4th of July, packing, and the Deaf Ward

The 4th of July was so much fun with lots of huge fireworks, family, camping out on the parade route, family, watching the parade, and family gatherings and games.  I definitely loved the family part of the holiday as you can imagine.  It is always my favorite part of every holiday


We have had Charles' little sister Angela over to our house to help us pack up our things and help us clean.  She is so helpful and I am so glad that she is willing to help us.  We are both so insanely busy, I more so than Charles, and hardly have time to even make real food, so to have Angela help us move is very helpful.  It is hard to know what to pack up when we aren't moving immediately I am always trying to figure out what we can and can not pack up and get ready.


For my current ASL 202 class we have to have to do three experience things, so today, Sunday, we went the the Deaf Branch in Lehi (it is very close to where we will be moving soon).  I saw three of the four ASL teachers I have had.  There were many things that I learned.  It was neat to see that the Sacrament prayer still had to be signed word for word with English grammar and not ASL grammar, it consequently had a lot of finger spelling in it.


For Sacrament Meeting there were two interpreters that traded off, it was neat to watch them interpret for those who were hearing in the congregation.  For all of the announcements, Sacrament prayer, and one of the talks they had been provided with a copy of what was to be said.  I can definitely see the purpose in doing such a thing.  On the talk that the interpreter did not have a copy it was much more difficult for them.  Since ASL does not have the same grammar structure as English it is hard to translate things quickly.  For Sunday School there was no interpreter so I tried to interpret for Charles so that he would understand what was going on.  It was very difficult!  It was hard when I knew the meaning for a sign, but not a specific word.  It was difficult also since they sign SOOO fast!  It was always easier once I knew the general outline of where they were going with something, such as a story from the Bible.


Singing in church is a bit different in a Deaf Ward, sine there can be many different ways that the song can be translated, they have a person in the stand, where the chorister would be, but instead of conducting the song, they sign their translation so that all people sign together the same thing.  It was neat to hear Charles and one other woman sing during the songs, I was signing, or at least trying to.


There was a man in the Branch that was both deaf and blind, so there was a deaf man, one of my former teachers, who sat next to him and resigned all that was being said while the deaf and blind man loosely held onto one of his hands.  The deaf and blind man also had a really pretty, big seeing eye dog with him.


After Sacrament meeting was over, we were simply observing people and it was so adorable to see a man signing to a young boy who was maybe a year old and the little boy seemed to completely understand everything that because he was totally responding.  It was SOOO cute.  I am bound and determined to teach my children to sign when they are so young so they can be as cute as him.


In the Deaf Branch, the Deaf people obviously have immediate family who is hearing, usually children.  It at first shocked me how loud Sacrament Meeting was, but then soon realized that it was the children of Deaf parents that were being so loud.  There parents couldn't hear them along with most of the rest of the congregation, so they were never reprimanded for being too noisy during church.  You could tell which people were hearing because their children weren't loud.


It was such a neat experience to learn more about the Deaf culture and to have more practice interpreting and learning more words, most of which related to church things.

Picnic in the Park

Blogger was messed up last week.  Here goes nothing.

We went up the canyon last week with my extended family and had a picnic.  I ate until I looked like a walrus and then we went home to see the USA get beat by Ghana in the World Cup.  The pain of overeating is always exacerbated by losing a game that only happens once every four years.  The following is a picture of Annette and me looking amazedly at something.  I wish I knew at what.

This is our nephew Martin Stubbs who apparently came down with a Emergency Room style sickness right after our picnic.  Probably due to whatever was on his finger pictured below.

Since I'm not the one that took these pictures, I'm not sure why this holds significance other than Annette did a great job of contrast in this one.  I'll let you all decide how these leaves remind you of the omniscience of God.

This is a picture of Beauty and the Beast.  We went to the Traditions Ball at BYU a couple of months ago and I think we blogged about it, but is another picture.

We bought a fridge this week similar to the one below.  We bought it because it's similar to Grandma Hatch's fridge which has the freezer on the bottom.  This makes sense since one gets into the freezer far less than the fridge so why would one want to destroy their back needlessly by perpetually stooping to get into the fridge?

The townhouse---the government said they would accept our offer, but they haven't give us the paperwork.  Until that happens, we're not getting our hopes up too high...I hope.  I locked in a interest rate of 4.375%!  That's about as low as President Faust's was in his day.  Wow!

Oh, and yesterday I played tennis with my dad and two of my sisters.  I'm hoping that if they continue to practice that they'll be able to beat those Williams sisters next year.

Well, we love you all.  Thank you for being amazing, supporting, helpful, informative, and loving. ;)

HAPPY FATHER"S DAY!!!

We want to wish all of the Father's a HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!

I finally finish all of my classes and took all my finals.  I am happy that my math class is finally over, but very sad that my ASL 201 class is done.  But on Monday I start Anatomy and my ASL 202.

This Friday Charles and I bought a couch, as pictured below.  We got it for a cheap deal off Craig's List.

Rose and Ben Hall are now officially married for time and all eternity.  They were married in the Salt Lake Temple.  Charles and I left plenty early to be able to make it on time, but of course there was one little section of traffic that took an hour.  We were consequently late to the temple, but Charles was able to get in just as the people were filing into the room.  I unfortunately forgot to bring my temple recommend and got to wait for everything to be done.  The reason that I forgot it was because I don't like hauling my purse around and since I wasn't doing work in the temple, I obviously don't need to remember it.

Rose was such a beautiful bride and we are so happy for her.  She had a beautiful reception at Ben's parent's home in Tooele.  We are so happy for Mr. and Mrs. Ben Hall!

After the reception we picked up my cousin Brent from the SLC airport because he will be talking a class at BYU.

I forgot to mention that on Memorial Day after going to the Zoo we spent quite a bit of time in the Salt Lake Cemetery looking at graves and finding all of the prophets' graves.  It was so much fun.

Spring Semester at BYU is coming to a close for me.  Things are finishing up, it is very bitter sweet for me because I am very excited that I will be done with my math class, but very sad that my ASL 201 class will be ending.  My teacher for ASL was my absolute favorite ever and I wish that class would never end.  She always had the best stories to tell us and taught us so much about ASL.


We finally got the specialized license plates for my car.  In Russian, our cars now say "Beauty" (KPACOTA) and "Beast"(3BEP6)

Charles was very excited about the FIFA world cup and was distraught when we only tied England.

We went and saw the Orem SummerFest fireworks.  It was lots of fun and I can't wait to take photos of the ones for 4th of July.

We watched "Arsenic and Old Lace" recently.  It was still as it was when I was a kid and watched it.

Memorial Day and the Townhouse

For Memorial Day we went to the Zoo with his family.  There were lots of people, but it was lots of fun.  It is funny how quickly little kids can look at animals.  I could have sat there and starred at some of them for a really long time.  Here are some photos for you to enjoy.

Here is Charles looking super excited to see the animals

The new baby elephant

Giraffe 14 feet tall, tongue 1 foot long

Camels that are loosing their fur 

Creepy bats

Charles and I went to the townhouse again last night to see it again.  We took some photos of the place and talked to our immediate neighbor who happened to be outside.  Here are the photos from it along with the floor plan (I do understand that the levels don't look like they match up, but they are supposed to) and numbers where each photo was taken with the direction it was taken so that you get a general idea of everything.  (If you go to the actual blog you can click on photos to make the larger)

1 (Right of kitchen)

2 (Kitchen Left)

3 (Living Room)

4 (Entrance)

5 (Looking upstairs)

6 (Master Bedroom)

7 (Master again)

8 (Master sink)

9 (Master rest of bath)

10 (Master closet)

11 (Two bedrooms and bath)

12 (1st Bedroom)

13 (Bath)

14 (Going to unfinished basement)

15 (Living Area and bed and bathroom)

16 (From bath area)

17 (Storage room)

A busy two weeks

Last weekend Charles and I went to Twin Falls Idaho to visit my sister Colleen and her wonderful family.

The little girls loved playing with Charles and I.  We had such a fun time.

Here we are are at a super huge waterfall that we could stand behind.

Here we all are behind the falls.

There is an elk farm area which we drove past.  It was pretty neat since I had never seen elk before.  They look like they have fuzzy horns and as if they should be pulling Santa's Sleigh.

 

Here is the Soshone Falls, they were quite big and fun too watch.  I took a panorama picture of the area, but it still isn't stitched together, so that will be coming later.

Here is stinkbug Tara.  It is so funny that she crawls like this.

Tara really seemed to find these wood chips fascinating.  The funny thing is that as Tara was crawling Colleen noticed that she had become unsnapped and later that day Nathan found a wood chip in her outfit.

 The girls showed off their muscles to us.  It is so cute how children "flex" their muscles.

It was such a fun adventure to go to Idaho.

So although it is "Spring" in Utah, we actually got quite a bit of snow.  It was collecting on the trees with branches falling off of the trees.  It was quite crazy.

This weekend, Charles and I were in charge of the Field events at the Special Olympics which were held at BYU.  It was such a fun event and we are so thankful for the companies that sent their people to go and help out.  I am so thankful that TD Ameritrade sent so many people that were absolutely so wonderful and helpful.  I was so impressed with their people that I want to write their company a thank you note, but I tried to find where to send it and got way too confused.

Speaking of adventures, Charles and I finally say "Up".  Everyone has said it was a great movie, but I wish I had know that it was going to have such a great moral and message to it.  I love supporting movies like that.  I loved how the main couple had such a great marriage and that life was an adventure together.