A visit to Salt Lake

The Great Salt Lake has no outlet and so the mountain water that finds it way to the lake eventually evaporates leaving the shallow lake water that remains two to five times as salty as the ocean.

One prominent sign in the Visitors Center declares, "Not everything is dead", which wins the prize for most morbid welcome center banner. Brine shrimp the size of a grain of rice thrive and provide a rich meal for the Utah state bird, which surprisingly, is the seagull.

The state park is a large, mountainous, high desert island in the middle of the lake. It has become a preserve for bison, antelope, and people on bikes. But the first thing you notice is the powerful salty odor of the dried out marshes that line the receding lake this year.

But once you drive onto the causeway and out to the island it's a more pleasant and scenic environment.

We found our way to the "beach" which was a little chilly today but will probably make for a popular summer spot for the kids.

Gospel-Powered Parenting

This parenting book stands above the rest.

There are two things that Farley does particularly well that I'd like to draw attention to.

First, he distances himself from those that insist we must remove our children from the world (e.g. public schooling, Halloween, etc) in order to protect them from the world. He acknowledges that parenting always involves some protection, but he righly points out that an isolationist mentality often ends up with legalism. Farley recommends parents raise up their children not by changing and controlling their environment (things external to their children), but by going after their hearts.

Second, he picks up a theme from a great parenting book from the 1970s, How to Really Love Your Children, and emphasizes the importance of affection and different ways to show it to your children.

In places Farley sounds a lot like Tripp's Shephering a Child's Heart, but I think Farley is clearer in his main point of going after heart issues. Gospel-Powered Parenting may be the best parenting book I've read.

Good Hair

After a trip to the local beauty shop; check out Faith's new look.

Zeke is 3!

Transplanted

"The great Master Gardener, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, with his own hand, planted me here, where by his grace, in this part of his vineyard, I grow; and here I will abide till the great Master of the vineyard think fit to transplant me again."

Adapted from The Loveliness of Christ, page 1

April in Utah

That's Eli in our backyard. He's on Spring break, snow-sledding! 4 inches and still falling.

Spring...Hello?