Brandon Moon

Alrighty web folks… I know I posted about Bear Lake last week and told you all to go visit, but… I didn’t think you’d visit the same weekend! There were so many people up at Bear Lake! We barely managed to get a camp spot, and had to drive clear to the end of the beach to find a table. Yikes!

We still had a lot of fun though. Here’s some pictures to prove it:

Hanging out on the beautiful beach at Bear Lake

My nieces gave my mom and Tasha a facial

Tasha and Pierce got to be really good friends

I really wish I knew what was on Benson’s mind in this photo

Click here for more photos

P.S. Since I didn’t get to it, this post counts for Friday’s!

This last weekend my wife and I attended a family reunion on my mother’s side. Since my mom has been helping out at Brighton girls camp for years, we were able to use the facilities for our reunion. We’ve done this for a number of reunions in the past, but it’s always a lot of fun. They have a zipline and some other ropes-course activities. One was particularly fun, called the “perch.” Basically it’s a tall tree that you climb, then stand on top of. Oh, and the top rotates. You’re supposed to jump off and hit a bell that’s hanging just a little ways off. It was a lot of fun.

We got to drive up with my brother and his two adorable kids. One of them, Benson, always keeps us entertained with his antics. You can read more about them on my wife’s blog. He sure was excited to go camping.

I love going camping with my sweetheart! Even if said camping is really in a cabin, and said cabin is full of all of my family. Besides, my nieces and nephews are super cute. It’s funny to see my siblings trying to put them all to bed in the same cabin. Adri was quite distraught when I told her I was going to sleep in a bed next to my wife instead of next to her.

In short, it was a very fun weekend. I look forward to the next reunion in Bear Lake!

Last weekend, after the Lavender 5k Run, my wife and I headed up to Joe’s Valley by Fairview, UT where my brother’s in-laws own a cabin. We went to see my two twin nieces get baptized. It’s about a two hour drive, so we were rushing home from the 5k to get showered and back on the road, since the baptism was planned for 12:00. We were on the road just a bit after 10:00, but we seemed to be moving along OK and I wasn’t worried.

It was probably 11:00 or 11:15 when we pulled through Fairview and headed up the canyon. I figured we were doing great on time, but I was careful to check the map my brother had given me. He had described the next turn as a tricky one, so I wanted to make sure I got it right. I mentally added the distance to my trip meter and stored the number in my brain for future reference.

As we headed up the canyon and the my trip meter got close to the calculated distance, I started to look for a turn-off onto a dirt road, as described. All I found was this:

In case you can’t tell, that’s a small four-wheeler style road that goes through a creek and up a steep hill. Just pulling onto the road and up to the river was a steep enough decline to make it difficult for my car to reverse back up. And we were supposed to continue up this road for 13 miles?!

I figured this couldn’t be the road, but yet it was the only dirt road that came close to fitting the description at that distance up the road. It was supposed to be a tricky turn-off. Nobody told me I’d need a truck though! Why hadn’t anyone said anything?

We had no cell reception, so we couldn’t call anyone or look up any maps on our phone. All we could do was drive back and forth on that section of the road a couple times—to no avail. We even said a prayer for help. Eventually we turned back, figuring we’d done all we could.

When we reached Fairview again, I started to realize that we had come down that canyon fast for 18 miles. We had reception again once we got down there, so I pulled out my phone and looked at the map. Sure enough, we hadn’t gone far enough up the canyon. In my hasty arithmetic in my head, I had added 8 to my trip meter, instead of 18. We were way off!

By now it was 12:00, and we knew we’d already missed the baptism, but we headed up anyways, at least to be able to see our family and congratulate my nieces. Except for one small misdirected turn, we got there with no problems after that. The drive was amazing, and we couldn’t help but take some pictures.

We had a lot of fun in the short time we were up there. Benson amused us with his clever sayings and misunderstandings, we got to see the nieces and nephews ride horses (I can’t believe they let some of them ride by themselves!), and even got to see some baby birds! It was amazing.

I also want to congratulate my two nieces for getting baptized. In our church, baptism is a way that we promise God we will follow his commandments and always remember him. In return, He blesses us with his Holy Spirit, which can help us recognize right and wrong. We also believe that little children are innocent; they don’t need baptism until they turn eight and can understand and make that kind of commitment. That’s why I’m so proud of them: they’ve made the decision for themselves to follow Christ. And I know that He is the source of true happiness.

A little while after I first started dating Tasha, she taught me this really cute analogy with her hands. She held hers up, with her fingers spread apart, and explained that her fingers represented her gifts, and the gaps between represented the things that maybe she wasn’t so good at. Then she took my hand, and with our fingers intertwined, explained that my gifts fill her gaps.

The more and more I’ve spent time with Tasha, I’ve come to realize that it goes both ways:

Her gifts fill my gaps.

Tasha has the most brilliant, radiant testimony I have ever seen. It shines through in everything she does, and in every life she touches. I am amazed by her desire to help others. She inspires me to be better, and helps me to focus on what is important. With her, I’m less afraid to tackle life’s challenges. She is always so understanding of everything, and somehow manages to get what it is I’m saying, even when I can’t find the right words (and sometimes even when I don’t say anything at all). Her love of family, her desires to do what is right, her incredible spirituality, and her beautiful life are just a few of the reasons I love her so so much.

Most of all, I love her for the joy she spreads. Pure, honest, sincere joy. She knows how to find the good in everything, and she loves to share it. She truly is amazing.

(You can get to know her too, through her amazing blog. Check it out, you’ll be amazed like me!)

The other night, Tasha and I realized that while holding hands, our palms are together. Our palms represent the basis of who we are. Our goals, our desires, our dreams. And I realized that ours match perfectly. Though we have different gifts and gaps, different interests and different struggles, when we bring our palms together and remember what is important, everything else seems to work out just fine.

Well, naturally I couldn’t let a girl like that get away. So I asked her to marry me! I’m so happy to announce that she said “yes!” We are getting married in the Salt Lake Temple on February 18th, 2011.

And I couldn’t be happier!

(If you would like an invitation, please enter your information in this form and we’ll get one to you!)

Surprisingly, it wasn’t all that difficult to figure out what was my favorite place in the world. It’s not somewhere far away, it’s not even someplace the world might find super amazing. It’s a simple place, but all the same, it’s my favorite. It’s home.

My absolute favorite place in the world is home because that is where my family is. I am so very very grateful for my family. They are wonderful. People get surprised when I tell them I have seven siblings. Not to mention five are married, so I have ten nieces and nephews as well. When we all get together it’s crazy town! But I can’t imagine my family being complete without any of them.

Perhaps what I love most about my family is that I am completely, wholly, and in all ways 100% accepted there. I don’t have to worry at all about making mistakes or upsetting anyone, because I know they understand me. And even if I do mess up, they’ll still accept me. And that makes me want to be a better person. So I can be like that to others. That, to me, is the most magical thing about family. That’s why family is so essential.

I’ve recently been trying to memorize The Family: A Proclamation to the World. It’s a big effort, but not too difficult for someone like me who has a crazy random gift at memorizing. In memorizing it, I’ve come to appreciate my family so much more. I know that family is ordained of God, and that it is part of His eternal plan for our happiness. I’m saddened to see a world so confused that the fundamental building block of the family is falling apart. I can’t think of anything worse that could happen today.

I look forward to the day when I can raise my own family. Although it won’t seem like much, and the way may be difficult, hopefully my little family can stand for something.