Our Trip to Utah - Last Week

Curtis and I actually spent 9 days together....all day...24/7. It was great! We had some wonderful moments with friends and family. I have quite a few photos...to highlight what we did.

This first photo is our trip from Kingman, AZ up and over Hoover Dam. We had not been that way in YEARS because they are building a super HIGH bridge over it. So the last 2 miles to the dam was at less than 1 mph. It took us 2 hours! So this photo (below) is the back of this car that we watched FOREVER! That is the bridge they are building...we did NOT drive on it, but went under and around it.

This is the section taken from the road going over Hoover Dam. The two arches will connect and the road will rest on top. You can see the tower on the left side for it's support. To me ... looks scary!

Friday night, Curtis and I stayed at Lake Las Vegas Montelago Village Resort. This resort is about 10 miles east of Las Vegas on Lake Mead Blvd. We had a bed and breakfast rate. This is the photo of the resort. We ate at an Italian Restaurant...over priced and bad. But other than that...we had a nice romantic stay.

On Saturday morning we casually drove along Northshore Drive of Hoover Dam towards Valley of the Fire State Park (55 miles east of Las Vegas). It took us an hour to get there, then we spent 2 hours looking at all the beautiful formations. It was absolutely beautiful with the reds, greens from spring, and cool breeze ... NOTICE we are not there in JULY!

Here is some desert flowers blooming:

Here are some formations - looks like red swiss cheese.

Sunday we attended our nephew's, Jordan Nielson, mission report. He served in the Democratic Congo of Kameroon Mission (or something like that). While we were listening to his report, Jordan announced that his brother, Andrew, just received his mission call to go to Gana Accra Mission. Andrew reports July 31st to the Gana MTC!
Monday night we had Family Home Evening with Kevin & Renee (Curtis' brother) and their family. They asked us to tell about our trip to Egypt & Israel...so we brought our stuff to show and tell. The kids asked a lot of questions...it was great.

One morning we stopped at the Distribution Center to pick up items. The flowers out front were gorgeous. I had never remembered the spring in Utah looking so beautiful. Tulips and Daffodils everywhere.

One evening we went to visit, Bill DeWitt. He was Curtis' best man when we got married on June 20, 1975. They both served their mission together in Italy. Bill even married Diana Burgess who was a Sister Missionary in their mission, she recently has passed to the other side.
We took Melvin with us one day and we went to Salt Lake. We hit the City Cemetery looking for a few family headstones and then drove up to the "U" on the mountain. We had never done that before. We hiked up to it! It was so great...these two Utes. So we had to capture the moment...I got in the picture when a Census Worker walked by and offered to take our photo!

From the "U" we went to meet Curtis' brother, Kevin, for a tour of the new Church History Library. It won't be open for another 6 weeks, but we went everywhere. Got to see the vaults where microfilm, documents, etc... will be kept at 32 degrees and a couple that will be kept at -4 degrees! People who work there have special outerwear to wear while in there. We even got to see Marlin Jensen's office (Church Historian) and Kevin's office. Kevin is the Project Manager for the building. Here is the outside of the building. The very top corner window is Elder Jensen's office. He had a great view of the Temple block!

We had made reservations to attend a session of the new Draper Temple. It recently had its open house and dedication, so we wanted to see it. Then we drove up in the neighborhood...found "extreme custom homes" that looked like castles, even several "bank owned".

We then had time to drive across town and find the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. Standing at the Draper Temple one can see the Jordan River Temple and this new Oquirrh Temple. It is more yellow in color and a rectangle with spire as compared to the granite gray square shape of Draper. They had guards at the entrance...still under construction...so we couldn't get closer.

We then drove out to Eagle Mountain. What a drive from Lehi, over a mountain, around a mountain, and finally you are there. It is very beautiful and looks safe...like you could leave your house unlocked or your car...and it would still be there in 5 minutes! We found Dwight and a'Donna Geddes and their boys. We had a great visit with them and had dinner. We sure miss them here. Dwight served as a counselor to Curtis when the Cold Water Ward was new! This was taken on their front lawn. In the back is Mt. Timpanogus.

Our daughter Heidi was graduating on Thursday and Friday from BYU-Provo. After 10 years of marriage and 4 children...she stuck with it and walked! We were so proud of her. On our way to Provo we stopped (with Nick & Serina who drove in from Reno) at the Salt Lake Temple and did a "live" session and enjoyed the beautiful grounds.

Thursday was the BIG graduation in Marriott Center. Before it started, Heidi's department held a special luncheon for the graduates and their families. It was very nice! We met a girl from her stake in Goodyear who's dad is Bro. Mark's serving as a counselor to Bishop Gerry Gervoac. Then later at the ceremony Pres. Uchdorft and Elder Russell M. Nelson each spoke. They were wonderful. My job was to take care of Noelle...I spent some time in the hallway. Curtis had the other 3 kids while Jace was running around with the movie camera getting great photos of Heidi through the program.

Friday was the Department graduation. We ran into Pres. & Sis. Hinton! They sat on our row. Their daughter was also graduating! It was a fabulous two days with our daughter.

Then we drove straight home on Sat, April 25th. We had every weather you could imagine. Rain from Kaysville to Beaver. Snow and Hail from Beaver through Panguitch to Afton, Ut. You can see the snow coming off the hood of the car!

Then from Page to Flagstaff was severe wind blowing sand and dirt. You would have thought we were in a sand storm in the Sahara Desert of Egypt! It totally etched my new windshield. I was worried about the paint! But we finally made it home. What a great trip. The next one is May 14th when we fly to Reno to watch Nick (our son-in-law) walk at University of Nevada Reno!