Fingerprints on Glass

2009-11-08T16:54:00.000-08:00

From October

My father and grandfather came into town for the festivities. We took the opportunity to take a 4 generation picture.

Maybe the love of wheels is in our genetics.

So we made this water bottle rocket launcher. It was really cool.

The kids all decorated their own bottles. They were excited to become "Rocket Scientists!"

So here is one getting pressurized with air ready to launch. There is also water in it to act as a propellant.
We would launch them and get wet while all the kids looked on as their rockets reached for the tops of the trees.

One of us spotted the bottle while the other tried to not get hit.
Isn't that what every 5 year old boy wants to do for their birthday?

2009-10-17T16:14:00.000-07:00

17 October 2009

No explanation needed. Just Picture.

2009-10-08T08:10:00.000-07:00

8 October 2009

Spoons

I know I haven't ranted here in a bit, so here is my spoon rant. It is really a utensil rant in general. We have successfully grown a pequin bush. To most Americans this would be known as a birds eye bush. It produces peppers. They are some of the best tasting peppers that we have had. They are small and red. They pack quite a punch though. They rank around a 4 on the 0-10 scale for heat. Jalepenos are like a 1-2 for reference. So, I decided to try one of these peppers. I haven't really had anything like this for 7 years or so. When I used to eat these on my mission, I could just drink some milk or something to help calm the heat in my mouth. No milk and low tolerance for heat means I needed to find a solution. There was the equivalence of a frozen raspberry smoothie in the freezer. That was my back up plan. So I popped one of these peppers into my mouth. It was hot as ever. I ate it and had a drink of water followed by a soothing cold treat to cover the spice.

So this is where the spoons come in. In preparation to cool my mouth, I asked my wife to reach into the dishwasher to pull out a spoon. She was kind enough to do this. She grabbed a metal spoon with a plastic handle like you would get at the dollar store. I knew that plastic handles and frozen treats do not mix well, so I asked her to get one that was all metal. As part of every flatware set, there seems to be 1 soup spoon. She managed to pull it out. It would have been great for scooping out the frozen treat, but I really wanted a thin slab to cover my whole tongue. I thanked here and dug down for a normal metal spoon. It worked great.

We were putting away the dishes later that night. I went to put away the utensils. There were probably 10 spoons, 3 forks and 1 knife to put away, aside from the 6 baby spoons. I couldn't exactly figure out at first why this seemed to odd to me except that the spoon holder was overflowing with spoons. Apparently a lot of spoons are used in our house. I don't really eat cereal because of the milk issue, so I don't really use spoons frequently. It was a little concerning that there was such a disparagy in the spoon to fork ratio. Does anyone else experience this, or is it just me?

2009-09-27T11:57:00.000-07:00

27 September 2009

Just some random views of life.

A face Levi likes to make
Look! I found a bucket. Not the one full of balls behind me, but the empty one.
He got there by himself... and couldn't get out.
Is this helpful or not?
Book reading time for the boys.

At least the fan hadn't been turned on. Never leave the baby powder out where a 2 year old can find it. Although the room smells a little fresher now.

That's all for this installment.

2009-09-15T17:59:00.000-07:00

My most recent find: cereal for $0.64 a box!!!!!! I also found a clearance item at Michael's that rang up as $0.01!!!!!

School is going very well for both Daddy and Michael! They are both learning a lot! And we are able to carpool to get Michael to school!

We got rid of our mouse (we hope they are all gone)!!!!!!

The two going to school are just getting over an illness, and hopefully none of the rest of us will get it.

And and update on the garden:Our tomatoes are six feet high, with lots of flowers and no tomatoes. We got one banana pepper, and the lettuce and spinach were excellent. I also have growing 8 citrus trees. The key lime only gave us two fruits this year, but it had a hard time – it was neglected while we were away visiting family this summer. The others won’t be old enough to produce for another 4 or 5 years –citrus have to be 7 years old before they produce. I have a grape vine that should produce some good grapes this next year, and a blackberry bush with the same timetable. Three of the pequin (birds eye) peppers are flowering and putting out peppers, one is piddle and stunted. I have some bell peppers growing and producing as well! I don’t know exactly what to expect from the pomegranate tree. It is only a year old, and growing nicely, but I know nothing of when it will produce. I am still waiting for the cherry pit and the peach pits to sprout. The garlic didn’t do as well as I was hoping. They are a shallow rooted plant. So, since I didn’t water them every day I only have one left, and even that one I don’t have much hope for. I am going to try more potatoes in the next few days and see if we can get a second, larger crop.

This is just and update on our life.

2009-08-29T15:49:00.000-07:00

29 August 2009

The culmination of 3 years later.

So, we have been the Pagets in Florida for 3 years now. That isn't exactly what I thought would be happening when we got here, but here we are anyway. It became evident with the birth of Levi that we would need to consolidate eventually. The opportunity came and went for us to move to a 3 bedroom apartment, but some projects stayed.

Introducing the making of the bunk beds.

It started about 3 years ago when I was out with the pickup truck garage sale-ing. I found a twin bed with a trundle and almost new mattresses for sale. After a quick consultation with my wife, we decided to get the beds. They have been great. I don't know how many relatives and neighbor's kids have slept on them, not to mention the long nights with sick kids that we didn't want to sleep on the floor anymore. It became apparent though that we would need a bunk bed unless we could manage to get the boys a bigger room. They don't seem too keen on my ideas of adding an addition on to our apartment. So, we started working on the consolidation project... a bunk bed. The idea was that we would get some storage underneath that we weren't getting with the trundle, but still have the beds available for the growing kids. So here is a picture of what we started with - two twin beds. We sold the frames today - thank you Craigslist on a Saturday morning.

So this started with the decision to build them to be sturdy. Someone was worried about that so much that we decided to use 4x4's to build them. This wasn't the first time my wife was so worried. We had an entertainment center one time that would have been the safest place to be in the house in case of an earthquake. So we started looking around for un-treated yellow pine 4x4's. After a lot of calling, this lead to a visit up to Climax, Georgia to get the wood from a lumber mill. I got there and the wood I needed was 3 rows back and 4 pallets down. The guy asked me why I wanted the yellow pine. I told him it was the price. He offered the easy to access cypress for the same price, so I gladly took him up on the offer. Everything was rough cut, so I had to plane it down. That means a new tool for me... an electric planer. I made a huge mess, but it sure smelled good. Here is me working on this beautiful honey colored wood.
And the clearly visible mess this made. It filled 2 large trash bags.
I finally found a use for my handcart project. It is great for holding 6 foot long lumber.
Then the finishing had to happen after I built everything else out of yellow pine from Home Depot and Lowes. (By the way, Lowes won this time for quality of wood.) I had some water-based polyurethane left over from a previous project (half gallon or so). Our bedroom became the paint shop for a week while we worked on all of these. The side-rails proved to be a difficult task for coating. I wanted to coat the whole thing in one shot. I developed this elaborate rotation system. It worked perfectly for us, and fortunately it is gone.
The room also doubled for a staging area for the building. We got the bed slats from Ikea. I used them as a spacer to figure out how to attach the headboards to the posts.
Once I finished the ends, the construction could begin. I got some help once the old bed frames were gone. It would have been really difficult with out the extra hands. It was kind of difficult with them too. But they helped build their bed. When we got to this point, I leaned on it; it didn't move a bit. Solid? Yes. That was just the lower level.
Levi even helped from a distance. He seemed to really enjoy his time on the toddler bed too. Maybe he enjoyed it a little too much. I think he has to start walking before we would seriously think of a change of beds for him. But now it is available.
Some of the upper level was there in this one. This is an action shot of the real helper.
Here it is with the side-rails and even one of the safety bars. Even some smiles.
We got the beds put together all the way and put on the mattresses and all. Not too bad looking. There is even plenty of storage room underneith... for now.
Some really happy boys about their new beds
They didn't want to wait to try them out. I can't blame them. I liked the ones that I had when I was growing up.
Hopefully this is the end of this project. I now know why they charge so much for comparible quality beds at the furniture stores. They take a long time to make. But it was really fun, and the cypress made it worth while. 3 years of being the Pagets in Florida... with these maybe we can last a bit longer.

2009-08-26T16:46:00.000-07:00

26 August 2009

So by request of my mother, here are some pictures. The three boys together after Stake Conference.
They are cute alone too.
Though the pictures don't seem to capture the instant we want.

But some of them are better at posing than others.

Great Bow-Tie.

Then there was the first day of Pre-K. He is just such a big boy now. (Sniff sniff.)
He has his lunch box.
And his backpack.
There you go Mom. Three grandsons down, three to go.

2009-08-16T15:02:00.000-07:00

16 August 2003

We thought we could give you a little look into our lives here. First off, my lovely wife working on the laptop. Things of interest in the picture: There is a large pile of wood in the corner which will eventually be made into a bunk bed for the boys. Only 2 bunks high. If we need it though, we left enough room under the bottom bed for a trundle.

A picture of Levi with his daily mo hawk. It always starts nice and curly close to the head, but then someone (normally me) starts blowing on it until it turns into a mo hawk. We think it is cute.

The family always seems so happy in our pictures. That is because we only try to upload those.

So, what does your family do on a Sunday afternoon? The boys have some jacks that we started trying to spin like a top to see how it would work. They worked really well actually. So, we tried to spin them on various things. It extended to heads. Michael's worked best. This was a failed attempt for a picture.

This one worked though.

Hurray for finding things to do on Sunday afternoons.

2009-08-08T10:37:00.000-07:00

So I have found a new past time that is thrilling to me. I try to see how much food I can get for as little as possible. I have been doing rather well at it. I have gotten the last months worth of food for, at most, half the price! Then this past Monday I hit the jackpot! I got $90 worth of groceries for $17!!!!!! It is all about mixing coupons, and sales. The stores here frequently have bogo sales on items we use. I only clip the coupon if I am going to use it that day. I also use printable coupons a lot. And I stack coupons when possible, like using a manufacturers coupon with a store coupon and a competitors coupon. It does take time, but it makes me feel sooo good to save money like that!

2009-08-02T13:04:00.000-07:00

2 August 2009

Home Grown Produce

So, it has been my wife's ambition to grow a garden. We have a 5x9 plot of land dedicated to the growing of produce. We also have a bunch of pots in which different things grow like citrus and grapes and potatoes. We had a harvest. It was kind of meager but it was a harvest none the less. So, this year, from our garden we got a squash (I think).

We also got a bunch of small potatoes. I cut them up before remembering to take the picture. They sure were tasty with that marinade.
Now, we have heard that you can grow potatoes during any season of the year here in Florida. So, we decided to plant this fall more potatoes, but in the ground and not in the pots. Maybe we will have some more success from the garden.

As a side note, we also got a bunch of peas that we ate as soon as they were ready. The baby fruit trees are doing great though.

2009-07-26T05:41:00.000-07:00

26 July 2009

Father's Day in Atlanta

We ended up in Atlanta for Father's day. That was just a bonus really. We had originally intended to go up to help my brother his house. But here was the party for Father's day.

While most of us were working feverishly on the house, my sweet wife took the kids to see their great grandpa. He really liked the visits from the kids. It was good for him. They would spend about half an hour there letting the boys play while grandpa got exhausted watching. I made it over a few times too.
They created all sorts of things with the Ikea train set that they had there. This was the most elaborate so far that we have done.
While working on the house, I somehow managed to burn or at least hurt the skin just below my bottom lip. Shaving that area wasn't really a good idea, but I had to trim it up to look reasonable. I had some meetings on the Tuesday when we got back home, so I shaved it as much as would look reasonable. I kept the look for a few more days beyond that until it was ok to shave again. My wife liked it, but it is not exactly a good Florida look for me. June and facial hair don't work together so well.
One of the members of our family likes dressing our kids up to look like each other. (I think it is a mom thing.) But there they are all 3 dressed alike.

Then there was the night I was out at meetings. The boys all had baths... and their hair stylized. Mo-Hawks for everyone.
It made more sense for some than others.

Well, at least they like each other.

2009-07-17T11:19:00.000-07:00

17 July 2009

So we made it to St. Louis on our trip and stopped by the Science Center. This was the only picture we got there, but it was quite the visit that the boys had enjoyed. It only lasted 2 hours, but we still got to see most of it.

On our way out of town, we got a picture of the Arch. We sure were happy about that. It is hard to explain it without them seeing it, at least from the outside.

The bridge was amazing for the boys. It is a great river and good memories.

A few hours later, we made a stop in Metropolis, IL. It was really just to see this Superman statue. It was raining outside. We only did a driveby to avoid getting wet.

They also had this statue outside of the grocery store. My sweet wife sure did like them. Maybe we can get one someday.

We were able to go to Atlanta after driving through some more of the USA.

With Nana in tow, we went to the Atlanta Temple before it closed for the renovations. Someone enjoyed being Grandma.

My brother and I have close birthdays, so we had a joint celebration while we were there. The kids decided how to decorate the cake. What do by brother and I both have in common? According to our kids, trucks, though we each have only owned one each... and it was the same one.

We submitted to the singing and had some cake.

I don't remember who blew out the candles, but it worked out just fine.

Well, that is all of the trip. We made it back home afterward. Hurray for family vacation.

2009-07-12T10:56:00.000-07:00

12 July 2009

We rarely get a picture of my sweetheart and I, but here was one we managed to get while still in Wyoming. She sure is beautiful.

On our trip back, we made it to see Laura and the gang again. Laura wanted proof that she was pregnant in picture form, so here it is. 2 sisters with 4 1/2 kids.

Say cheese.
Just a stop on the way back. They were really good.
We stayed a night in Lincoln at a hotel. Then we stopped by Omaha in the morning to visit Winter Quarters. It was excellent for us and the kids. That was really a special place... not quite as big as Nauvoo, but equal in Spirit.

They had the visitor's center there with the cemetery across the street. Beautifully situated there just down the hill from the cemetery was the Temple. It was really pretty. It isn't really big, but amazing none the less.

We got a family picture there. Unfortunately, the light post was there, but we were traveling anyway.
This was a really good stop.

So, we didn't take any pictures again at Sarah's, but we did visit and have a nice time.

Next stop, St. Louis and Atlanta with a little Metropolis in between.

2009-07-05T12:40:00.000-07:00

5 July 2009

Fun with family

We saw many relatives up in Wyoming. Here is Grandma and Grandpa Skinner.

With the family.
Just those boys.
With some more cousins.
Just being Grandpa.
Cousins at play.
Family at play.

So what do you do for a week in Wyoming? Watch the clouds go by.
Burn things.
But hey that is what everyone does on vacation, right?

2009-06-29T17:54:00.000-07:00

29 June 2009

A view into our time in Wyoming. We made it there during the Spring. At least there wasn't any snow in the fields.

There was a beautiful rainbow too.

The boys loved playing outside. There was snow on the mountains.

We also played inside a lot too.

Richard graduated from High School, so we decided to get him a car for his graduation present. It didn't even taste too bad.

Next up, more cousins.

2009-06-27T14:47:00.000-07:00

A little more on our trip

We left St. Louis for Nauvoo. We didn't do too much there. We took the kids to the bakery to get a Gingerbread cookie. They they visited the cultural hall. After that it was down for a wagon ride with the oxen. So, they told me what an ox was. An ox is any bull that has been castrated.

They were kind enough to take a family snapshot of us.

We made it up to Sarah's in Iowa. We were able to visit for the evening and stayed the night. No pictures, sorry. We got up early the next morning and started driving for Rock Springs to visit Laura and Robert. Laura is pregnant. We made it from Iowa City to Rock Springs in one day. That was plenty of driving for us. All of the kids sure did have fun playing together there.

They liked to send things down the stairs. I fear our kids were the initiator of this. We don't have steps in our apartment. This is when I thought a slinky would have been good for them.Then again, they played anywhere they wanted to including under Aspen's new bed.

Mommy even had company while doing her evening stretches.

We left after spending a full day and 2 nights with them for a visit with my Grandfather in Utah. It was great to see him. Although my father was not there, my grandfather is the third child, so is my father, myself, and Levi. It was good to visit with them. Michael got really lethargic and tired while we were there and had a high fever. We gave him a blessing and some medicine. We cut our visit really short and got back into the car to drive for 4 more hours.This gives you an idea of the beautiful end of the drive we had.

My wife kind of misses the mountains, I miss the clouds.

Next up, what we did on vacation

p.s. I made a little lawn cart today with some scrap wood and parts I had lying around. Alex thought I should post the pictures so here they are.

Michael is pulling me on this one. He didn't have any difficulty at all - except when he lifted it too high, and it fell back. He was able to push it back down just fine though. I guess I wasn't exactly centered on the load.

So I moved back the axle so it would balance better. Here is the finished project. Isaac could even walk with it. We were impressed.

2009-06-14T09:35:00.000-07:00

Trip log. This should be a good way to let people know how our trip went. We will not post all of our pictures at once. We may even wait to see if we can get some comments on this before posting again, but here it goes.

This is the illusive double yoked egg. I haven't seen one of these for years. I was probably still living in St. Louis when I saw this egg last time. That is pretty significant since I would probably crack 2 dozed eggs twice a week when I worked at Mary's Pastries. This came out of a carton of large eggs. For a while, my wife humored me in trying to get the biggest eggs we could purchase just so I could see this again. It never happened. But I got one that morning when making eggs. They ended up scrambled anyway. But with this happening right before our trip, you know it had to start off on a good note.

Well, on that, we went to visit with Papa in Atlanta because Nana was gallivanting around New Jersey waiting for a baby to be born. We enjoyed our visit. We even made it to church on Sunday. We finally got a picture of the Michael and Isaac all dressed up.
We went to St. Louis. After nearly 6 years of marriage and countless other zoos, my wife finally got to go to the St. Louis Zoo. May I just add that it was FREE! We even got there early enough to find a parking spot on the street for free. We stayed with the Livingstons and had a nice visit, but we didn't get any pictures of them. We did get there in time for the feeding time with the Sea Lions though. After 2 hours of walking and only seeing 1/3 of the Zoo, we ended our visit with the this feeding time.
I am just so glad that they have fences around these exhibits. The boys really liked it.

Here is a great picture of Levi captivated by the sight. At least he wasn't paying any attention to the camera.
After we finished at the Zoo, we walked the quarter mile back to the car where it was diaper changing time. There are many reasons to appreciate having a minivan. This is just one of them.
After the Zoo, we were off for the next great adventure. Here they are after walking through the Zoo for so long.
Don't worry, Levi rode in his car seat. A little stretching before he got in it was good though.Next post: North of St. Louis

2009-05-23T05:59:00.000-07:00

States we have been in the last 2 weeks:
Florida
Alabama
Mississippi
Louisiana
Texas
Georgia
Tennessee
Kentucky
Illinois
Missouri
Iowa
Nebraska
Wyoming
Utah
Idaho
Confusion
Hopelessness
Exhaustion
Pain
Happiness
Sleep
Excitement
Restlessness
Sickness
Health
Elation

Also, we have driven over 3900 miles.
Only around 2000 left to go.

2009-04-29T09:57:00.000-07:00

Our lives in photos:

Rockin' on the piano in pj's

Always smiley!

Sometimes asleep.
And getting curious.

Big brothers sharing blankets.
Using glasses and playing.

Note: It is a bee in the hole in the wood. We tried spraying the wood four different times! Once, there was a bee in it! This bee was trying to get the dead one out, I assume to continue its boring. We finally had to fill it in with liquid nails (the complex did it for us).

My growing garden:
Here we have black berries (bottom) and a bell pepper plant (top).

You can see the pumpkin, squash, cucumber, spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, peas, and potatoes.
More peas, cantaloupe (the small, scrawny thing behind the pumpkin), the carrots (not doing very well, you can still just barely see them), and the pequin pepper plants (in the pots).
In other exciting news:
Lightening struck a tree just behind our apartment. This is the clean up process after they felled it. You can't see the guy scaling the other trees to cut the broken branches.
We got to keep a part of the tree! It has between 86 and 90 rings! And a crack that goes all the way to the center. A gift from the lightening! The lightening also left a large hole in the ground next to the base of the tree, but I didn't get a photo of that.
On another note, I have to say I am grateful for my children. They try me and help me at the same time. Isaac, for example, saw me cleaning one of the bathrooms, and wanted to help, so he got out the toilet bowel scrubber from behind the toilet in the other bathroom and proceeded to clean it! I had no idea until he came into me because he had gotten some on his hand. Trying and helping at the same time. Of course, there are those moments of pure trying, like the time he dumped and entire box of tapioca (uncooked thankfully) on the floor in the hall. And those moments of pure helping, like making Levi smile, or taking me to Levi when he cries. Boys, ya gotta love um!

2009-04-19T11:08:00.000-07:00

2009-04-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

Influenced by Star Trek

So, like most other people, I was influenced by Star Trek - the next generation. I think most of us in the sciences have been. I know this was not limited to just us geeks, but I was noticing how much the world has been molded by the things we saw on the show.

So, to get started I will go back to the communicator of the original Star Trek. Think of the flip phone that we use as a cell phone. If it just had a really good speaker phone in it, that would be fairly identical to the communicator. Oh and the bluetooth earpiece. It seemed like it was sticking out of someone's ear if you can remember those shows. Don't get me started with the push to talk feature on the badges.

This got me to thinking about other things that have started to appear from Star Trek. Captain Picard seemed to always be reading reports and books on some sort of tablet. If we look at the tablet PC's and the PDA's of the world, I think that we could easily see the similarity.

The food generator thingy looks a lot like built in coffee makers today.

The phasers they would set to stun look a lot like the tazers they have out now for police.

This is probably the one that got me the most. They always had these shuttle craft that they would fly around in. They seemed like Winnebagos with pontoons lashed to the sides, but as I have been thinking about them more lately, I totally see the minivan. It was the right time era. I just wish that my minivan could go at warp speed. I would even be ok with the speed of sound. I don't need to break the laws of physics or anything. I wouldn't mind autopilot either.

So, you may have noticed more things, but these are just a few of my observations. Have you noticed how fantasy has influenced technology or society?

2009-03-29T13:15:00.000-07:00

So let me try to paint you a picture. This might be difficult for me, because I don't have colors and words frequently flee from me. But nonetheless, here it goes.

Picture a woman in a grocery store with a shopping cart full of food, a baby strapped to her chest in a snuggly, a toddler sitting in the seat of the cart, and a child tugging at the front of her cart. Now think what you would do or say if someone said to her, "Wow! So are you done, or are you going to have one more?"

This woman was me. Yes, this truly happened this past week as I was trying to get the weekly groceries, towing all three boys while Daddy was at school taking preliminary PhD exams. My response was to the effect of maybe more, maybe less. The look on the persons face to this response was priceless! She was astounded that someone would even THINK of having more that four children, and probably thought I was nuts to even consider one more!

And me? I just thought the whole experience was hilarious! I must have really looked funny! (bhn Isaac's contribution. I can't do anything just me anymore. No, I'm not complaining.) But let me tell you, though the snuggly wasn't used much the first two kids, it has saved my arm and back, and probably Isaac a few times too.

2009-03-22T12:14:00.000-07:00

Picture time

Some people would prefer pictures of the kids instead of the discussions presented, so here they are.

I am not sure what they were cooking, but they seemed to enjoy it.
The evidence is all over his face.
Our new book case. I think they thought it was a bunk bed that we were thinking about getting.
We went out and played some t-ball since I needed a break from studying.

15 minutes of attention is fairly good, I suppose.
We brought out the keyboard for them. They liked it and we could control the volume.
Buttons are great for kids.

Guess who jumped into the picture.
Quite debonair.
Great smiles.
He sure is getting big.
The end. More to come after PhD entrance exams.

2009-03-06T16:24:00.000-08:00

Rule of comments.

Now, I am not sure why this has become the case, but for a while, all the comments we would receive would be 2 per post. Normally, these would be outside of our own response to comments. This would make maybe 4 comments at most. So, while we are awaiting what has become our rule of comments, we figure that to be consistent, we don't need to post more frequently than our two token comments are received. Though I have to say that Jenny Wehrmeister's side ticker that shows which person posted most receintly and how long ago makes me want to keep being on the top and not with a "3 weeks ago" below my name.

The Death of a Blog

I have been finding it interesting that a blog is kind of the editorial page for the underutilized or underdeveloped writer to communicate. That makes for an interesting situation. Some of us find that talking on the phone communicates enough, while others find that chatting online with people keeps communication going. I personally believe that I am sufficiently busy to not blog frequently. Between phone, blog, and Facebook, I find my precious time torn and feel we keep fairly unconnected from the rest of the world as a result. Maybe that is an insolater. We protect our ingoings and outgoings. But time is precious and increasingly scarce. What can be assumed except that something must suffer. Some activities are loosing their strong hold in our routine.

I think about the people who lived before telephones. They managed to keep in contact via mail or personal contact or maybe just trust in the Lord that He is in control and trust in loved ones to make wise decisions. Posting a blog or chatting online was not necessary. They kept journals and other records. They wrote letters (which cost them a lot to write and send.) That way we know they existed. When far away from family, they found ways to make new family or to just be resolute on their own.

How far are each of us away from those we call family? We are almost 300 miles by driving from the nearest relative. Not too bad considering we can drive there in around 5 hours with 3 kids in relative comfort. If I were to have to walk 5 hours, google's pedestrian program thinks I could make it around 30 miles (though I seriously doubt I could do that.) Maybe a horse could take us more than to the next county, but certianly not the distance we can sit down and drive. So, even though 5 hours for 300 miles is relative ease, we can not just pop into see the family and come home in the same day legitimately.

How do we keep ourselves connected then? We each keep journals, following the Prophet's counsel. We each have been doing this with irregular dilligence for much of our lives. There is comfort in knowing that I have kept a record of parts of my life at least, both the public and private which I don't share with many others. We make phone calls too. We enjoy talking with family and friends. Even the cellphone keeps us connected where it wouldn't have otherwise.

Are we too connected? I was in a seminar today with a friend defending a master's thesis and a cellphone went off. It was mine. Now, this is not a public use cell phone. We got it for emergencies. Not a lot of things happen though that consitiute an emergency to me though. We have it for the cars (which are old). I kept it with me for when Levi was born. It was a great comfort, though I have always been around when my wife went into labor. But when this phone went off (on "silent"), everyone knew it was coming from my pocket. I used to say I left the house so no one could contact us. Maybe I still do, but that pocket leash keeps us from truely being uncontactable. ( I didn't answer it by the way.)

I find that I can still be close friends with people I do not contact every hour or day or month even. I remember the days when long distance phone calls had to be made late at night to avoid rediculous charges. Strangely, Facebook has helped me realize that even though I haven't seen some people in almost 10 years, when I contact them, those same familiar feelings come rushing back to me. I joy in their joys and sorrow with their losses. I love to hear from people, but I have found comfort in the Lord that He will watch over them. Maybe I learned that on my mission, but I have faith that we will all be reunited in some form and be able to share in the joy of good decisions made and lost aquaintances found.

Am I too connected? Probably. I am so glad to have a supportive family HERE. There are 5 of us. What joy can be reaped in something as simple as spending time together eating lunch at a park. I may not be as connected as others, but in the eternal sense, I hope I stay and grow more connected every second of every day.

So don't worry, we are still going to keep up the blogging (but maybe with more frequency once I finish my thesis.)

2009-02-21T05:30:00.000-08:00

A Phone Call

So, we have been getting these calls lately from BYU- Idaho. They are kind of funny actually. They normally call while we are putting the kids to bed. Maybe they don't understand that 5:15 pm mountain standard time is 7:15 pm our time. Maybe they don't get that we have kids. Maybe they don't get the fact that we are college students still (although it has been almost 10 years since I left Ricks College). Anyway, normally, I just tell them we are too busy to talk but they are welcome to call back later.

So, last night my sweet wife got a call. I answered it. She was holding Levi and trying to get Isaac ready for bed. After they introduced themselves and asked for her, I told them she was putting two kids to bed. They asked if there was a better time to call like tomorrow (Saturday) morning. I said that she was going to be out all morning buying a cow. She held her composure very well on the other end of the phone line, but probably thought this was the most original excuse she had ever heard. You could hear her kind of laughing on the inside.

While this was an original excuse, it is true. We decided to buy a hind-quarter. She is picking it up this morning. At least we don't have to butcher this one.

Please note that pictures are in the previous post (yesterday's).