King Tut

We knew it would be crowded at the Mormon Battalion Historic Site this week with Utah’s fall break.  We didn’t realize how many big family groups would be coming.  LOTS of family reunions/trips.  Can’t complain.  Not as busy as summer!

King Tut's death mask.

We decided to go to see the King Tut exhibit.  It is all meticulously recreated since King Tut is not allowed to go out of Egypt.  I had never seen it before, just heard about it.  We got to Balboa Park shortly before they opened at 10.  As we were buying our tickets, the lady told us about 300 school kids would be going through at 10 and we might want to wait until 11.  Good plan.  There were still plenty of kids still there at 11, but they were good and it was just fine.  We were given personal listening devices so it was pretty quiet in there.  We saw a couple of films about it and then were able to look at all of the interesting things. 

Small models of the shrines.  There were life size ones, too.

The outside of the largest shrine.

Beautiful carvings on the inside of the largest shrine door.

Largest sarcophagus

Medium sarcophagus

Smallest sarcophagus with the mummy inside.

There were 4 shrines nested in each other.  In the smallest one were 3 sarcophagi nested in each other. Fascinating and beautiful.  Pretty cool.

Where some of King Tut's internal organs were buried.  Not his heart, though.  His heart stayed with him.

King Tut's throne

King Tut was made Pharaoh when he was 8.  This is his throne when he was little.

There were two golden chariots.

A close up of some chariot decor.

Here are some pictures of peaceful and hidden Zoro Park at Balboa Park.

A few weeks ago I went to Old Town to look for Mexican Jumping Beans.  None to be found.  I had been telling the Sisters about them.  As kids, we got them often at Olvera Street in Los Angeles.  One Sister told me a while later that she found them at the Five and Dime, at the cash register, right next to the suckers with worms in them.  (Eeeww)   I went there and bought some Jumping Beans!  I brought them in to the Battalion that night.  Most of the Sisters had never heard of them.  It did freak some of them out to think there is something living in there.  There are really only two things you can do with them.  Hold them in your hand or race them.  We did both.  Some of the Sisters named the particular bean they liked.  Benny and Fernando turned out to be pretty good racers.

I did tell the Sisters that I had bought some when our kids were pretty young. I thought it would be a good, quiet Sacrament Meeting toy.  Was I ever wrong!  Every time one moved, the kids let me know in their outside voices.  They only came to Sacrament Meeting once. Never again.

Today our spotlight is on fun Sister Saathoff from Idaho.  She loves to run, play baseball (she is a catcher) and don’t tell her dad, but she has become a Chargers fan.  She goes to BYU and would like to be a nutritionist.  She has many dreams.  She’d like to do Tai Chi on the Great Wall of China, run the Boston Marathon and be an MMA fighter.  If anyone can do these things, it is Sister Saathoff.  She is incredibly capable.  She knows the gospel and the scriptures.