WalMart

It's been a while since I have updated you all on the funny things our sunbeams say and do.  I thought I'd share an experience that happened today.

Our lesson was on how we should be thankful for food and clothes.  We started out by talking about some of their favorite foods, then we asked them where food came from.  "My dad" was the unanimous answer.  But we wanted to help them discover that food comes from plants and animals and ultimately exists because God made it for us. 

So we asked them where Dad got the food. 

"The grocery store"

"Where does the grocery store get food?"

"WalMart"

I guess WalMart is the source of all things.  Later, we were talking about clothes.  We asked where our clothes came from.  "WalMart" was again the answer. 

"Where does WalMart get the clothes?"

"WalMart"

I guess it just makes sense.  If the Lindon WalMart runs out of stuff, there has to be another WalMart that has what they need.  They probably just go buy it at the Orem WalMart.  So now you know.  It all came from WalMart.

Analyze This

I had a very strange dream.  That's not unusual.  I'm pretty sure all of my dreams are pretty strange.  What is unusual is that I remembered the contents of the dream.  So, I now present to you the contents of my dream in hopes that the people of the internet will present me amusing speculation on the meaning of my dream.

(Now entering the dream world, imagine the screen goes all fuzzy or maybe we switch to black and white, or whatever cinematography means "dream" to you)

Robyn and I were driving on the freeway.  But we were in separate cars.  I don't know where we were going or where we were coming from.  But we were on the freeway and it was raining harder than I have ever seen.  It was raining so hard that we decided to pull off the freeway.  (I don't remember talking to Robyn on a cell phone, but somehow we mutually made the decision, that's how unified we are.)

As we pulled off the freeway the exit was super steep.  There was lots of mud on the road and cars were having trouble getting traction.  A few had run off the road and Robyn was one of them.  Instead of attempting the exit, I just pulled off the shoulder of the freeway and went and checked on Robyn.  She was fine, so the two of us decided to walk.

We walked to my Grandma and Grandpa Stockett's house.  Like I said earlier, I'm not sure where we were headed, but apparently, Grandma's house was on the way.  (In the real world, Grandma's house is not on the way to anything.)  When we got to Grandma's house, we were given a room to stay in, but we also discovered that Reese Witherspoon was staying the night there as well.

I'm sure Grandma and Grandpa wouldn't deny Reese a place to stay if she was in need.  I'm just not sure why she was there.  At any rate, there we were at Grandma's with Reese Witherspoon.(Withoutaspoon really)  Also, Reese was very pregnant.  I don't know if she has kids in real life or if she's ever been pregnant but in dream world she was extremely pregnant.

Robyn decided she needed to share a room with Reese.  She said that since Reese was pregnat that she was going to need someone to take care of her.  I tried to explain that she could come get us if she needed anything but Robyn would have none of it.  So I went back to my room all alone.  I was really cranky at Robyn that she liked pregnant Reese Witherspoon more than me.

Then the alarm went off and I woke up.  (end dream sequence) (begin contemplative sequence) So what does it all mean?  Why was there a pregnant Reese Witherspoon at Grandma's house?  Robyn speculates that the dream reveals that I'm afraid of her being pregnant.  I don't think that works, wouldn't she have been pregnant in the dream?  I think it could just as easily mean a fear of rainstorms, Grandma's house, or Reese Witherspoon.  (Okay, not Grandma's house.  That would be ridiculous, how could anyone fear Grandma's house?)

What do the people think?

Temple Tourism

Recently, Robyn and I had the opportunity to go to Switzerland.  We were blown away by the mountains there, but we also really enjoyed the opportunity of going to the Bern Switzerland temple.  I thought it was so amazing to see what was the same as well as what was different. 

I turned to Robyn and told her that we were visiting a temple on the other half of the world, but we hadn't even visited all the temples in Utah.  We decided right then and there to set a goal to visit all of the Utah temples.  This is no small task since there are 12 temples currently, with 2 more that have already been announced.  But we feel it will be worth it, and we'd like to visit lots outside of Utah as well.  It's exciting to see the differences in architecture, layout, decorations and even language.  My favorite is to see what each celestial room looks like, because they are all different but all beautiful.  But as fun as all the differences are, it is even more exciting to see what is the same throughout the world.

So today we started out fairly simple.  We drove up to the Jordan River temple.  I decided it was important to document each temple that we visit for our goal, so after we did a session we walked all the way around the temple taking pictures with my new fancy iPhone.  Here are two of them.  I was trying to be all artsy with the sun shot behind the Angel Moroni.  The other one is naturally a self portrait of us with the temple behind us.

We saw people looking at us thinking that we've never seen a temple before or something.  We totally looked like tourists.  But it was fun to do some temple tourism.  We're going to be temple tourists all over Utah, and maybe a little bit throughout the world.

Europe Trip Part 3: Germany

Germany was home base on our trip.  My aunt and uncle live in Wiesbaden so we stayed with them and branched out from there.  After doing road trips to France and Switzerland we returned to Germany to do some sight seeing there.

The first thing that blew my mind about Germany was the Autobahn.  We were going about 85 mph but people were passing us like we were standing still.  It really made me want to get a sweet BMW or Mercedes so I could experience the true potential of the Autobahn.  One thing I thought was fascinating is that they plant trees all along the sides of the Autobahn.  There are no billboards and you can't see beyond the trees so people keep their eyes on the road.  As a result of this there are very few car accidents, even with the high speeds.

While in Germany, whenever we were out and about we would stop for ice cream.  Only it's not ice cream, they don't have any cream in it and they just call it "ice".  It's way better than our ice cream, and it was actually pretty cheap.  Everything else in Europe would cost an arm and a leg, but you could have an ice cone for 70 Euro cents.

The first full day in Germany we took a trip to Berg Eltz.  It was a pretty cool looking castle.

Once we were inside the castle, Sheldon and I were looking out at the walls and towers trying to decide where we would place our archers.  I'm pretty sure living in a castle must have been like one big tower defense game.  I was hoping we would get attacked by orcs or something but it didn't happen.

The other castle we went to was Heidelberg.  Unlike the first castle, this was was a ruin that had been attacked in the 1500's.  This is one of the towers where they had kept the ammunition.  When it was attacked, the enemy snuck into the tower and blew it up from the inside.  The 22 foot thick walls kept them from attacking it from the outside.

As you can see, the folks at Heidelberg were not as good at tower defense games. 

A large portion of the castle was still intact though, so we were still able to walk through much of it.  The castle was on top of a huge hill so the view looking down on the city was pretty awesome.

We tried the various local german foods, I had bratwurst, schnitzel and various other things.  One night, though, we decided we needed to try a place called Waldgeist (it means forest ghost).  They advertise XXXXXL portions.  Robyn and I ordered a giant burger to share.

Together we were able to eat about half of it.  I also ordered a large water so they brought me a 2 liter "cup" that looked more like a vase.  Don't worry, I drank it all.

But one of my favorite things we did in Germany was that we went to Rudesheim where we took a gondola ride up to the statue of peace.

This statue was built after World War 2.  It symbolizes Germany's desire for peace and represents a promise that they will not enter into war unprovoked.  The statue is pointing the hilt of its sword toward France as a special peace offering to the French who were occupied by the Nazi invaders.

Germany was a fabulous end to our trip.  We got to eat some great food, see some cool stuff and learn a little bit of history. The way home seemed eternal, but we were sure glad to sleep in our own beds again.

Europe Trip Part 2: Switzerland

After our stay in Paris we headed over to Switzerland.  Robyn and I both agreed that Switzerland was our favorite part of the trip.  We saw some amazing things in Paris but its fast paced nature was exhausting compared to the relaxing nature of Switzerland.

The first thing we did in Switzerland was that we went to the Bern Switzerland temple and did a session.

The temple was beautiful and the session was amazing.  The session we went to was in italian, because they had alot of italian visitors that day.  But they had headsets so that you could participate in any language.  The local language there is French though, so my veil worker was speaking French, while I was speaking english.  It was just amazing to me that the endowment ordinance was in 3 languages that day.  But it didn't matter to the Lord, all languages are the same to Him.  It really opened my eyes and it was an incredible experience.

After the temple we drove to where we would be staying.  Our hotel was in a little swiss town nestled in the alps called Lauterbrunnen.  As we drove into the town I was in awe.  This is what the town looks like:

That waterfall was maybe a mile from our hotel.  Naturally, Sheldon and I hiked up to it.  That was one of those WWJWD (what would Jared William do) moments.  When we got to our hotel I was again amazed, this was the view out the window while laying in bed:

We took several walks around the town, bought some important things such as a genuine swiss army knife for me and some alpaca wool socks for Robyn but the biggest thing we did was the train ride to Kleine Scheidegg.  We could never remember the name of it so I called it kleine Sheldon.  I also told Sheldon I would be referring to his first born son as Kleine Sheldon (little sheldon).

Kleine Scheidegg is a town high up in the alps.  It's not the top of the mountain but it's the highest point that has a town.  It's the point where people who are hardcore begin their ascent to the summit.  This is where we ignored the WWJWD guidelines because we did not hike up to the top.  But just from that little town there were some amazing views.  We were able to see the glaciers that were way above the waterfall we saw in town.  It was neat to see the water coming off of them that gathered below and formed the waterfall.  (you can kind of see some of the water flowing down, it's not real clear in the picture)

While were up there, we wandered around the town into gift shops and saw what there was to see.  There were random goats walking around everywhere.  We saw one eating a shirt at an outdoor gift shop.  Robyn told me I wasn't allowed to touch the goats.  I said I would not touch a goat if she took my picture with one.  This picture is evidence that I did not touch a goat.

We decided to stop in at a restaurant up there.  I had some spaghetti with a side of pork schnitzel.  It was so amazing.  Then afterward, we ordered some hot chocolate because A)it was kind of cold up there, especially since I was wet from the waterfall hike that morning and B)Swiss chocolate is so amazing.

We decided this shot that Robyn took could be in an ad.  The chocolate did not disappoint.  We bought a lot of chocolate in Switzerland and Germany.  German chocolate is amazing, but the swiss really know what's up, their chocolate is to die for.