" Colors in Motion " Dance Recital

After the Nutcracker Brooke made the choice on her own that she only wanted to do one day of dance a week instead of two. In order to keep the owner of the school as her teacher that meant she needed to take up tap again.

Brooke and I are so glad that she did, because Brooke is really good at tap! Brooke only had six months to learn her tap dance and the rest of the girls in her class had been doing it all year. We did have a challenge...We had many episodes of Brooke crying after dance because she said Mrs.Kathy yelled at her because she messed up in tap. ( Mrs.Kathy is strict and a yeller, but a very good teacher ) Brooke is not used to not being the best at everything...because normally is always excelling faster than all the other kids around her.  In the end it was a great learning experience for Brooke to stick tap out, because she was for sure one of the best girls in the class on stage that night of her dance recital, and she knew it!

Something interesting about Brooke is that she doesn't get stage fright like the other girls. In fact, I can expect Brooke to do her very best once she gets on stage. When watching Brooke at the rehearsal in her studio I kept asking Brooke if she was having fun or not? Because she wasn't smiling. Once Brooke gets on stage it's like she lights up with a smile and she is a real performer.

Brooke had three dances to remember at her " Colors in Motion " recital a few weeks ago. It was really impressive to see her go from ballet, to jazz to tap and remember it all without even one flaw...
Brooke really is an amazing little girl, with talents in many areas!

Thank you Grandma Pack for taking her and getting her ready for her recital because I couldn't get out of class early...Brooke always feels just as safe with Grandma Pack as she feels with Mommy. They have a special bond :)

"DON'T THROW AWAY THE PICKLE JARS," SAYS KEVIN

                   Empty and washed out pickle jars out in the garage at all times, so the bugs in the backyard can become a pet for a day...........

                          Random mid-day calls with instructions to bring Will to a construction site so he can see the bulldozer knocking down a building on Daddy's lunch break......
                       
                   Saturday morning picture texts sent to Mommy of Brooke holding the fish she caught, while Daddy and her were sneaking out to the lake, and Mommy and Will sleep in...........

  Brooke and Will excitedly pulling their red wagon full of fire wood into the backyard for tonight's smore making party......

                     
               Squeals of delight that fill our house almost every night around 6pm when the standard getting the bad guy wrestling matches begin.........


AND  WHAT OTHER DAD WOULD THINK TO BUILD A WAGON AND ATTACH IT TO A THREE WHEELED BIKE, SO HE COULD RIDE ALL THE KIDS AROUND THE NEIGHBORHOOD IN IT????  ONLY THE BEST DAD IN THE WORLD RIGHT???????

                                       ONLY KEVIN TURANO.....................


                 These are just a couple examples that display what an amazing Dad does for their children....
We are all so blessed and so happy to have Kevin as the Father and husband in our home....Life truly is an adventure because of him.....and NO ONE could replicate the kind of Dad he is to Brooke and Will.........

                                         Happy Father's Day Kevin, We love you!!!!!!!!!!!!

                        

                            

Heritage Park Activities

At Heritage Park the kids had fun riding on a little train, panning for gold in a very shallow stream, playing on a play ground, getting icecream and chips for Will, and talking to people dressed as pioneers who told stories of what their lives were like as pioneers.

                                                         Will and Bennet are the same age!

                     The kids who lived in this era used chalk boards to write and candles to see

                                 Brooke learned what it was like to milk a cow on this plastic one

                                        As always the kids always love petting the farm animals

Our Precious Blood Line

When we were in Utah we visited Heritage Park. It was really neat to show Brooke the exact place and replica of of her Great Great Great Great Grandfather John Pack's home.  There is also a  statue that he is on in memory of the first Latter Day Saints that crossed mountains for many miles even in freezing weather to get to the place they called Zion.

Biography from Wikepedia

John Pack was born in Saint John, New Brunswick. He married his first wife, Julia Ives, in 1832 in Watertown, New York. In 1836, Pack was baptized a member of the Church of the Latter Day Saints.

Pack moved to Kirtland, Ohio, then to Missouri, and then to Nauvoo, Illinois. He was a member of the Nauvoo Legion holding the rank of Captain. Pack also served as a policeman in Nauvoo.

Pack was in the first company of Mormon pioneers to cross the plains with Brigham Young. He held the ranks of Captain of Fifty in the company as well as Colonel in its military organization. At the time of Joseph Smith's death, Pack was serving as a missionary in New Jersey with Ezra T. Benson.

The University of Deseret, the predecessor of the University of Utah, began in the home of John Pack.

Pack served with John Taylor as one of the first Mormon missionaries in France beginning in 1849. Pack was in this mission until 1852, but he spent most of his time preaching in the Channel Islands.

 Will might not be a Pack by name, but he is by blood, and Pack's seem to go to any length to accomplish their goals. I see that in Will and Brooke. John Pack started what we know as the University of Utah in his home...........

Here is Brooke standing on the side of the house. We couldn't go in because they rent it out for events.....But it was neat to know we were standing on the same soil our ancestors stood on....Where a great work was done by them to bring the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to a place where all in the world would hear and be able to partake of the blessings that come with being a member.

No such thing as magic

I loved hearing Brooke talk with Bellamie's son in the car on the way home from church today.

Weldon: I think God lives inside our earth.

Brooke: God doesn't live inside the earth, if he did he'd be burning in lava, because that's what is inside the earth.

Weldon: God can live in lava, he is magic.

Brooke: There is no such thing as magic, the only magic on the earth is the Priesthood.

Weldon: There is too such thing as magic, what about the Sandman, Jack Frost and the Boogie Man, they use magic.

Brooke: I know who those guys are too. The sandman gives you good dreams. The Boogie Man gives you bad dreams and Jack Frost just makes winter frosty.

Weldon: Then how do they do that if they don't have magic?

Brooke: Well, they must be using the Priesthood.

Then Brooke wrapped it up by saying, " God lives in the Universe Weldon. "

Weldon: The universe?

I think Brooke gave up on it because she just answered and moved on...

Brooke: The universe like the stars and space that are all that way up in the sky.....

I am so glad that Brooke is attributing anything miraculous the power of God on the earth. It was funny, inspiring, and eye opening to hear little seven year olds thinking and discussing God. I am glad Brooke does know that worthy men can hold the power to act in God's name....

When we were in Utah we went to the Joseph Smith memorial building where they have videos and this statue of Joseph Smith, in memory of what he sacrificed for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ to be brought back to the earth...

As Latter Day Saints, we know that it was prophesied in the Bible that there would be a time when the Priesthood, or authority to act in Gods name, would be taken from the earth because the church and bible had been handed over to the government, and corruption did not allow God's spirit to reside with it's leaders any longer.

Amos 8: 11-12
Behold, the days would come saith the Lord God that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water but of hearing the words of the Lord. And they shall wander from sea to sea and from north even to the east and they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord and shall not find it.

God knew that in order to bring the Priesthood back onto the earth he would need a nation where there would be freedom. God helped bring that to pass with the formation of the United States of America.

In May of 1829 Peter, James and John who posses the keys of the kingdom ( Priesthood Keys )
 appeared to Joseph and Oliver and conferred on them the Melchizedek Priesthood, which allowed the necessary ordinances for salvation to be brought upon the children of God again.