate.   They mentioned that it was 10 hours ago.   Judy confirmed that and my response was "I told them to put a bagel in their pocket" (we stayed at a place that had a free continental breakfast).   Candi also mentioned that Judy said "to put a bagel in her pocket" at the hotel her and Candi stayed a few weeks ago.  The lady that worked there overheard Judy and kept a eye on both her and Candi until they left.  That story came up because Wilma reminded us all to refill our drinks before we left the place we were eating at.

Speaking of food - we had another first today.   We went to In-N-Out burger.  (It was actually my second time - I went a couple weeks ago when I was in California).


We'd heard lots about it and Wilma mentioned they were now in Utah.





It kind of reminded me of Peter's in that there were so many people working there.

Only 4 things on the menu.  Single Burger, Cheese Burger, Double Burger and Fries.  Makes it easy to figure out what you want.

It was good - like a homemade burger.




Easter Eggs

This afternoon and evening we colored Easter Eggs - the real ukranian way.  With candles and wax.


We started with these and turned them into works of art.


Even Blade got into the actionl


Wilma also did some with silk ties she got at the thrift store (remind me to do an entry of "Thrifting" sometime)


My sister Sheila got all of the supplies for Wilma.  That is the tool for writing on the egg with wax.
You put wax on the egg where you don't want it to change color in the dye.  You go from lighter colors to darker colors and use the wax in between each color.




After you die the egg you have to wipe off all the wax.








Here's some of the work we did.


I think Candi did this one.


I got into it and here are the two I did.


I really did do this one


Same egg - another view.

At the end I was the only one doing it.  It reminded me of when I watch High School Musical for the first time.  The girls were all excited to watch it.  We all started but the only one left watching at the end was me.  


And one more thing - the weather.


It snowed most of the day today.

Salt Lake City 2010



Today was the day that Alana was to report to the MTC to start her mission.  But without a visa she has been delayed.   You can check it out on her blog.    We had planned on driving down to drop her off but with her not having to report she will work in Calgary a little longer to save some more money.   Its Spring Break for Jenelle and Jamie and Candi and I had already booked the week off so we decided to head to Utah anyways to visit my sister Wilma and her family.    Judy decided to stay home with Alana and study.  (Plus Judy will be heading to Hawaii in a couple weeks for Mike's graduation).


Tuesday, March 30th

My favorite shows on television is Diners, Drive-ins and Dives which is on the Food Channel.   The host Guy Fieri travels to unique diners, drive-ins and dives across the United States.  On several episodes he has visited Salt Lake City so one of the things on our TO-DO list was to try at least one of these places.

Moochie's

We decided to try out Moochie's Philly Cheese Steaks.  Check out Guy's video here


Moochie's is being renovated so the main buidling is closed right now. (the exposure on TV must have been good for them)


While they are renovating they are cooking out on the lawn.






We ordered 2 philly cheese steak sandwiches which were huge.


Jenelle and Jamie shared one


Candi and I shared the other.


It was delicious.  

I'd rate this as one of the best sandwiches I've ever had (of any kind).   And 2 sandwiches was more than enough for the 4 of us.  Back in 2000 or so we did a church history tour in the eastern States.   We passed through Philadephia and stopped to get philly cheese steak sandwiches at Pat's King of Steak.  Its famous for its sandwiches and the walls are lined with pictures of celebrities who have stopped there.   Well I must say that Moochie's sandwiches were way better than the original in Philadephia.  

Temple Square

After Moochie's we decided to visit Temple Square since we were so close.


Taken by a sister missionary from Samoa.  Made us think about Alana.


The flowers are all in bloom




Things are all ready for conference this weekend

With the camera angle is looks like I am part of this.


Jamie likes this view of the temple.

There is a new Deseret Book store so we checked it out.

Candi noticed this picture of one boy carrying another across a river.


A lady had us sit down and read the story about the painting.

Here's the story as given by Pres Faust in Oct 1992 General Conference.
Let me tell you of James Kirkwood. James was from Glasgow, Scotland. On the trip west, James was accompanied by his widowed mother and three brothers, one of whom, Thomas, was nineteen and crippled and had to ride in the handcart. James’s primary responsibility on the trek was to care for his little four-year-old brother, Joseph, while his mother and oldest brother, Robert, pulled the cart. As they climbed Rocky Ridge, it was snowing and there was a bitter cold wind blowing. It took the whole company twenty-seven hours to travel fifteen miles. When little Joseph became too weary to walk, James, the older brother, had no choice but to carry him. Left behind the main group, James and Joseph made their way slowly to camp. When the two finally arrived at the fireside, James “having so faithfully carried out his task, collapsed and died from exposure and over-exertion.”



The artist of the painting was there and we visited with him.  He was working on a painting of Joseph Smith.  The artist is from Nauvoo and is painting about the restoration.


His first painting in the series is of the first vision.

After many visits to Utah we had never gone up to the 26th floor of the Church Office building where you can take int he view.




 A different view of the temple


And the conference center


When we were up there the wind started to howl.  Look at Jenelle's hair.   They closed off the observatory because of the wind as we were leaving.


The water was going up instead of down it was so windy.


Candi said the wind reminded her of Pali lookout


I remember doing this growing up in southern Alberta.


We almost lost Jenelle to the wind.

We drove home by the Utah Capital building where there was some big rally.  Someone said Sarah Palin was there but I can't confirm that.  Its a traveling rally.


You can probably watch it on CNN - they were broadcasting from there.


And we drove home by East High School.  Where High School Musical was filmed.

Oh yeah,  I forgot to mention that Dave took Candi and me to a huge car auction in the morning.   Talk about sensory overload.  It was load with people and cars moving all around us.   I've seen one auctioneer doing his thing before but here they had at least 6 going at the same time - all within the space of a basketball court.  3 lanes with auctioneers and cars at each end.  It took about 1-2 minutes for each car.   It seems like mass confusion at first but as we watched you could actually figure out what was going on.   As I watched people bidding it reminded me of stories Judy has told me about going to the cattle auctions with her dad.   He would tell them not to even scratch their noses because they might buy something.   There were people their who would bid by touching their nose.   Kind of fun.  Sorry - No pictures.   And Dave didn't buy any cars.

It was a good day.  Spent the evening hanging out with Wilma, Dave, Nicole, Chay and Blade.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

On the Road Again







In January I started a new job.   I'm a field sales rep for a company that is a global provider of enterprise computing solutions.  I will be dealing with partners who sell NetApp products. My territory is Western Canada.  So far I really like it.

The company has a office downtown and when I started the job I figured that is where I would be working, but after I started a laptop and printer showed up at my house. Turns out that I have been set up to work out of a home office. So I have the best of both worlds....I can work at home or can go into the office.  One nice thing about the office is the walk.  I park about a mile away (where its free) and walk.   Its a great walk.   Here's a couple of pictures taken about a month ago.


The view of downtown from close to where I park.
 
I walk along this path to get to the office.
This is along the river (only a couple blocks from the office)

Back in my WordPerfect/Novell days I used to travel alot for work. They usually weren't exciting trips (to places like Regina, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver) but I seemed to be at an airport everyweek. Well for the first couple months I've been on the road quite abit I have been on the road alot but that is mostly been for training. It should slow down from now one. So far I've been to Toronto (twice), Minneapolis Minnesota, Vancouver, and Sunnyvale California.

Temple Tour 2010

 I don't like being away from home but there have been some perks to the travel.   I've been able to attend the temple on my trips.

I've been able to attend the Toronto temple both times I was in Toronto.
(Taken Feb 24, 201)

In Vancouver I had a couple of hours before my flight so I checked out the Vancouver Temple.   The outside is finished and the grounds are done.  There will be an open house in April.

  Vancouver Temple
(Taken March 4, 2010)

While in California I was able to attend the Oakland Temple.
Oakland Temple
(taken March 10, 2010)

This year I've also been able to go to the Edmonton and Cardston Temple.

Edmonton Temple
(Stock Picture)

Cardston Temple
(taken March 13, 2010)

I was also in Minneapolis but didn't have time to get to the St. Paul Temple which is really close to where I was staying. The head office for my group is in Minneapolis so I'll I may have another opportunity to get to that temple.

Looks alot like the Edmonton Temple
(Stock photo)


More posts to come.

I have fallen behind on the blog.  I have lots of updates that I've thought of but just haven't posted.

I have spent more time in airports than I have planned.   Delayed flights home seem to be the norm.   

I've seen this more than I would like.  No plane at the gate yet.   And this is after our scheduled departure time.    I should be using this time to update my blog.   But there are 3 problems. 

1)  its hard to find these at the airports.  Why is that?

2)  Free wireless internet access.  I'm too cheap to pay to get access to the internet at the airport
(Calgary and Vancouver are great because you do have free wireless)

3) its at the end of the day and I'm uusally tired just want to veg.