Elia's Life

Starting with Mom's traditional pumpkin sugar cookies. She made a batch today so that I could take some back to Rexburg. And since most of you who she talked to on the phone whined that you wouldn't be getting any, I decided to show you what you're missing. I thought this picture looked like the factory pictures they show on Food Network Mom still doesn't trust me with frosting So here is a cookie for each and every one of you, including Makadie. But don't worry about us, we had ours too. and just for the record. I have not lost a tooth, nor do I have a black tooth. It's just a chocolate chip eye.

This was our last stop on the tour of churches, and was kind of an anti-climatic experience. A very impressive and beautiful building on the outside, it's devoid of the paintings and statues that made the other two so neat. They did have three huge stained glass windows and they were pretty. We were met here by their head pastor Pastor Mike, who talked to us for about 45 minutes. But since he didn't have any symbols or paintings to talk aobut we got a mini-sermon. Part of it was history and beliefs (if you can call them that) of the church, but things are so relaxed that it felt more like we were getting a proselyting discussion. "Join our church because..." sort of thing. It was still enjoyable, and Pastor Mike was an enjoyable speaker. This is one of the windows. It's depicting Christ's resurrection, when the angel told the apostles that he wasn't there.

No one met us at the Cathedral, but Brother Hansen is more than adequate as a tour guide. For those of you who haven't been here, it is an impressive sight. Just beautiful. The Cathedral is really quite a site, very impressive from the outside The front arch over the doors holds statues depicting Christ, the apostles and others. This is the alter area, which is chock-full of symbolism which I won't go into here. Call me if you're interested. The organ loft was impressive with all the pipes and a gorgeous stain glass window depicting the patron saint of music. This was my favorite window. It's depicting Christ when he appeared to Mary Magdelene after his resurrection. I have another reason to like daisies. They were painted on several of the stations of the Passion and they represent the innocence of Christ.

Mom and I went on a field trip Thursday with my religion class to Salt Lake City. Now, I've gone to Salt Lake for church-related events many times, but this is the first time that it's involved three churchs that I don't belong to. For my History of Western Religions class Brother Hansen took us to the Church of the Holy Trinity- Greek Orthodox, The Cathedral of the Madeline (otherwise known as Mary Magdeline)- Roman Catholic, and the Presbytrian church across the street. It was so fascinating to see them, especially since Brother Hansen knows what he's talking about. We both decided that if we were going to leave our church, we'd join the Greek Orthodox. Not only because their building was beautiful, but because Father Michael, who gave us a tour of the place, was so nice. Every Greek Orthodox building has a dome at the center of the building to signify the heavens. It's usually adorned with a representation of Christ looking down over the congregation. Th...

A bizarre twist of birthday fun came when I found out that we were celebrating at the Weber State Homecoming football game. This may seem like a normal event for some people, but for a family raised on the evils of football, it was odd. But I guess it was a sacrifice for a good reason. Dad plays in his alumni band once a year, probably the only time his poor saxaphone sees the light of day. Mom and Dad dressed in their Weber State Purple (actually Mom's was a Yellowstone shirt, but we didn't tell anyone) This was the "Old Fart Band" group photo Dad's up and ready to play The Weber State Wildcat directed a few songs during the tailgate party. Dad still puffs his cheeks while he plays, an extreme "no-no" in my personal opinion.

As most of you know, it was my birthday last week. I turned 24 and only have one more year before I am "middle-aged", a thing that I am truly dreading. I know as the baby of the family I'm not allowed to talk about feeling old, but I'm not talking, I'm blogging, and that's allowed. Anyway, I had a fun birthday that was made signifigantly better by getting Mom and Dad's gift- a new, really, really, really nice digital camera. For those of you in the camera world, it's a Pentax (the only brand worth using) K100. For those of you not in the camera world, just know that it's a good camera. Anyway, when I got back to Rexburg, my roommates had done some decorating. My first clue was the banner on our front door. Then when I went in there was confetti all over the front room floor and streamers hanging from the ceiling of my bedroom. Yes, my bedroom is messy, but only because I was rushed before I left town. These are my roommates Elise and Melissa e...