When you think of September 11th, most Americans everywhere will reflect on the tragic event of that day in 2001; however, few are aware of the horror of the First September 11th. Known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre, this horrific event happened September 11, 1857. On that tragic September day, 120 innocent men, women, and children were brutally murdered by as many as 100 Mormon men all in the name of God.

This is a highly controversial incident, and a movie was made about this event. It’s called “September Dawn”, starring Jon Voigt. The dramatized movie does have a few fictionalized events mixed in, for example, a love story between a Mormon boy and one of the girls in the wagon train. The movie has received very poor reviews from critics. The most important thing to remember is that the MOVIE is a Hollywood drama, not a documentary, but the Massacre was a real event in history.

State Memorial The current memorial overlooking the Mountain Meadows Massacre Site was built by Utah State in 1990.

We visited the Memorial site of where this tragic event happened. We’ve been here twice. The first time at the beginning of March, we visited the 1999 Memorial, so that is why you see snow in the pictures. We just visited the 1990 memorial on Saturday, at the end of March, and you can see the snow has melted away. Both times we’ve visited, we’ve noticed a deafening silence over the meadow and a cold wind that blows. It gives you a chill just being at the site, knowing what happened there.  The site is located along Route 18 and is roughly 30 miles North of St. George, and roughly 30 miles South West of Cedar City. It is off the beaten path, not near any towns, yet both times we’ve been here, fresh flowers have been at the Memorial.

To read more about the Mountain Meadows Massacre, click the Show Me More button below. To see the pictures from the Memorial, click here.

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Yesterday, I went along with Cole’s Kindergarten class on a field trip to SUU (Southern Utah University) Farm.

We were given a tour of the farm by Assistant Professor of Agriculture and Nutrition Science Lee Wood, the director of the equine studies program.   He also happens to be the husband of one of the Kindergarten teachers on the field trip.

Cole holding a baby lamb…this was his favorite part!

We were first shown the cows, then the horses, and then the baby lambs that were just born.  They were literally only 2-3 days old.  The kids loved the lambs the best, and Cole was thrilled to hold one of the babies.  One of the mare horses is pregnant and ready to foal any day.  We hope to be able to go back and see the foal when it’s born.   The kids were excited to go through the cow corrals, pet horses, and feed baby lambs.

To see all the pictures from SUU Farm, click here!!! 

SUU students can ride the horses on the SUU Farm if they take a Horsemanship class offered at the University. Lee Wood teaches the class every Tuesday and Thursday.  I hope to take this class someday.

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March has been a busy month!  I definitely did not like having Easter in March, only a week away from St. Patrick’s Day.  It wouldn’t have been so bad if Saint Patrick’s Day was JUST St. Patrick’s Day…but this is also Brittany’s birthday.   So, two holidays in a week was a little hard to plan for!

Yes, we all fit in there!!

With the nice weather we’ve been having, we took out the quads and had fun at Three Peaks.  I’m really loving my Rzr!  The kids love going with me.  There was still a little snow out there, but mostly it was dry and we just had a blast. This was the first time we had all gone as a family, and it was fun trying to keep up with Scott on his sports quad.  I’m sure if he wanted to lose me, he could have, as I’m not the little speed demon he is!

We had so much fun until Scott decided to “break in” my quad, by taking it for a drive, and hauling butt in it.   He brought it back to me with a flat tire, and a huge gash in my tire!!!!     He did fix it for me in the next week, but I don’t think I’m going to let him drive it again!!!!  Boys are so rough with things!!!   To see all the pictures from our quadding trip, click here!!!

Blowing out the candles!!!

Brittany celebrated her 10th birthday this year!!  Officially DOUBLE DIGITS!!  She had a party at Godfather’s Pizza with 8 of her school friends and she had quite a fun time!  To see all the pictures from Brittany’s party, click here!!

Brittany’s new short haircut! Everyone loves it!

After Brittany’s birthday, we had a week to get ready for Easter!  Of course, it’s also spring cleaning time, so we spent quite a few days doing all that.  I’ve realized that having a big house is nice until you have to deep clean it!!!  Brittany got a cute new haircut during Spring Break…she cut off a lot of hair, but she looks so adorable with her new cut!!!

The kids had so much fun at Easter this year.  We did the usual egg hunt, but this year we had 2 golden eggs they had to find, one for each of them.   It took them both a while to find the special golden eggs, but Brittany did find hers first, and Cole practically sat on his egg before he finally found it.

Darn those camoflauge eggs hiding in the grass

They started opening their eggs, of course they started with the golden egg, and inside they found a clue!  Brittany had no idea what to do with it, so she put it aside, and started opening other eggs, until Cole got his clue and knew he had to find something.   I thought I’d try to hide their easter basket this year, and give them a clue to it.  They both loved the idea, and had a fun time trying to find their baskets.  They opened the baskets so quickly that I wasn’t able to get pictures of the baskets I made…but oh well!   You can see pictures of the egg hunt including the golden eggs here!!! 

The kids had a fun visit with Aunt Peggy.

The best part of Easter was having Aunt Peggy and Pam come to visit and enjoy Easter with us.  The kids had been looking forward to seeing her.  Aunt Peggy even got involved in playing with Dance Dance Revolution!  The kids had so much fun playing with her!!!  What a blast!!   To see those pictures click on the easter egg hunt link above, and they’ll be the last pictures in the album!!

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WoW! It’s been 3 months already since the last blog post…it’s amazing how fast time flies!

We’ve added a couple new pictures of the ferret babies, who are growing rapidly since we first got them. Just click on the thumbnails below to go to the larger size picture.

Brittany and Cole with Tidus and Dakota

Brittany with Tidus who is 3 months old

Cole with Dakota who is 5 months old

Our niece’s birthday is in February along with Scott’s, so Scott’s mom took us all out to the Ninja for dinner in celebration. What an amazing experience. Ninja is a Japanese steakhouse, very similar to Benihana. It opened in November 2007, with sushi, hibachi chefs, and an amazing performance each night. You have the option of sitting at the table where a chef will cook your entrees right in front of you, and they put on quite a show while they’re cooking. This Japanese cooking style is called hibachi or teppanyaki.

The chef’s talents include drumming their utensils, toss food in the air, and some even create a fiery stack of onions. Some of the chef’s even get interactive, by tossing food into your mouth. It was quite fun! The preparation of food at this restaurant is really a form of art and entertainment.

Speed Chen is the head chef at the restaurant, and we were lucky enough to have him prepare our food the night we were there, and he was quite fun and entertaining!

The restaurant offers beef, chicken and a variety of seafood such as lobster, halibut, salmon, scallops, shrimp and king crab legs. They also have a sushi bar. The chef asks the customer how they want their food and all entrees are cooked at their table.

For anyone who hasn’t been here, I would definitely reccomend it, even though it is a higher scale restaurant with higher scale meal prices, it is worth every penny.

Speed, co-owner of Ninja

All of us celebrating Scott and Jen’s birthday at Ninja’s.

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