Happy Easter! This was a historic day to have an Easter Sunday Sacrament Service in our own home. We have really enjoyed this week leading up to Easter, studying Christ’s life and pondering on the meaning and blessing of the Christ’s Atonement and Resurrection.  General Conference last week was just the perfect kickoff to this Easter week.

On Friday this week, I had a chance to head out to desert to go dirt biking with one my friends. Last year, shortly after getting married, one of his sons was diagnosed with ALS. It’s been an incredibly challenging trial for the family and for my friend. On the drive out to desert, we had a wonderful, spirit filled conversation as we pondered on the injustices of life, the incomprehensible scope of eternity, the power of Christ’s Atonement, the purpose of suffering, and the role of prayer.

I love this proverb, made famous by John Lennon, and quoted by President Hinckley.

Everything will be alright in the end. If it’s not alright, it’s not the end.

Sometimes people describe eternity as an infinitely long timeline stretching out forever, and mortality is just one tiny blip on that line. I’ve found another concept that I think is much more comprehensible. To us, life unfolds like a song. Each event is played out sequentially, and once the whole song is finished, we can comprehend it. Time, or the sequential unfolding of events, is a part of mortality. The Theory of Relativity describes the relationship between time and space. As an object approaches the speed light, time slows until it eventually stops. In the absence of time, life is no longer like a song or infinitely long timeline, playing out sequentially. Rather, it becomes like a picture. A picture exists in its entirety in one single moment. I believe that in His exalted state, God is able to see our lives, even our eternal existence, as one great whole. What we experience as past, present, and future, God sees as one. Thus, the pains, hardships, and injustices of life that we are experiencing sequentially become perfectly clear, understandable, and justified when viewed from an eternal perspective unbounded by the limitations of time.

Something to ponder about. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Here is one other gospel related thing I’d like to share. Trying to keep the events of the resurrection straight can be a bit tricky with all the different gospel accounts. We found this great reference that helped us in our studies.

source: https://byustudies.byu.edu/system/files/pdfs/Charts/NT/10-18.pdf

I know that my Redeemer lives. Happy Easter.

This has been a bizarre March, one for the history books for sure.  Kathryn’s aunt shared this post.

We’re trying our best to take advantage of this unique time that we have to spend some extra time together as a family.  Here are some of the things we’ve been up to this March.

The girls made a fairy garden and planted a bunch of flowers in there.

We’ve got a greenhouse going up in the girls bathroom.  Lot’s of flower and vegetable starts.  The amaryllis from Uncle Robert really turned out great!

No shortage of art.

Enjoying the sunshine and nice weather.

Rain on our flowers.

3D printer upgrade project.

Even though it’s spring down in the valley, it’s still winter up in the mountains.  It’s working hard on thawing out though.

St. Patrick’s Day, or “Happy Green Appreciation Day” as Josie called it.

Leprechaun trap.

Lot’s of dancing.

Landon walked over to the chicken coop and opened the door and let them all out.  Then he chased them around.  Kathryn helped him catch Blacky.  Then he just picked her up all by himself and started walking around.  It was the cutest/funniest thing!

The best mitigation for cabin fever is to burn some gas!  We loaded up the 4 wheeler and dirt bike and headed down to Cherry Creek.  It was great to get out and get some fresh air!

This is a good opportunity to reflect on all the many things that we’ve been blessed with.  I know that these times will pass, and what we do during these difficult times will define our culture and future for years to come.  Stay safe and kind.

Christmas already feels like ages ago.  Looking back through the pictures of the holiday break was a real treat.  Here are some of the highlights.

Secret Santa event with the Hawkers.  Here is Eliza ready to make a special delivery.

Holiday dinner with the Hawkers.  I gave my phone to Robert to take the picture.  He said he’d never taken a picture with a phone before so I had to show him how to do it.  Funny that I got cut off 🙂   All good though.  It was a nice party and fun to be with the family.

Kevin, Bethany, and Anne stayed the night with us during their voyage from Mesa up to Filer and came with us to the Christmas Sacrament meeting.  We applaud them for making the journey.

Up with the fam in Filer, Ashley discovered an oldy-goldy art spinner toy.  We got it fixed up, bought new paint, and took it for a whirl.  It was lots of fun and made some fun pictures.

White Christmases are the best.  There was just enough snow on Christmas Eve to pull the kids around and let them get a little more comfortable on the skis before our planned ski trip after Christmas.

While outside, we all had a lot of fun playing on Dad’s zip line creation in the backyard.  The girls loved it and both rode many many times.

Christmas Eve dinner with the traditional and highly regarded rainbow jello.

Special present from Ashley to Eliza.  The card is precious.

Back when we were dating, I made Kathryn a two player Chinese Checkers game for Christmas.  Back then, I also started a full six player version as well but never finished it.  I’ve been holding onto it the last 9 years and decided that I’d finish it up this year.  It was a little tricky working on it undetected, and I had one close call which raised some suspicions, but in the end, Kathryn claimed it was a surprise and she didn’t know what I was up to.  We’ll take it as a huge success to pull out a surprise in this day and age were we basically just wrap up each others presents that we bought for ourselves.

Mom’s oh-so-delicious apple pie.  I decorated it with the Christmas tree 🙂

Hi Landon!

Landon Gerald Moore with his Grandpa Gerald and Grandma Nancy.

We had some fun jamming out.

Complete with Hawaiian dancers.

The day after Christmas, we headed up to Bogus Basin and met up with Josie and her kids for the girls first ski day.

Everyone did great and had a lot of fun!  Huge success!

Really pretty snowscape.

After carrying Landon around, it was refreshing to hold little Baby Anne. You forget how small newborns are.  They grow up so fast.

It’s a Landon ‘elfie!

All ready to welcome in 2020.  We got “snow warning-ed” out of our planned New Years Eve party at the cabin, so we hung out in style at our house.  We were sure ready though.

We made good use of the New Year’s day snow and built a huge snow lady.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  Here’s to a great 2020.