A Temple! A Temple! Part 2

I wrote a couple years ago about the announcement and ground breaking of our Brigham City Temple.  Here we are, summer of 2012 and it is finished.  The outside was finished and Moroni placed on top in July of 2011, then the long year while finish work on the inside and landscaping on the outside were being performed.  Now that I've been inside, I am surprised they accomplished it in a year.  It is an amazing building.  Joanie and I have been helping as ushers for the open house.  I got to go with the Young Men and Young Women and put shoe coverings on people's shoes to help keep the inside clean.

Here are some pictures of what has been going on the past couple of years:

Skeleton of the Temple

Precast Concrete Panel Skin going on outside

Crane lifting exterior panels on

"Holiness to the Lord, House of the Lord" being put in place

Steeple being hoisted up

Installation of Steeple

Moroni being lifted up

An Angel Flying through Heaven

Nick Enjoying the crowd during Moroni's Installation

Moroni being put in place

Securing Moroni

Family in front of the corner stone during open house

Nick helping place shoe coverings on people

Nick after a fireside for the Temple

Gabby at the fireside

Lots of youth

Joanie on our way through the parking garage going to act as usher on 3rd floor

Baptistry

Ordinance Room

Ordinance Room

Bride's dressing room

Celestial Room

Peach Blossom Window

Railing

Desk at Entrance

 

Grand Hall

Sealing Room

Outside View

From the Front

Skyline View

Hot and Dry

Boy, what a hot, dry summer it has been.  Despite that, summer has been filled with church camps, family camps and a small family getaway to Idaho.

I got to go to Priest Camp for the first time.  We went to some National Forest land above Bear Lake.  This was interesting because the leaders stayed in trailers and the youth stayed in tents.  Not too shabby actually.

I made a hammock which was quite popular with the boys as well as myself.  The older I get, the more comfort becomes important to me.

The very next week was Boy Scout Camp.  The leaders stayed in tents on this one...I made sure that comfort was on top of the list.  I splurged for a nice cot and pad.  I was pretty darn comfortable.

It was lots of fun to watch Nick swim and be excited for the merit badges he would earn.  That kid can swim so much better than his old man.

As a family, we went to McCall, Idaho and stayed in a condo with DeVon and Julie.  We spent a couple days up there and then a couple days in Boise.  Nick and I fished, the family rode bikes and just enjoyed being somewhere different.

Nick investigating fishing possibilities

Joanie finishing up a bike ride

Nick and Gabby trying their best model poses

Family bike ride in Boise...very bike friendly town!

Nick at a high altitude alpine reservoir

Nate and Joanie posing in the mountains

Dinner is always a good time for a picture

A trophy bass fishing lake in McCall-  I didn't catch any though

We purchased a trailer this summer.  I took it with the Priests to our camp, that was nice.  We since took it up to our camping property and have left it up there for the rest of the summer.  The kids are now in school and it's doubtful we will have much camping left this year so we will probably bring it down on Labor day.  The kids got to bring up friends; playing at the lake (and in it's mud) and animal watching are favorite activities.

Mud Baths

Moose

Embrace Your Inner Geek

I've made web pages to showcase my family for many years...it is a nerdy thing I do.  I am sure very few people even find their way to those web pages but I don't care.  They've mostly been a place to display a few pictures and maybe show some of our interests.  Well, it was time to update again so I took some photos that we recently had taken and used them as the foundation for our web page.  Well, I thought it looked good and I was doing it to impress my wife so this is how it turned out:

http://natehammer.homeip.net

 It didn't take long for my wife to comment that I had begun "Scrapbooking" which obviously has a feminine tone to it.  Well, I decided that I could do the same with a more masculine feel.  One of my favorite pictures of myself is one of me leaning up against my motorcycle.  That triggered a thought and I began building a website around the motorcycle image.

 

http://natehammer.homeip.net

It will be interesting to see comments I get when I post both pages.

Another project I recently finished was a little more networking at home and increasing the connectivity of our entertainment center.  I purchased Joanie a new TV and Blu-Ray player for Christmas.  I've since run network cables up into the wall behind our TV and connected both to our home network providing internet access for both devices to bring in additional content.  That has been fun.  Now with a wireless keyboard we sit across the room and pull up internet TV programs or over the air digital TV signals as well as having connectivity to our internet connected Blu-Ray and Wii Console.  I may not be a handy man but when it comes to geekiness I feel like I thrive.  I do think I impressed my son when I pulled down a remote control app on my phone and tablet that controls my Blu-Ray without using its remote.  Why is it that the app has better functionality than the real world remote??  Maybe it is the flexibility.

We ditched our landline (reluctantly...I felt like I was abandoning the heritage my dad built as a telephone man) and went to Voice over IP.  That was fun as well.  The 1890s wall phone that I got from my dad is wired into my phone network at home and it still rings, so I guess I haven't abandoned it all.




There's a sweet beauty to a wooden phone and when it rings with its real bells it makes me smile.

I've been getting my geek-fix wherever I can.  I have been watching Star Trek-The Next Generation in order and that has been fun.  Most of my family members don't enjoy the sci-fi quite as much as me so I am kind and do it when they're not around.