Tomorrow my husband and I celebrate 29 years of marriage! The person you marry makes a huge difference in your life.  After spending all that time together, you become a lot like each other. You can help each other become better (or not) in so many different ways. Here are 10 ways my husband inspires me to be better: 1.  He is supportive of my interests and goals.  Recently I decided to join an orchestra and Scott has been completely supportive. When I decided I wanted to climb Mt. Timpanogas a few years ago, he was encouraging and helping me all the way. 2.  He is great about exercising. He not only rides his bike 6 miles each way to work nearly every day but he also goes running 2 or 3 times a week. So whenever I'm tempted to slack off, I just think about what I need to do to keep up (sort of) with him. At the end of a long run near his birthday 3.  He likes to eat healthy foods and he is not a picky eater.  He eats the "dead" toast t...

Over spring break, my husband was teaching and my son was taking a lifeguarding class every day, so we couldn't do much travel.  But on Friday afternoon when my son's class finished, we took off for Cedar City which is about 3 hours away. We had two goals:  visit the new Cedar City Temple and go on some kind of adventure outdoors.  Friday night, my husband and teenagers visited the temple while I stayed with our youngest who is not yet old enough to go in (you have to be 12).    Then really early Saturday morning, I left everyone asleep and went by myself for the 5:30 session.  It's a beautiful temple and I enjoyed my time there. After breakfast, we drove east about 45 minutes to Mammoth Cave.  This is a lava tube cave and is definitely not mammoth.  I didn't actually go in because my back was bothering me and I am not a fan of tight spaces.  But everyone else did and they got somewhat muddy because at a few points ...

Over spring break last week, we spent a few hours in downtown Salt Lake City enjoying the nice weather and seeing a few sites we haven't visited lately.  I took my three girls plus my mother and sister and some of the cousins, ages 1-9. The first stop was the  Joseph Smith Memorial Building Legacy Theater to see a few new episodes of Meet the Mormons.  We saw  The Craftsman  which is about a man who built his own small airplane completely by himself, not even ordering parts, and performs at air shows.  It also talked a lot about his family and other aspects of his life.  I really liked it. The other one we saw was  The Horseman .  This one was also good but didn't have quite as many interesting aspects, probably related to the fact that the horseman is young so he hasn't had as many life experiences.  Lots of beautiful footage.  The two films held the interest of all the kids except the 1-year-old.  Both are 20-25 minute...

Today our oldest child turns 28!  David has been a great son.  From the time he was born, he was in a hurry to get on with life.  He was actually not very happy as a baby until he could walk and talk.  Of course, part of the problem might have been how clueless we were.  Your first child breaks you into a lot of things. Despite our ineptitude, David has turned out well. David is a great husband: He has been a thoughtful older brother to his 8 younger siblings: He enjoys high adventure such as rock-climbing and biking: He is a conscientious father: This is a 5-generation picture with my father, his mother (who turns 98 today!), me, David and his first baby. He has been a diligent student, graduating in chemical engineering.  He continues to enjoy new opportunities to learn: This is the weather balloon adventure from a year ago, December:  http://viewingmountains.blogspot.com/2016/12/davids-high-altitude-balloon-adventure...