Is it the Utah War or Utah Expedition?

I have an article on the Deseret News (Mormon Times) Web site today about the 14th annual Leonard J. Arrington Lecture held at the Logan Tabernacle!

It's about the future history (if that makes any sense) of the Utah War. It was a very interesting lecture; I have never heard much about that war, which I learned isn't suprising. (There hasn't been much published about it)

I have to admit, it was quite challenging trying to write about something that I have no background in. Luckily, I used my trusty recorder, listened to parts of the lecture dozens of times, and did my best.

More Utah War attention predicted

My last article

This is the last article I did as a Mormon Times intern! I really enjoyed my time at the DN and feel like a learned a lot of great things (although sometimes I had to learn the HARD way). I miss it!

The importance of Lucy Mack Smith's record.

Opera: Just what the world needs: More fat women screeming

We are just sitting watching Everybody Loves Ray and I heard this brilliantly inspired quote! Ha!

Well, we've officially moved to lonely Logan.

What else do we have to say? We don't know.

Ben's blurb: I've got nothin'.

(We've had kind of a rough day).

The glorious Redwoods

We traveled through barren, sizzling desert, over smoky mountains (literally -- we drove through a forest fire west of Redding, Calif.) and into the cool, dark, misty trees of the Redwood National and State Park in northwestern California!

I don't know if I've seen anything so beautiful or different in my whole life! The trees were ginormous, the forest was thick, and the spiderwebs were ... a glistening creepy.

By our second day of camping, everything had a thin film of moisture, even though the forest has not had rain since may!




The mornings were cloudy, the sun peeked out for a couple hours in the afternoons, and the clouds blew in again in the evenings. And, partly because we came from the hot dry Utah climate and partly because I'm just a wimp, I was cold the ENTIRE time! Brrrr!




The closer we got to the ocean, the thicker the fog got. We learned that the Redwood trees depend on that fog to survive.

I didn't want to leave. I was pretty sure that, on our hike through the thick damp, tick-infested forest, I spotted a vampire or two lurking about. But, maybe I was just seeing things...

And, yep, we drove through a tree!

I find the ocean so mesmerizing. It's like therapy.

Ben might need therapy after spending a week with nobody but ME!

Maybe it's just the ticks getting to him ...

Breakfast before packing up on the last day ...

Happy trails to you!

Elder Oaks

I had the opportunity to meet Elder Oaks on Friday! He spoke at the Lyman Family Reunion,which I was assigned to cover for the Mormon Times.

I had to go through Church public affairs to make sure he knew I was coming. After I contacted them, they called me back and said, "Elder Oaks is expecting you to introduce yourself to him, and he will give you a copy of his talk." I was nervous all day! But, he was EXTREMELY helpful.

He gave a very interesting talk. Here's the link to the story: Be cautious about LDS history articles, Elder Oaks said.

Mormon Times stories

I wrote two stories over the weekend:

The Pioneer Heritage Festival on Saturday.

The Ogden Stake Centennial celebration on Sunday.

Happy trails to you!

Anyone know how to put up links to other blogs?

We're dumbfounded.

We're also trying to put up a photo gallery, but can't figure out how to get our photos in the gallery.

Is it sad when all my younger sisters are more computer savvy than their eldest sister?

Perhaps Emily will be so kind as to give me a lesson in the matter someday.

Oh, well. At least I can try to talk like Edward.

This is the most recent picture of Ben and me, taken at the "Wilson family photo" last week!