elf puppet

Meet elf puppet.

He's a kindly ole elf... that is a puppet. Jon's parents got it for him many years ago when they traveled to the Czech Republic.

I pulled him out one day from up in our closet and thought he was kind of cute in a freakish sort of way.

Jaina freaked out over him in a cute-ish sort of way.

Jon liked that she was terrified of it. He liked to tease her with it.

We decided she needed to get over her fear of this elf puppet.

(Please ignore our front room-we've got big plans for it, I promise:))

We tried to make it dance and spin.

We tried putting it on Jaina's My little Pony's scooter to make her laugh.

Nothing was working.

Then we asked her if she wanted him put in the "dungeon" (crawl space) where the "monster" lives. She liked that plan. So we did it, but made her watch us do it so she knew he was really down there. This was hard for her to do, because she couldn't even look at the puppet without shaking.

Then one day out of blue, Jaina said she wanted to touch the elf puppet. So we quickly pulled him out of the "dungeon". She carefully grabbed onto the strings and made him dance and spin...

and then she touched his hand.

Yes, Jaina has come quite a ways from only a few weeks ago. I guess we've learned she just does things on her own time.

pho and chicken stars

I use to be pretty "un-adventurous" when it came to trying new foods. Sweet and sour chicken was about as brave as I'd get when we'd eat out.

Then one day, Jon called me from work and said that he went out to lunch to a little restaurant nestled in the corner of Redwood road and 35th south in Salt Lake. It's was a Vietnamese restaurant called Pho (fuh) Hoa (hwah).

When he told me he wanted to take me there to try the Pho soup, I was a little hesitant thinking I might get a bowl of mystery meat in a mystery broth, but to my surprise, it was one of the most delicious soups I'd ever had.

Eating out at restaurants from a different culture has now become somewhat of an adventure for me and Jon and hope that one day we'll be able to travel to some of these countries to experience the whole culture.

The kids tried the rice noodles, but didn't seem to like them, or at least the texture:) That is why their are chicken stars on their plates. Thank you Carl's Jr!

It was also fun to see a huge group of Vietnamese people come in who were visiting from California. We love the Asian culture!

Then we drove on over to Temple Square. I think we confused Hunter when we said we were going to there. For some reason he thought it meant we were going to the Clark Planetarium, but he still loved the real Temple Square.

This is the spot where Jon proposed to me. We always make it a tradition to stop here when we visit!

It was so funny watching him right before he proposed over 7 years ago. He was so preoccupied with watching people walking by and wanted to find the right moment when no one would see him propose!

Some of my favorite plants there.

We also stopped at the visitor center and watched the new eternal families video, which I highly recommend going and seeing. It really was wonderful. I feel so thankful to have my little family!

So next time you go to Salt Lake and you're feeling a little adventurous, go try out Pho Hoa and ask for the Pho soup and then head over to Temple Square (or if you're Hunter- the Clark Planetarium;))