MAY-JUNE 2022

We had a VERY busy couple of months...so there are lots of photos to show just a bit of what was going on.

Bree celebrated their graduation from University of Utah Master's Program and we got to join in the celebration!

My school year was wrapping up and as usual, the kids LOVED packing suitcases when we studied airplane trips.

Graduation was a lot of fun with my AM Class...

...and with my PM Class!

Our yard was the perfect place for treats afterwards!

I had 18 adorable students like Louisa here.

Scott and I spent the weekend up north hunting birds...but wondering at times if WE were being hunted.

We saw this juvenile COUGAR at Lee Kay Ponds in SLC.

Antelope Island was home to many Meadowlarks...

...and one of our favorite birds the Chukar.

This is one of my all-time favorite photos of a Long-billed Curlew.  I think it looks like the Beatles crossing Abby Road.

We love when our Birding Nerding brothers get together to bird.

This outing was at Yellow-Fork in Herriman.

We took both Aaron and Mitch out to the Provo Airport Dike at different times hunting the rare Tri-colored Heron that was in the area.  Found it with Aaron, but not with Mitch.

The end of May we got to have Austin's family here for a few days.  The kids got right to work 

LEGO-ING!

And Scott took Austin to the EAGLES CONCERT in SLC, the reason for their visit.  They had a great time!

We just loved having company at the house.

CLARA

MACKENZIE

BROOKLYN

And EVAN

We spent a day at Thanksgiving Point at the Museum of Natural Curiosity.

The kids are good to humor us with going on birding outings.

It was so hot this day out at the airport dike, but the kids spotted a SORA this day which is rare to see.

We had a nice visit up at Carole's house visiting her and Lori with the kids.

We also had fun at ASHTON GARDENS with DINOSAUR ISLAND.

The garden has all sorts of animatronic dinos for the summer.

We enjoyed looking for all the kinds of dinosaurs.

Uncle Braden came along for the outing too!

It was fun having the kids here for MEMORIAL DAY this year too.  They joined us at Mom's grave and for Pizza Pie Cafe afterwards with family.

A couple days later, we had left for our BRITISH ISLES TRIP.

After many travel fiascos, Scott and Lori and I  met up with Al, Kelly and Lauryn in Dublin.

Our first night we went over to BUNRATTY CASTLE for an Irish dinner and entertainment.

It was really a fun introduction to Ireland!

The next AM, Scott and I were up early and out on a walk looking for new BIRDS of course!

This is a European Robin.

We found about a dozen new birds just that first morning.

Scott and I were technically chaperones on this trip and this was our group named "Scotland"

We learned a lot about the Irish culture from our bus driver and Irish Tour Director, Don.

This is a Gaelic Football star...we had to learn about this interesting sport.

The entire country was lush and green and so beautiful!

Here we are at the CLIFFS OF MOHER.

They are huge and steep.  They have been in many famous movies including "The Princess Bride" and  "Harry Potter."

This is the Taylor Family group on the tour:

Lauryn, Kelly, Lori, me, Scott and Alan.

Back in Dublin we stopped by the oldest pup in the country, the Brazen Head, but there was no room for us to eat dinner.

We saw the Book of Kells and the incredible library there at Trinity College.

During lunch, we would explore while the others went out to eat.  We picnicked with some gulls in the rain today.

This is St Peters in Dublin, an incredible Church building.

Looked like a perfect place for a photo...

We stayed outside Dublin in the country at a really nice hotel!  It had extensive trails and gardens so we saw lots of birds on our early AM walks.  This is a Bullfinch.  Really pretty.

On our bus tour of the city, our guide took us to Queens University.

This is the Great Hall there with portraits of famous graduates of the university.

 

Next we went to Northern Ireland and to Belfast.

Our guide taught us a lot about the political and religious differences that have prevailed in this area.

Supposedly things are better now, but you still feel like there is big segregation.

Anyways, this big wall was between Catholic and Protestant communities when there was constant fighting.  Now it is a graffiti wall that you all sign with messages of peace.

It was a special experience to sign it.

From here we went to GIANT'S CAUSEWAY on the northeastern coast.

Coolest hexagonal blocks naturally formed from the volcanic rock and activity there.  

Legend has it that the Scottish giant came over to fight the Irish giant.  When the Irish giant saw how huge the Scottish one was, he went home and hid in a cradle in his home.  When his wife opened the door to the Scottish giant and told him that he was not home, the Scottish giant saw the supposed baby giant and figured the Dad must be HUGE so he hustled back to Scotland.  Ha!  

Here we are at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland.  It was complete and really fascinating to tour.

Exterior of Edinburgh Castle

On the streets of Edinburgh.

We went to a Scottish dinner and dancing called "ceilidh" and pronounced Kayla.

We tasted Haggis just to say we did.  Not nice.

We drove past this statue of a famous dog named "Bobbie" that is buried at Grayfriars Church in Edinburgh.

Fortunately, I had looked up our relatives in the places we were visiting and knew I had a Great-Great Grandpa James Gardiner who was Christened at Grayfriars Church so we planned to visit there.

We were prompted to leave the rest of the family shopping to go to the Church where we met these two men who told us all about the Church and area.  The Church was closed to the public and these men would have been gone if we waited so we felt really blessed!

Here is Grayfriars.  It is also home to a cemetery which supposedly JK Rowling used some names for characters in her books.

And the school next door may have inspired Hogwarts or the different "Houses."

Scott and I outside Grayfriars Church.

We stopped at this cool metal sculpture of horses heads.

Inside Sterling Castle at the border between Scotland and England.  Incredible carved tiles in all the ceilings here.

Funny photo op near the castle and tower nearby.

We could have spent all day walking around Loch Katrine.  It was so beautiful!

Scottish highland cows with their long hair!

Chilling on the streets of York England.

A European Goldfinch.  Nothing like ours.

One of my favorite stops on this trip was Chatsworth House.  Yes, this is "Pemberly" in Pride and Prejudice.

It was just incredible, the house and the lands.

Dining area

Statue room familiar to viewers of Pride and Prejudice.

Here again, we could have explored here ALL DAY!  But we only had a couple hours.

The grounds went on just FOREVER...so many little places like this rocky paradise.

We loved it here!

On to Robert Burns birthplace and Ann Hathaway's cottage in different towns.

This is Ann Hathaway's home.

Stratford on Avon at a little college there.  So beautiful!

We had to try a meat pie while we were here!

And we had to make fun of this sign.

We are in London now.  Kensington Palace.

We hiked about 3/4 mile through gardens trying to get to our tour appointment and were very late!

This meant we had to rush, but we made it!

The gardens outside the palace were really pretty.

We took the Subway here called the TUBE.

Here we all are with our England Tour Director Michael.  He was crazy.  Always saying "Wakey-Wakey" and his voice was like Fronc from "Father of the Bride" since he was Hungarian.

Near Big Ben in London.

Westminster Abby

The Tower Bridge

Scott got to meet up with one of our returned missionaries, Ben Fagersten, who lives in the London area.  Very cool!

On our morning walk the next day, we got to see Buckingham Palace since it was accessible only through St James Park where we walked.  Many things were gated and fenced off due to the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee that had been celebrated a week before our arrival.  

This is in the Royal Museum of Art.  It is a self-portrait of Rembrandt at AGE 63!  Hence, we are seeing how we all look together at this age!

We had been looking forward to maybe going to Harry Potter World while we were in London but no tickets were to be had...so we settled for next best, PLATFORM 9 3/4 at Kings Cross Station!!

It was really fun to get pictures taken here!

Our last night in London we got to go see the Broadway Musical WICKED!

It was so great!

Lori reminded me that the first time we saw this show was with Jenna when she was expecting Carter...over 12 years ago!

We had the BEST TIME on this trip and it was more fun because of family.

The day after we returned, Scott took his Jet Lag on the road over to CAPE VERDE near the west coast of Africa.  He was there for a temple dedication but also saw some fun birds like this Kingfisher.

Cape Verde Temple

A couple days after Scott returned home, we had more visitors!

First Jenna and Klay and Cassidy arrived.

They were great helpers with our raspberry picking.  This year we have tons of berries after I thought the plants would never produce!

We spent a day at museums at Thanksgiving Point.

This is at Museum of Curiosity.

Farm Country

They loved riding horses

They also loved the Rec Center!

Klay loves the slides!

And so does Cassidy!

Ty brought the older boys the next day so they could start BYU Basketball Camps.  I will shave to get some photos from Jenna and show more of what we did in our JULY blog post in a couple weeks!
 

APRIL 2022

April found me still in Washington watching Austin and Laura's kiddos for a couple more days.

I got to take Evan to his first baseball practice!

We watched a TON of General Conference and did all sorts of great BINGO activities and then had FHE about the Last Supper and how it was also during the PASSOVER.  We ate some "unleavened bread" using naan bread and some "bitter" herbs using Spring mix.  It was a good discussion and activity.  (Notice the honey on the table...well, that was good on naan as well!)

Monday was HAT DAY at school during Spirit Week.  Everybody got in on the act!

Dad and Mom got back Monday night...

...and Tuesday Scott arrived to liven things up a bit, or to become a big pillow?

We of course got out to do some BIRDING with whoever would go with us!

This Osprey was really great!

We also saw tons of Great Blue Herons nesting near one of the rivers we walked by.

Austin and Laura and Clara were great birding buddies!

We love some of the unique birds to this area like the Red-breasted Sapsucker.

Clara was our buddy during the day when the other kids were at school and we had lots of good times!

We did get the kids out with us one day...

And they loved seeing things like these Wood Ducks near the river trail.

We also got to take pictures of the family that has grown up with Microsoft...as Austin transitions now to Google mid April.

When they started out, they just had baby Brooklyn.  A lot of great changes for those 10 years!

Back in Utah it was back to business as usual...like more birding?

This is a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, which normally does not show red at all, but we have found if I play a recording of a kinglet song, they get sort of excited!

Spring means the return of our migrating water birds like this Black-necked Stilt.  I love their pink legs!

We also love the Sandhill Crane returning to the fields near our home.

And, the return of our very own Say's Phoebe that sleeps on our porch every night.  He's back and we love to hear him sing at night and early in the morning as he comes and goes.

It is not just birds that we see in the spring.  We have seen some foxes out near the lake that are so pretty.

We have gone to temples pretty much each month with our YSA and we love that.  This is at the Provo Temple.

This little guy is a rare Harris's Sparrow that we actually found and ID'ed at the north shore of Utah Lake.  We were pretty excited to get to report him.

A highlight this month was celebrating McKenna's graduation with her Master's Degree in Exercise Science from BYU.

She is such a hard worker and has finished her classwork and is working on her thesis now.

BYU holds only one graduation annually now so we got to celebrate early!

The college of Life Sciences is the largest group of all the graduation ceremonies on campus so it was a long wait, but very good speakers and such.

Seems just like yesterday McKenna was graduating from the U of U and then Braden from BYU.

The next week I got to take my whole Preschool up to BYU via bus.  This is a favorite field trip and so exciting for the kids!

I wear them out walking all over campus and we love the Eyring Science Center to explore.

This is the traditional "Tree of Life" statue photo.

And, the BYU COUGAR photo.

These are really great kids!  I am going to miss them in a few weeks when school is over!

Mid April we took Carole and Lori to TULIP FESTIVAL at Thanksgiving Point.  It was chilly but really a good time to walk somewhere beautiful and talk and be together.

It has been such a cold year that the flowers were slower in blooming but still very pretty!

We have loved seeing some more spring birds like this cute Blue-gray Gnatcatcher.

And this Earred Grebe.

Another Temple trip to do baptisms this time in the Provo City Center Temple. It was a sweet experience taking a new member from our Ward.

We love TULIP FESTIVAL and got to take Bree and Elliot and Braden and McKenna later this month.  The tulips were much more open this time...just beautiful!

It was a little cold and windy, but we had a great PICNIC CHARCUTERIE near the gardens that was a lot of fun!