Telling Stories With Rocks

 

A few years ago I had a desk that was next to an amazing person--Patti Rokus. As you normally do when you have cubicles next to each other, Patti and I talked about life. We have both since moved on to other career moves since that time, but some things stick. 

One of the things Patti shared with me, and with our family, is her love of telling stories with rocks. At the time she was piloting a storybook for Easter about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. She gave a copy to us and that has been a family favorite over the years. Especially because Lucky Dragon LOVES rocks. He collects them from all over the world. 

In the recent General Primary Broadcast with the General Primary Presidency from our Church, Patti made an appearance and taught children from all over the world how to tell stories with rocks. Our little Muggles were so excited to see her. "Hey! That is your friend! We gave us her book!" 

For Family Home Evening this week we decided to go find our own rocks and tell stories. We collected rocks from the banks of Utah Lake. It was fun to forage for rocks and get excited as each of us found a rock that was "SO COOL!!" 

We brought our rocks home and washed them all up ready to represent our thoughts! Can't have dirty rocks for that! HAHA

As they were drying Lucky Dragon could not help but start. As we were doing other things he made a menagerie of dinosaurs. It came complete with volcano and a sun! 

Our first task during Family Home Evening was Koala Bear gave a lesson on the importance of baptism. Lucky Dragon will be baptized this year if he chooses to, so we have been talking quite a bit about what it means. After the lesson we each had to make a rock tableau representing baptism. When we were done we each took turns telling what it all meant. 

This is my future representation of Lucky Dragon's baptism. He is coming up out of the font. I am holding his hand. Lady Hiva and Koala Bear are on the left watching (notice the long hair) and the angels in Heaven are watching from above. 

Lucky Dragon depicted the baptism happening in the chapel...notice the roof and the steeple. He is under the water being baptized (see the person prostrated). I am the one baptizing him. 

Lady Hiva chose to represent her own baptism. You can see her dad baptizing her on the very right. She is holding his hand. Her mum is watching on the left standing above the stairs down into the font. She has a birthday cake with an 8 on top because she was baptized on her 8th birthday and then there are some balloons to celebrate. 

Next we all had to make an animal. Lady Hiva made a shark eating a jellyfish. 

I made a bird (above) and Lucky Dragon made a giraffe (below)/ 

Our next challenge was to make flowers. I made a bouquet in a vase. Lucky Dragon made seeds falling from a packet. and Lady hiva made a dandelion blowing away in the wind. 

This was a REALLY fun activity! It is something we will do again for sure in the future. Thank you, Patti, for inspiring us!

This Is America

 It was so great to spend time as a family for the 4th of July! COVID changed all our plans and traditions. But we wanted to have fun. We had purchased our Old Glory t-shirts months ago and needed to have a place to wear them.

We wanted to go to Lagoon. Lady Hiva wanted to go to Eagle Mountain Farmer's Market...so we did both!

 This photo below is what the American dream is all about. One neighbor is mowing our lawn. Another neighbor is mowing the lawn of a third neighbor. Service, kindness and love--those are the foundations of the country I believe in.

Lady Hiva wanted to stop by the fresh sour dough bread tent. I had to laugh because after she told me she has been reading comments "for weeks" and is glad we bought some bread. I...as a non bread fanatic...just will never understand how bread is a priority over everything else. 

Then we headed to Lagoon. This was one reason COVID was amazing! We had to register to go in and they limited the people. It was AMAZING!! We only waited in one line the whole day. And that line was only 10 minutes. Every other ride we walked right on and even stayed on to ride twice.

 We had to wear masks and there was hand sanitizer before each ride and after. I felt like they really tried to make it safe as possible.

 This peacock was showing off. He was beautiful. I had to laugh when he noticed I was taking photos he slowly turned and walked as if hw was on the runway.

 These two were mad thwy got soaked. Haha

 Our adrenaline-junky, rollercoaster-loving guy threw up on the sidewalk. Poor guy must have eaten something bad. Hlad we had fun before that.

 We made it back for fireworks with the neighborhood. It was fun! Our little lane was blocked off with chairs and we lit all our fireworks. Then we sat and watched the thousands of fireworks across Utah Lake from Lehi down to Spanish Fork. It was amazing. Photos don't do it justice.

We had to laugh because the sprinklers came on and we all scattered! Then we had settled in again and the nieghbors' rogue firework fell over and shot right at us! Lucky nobody got hurt! It was intense for a few minutes, but we all survived. It became a journal entry moment.

 We finished the day with a BBQ and watching Harry Potter 3. Lucky Dragon had been listening to the books with us and loving them. We finished the book today as we drove so he can watch the movie (my rule is you cannot watch the movie until you read the book)