Church History Site - Kirtland!!!

With our visitors in town, we had to go to Kirtland and take in the Spirit of Kirtland.

I just had to throw in this picture of Brigitta. Don't I have a beautiful niece?

And here is SM...hanging out at the wood mill.

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gathered and lived in Kirtland Ohio from 1830 to 1838. During this time, the prophet Joseph Smith received many revelations and blessing from our Heavenly Father. Kirtland was the first headquarters of the Church. The first temple was built in Kirtland. There were so many firsts revealed here...such as the first Stake was formed, the first Bishop's Store House, the first Missionary Training Center, the first bishop called, the first patriarch called, and many other firsts.

In the memo, we were told to wear light blue...just kidding. Everyone just matched...well, almost everyone. Look how happy we all were, we had great sister missionaries giving us a tour of the Kirtland Visitors Center. One sister missionary was from Lehi and the other was from Louisiana. I just wish I had thought to take a picture of them.

And here we are! What a great group! If I knew how to crop I would crop a lot of this picture. I guess that's motivation to learn how to use Photoshop.

A creative landscape photo. Beautiful stream and house.

Inside the N.K. Whitney Store listening to the sister missionaries talk about what Bro. Whitney sold at the store and how he provided for people who couldn't pay him for items. The more I learn about Bro. Whitney the more I'm impressed with the way he cared for people.

Gracie was a big tease and SM was a great facilitator. But we love her so much that we'd do a whole lot for that little girl.

I love this photo of Ben. At this table behind Ben is where Joseph Smith received the Word of Wisdom. This is the health code that members of the church follow which includes, but is not limited to, no smoking, no drinking alcohol and no coffee.

Mother's Day 2010

If I could figure out how to move these top two photos, I would. So you will just have to imagine these two photos at the bottom of this post and you can start reading this post from the third photo down. And here is the gift! Mother's Day was full of visitor's this year. SM's parents, sister & her family came to visit from Utah. SM helped make a special breakfast of whole wheat waffles, strawberries and whipped cream. Yummy! What a great way to celebrate mothers!

That afternoon, SM's mom got to open her Mother's Day gift from her children with two of her children, two of her grandchildren and two of her in-laws. As you can see, Gracie wanted to be helpful and really help grandma open her present.

"Need some more help, Grandma?" asks Gracie as she reaches her hand in to help open the gift. And my MIL loved her gift from everyone!

And we all looked on in eager anticipation to see what we had got her...dressed in our comfy clothes because it was Sunday afternoon, a day of rest.

I live in a small town

Above: A stained glass window located in the library. I find myself drawn to this window every time I go to the library. Isn't it beautiful? I wish I didn't have the glare from the camera. Maybe one day I'll go back and try taking the picture again.

I live in a small town in Ohio. The middle of town has a town square where sits a town gazebo. During the summer time, on Friday evenings, groups of people gather at the square to be together and listen to a band play in the gazebo. Since I have yet to experience this event, I'll leave the imagery to that and tell you more about it when I've been to a Friday night at the square.

The square is lined with small buildings and shops. The red building is where a fire station used to be housed. It no longer houses firetrucks but it's still a really cool building for my picture.

Kitty-corner from the square is this tall, beautiful church. I love looking at it when I'm driving by and luckily, I have to drive past it frequently. I live is such a beautiful, small-ish town.

Baby Blanket

I love this view from my back deck. Look at all those colors! Unfortunately the pink is already gone but was replaced with a dark maroon leaves so I still have color, just not that brilliant color. I love the beauty God has placed on this earth!

I'm still plugging away at crocheted edges on baby blankets and burp clothes. I really liked the eyes of the turtles in this blanket. They are so happy and alive! Perfect for a baby's blanket.

I did three kinds of edging. The very top one (on the right) is called a triangle edge, and then I did a block edge and the bottom one is a small rainbow edge.

Took a small trip to see the country

SM and I went to see the Ohio countryside on Saturday afternoon. The weather was overcast and nice (we were supposed to have lots of rain) and the drive was very relaxing. We went to several towns that have lots of Amish tourist spots. What a fun Saturday activity!

The only pictures I took were these from the car. I'll try to get some better pictures next week but no promises....it looks like rain again in the weather forecast.

I love the countryside. SM says that he'd like to live near the countryside but not actually there. I think it would be nice but it would be a lot of work unless we only had a small piece of land...but then why live in the country? So, we'll just continue growing our small garden's where ever we can and enjoy the journey of our lives.

Spring Flowers

I love the whole picture, meaning the whole tree or the whole yard or the whole Earth, but when taking photos, I love being really close and getting a little bit of that whole picture. I don't know if you understand what I mean, but I love the close-up pictures. Those that show the veins in the leaves or petals.

And even though this isn't a picture of flower...it's of a brand new leaf. And so beautiful! As an artist I really enjoy seeing the beauty that God put on this earth for all of us. We are so blessed!

I had to throw in this shot of the sky. It was so beautiful and so I just had to take a picture of the sky...and a tree.

I love that this picture has the green grass in the background. With the spring rains, we have neon green grass with wonderful, brilliant, bright flower colors.

Watercolor painting

This is the latest picture I painted. The photo of the painting doesn't really do the picture justice...and the little purple dot in the upper right hand corner makes it look a little sloppy. I need to find some "white-out" and get rid of that purple dot. I was opening the tube of paint when it exploded out and got paint on the picture. One thing about watercolors is that you can't really remove color. So, I'll get that fixed someday but for right now it's there and it's okay.

I painted this picture two or three weeks ago. In this painting I was using masking...which is something very rubbery that you paint onto the picture in the places you'd like to keep white and then you can paint without worrying about painting it that spot. And when everything is dry, you can rub off the masking and do something it the white spots. I used masking to make all the white dots in the purple background and also for the beads in the fairy's hair. After taking the masking off, I painted the beads, which are hard to see in this photo...but they are there.