Indexing names for Family History

I am an Indexer. I really want to do more family history but I haven't gotten deep into actually searching my own family history and finding family members who haven't already been recorded. Instead of that in-depth research, I am doing indexing to contribute to Family History work. I've been indexing obituaries from Texas lately and it's been very interesting. I highly recommend starting with indexing if you are wanting to do something worthwhile, you have a computer, and you want to feel warm and fuzzy inside while giving service. I felt even warmer and fuzzier inside than usual as I indexed as part of this "Indexing Blitz" on July 20 & 21. I am now some small part of history...family history is now part of my history.

"FamilySearch Volunteers set Historic Record"
https://familysearch.org/blog/en/familysearch-volunteers-set-historic-record/

Savannah and Addelyn's Birthday

Savannah's birthday was on Monday last week, then Addelyn's was two days later on Wednesday. On Monday was ended up in Salt Lake at Grandma Rue and Papa John's house and we had a great time hanging with cousins and eating cake. When I asked Savannah was kind of cake she wanted she said "Sully." I love when my kids depart from princess themes because it seems like that's all they ever want, so I ran with it. After dinner and cake with the Phillips, we went to the airport to pick up Grammy and Grandpa Farnsworth who had been traveling in Europe. It was nice to finally have them home after their 3 week trip.

On Wednesday we hosted a little tea party and of course the girls all dressed up. Hannah, Melody, and Olivia were their little guests. They ate their tea party food, decorated cupcakes, sang, played outside, played a couple rounds of "Headbands" (with a little help from Mom of course), then played duck duck goose and had popsicles while waiting for rides home. Oh ya, and Grandma Rue and my three nephews dropped in on the tea party shortly and brought some fun presents for Addelyn to open. I was exhausted by the end of the day. But at least it was a quiet ending to the day. We had Grammy and Grandpa Farnsworth over for cake and icecream. Unfortunately I forgot to get a picture of the Addelyn's cake. It was an Elsa cake. I did get a pic of the frosting transfer that I did for the cake, just not the completed cake.

Forgot to mention how the bag holding the frosting burst at the seams and splattered all over Elsa's face. I cleaned it up as best as possible and it didn't mess her up too bad in the end. 

Ballet Recital

This year Addelyn and Savannah were in ballet class together. They loved going every Wednesday morning and I love to watch them and laugh. This year's recital was held at the Ragan Theater again (at UVU) and it was a combination of "Rodeo" and "Stars and Stripes." Our girls were in the "Rodeo" portion of the recital as "Country Flowers."

It's amazing to think back to last year and see how much both Addelyn and Savannah have changed. Addelyn looks very similar to how she did a year ago (only taller) but she's really grown up a lot. Last year she cried all through the photo session, she cried when I dropped her off for the dress rehearsal, and she cried at the mere thought of performing on stage. When it actually came time to perform she got on stage and did great. But last year I seriously considered having it be her first AND last year of dance. This year she had the greatest time ever and loved performing on stage. She held her pose for pictures all through the crazy faces that the photographer did to try to get Savannah and the other little girls to look and smile at the camera. And she even remembered most of the dance. Savannah on the other hand didn't remember most the dance but at least she followed the other girls and looked cute while she pranced around.

It was great to have both sets of Grandparents there to support them. And everyone took turns holding Brooklyn, who behaved fantastically relative to the fact that her bedtime corresponded to the start of the recital.

Couple more Easter pics

Addie wanted her picture taken in the flowers. She said, "Mom, we're so lucky, other people have to plant flowers like this in their yard, we just have a whole bunch of them already growing!" I told her they were weeds but she said I was wrong, they were flowers. She loves to say, "Mom, I'm right, you're wrong." But at least sometimes she also says, "I was wrong, you're right," so it all evens out.

 Ava and Brooke.

"Camping" at the "Cabin"

We went "camping" at the "cabin" this last weekend. I put quotes because first of all, there is no cabin anymore. My parent's cabin burned down about a year and a half ago so no cabin. But they still own the 120 acres that surrounded it and there's a part of it that wasn't burnt to a crisp. So we don't know what exactly to call it, mostly we call it the cabin property. And on this cabin property my parents have a couple trailers so that's the other reason for quotes...because we don't go tent camping, we stay in the trailers so it's pseudo-camping. It's much easier to go camping with a six month old when you're staying in a trailer where she can comfortably sleep in her pack n'play, the girls can sleep on a bunk bed, and Dave and I can sleep together in a bed roughly the size of a double bed. It really is quite comfortable as far as "camping" is concerned.

We had a lot of fun hanging out with the Phillips clan. We were missing Tawnya and Madison, and also Casey. But everyone else was there. We're packing in the family time while Lara and Evan are in Utah (they currently live in Arizona) for several weeks while Evan does his clinicals for his physical therapy degree.

The weather forecast said there was a 40% chance of rain on Friday and 90% chance of rain on Saturday. But we wanted to go camping so we didn't let the rain stop us. Friday was beautiful and we didn't get rained on at all. But Saturday was drizzly all day. The boys set up a canopy and did their shooting but it started sprinkling consistently around lunch time and by 3 PM it was snowing lightly so we figured we better get out of there before the mud was too thick and we all got stuck.

The good news is that we didn't get stuck stuck, but we did get temporarily stuck. Lara's Honda Pilot is only two wheel drive and they were the lead car. It only took about 2 minutes for them to drive to a spot that was too slippery and muddy to get out of. So all the adults jumped out and had to find anything we could to throw on the road to help with traction. Then the boys all pushed while the car slipped and slided out of there. My Dad got through the mud next. His was less eventful because he was in their truck. But they were pulling the trailer with the ATV so that made it slightly tricky.

Next was our minivan. :) We have gotten stuck in the mud before at the cabin and we know the low clearance and poor tread on our tires that fills quickly with mud. So we threw tons of stuff on the road to help with traction and I got in the drivers seat while the boys pushed me through the mud. It was the craziest ride of my life, I was sliding like crazy. But there were no deep ravines for me to slide into so I wasn't super scared, just slightly anxious. ;) I didn't want to mess up the alignment or get us super stuck in a rut so I was doing my best to keep moving even though I was sliding all over the place.

In the end we all got back out to the main road and no one required the tow strap to pull them out. So that was great. Where were the kids through all of this? They were watching Frozen on the DVD player in our van. Thank goodness for the DVD player. They didn't even mind all the slipping and sliding or the extra travel time. By the time we got home they were all sleeping. It was an exhausting and fun time.

Gotta love the drenched, muddy, no-makeup, crazy people that we are...the Phillips family. 

Easter

Here are a few photos of the girls in their Easter dresses. I didn't take photos of the Easter egg hunt at Grandma Rue's house, the Easter dinner at Grammy's or any of our other festivities. Sorry!

 

Exploring Provo

I have about a year's worth of blogging to catch up on. Sheesh. So I'm just going to start posting pictures like mad. Forgive me for not giving back story for a lot of the photos in my next several posts. 

We went exploring Provo on a random Thursday with Lara, Josh, and my Mom. First we went to an old rock amphitheater in Provo (that I had never seen or heard about, I must be out of the loop), then to lunch at Kneaders, a trip to the playground at Pioneer Park, then to Provo Canyon to Bridal Veil Falls.

 

 You would think that Josh was giving Addelyn a hug if you were just looking at this picture. But he was actually tying her up. They were putting on a show for us by dancing across the stage at the amphitheater and Josh wanted to play more good guy/bad guy and Addie agreed to let him, while still dancing of course.

Grandma Rue with three hooligans. Love the lilac bushes everywhere!

Brooke is in a mommy attachment phase. She often doesn't like it when I hand her to her sisters. 

 Feeding the fish at Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon.