Is It Worth Going Back For ?

Another great experience from our Spring Break to Arizona trip was being able to spend some time at the Gilbert Arizona LDS Temple.  On Tuesday, 4/1, my wife and I plus my parents were able to attend an Endowment session at the Temple, ending inside the massive Celestial Room, which is simply awe inspiring.

That visit was so spiritually uplifting that Karen and I quickly made plans to go back on Thursday, 4/3.  So it was that the whole family made the drive into Gilbert so the children could walk the grounds of the Temple and we could take a few pictures.  I already shared the family picture on Facebook, but the two photos in this post were some that I took that I really liked.  All of the grounds of this Temple are perfectly suited for some amazing photographs, so if you like either of these then give credit where it is due (and that is the site, not me!)

Song Of The Day:
I have been a fan of piano music for as long as I can remember and there are some beautiful pieces out there.  I think the piano conveys a special spirit of reverence and majesty.
This song, "I Love To See The Temple" by Paul Cardall is a perfect companion to this post.  I certainly expect that heaven will be filled with lots of music, and I hope it is often simple tunes and melodies on a piano.
In ABQ, our friends tried to take a picture of me and my older boys in front of the Albuquerque Temple, but the back lighting of the sunset made it less than ideal, as we had to cut off the top of the Temple (with the Angel Moroni atop the spire) to avoid being completely washed out.  Oh well.

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Um ... NATURAL Formation?

During our family Spring Break trip to Arizona, my mom and dad took us to the Arizona Museum of NATURAL History.  I have typed the word "natural" in all CAPS because this post is about a beef I have with their liberal use of that term as related to the following picture.

As you walk through the initial entry way into the heart of the museum, there are dozens of photographs or pieces of artwork depicting different NATURAL formations in earth's history.  Many of the depictions are inspiring and beautiful, and I found myself willingly accepting the arguably arbitrary historical timelines under which these phenomena were NATURALLY visible.  I'm sure you sciency people out there will get all riled up and defensive, but I find it a little difficult to just accept the concept of 300 million years ago versus 2-4 billion years ago.  Isn't that a bit BIG of a range?!  Really covering your bases there huh?!  But I digress ...

Amid all these images, I came across a NATURAL formation that was formed exactly 1.6 billion years ago.  It is utterly amazing that real living people were finally born which looked exactly like these NATURAL head shapes (which have a whole history about them being carved unnaturally by human hands within just the past century).

At least the kids enjoyed digging through recycled tires to find buried "dinosaur bones."  I wonder if the museum curators believe those are NATURAL too?

The picture to the right is where the kids panned for "gold" (which was also not NATURAL at all).  Just so many false claims!

(Please note the sarcasm of this entire post.  I am neither truly angry nor truly devoid of any intelligence).


Song Of The Day:
Although he is now a successful country singer, Darius Rucker used to front the band Hootie and the Blowfish.  I thought of their song "Time" as related to this post, for obvious reasons.  Listen along and see if you can catch some sarcasm in the words of the tune as you think about this post.

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Golfing Every Morning ?

One of the most enjoyable experiences of our family Spring Break trip to Casa de Case in Arizona, was the opportunity to go golfing with my dad and my two older sons ... every morning!  Thanks very much to Grandpa Jerry for his membership connection (and even more for his willingness to go out early each morning) that allowed us to golf for free each day!

The boys got better, but no one ever beat me over the whole 9 holes (we played 10 holes each round, but that is just because the 9th hole has a makeshift tee box that aims directly back toward the green of the 1st hole).  We always played that hole as a double-or-nothing hole (since I was pretty much always ahead by a lot at that point).

We played initially by strokes against par (normal scoring if you don't follow golf), but gave that up after about 3 holes because we had nothing to track the scores on that first round.  We began to keep track of two things: total strokes and a modified point system (there was 1 point open for each hole, which could be halved if two or more players tied for the lowest number of strokes for that hole).

I was very proud of my sons, who joined me with a first stroke that stayed on the green on the 8th hole.  This didn't occur until our 4th morning of playing, but it was very cool nonetheless!


Song Of The Day:
I have chosen "Wooly Bully" by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs for two reasons in this post.  First, it is more from my father's generation of music, so I can picture him doing his "car dance" to this tune ... and it cracks me up!  Secondly, the song was featured in one of the best golfing movies ever: Happy Gilmore.  I need to watch that film with my boys!

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