FHE Downtown Bentonville

 I can't remember the last time we just got in the car and took a drive. We ended up walking the trails at Compton Gardens, discovering some new downtown art, and finding bentonville rocks. What a great place we get to live in. 

Camp Wild: Breakfast in the Park

 

Is it totally awesome or totally pathetic that most camp wild activities revolve around food? What can I say? We love to eat! 

I mixed up pancake batter for 80-100 pancakes and our hens provided 4 dozen eggs. Katie brought sausage, juice and chocolate milk. Julie handled syrups, paper products, bottled waters, and equipment for all the outdoor games. We loaded 5 bikes up on the van and met for breakfast and games at metfield park. The weather was gorgeous. The kids played tennis, mini golf, and rode bikes on the pump track. 

 

 

 

I brought a baking soda and vinegar powered rocket kit and Corbin, Jackson, and Sam

carefully assembled it. No launch. What a bust. Landon and Cold still had fun shaking baking soda and vinegar together though. 

 

 

After nearly 3 hours of park fun, we packed up and finished out our fun with Brain Freeze Sno Whips (formerly frozen tung) we miss the flavors of frozen tung, but the service was really wonderful at brain freeze. I'm easily bought by companies that go out of their way to make children feel welcome and appreciated. 5 stars for this! Plus the pineapple orange whip was pretty fabulous! 

 

 

Camp Wild: Roaring River Waterslide

When you have a group of over 20 people, you get a group discount! Woot woot! We took our Camp Wilders to the Roaring River Waterslide for some redneck fun. The moms had fun too! 

 

 

I had to take this pic so we can all quote 6 year old Corbin, "I just wanna be a shaw!" 

 

These. Kids. There were Willy, Allred, Shaw, Messick, and Heiner children all over that waterslide. 

 

 

 

 

 

All trips to the waterslide must end with giant ice cream cones at short stop! Sam's took the cake! I think he ate it all too! 

 

 

These Allred boys came along as Willy campers for the day. I loved having a van full of "extras", especially these funny, polite, wonderful boys. They're so great to my kids, and also great to each other. That's another miracle of Camp Wild. It doesn't matter who is there, the universal unspoken rule is that veryone is a friend to everyone else. Teens play with young kids and boys play with girls and parents play with the kids. We play hard and play well. It's just a lot of really good fellowship. 

 

Reese's Sacrament Meeting Talk on Gaining a Testimony

By: Reese

I was asked to give a talk on gaining a testimony.

Elder Sybrosky of the 70 said “Gaining a testimony is like what the Nephites went through when the Savior came to visit them. 3 Nephi 11 says, “At first they did not understand God’s voice because they were hearing with their ears only. But when they opened their hearts, they understood His voice.”  “And again the third time they did hear the voice, and did open their ears to hear it; and their eyes were towards the sound thereof; and they did look steadfastly towards heaven, from whence the sound came.”  “And behold, the third time they did understand the voice which they heard”

Opening your heart to the inspiration of our Father in Heaven is an important element of life. You will need His inspiration.

You face some unique challenges, and the way to overcome these challenges is to allow the Holy Ghost to distill upon you. Let Him guide you. Strength from our Heavenly Father comes to us spirit to spirit and heart to heart. And it is in the strength of the Lord that we can move forward. The Lord will provide that strength in our individual testimonies.”

You can gain a testimony by:

Reading the scriptures, Sharing what you know to be true, Obeying the Commandments, and Listing to the Holy Ghost.

President Eyring said “Testimony will come to you in pieces as parts of the whole truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ are confirmed. For instance, as you read and ponder the Book of Mormon, verses you have read before will appear new to you and bring new ideas. Your testimony will grow as the Holy Ghost confirms that they are true. Your living testimony will expand as you study, pray, and ponder in the scriptures”

At Girls Camp I finished reading the Book of Mormon for the first time by myself. This was a big accomplishment for me and it was a goal I had been working on for a very long time. Every morning at Girls Camp we would wake up and have personal scripter study time. I was almost done, so I would read and read, until on the 2^nd to last day of Girls Camp I finished the whole Book of Mormon. I felt so proud of myself for finishing!  Reading The Book of Mormon strengthened my testimony of Jesus Christ.  I learned that He will help me to do hard things.  This experience gave me courage to bear my testimony in a testimony meeting for the first time. 

Sharing your testimony is another way to confirm what you know to be true.  As I spoke, I could feel the Spirit strongly telling me that what I have read in the Book of Mormon was true. I feel closer to Heavenly Father and I understand the love that Jesus Christ has for me and for everyone. I have already started reading the Book of Mormon again.

When talking about a testimony, President Eyring said “But, like a growing plant, it must be nurtured or it will wither. Frequent and heartfelt prayers of faith are crucial and needed nutrients. Obedience to the truth you have received will keep the testimony alive and strengthen it.  Obedience to the commandments is part of the nourishment you must provide for your testimony.”

You will have more spiritual experiences the more you choose to obey, because following the commandments leads us closer to Jesus and helps us feel the spirit.

A testimony is a declaration of truth.  But HOW do you know what is true?

John 14: 26 says

“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”

We can rely on the gift of the Holy Ghost to help us gain a testimony because He always teaches us the truth.  I know that when I ask in faith I always receive an answer.  I know the book of Mormon is true. I know that Jesus Christ lives and that he will come again.  I know this is the true church. 

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Privacy

Hello to my 3 readers out there. 

I may need to take the blog private to secure privacy and my family's identity for a bit. 

If you read this lil' blog and want to continue to read, send me your email address. I really super dislike the inconvenience of a private blog for a million reasons. It's not an ideal option. I'll play with the other privacy settings first, but we'll see. 

Camp Wild Playing in Fayetteville

We're doing Camp Wild a little differently, this year and spreading out our jam packed days of crazy fun sporadically over the summer, vs every day for a week. I really just love to go go go from one place to the next, and the kids don't seem to mind this pace for adventures either, but all of our schedules and family vacations line up as such that this is the only way to make it happen. And happen, it must! A spontaneous adventure with my children, a little learning, a little nature, and a lot of dessert is a recipe for a very happy Meg and is the best therapy for me. It was a very good day. 

Stop 1: Hurts Donuts 

We discovered the greatness of Hurts by accident in Springfield, Mo, last year during camp wild. Lo and behold, a Hurts opened in Fayetteville last week!   We joined the masses. The favorites were maple bacon, Nutella, and cotton candy. 

 

 

 

Stop 2: the Confederate Cemetary 

 

Oh the raw beauty of this place. The unmarked headstones had only moss and age to tell the stories of the bodies at rest beneath them. Karie taught the kids a quick lesson about the symbolism and history behind putting pennies and other coins on graves. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stop 3: the Fayetteville National Cemetery 

Just a few miles down the road we have the pristine cemetery where the Union as well as  present day soldiers are buried. The juxtaposition of these two places of rest blows me away. Such a fascinating and take telling contrast. Both were lovely, reverent, and peaceful but I could feel a heavy sadness in the confederate cemetery that was replaced with sterility in the national cemetary. Maybe it's just the age and maintenance. Maybe not. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stop 4: Dickson Street Used Book Shop

This was a serendipitous find on our walk down Dickson street to get ice cream. We had time to kill before the truck opened and this whimsical gem was right on our path. We were all immediately entranced by the endless maze of hallways and nooks and corners stuffed floor to ceiling with books books books and more books. Reese said "this is my heaven!" Really, this shop is a muse for romantic comedies or playwrights. I half expected Lavar Burton go pop out of a crack between the walls with his reading rainbow dragon and tell me I "don't have to take his word for it." Magical. The younger kids played hide and seek, as encouraged by the shopkeeper. We were there nearly an hour and I didn't come close to seeing every room. Very cool place. 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Stop 5: Burtons Comfort Creamery food truck. 

I've been wanting to try this place for awhile, and thankfully, my Camp Wild sisters are equally gluttonous as I am and didn't mind feeling the kids ice cream for lunch when we still were so stuffed to near-puking with donuts. That won't hold us back. I had chocolate ice cream covered in salted caramel and pretzels. Some of the other kids had their cones coated in luxuries like fruity pebbles, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, fudge, sprinkles, Oreos and coco puffs. Quincy had a swirl coated in crushed Andes mints and when it was handed to her she said, "thank you for making this the greatest day of my life!" To the worker. Five stars for burtons. Ooh that salted caramel was delectable. Delayney led our campers in the camp wild song and then a few girls camp cheers and songs. This really delighted Reese, who is still riding a girls camp high. 

 

 

The Camp Wild crowd dissolved into our own families at this point, since each mom had different places to be this afternoon. When we got into the van we realized we were onlh 3/4 of a mile away from the Clinton House museum. So we went there, too!

Stop 6: The Clinton House Museum

 

Old houses are my love language. And this 1930's Tudor home is a charmer. 

I really enjoyed this little museum. Our tour guide told us about the very small, intimate wedding of the Clintons that took place right here (shown below) in their living room. Hillary had not planned on wearing a gown and was going to just dress in something from her closet, but her mother insisted she wear a dress on her wedding day. So the day before th wedding, they went to Dillard's and picked a gown off the rack for $50 for Hillary to be married in. I loved the tiny rooms, the tiny parlor, the separate breakfast and dining rooms. I wish the sunroom were still in tact and had not been closed in with gross cinserblock and laminate everything. 

 

My other favorite spots were the blazing bright salmon orange 1970's kitchen, the tiny breakfast nook with one photo of Bill's failed attempt to wallpaper an oddly shaped room with a million uncommonly angled corners. They took a photo of the project, and then tore it all out. 

The best part of the museum was the tiny First Lady Garden out back, boasting the favorite flower of each First Lady and little garden stakes with a photo and mini bio about each of them. I think a family history garden with a similar concept would be a really cool project for the kids to create. 

 

 

Big Art with a Little Artist

I had the opportunity to have a date with Q, this morning. We tried to go back to Crystal Bridges, but remembered it is closed Tuesdays. Then we decided to go to the Amazeum and buy a family pass, this year. Also closed. Orange rolls at Crumpet Tea Room? Closed. "Now what?" Quincy asked. 

I had an idea and we drove up south Walton blvd in search of the new Jason Jones mural. 

It  is spectacular. 

 

Quincy loved it. She also could not fathom how a person could paint such a large work of art. She said, "if I had to use one word to describe this, it would be "enormique" meaning it is enormous and unique." 

We liked that the octopus tentacles each grip little iconic pieces of Bentonville: Sam walton's truck, the water tower, the metal tree from the Crystal Bridges entrance, and a tandem bicycle. The rough brick on the building gives the octopus a rich velvety texture. It's just a very cool thing to see in person. We shared a deluxe grilled cheese sandwich across the street at Stonemill. 

 

Now we need to get to Fayetteville and scout out some other Jason Jones murals!