April Antics

 Welcome back for another addition of the Davis Family 2024 year in review.  Today we will be discussing April 2024.   Be prepared for a massive photo dump because I did take a LOT of photos, but they are cool photos, or at least I think they are.  So, without any further ado, let's talk about it.

Whitley is not a very snuggly kitty.  He likes pets and attention on his own terms. So, I was very surprised when out of the blue, he jumped up on me for some snuggles.

Isn't he just the cutest thing??  Also, when I went to Colorado to visit with Elizabeth, I wore that blue blanket hoodie and Elizabeth and I decided that it's name needed to be Cookie Monster, and yes, I do call it Cookie Monster whenever I put it on.

You can always tell when the weather warms up and starts getting nice, because I start sporting around injuries on my arms.  No, Nathan doesn't beat me, the yard does.

Grignard decided to help us clean the leaves out of the ditch.  I also sat on a wasp and it stung me in a very sensitive spot.  That was not fun at all.  Yet, I still remain unafraid of wasps.

Cocoa Bean is my snuggly cat, and I just love it when she snuggles me.

In August of 2017 there was a total eclipse of the sun that went through the United States and we drove up to Idaho to watch it.  The drive home from that was an absolute nightmare, but we had a great time.  Well, the next predicted total eclipse of the sun to go through the United States was predicted to happen in April of 2024.  Back in 2017 we talked about going to see the eclipse in 2024, but life got in the way and it didn't seem like we would be able to make the plans to go.  Well, it's a total eclipse and we really didn't want to miss it, especially since the next eclipse in the USA won't be until 2044, so we made some VERY last minute plans and took off on a very wild four day adventure out to Russelville, Arkansas.  The Eclipse was set to happen on Monday, April 8th, and we (me, Nathan, Meow-meow, and Eilee) loaded up Moby and set off in the wee hours of Saturday April 6th.  It was General Conference weekend, so we listened to Conference on our drive.  We stayed in a hotel in Colorado which was near the Colorado/Kansas border.  I remember that it was very windy and the wind woke us all up at an unearthly hour.  Since we were all awake, we decided to get an early start on the day.  We drove through Kansas and Oklahoma and stayed in a hotel in Sallisaw, Oklahoma which was near the border of Arkansas.  There were a lot of people staying at that hotel for the very reason we were.  We planned on getting up really early so we could hopefully beat traffic getting into Oklahoma because we were attempting to get as close to the center of the path of totality as we possibly could.  We got an early start that Monday morning, and thankfully didn't run into to much traffic getting to the eclipse, leaving is a whole different story.  The location we settled on was a little town in Arkansas called, Russelville where we found a lovely little park, and were the first ones to arrive there.  It didn't take very long though before the park was filled up to the brim with people who had traveled from all over to see the eclipse.  Eilee and I walked through the parking lot and found license plates from all over the United States, we even found two other cars from Utah, so we weren't the only ones representing Utah!!  We hit a ton of traffic on the drive home, but it wasn't nearly as bad as trying to get out of Idaho in 2017!!  I think it's because there is a lot more highways and freeways in and out of Arkansas so that we weren't stuck in heavy traffic for too long.  We took a different route home that took us through the Ozarks, which are beautiful by the way.  We went through Missouri, cutting through Kansas, and then into Nebraska where we stayed at a hotel in Manhattan, Nebraska.  The final leg of our journey was on Tuesday the 9th, where we arrived home late in the evening, very worn out from 4 days on the road, 22 hours each way, but very happy that we made the crazy trip to go see the eclipse.  And now for the promised and long anticipated photo dump....

Starting out our journey in the wee hours of Saturday morning.  It was cold and dark as it is in the early parts of April

Welcome to Wyoming

I somehow missed taking pictures of getting into Colorado and Kansas.  The traffic in Colorado was terrible!!  The wind in Colorado was also terrible!!

We had adventures on the road, especially in Oklahoma.  Those adventures involved an entire biker gang.  See, there were these two cars who thought it was a good idea to tailgate said biker gang, and said biker gang did not appreciate it any.  We had front row seats to watch as these two cars tried to pass the biker gang, only to be thwarted by them.  This cat and mouse game went on for several miles before the biker gang got off the freeway.  It was quite hilarious.  The scariest part about our road adventures was when we were coming home.  We had just passed through Laramie, Wyoming when to semi trucks decided to have a bit of road rage "fun."  One semi purposefully tried to run the other semi off the road, so the other semi tailgated him, then passed him and cut him off to the point that he had to slam on his brakes, which almost caused an accident.  Again, we had a front row seat to the whole affair, and that was a front row seat I'd rather not have been a part of.  The minute we could safely get passed those two idiot truck drivers, we put the pedal to the metal and got as far ahead of them as we could.

There was a nice playground at the park we went to, and Meow-meow made some friends.

It was cold in Utah, but a lovely 83 degrees in Arkansas.

Someone told us that if we put some paper towels around our glasses, it would make a kind of shield that would help keep out the light and make our viewing experience much better.

I think it just made us look like a bunch of goobers.  I guess it did help a little.

Eilee enjoying the sunshine and warmth.  Actually she was probably overheating, but I was sure enjoying the warmth.

Meow-meow just chillin' in the back of Moby.

Kicked back, relaxed, enjoying the sunshine and the heat, waiting for the eclipse.  You couldn't have asked for a more perfect day.  

There were several people who came to the park with fancy telescopes.  This is a picture of the eclipse they took looking through their telescope.  It was pretty cool.

I loved how the clouds made weird patterns during the eclipse.

If you look closely, even shadows from the chair made an interesting pattern.

And of course the crescent shaped patterns the leaves made

Looks like you are 35,000 feet in the air flying over some mountain ranges.

It's really cool how the eclipse makes things the shadows look so different.

I was pleasantly surprised to get such a decent shot with just my little phone camera.

This is one I took by putting my viewing glasses over my camera lense.  

Goodness, it was such a lovely day.  

Getting darker.

Totality

This is the traffic we had to sit through after the eclipse.

It still wasn't as bad as 2017 trying to get out of Idaho.

We took a different route home that took us through the Ozarks.  They are very beautiful, but they are still baby mountains.

Some morning fog in Nebraska.

Sunrise in Nebraska.

Welcome back to Utah!!  We were so exhausted by this point and just wanted to get home.  We all cheered when we saw this sign!!

A friend in my ward shared these photos of the eclipse that her son took.  They went down to Texas for the eclipse and were worried if they would get to see the eclipse or not because Texas was having some storms going on.  There were quite a few people that we talked to at the park we were at who said that they had originally gone to Texas to view the eclipse, but because of the weather down there, they decided to make their way up to Arkansas.  Thankfully the clouds parted and the people down in Texas were able to see the eclipse.  

Got me some personalized license plates for Moby II.  He was perfect for loading up mine and Jacen's recumbent bikes.  We found a lovely bike path and would often load up our bikes, drive to the bike path, and have a lovely time riding around.

Tiger Lily winning more awards at wrestling.

I married a giant.

Eilee got her drivers license!!!  YAY!!!

We went to the Layton Temple open house!!  I was so excited for the temple to open!!  I've never lived this close to a temple before, I mean, I can see it from my bedroom window!!  Plus, the exciting news is that I was going to be an Ordinance Worker when it opened in June!! Which, by the way, I absolutely love!!

So, one particular day, Jacen and I decided to go for a bike ride on a different bike path than our usual one.  It was less shady, we rode longer than we normally did, and I forgot the sunblock..... Yeah, it was quite painful.  I won't be doing that again!

Meow-meow and his cousins making up plays.

He's almost as tall as she is.

And that's all she wrote for April 2024!................... 

Speaking of Jimmy.  Shall we see what fun things Jimmy was doing during the month of April 2024?

We got two emails from Jimmy during the month of April, and this is what he had to say.

The first email is from April 9th

Good stuff, good stuff. Just like be baptizing fr fr.  Nothing really notable happened these last two weeks. Pretty much missionary work. Did a puzzle, almost done with my tie which is sick. The betkers are anchored ️ so that is sweet. General Conference was fire from the heavens. Elder Holland is back and dang that talk he gave was an opener. Also clearly a lot of talk about temples and covenants. Plus a whole new 15 temples, 2 in Utah alone.  Went on an exchange with some elders it's been fun. Elder hammy has a week and a day or two days left. Single digits for him. He's getting excited. The eclipse was cool. Only like a little bit here and there tho. What's funny is that when ever we go to the betkers the 3 kids there all think elder Hammond and i are trees they have us stick our arms out and then they swing on them. Looks like I get Indian burns afterwards. Anyways I hope you all are having a great April so far. Keep it going hard my dear family and Friends. 

Now general conference was a great opportunity for me to take some notes and really improve upon them. Usually at home I would pull up a desk and chair and play some "mindless" games. But this conference I really tried to write down things that stuck out or that I felt like I should write down. Now I could share what I wrote down with you. But I would rather share with you all just the feeling I got during this fruitful april general conference. The feelings I felt were: peace, wonder, focus, unfillable, warmth, strength, patience. From galatians 5: 22-23 it tells us how we feel the spirt, what feelings does the spirit give us. It says 

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 

23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."

Especially for people who are newer to the gospel, understanding general conference and the language of the scriptures can be difficult. But before you understand the scriptures and our Beloved prophets and apostles, you must understand the spirit. Our bishop invites everyone at their baptism to go home and write down in asmuch detail the feelings, thoughts, and impressions they got while at their baptism. Which is what I am going to invite you all reading this to do. No matter if you are new to the gospel or not. But I'm going to invite you to pick a talk from this last conference, and listen carefully. While listening write down the feelings you get. From that I can promise you that what ever you need to hear. The spirit will testify it to you through your feelings.

The second email is from April 17th

How are you all doing? Made it throught another week or so. It's been lots of extravagant fun out here. General Conference was super cool, lots of great talks from our Beloved church leaders, apostles and even our wonderous prophet of God. Still studying them talks. Softball was super good. Got the whole zone out and played ball what can I say. Got some eyescream. Yum yum. Finished another puzzle, went on a fun exchange while elder Hammond went to go get Departing interviews. And the betkers 2 got baptized! This time the baptism went a lot smoother. While filling up the font we found like a bug that was like 1.5" long. The thing was massive and we couldn't even kill it. Eventually it's fate caught up with it and we through it away. Thank goodness it didn't pop up during the baptism. This wonderful ordinance of God always uplifts me and I am so happy for the betkers. We found them through the 5 list( lessactives, prospective elders, part member families, ect for those who don't know) such a lovely family and the path of rightness is what's ahead of them. There was this guy named Kevin who we taught a little bit. But we have been seeing him everywhere now. We were in the Hamptons(an apartment complex) and he just appeared out of no where and said, HEY, I know you. We also were waiting for a stop light with our bikes and he said, HEY, and start waving his hands everywhere in his car. After that we saw him in his old apartment, he came out and was for sure on some WoW. He started Kung fu fighting. Literally was like spinjitzuing and doing Kung fu chops and like kept hugging us. Got like super close to elder Hammonds face. But no worries, no harm was done just some laughs. After that we left and he went back in. Other than Kung fu fighting kevin, it was a pretty regular week. Elder Hammond has entered into the trunkNess stage, the endless stage of packing and asking members if they are going up to Utah sometime soon. We went to a members funeral which was very sweet, met her once but she was basically the grandma of the ward and she was from Japan. Finished my tie, and the sister made all the elders in my district ties aswell. And it's getting hotter down here. Past few days have been bright sun, high 80's. A member also gave us a drink. The drink is called liquid death. It's basically water packaged in a can that looks like beer. Its funny cause its just water. Anyways a meber comes out with a whole box of them to give to elder Hammond. We had brother Jacobsen our with us and he didnt know what it was. So when we popped one out hes face was of must concern towards elder Hammond. It was funny. Then we got to go to the temple with a recent convert. Transfers came up, elde Hammond is going home. Im staying, my new companion is elder barker. That's pretty much the week. Thanks for tuning in.

-Elder Davis

Stay tuned for tomorrow when there will be an even bigger photo dump than from today.