{oPticLe ilLuSions}

1) Is this possible?

2)

3) Are the purple lines straight or bent?

4) Do you see gray areas in between the squares? Now where did they come from?

5) You should see a man's face and also a word...

Hint: Try tilting your head to the right, the world begins with 'L'

6) Take a look at the following picture. It is not animated. Your eyes are making it move. To test this, stare at one spot for a couple seconds and everything will stop moving. Or look at the black center of each circle and it will stop moving. But move your eyes to the next black center and the previous will move after you take your eyes away from it.... Crazy!!!

7)

{cOnfereNce}

I love conference weekend. I love that I can go to church in my pjs, if I choose! This was the first conference we've had with our new prophet, President Monson. It was neat to be part of a solemn assembly Saturday morning (even if I made my kids stand up at the wrong part, at first). It was neat to hear everyone bear testimony of President Monson. It still doesn't roll off my tongue quite right, but I'm sure it will over time!

I thought it was really cute when L. Tom Perry spoke. Ally got up close to the TV, then she looks at me and says, "He looks like President Hinckley." Then she declares, "He sounds like President Hinckley. He looks and sounds like President Hinckley!" With that in mind I had to agree with her.

So here is my quick run down: salvation is an individual matter, exhaltation is a family matter, spiritual experiences are building blocks of faith, strive to make each day better than the last, tradition should be based on righteousness and faith, never satisfied with anything less than your best, go forward - find the one, be a witness of gospel truth, there are 13,193,999 members, steps of gaining a testimony (1 - desire to have, 2- ask God, 3 - seek, 4 - share it), obedience enhances knowledge, Jesus is our mediator with the father, we need the help of the holy ghost to get through perilous times, Christ is our Savior and Redeemer, through faith and obedience the lord will help us, 5 ingredients for eternal life (faith, repentance, baptism, gift of holy ghost, and endure), must honor and respect all souls of all religions, spiritual rebirth comes through Jesus Christ, we will be blessed temporarily and spiritually when we pay our tithing, we will be blessed with miracles, All the apostles hold the keys of the gospel - President Monson is the only one with the authority to use all of them, all members can receive personal revelation, Satan is waging a war on us - we have the tools to win, the Lord continues to speak to us today, engage in meaningful prayer, do not lower our standards for any reason, live gospel courageously, press forward having faith, Christ's atonement conquers death, like the bible the book of mormon is additional evidence that the lord loves all his children, women are beloved of God, and go to the temple often.

{aRt chAse}

Provo City's Art Chase was a blast!
Apparently once a year Provo City has an art chase, it was on Friday night. This was our first time. You get a card that has a small portion of a piece of art that you are suppose to find. There were 9 pictures. You were suppose to find one in each gallery. Once you found it you get your card stamped or punched from one of the hosts at that gallery. Sam, Landon, Ally and I went. The kids had such a great time. They would go in and look around as fast as they could to find the art piece for that gallery. Then they would relax and get some goodies. Then we'd go outside and be entertained! Each gallery had food and entertainers (musicans, jugglers, one guy gave Landon a science lesson on fuel, I think, he wasn't part of the program!). One of the galleries had sticks and marshmellow so you could go back outside to the fire hand warmers and roast your marshmellow.

At the Covey Art Center the exhibit was artworks of Calligraphy, above is one that I enjoyed by Carole Taylor. Thanks David for sending it to me.

{oDDs & eNds}

As I was getting out of my car Monday, I was accosted by a man on a bike shouting, "Quit filling up your gas guzzling junk cars!" Now I realize that this wasn't a personal attack on me, but to everyone that was there at Costco filling up their tanks! At first I thought what a silly man. What good is yelling at a bunch of strangers going to do? I love, need, have to have my vehicle that is not going to change, however, it did lead to a discussion with Chris about oil prices. When we lived in Missouri there was a place between Joplin and Pierce City that we could buy gas for 88 cents, now, at the cheapest place in town it's $3.15. Seriously, has inflation gone up that much? NO, we keep hearing about how the big oil companies are reaching record breaking profits every quarter. Isn't there something that can be done? Our government can put regulations on everything, can't they cap the amount they charge their citizens for gas. I didn't believe the stories before how the gas prices are hurting consumers, but now several years later... people aren't spending as much money, because their necessities are taking up all that they use to spend on extra stuff, people aren't buying cars, which having Chris in the car industry makes for not a great few months, and now the truck drivers are on strike... surely something can be done. :(



Our backyard is a brand new elementary school parking lot. Last year they had a cornerstone laying ceremony for the school, where city and school board officials came and laid the first few bricks. Of course, the neighbors were all invited to help. The bricks were engraved with the school's name on them. Now that the school is complete those bricks are not there. They have been moved to pillars at the front entrance of the school. So I'm wondering what on earth was the point of having the cornerstone ceremony if you weren't even going to keep the bricks where they were?