Restoration Project

For my religion class I had to do a project that had something to do with the restoration. That was all the topical guidance we had, so it was extremely open ended. He showed us examples from previous classes and there was everything from paintings to computer games to essays to songs that people had created. I had no idea what to do, but Alicia had the great idea of making a house with all of the building analogies. And thus my project, the "Mansion of Christ" was born.
I researched a bunch of analogies in the scriptures and in various conference talks and CES devotionals. I tried to find a blueprint for a model house, but couldn't find anything so I drafted one myself with a ruler and compass and started making the house from foam core board.
I got most of the drafting and cutting pieces done in one weekend, and finished that up and started assembling the house while listening to General Conference the next weekend.

The finished project came out pretty well in the end! I was pretty happy with it. I'd originally planned to put a fence around the house so that I could have the "Gate of Baptism" but I still had the Keystone, Capstone, Door of the temple, Four Cornerstones (including the Chief Cornerstone), a foundation, Windows of Revelation, and a few other elements in it. It was a really great learning experience for me-- for example, I had no idea what a capstone was before doing this project. 

I was really impressed though by several of the other projects. The last day of class we all brought our projects in and it was so cool to see what some of my class mates had been working on! Somebody found a piece of sandstone and literally carved the sunstone (I really wish I'd gotten a picture of it). Others painted, wrote and arranged music, and did so many other great projects.

(Below, the one of the classic first vision painting is a mosaic made from pictures of temples!)

Salt Lake Aquarium

After we had completed almost all the coursework in my amazing animal class, my professor took us on a field trip to the Salt Lake aquarium!! It's a really great aquarium, and it has a surprising number of non aquatic animals, including a binturong, clouded leopards, snakes, scorpions, and Asian pheasants.
I put in my snap story from that day, so even though it's kind of a funny format, it should give a good scope of what I saw.

As you can see, there were Amniotes, Amphibians, Fish, Molluscs, Arthropods, Cnidarians (Jellyfish, corals, etc), Porifera (sponges), and several other phyla that we talked about in my class! It was a really fun activity, and especially to go with a group where we had all been through the same animal class and were all biology majors, was a lot of fun.

I of course liked this fish with really creepy teeth. He swam really fast so it was hard to get a good picture but he had three giant teeth that he'd come and show at the glass right in front of my face and then swim off over and over.