Olsen-Clan: 2009

Caught up for the last few months

Well, I believe after a few hours of posting, that I am all caught up for the last few months of no blogging.

Nathan's Baptism

Well, our first child was Baptized today. We are so proud of him. It was such a good day. He had a lot of friends and family come to share this great experience with him. I still can't believe he is old enough to be baptized already. Time sure goes fast. I took some pictures of him late last night in his new church clothes he got a couple of days ago. He also received a journal and some scriptures with his name engraved in them. He is such a good natured boy "almost" all of the time.

Framed Temple Art

A friend of mine and I have started to take pictures of Temples then make them look like a vintage print, printing them on canvas, then I have been building custom frames for the prints and then selling them. We are just getting started but the few that we have done so far have turned out very nice. She has quite a collection of photos of other temples already but I just started taking some to build my collection and took Brennan with me to capture a few of the Timpanogos Temple. I like how the turned out. But of course no post on our blog would be complete without a couple pictures of Brennan doing his crazy eyes.

A Fall Trip To Capitol Reef

We made a trip to Capitol Reef National Park last Spring and had such a wonderful time that we decided to go again in the Fall. Just like six months ago, we had a blast. This time we were able to pick apples from the Pioneer planted orchards and eat to our hearts content. There were so many deer wandering around the camp, the kids were in heaven and Julie was afraid they were going to attack at any given moment.

We stopped and checked out the town of "Fruita's" little one room school house and it wasn't more than a few seconds and Natalie was playing school and role playing some story. She loves that kind of thing. Reading the rules in the rule book from back then really made me think either they were abused and deprived or our kids are spoiled and have to much. I think the proper balance is most likely somewhere in the middle. It was interesting to read the rules they had to abide by and the accompanying punishments for breaking the rules (5 lashings for playing cards at school);(10 lashing for girls or boys playing together); (2 lashings for coming to school with dirty fingernails) etc. etc. Male teachers could have one night a week for "courting" purposes and could take two nights a week for courting purposes if they attended church regularly. Interesting to see how they lived back then.

Nathan's favorite part last time we came was going to Goblin Valley so we made the trip there again as well. It is a kids dream playground! We all had a great time.

Nathan Turns "8"

Our Nathan is 8 years old! Our kids are growing up so fast. He is definitely the most social one of our kids and always makes friends were ever we go (including McDonald's play land). If there is something fun going on and he gets wind of it, he wants to be involved. So for his B-Day party he wanted to invite every one he knew. He invited I believe almost his whole school class and all his neighborhood friends and cousins as well. If you know Nathan, that is just his kind of party. . . a whole lot of kids with one common goal; play and play some more! We had his party up a park and he had a blast.

Father and Son's Outing 2009

The Father and Sons camp out this year was allot of fun. Nathan, Brennan, and I went up a day early to save the camp site for the rest of the ward and to enjoy the great outdoors. We had a blast shooting our bows, hiking, riding four wheelers and just relaxing. When it got dark and it was time to hit the sack I realized that we had taken out all but two sleeping bags from the trailer to was them following our last camp out and forgot to put them back in. I wasn't worried. . . I figured the two kids had one to use and it was warm enough that I could get by just sleeping with a little through blanket over me and could enjoy the nice pleasant breeze with the windows open. Let's just say, in the morning all the windows were shut, the heater was turned on and I was curled up sharing a sleeping bag with Brennan and there was a phone call placed to have a neighbor bring up reinforcements on the blankets later on that day! I got "COLD!" Needless to say, we still had a blast and I am so glad I have two boys that love the outdoors and camping just as much as I do.

It was funny, on the way into the camp site Nathan looked out the window of the truck and said. . . "Dad, you have to take a picture of that; It looks like Heavenly Father and Jesus are going to come down out of those clouds."

Natalie turns "5"

I can't believe my little girl Natalie is five already! Our family definitely would not be complete without her fun personality in it. Congrats on surviving another year with your brothers tourmenting you Nats!

Trip to Salt Lake City on the "Tracks"

While Julie's family was here from out of town over the 24th of July, we took all the kids to down town Salt Lake City riding the "Tracks." We went to the Gateway Mall and just hung out and ate lunch. All the Kids had a great time.