Baptism

Last weekend I made a quick trip to Salt Lake City for my nephew's baptism, no kids, just me. What a fun time I had with my sister and her family!

Side story: Without kids I thought I'd have peaceful, relaxing flights there and back, just me, my laptop and kindle. Haha! The airline gods were consipiring against me! My flight to Denver was delayed 25 minutes, I only had 30 minutes between flights in Denver. So I spent the first flight biting my nails, hoping to make the connection, once I ran to the other gate I learned the other flight was delayed, too. Yay! Of course, then we spent 45 minutes on the runway while waiting to be de-iced.

And while I'm on the subject of flying I might as well say that on the way back my flight out of SLC was delayed 45 minutes, I (again!) only had 30 minutes between flights. Somehow we made up time in the air, landed 5 minutes before my other plane was to depart, I ran the 20 gates to the other plane (this is when you learn how truly out of shape you are, or at least I am!), fortunately, they were "unofficially" holding the plane for the 3 of us who just arrived. Whew!! Maybe next time I'll just pay the extra $ for non-stop flights!

The first stop after the airport? Dinner from Red Iguana, of course, for the best Mexican food in SLC! (Yes, Cafe Rio is scrumptious, but yum yum, almond mole from Red Iguana, nothing can top you.)

Friday I spent the afternoon with my sister at the BYU Art Museum. I love going to museums with my sister, she's an art junkie, too, we spent our time analyzing, critiquing and just absorbing the art.

The main exhibit at BYU right now is about Carl Bloch. He's a once-famous 19th century Danish painter who fell into obscurity, but whose work was seen by someone at LDS Church Headquarters who felt that his paintings would be perfect for gospel teaching, they've become almost iconic LDS pictures.

If you want to learn about the exhibit, here's the link:http://carlbloch.byu.edu/

If you're a member of my Church, you're probably familiar with Bloch's work, you just might not know that he painted them. I like his use of light and dark (chiaroscuro for art historians like me), his classical figures that portray a scene from the scriptures in a viewpoint that isn't necessarily "classic" (yes, he seems to have been heavily influenced by Caravaggio, he studied in Italy for 5 yrs, again for you art historians). Here's a sampling of his altarpieces, one belongs to BYU, the others are at the exhibit on loan from Lutheran Churches in Denmark:

Christ Healing the Sick at Bethesada:

The Doubting Thomas:Christ and the Young Child:

And my absolute favorite of all--Christ in Gethsemane:

I don't think the reproduction does the piece justice, it really takes your breath away.

Then we went to a delightful Dorthea Lange exhibit entitled "Three Mormon Towns." Here's the link:http://moa.byu.edu/fileadmin/moa/lange/exploring.html. Click on the link for the original Life magazine layout and you can see most of what was in the exhibit.

If you don't know who she is, Lange is a well-known American photographer, her Depression-era photography taken for the government is the most famous of her work. This exhibit showcases her photographs of three southern Utah Towns taken in the 50's for a Life Magazine piece. There were shots of canned vegetables, people attending church, women in aprons, Utah cowboys, I love looking at photography anyway, and this was just a delicious treat. Here are a few images, not necessarily my favorites, but the ones I could get off the BYU website:

Saturday was the main event: my nephew's baptism!

Here are my bro-in-law and nephew, ready to go to the church.

Now ready for baptism!

My nephew is the only grandchild on my side of the family--besides my kids, of course. He has autism, and my sister has really done a great job working with him on her own. He was so excited for his baptism he didn't want to have to wait for talks and singing, once the clothes were on he was ready to go! I love his enthusiasm! The Spirit was so strong during the service, I started crying during the opening song, so did my sister's sister-in-law I was seated next to, we were the ones giving talks and had to keep it together somehow!!

Afterwards, pics of everyone, then a reception at my sister's house.

The Nielson/Decker side who was there: L to R, my cousin, my aunt (not by blood, but love) and her husband, my great-aunt, my 2nd cousin and his wife, me, my sister.

My bro-in-law's family

My sister and me. I guess we've changed a little as we've gotten older, but we still look a lot alike! When we were younger, people would ask if we were twins, but we're six years apart, either I looked older--umm, never happened to me with my chubby cheeks--or she looked really young!

The rest of the visit was spent with Steve's family going swimming, o.k., me watching my nephew and sister swim, going to church, and of course, eating chocolate cake!

Can visits ever last long enough?