One Already!

Jimmy, Ally, and baby Sydney.

Baby Sydney turned one on Thanksgiving. She had her first birthday party at Hemenway Park yesterday afternoon. It was quite the "big" affair. Lots of visiting, food, photos, and fun. Unfortunately, Sydney wasn't feeling too well - had an upset stomach. She still managed to eat a bite of cake and "open" her presents. She is such a good natured little thing!

Syd loved her buggy from Grandma D.

She had lots of fun swinging and riding on the rocking horsie. Happy birthday, Sydney!

Aaargh! She's a Young Woman!

Maddie turned 12 years old today and I can't believe it! She graduated from Primary, got her Faith in God award, went to her first Young Women class, had a birthday brunch before church and before Amy left to go back to BYU, and got a "going-away" present from her beloved Primary teacher.

One day a few years ago, Maddie came up to me and said, "Mommy, when I was a 'surprise baby,' was I a GOOD surprise?" It brought tears to my eyes that she could even wonder otherwise. She was SUCH a good surprise, one I can't imagine living without. I am DEFINITELY not ready for an empty nest. I thank Heavenly Father every single day for this ray of sunshine in our lives. Happy birthday, Maddie. We love you so much!!

30 Years and Counting

Jeff and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary Friday!
Hard to believe it's been that long...We had planned a trip to Tahiti in January to celebrate, but we bought the house in Mt. Pleasant instead. Tahiti will have to wait...

Food Storage

Last night we completed our Relief Society "Living Off Your Food Storage" Enrichment Activity with a potluck at our house. For the past eleven days (is that really all it was???) we have lived completely off our food storage, with no trips to the grocery story. (We were also challenged to not eat out during that time, but as we took a quick trip to Utah we did eat breakfast and dinner out that day. ) It was a very interesting experience. I figured we would be fine, and we were, but we didn't enjoy it much. We have lots of things in our freezer, a very complete year's supply of canned and dried food and many other items, cases of bottled water, medical and sanitary supplies - and 11 days was not very long. Jeff said he didn't mind the experience at all and had hardly noticed a difference. Maddie and I can't WAIT to grow grocery shopping today!!! Things I learned:

1. After two weeks, my fresh items are GONE!
2. I need toothpaste in my food storage.
3. I need to find a better tasting powdered milk. Church cannery milk, ten years old-yech.
4. We really miss dairy foods-sour cream, yogurt, fresh milk. Should we get a cow in Utah??
5. I waste a LOT of food. I was much better about that when conserving.
6. I spend a LOT of money on food. I can do much better than that.
7. Powdered cheese is not too bad. (Believe it or not.)
8. You can't even tell when you use powdered eggs in cake mix cookies.
9. People are extremely creative when options are limited.
10. It takes 3 hours from start to finish to grind wheat and bake bread.
11. If you take four loaves of bread out of the oven when you have a house full of people, you will only end up with 2 or 3 loaves of bread left...
12. Woodbury Wheat Bread IS the best wheat bread...
13. We eat out way too much.
14. Some of my food storage is REALLY old. (Notice dates on cans. Still worked though!)
15. We COULD live on our food storage if we had too...

It was an interesting and enlightening experience.

He's At It Again!

My Survivorman is at it again. I went out to switch laundry and Jeff said, "Hey, come here! I want to show you something!"

While looking for tools in the garage drawers, Jeff had come across this fire-starting tin he made at a Mountain Man Rendezvous with the Scouts a while ago.


"You've got to see this," I was informed. "It is the COOLEST!" At the rendezvous they filled the tin with some "cotton" and burned it inside. A piece of steel was bent to fit inside and hemp rope and "any old flat rock" were added to the mix. With one strike of the rock on the steel, a spark falls into the cotton and ignites it immediately.


It smolders and you light the end of the rope, making it easy to then start a fire with your tinder and kindling. Then you tape the small hole in the top of the tin closed, put the lid on, and the smoldering cotton goes out. Wait for it to cool, put it in your pocket, and voila! Fire on demand. It's good to be married to a Survivorman...

I'm an Ugly American

Allyson and I watched "Freedom Writers" yesterday afternoon (yes, when we should have been doing something more productive) and it really made me sit back and evaluate myself.

For those of you that don't know, this movie tells the story of a high school teacher in Long Beach, California who worked with low achieving students, many of whom were members of racially based gangs. The brief view of their life stories in this movie made me realize what an incredibly blessed life I have had. I think I deal with stress all the time, but at least I have family that loves me, a home to live in, food for every meal, money to pay my bills - and I don't fear for my life 24 hours a day. I also have incredible opportunities, simply because I am free, white, and an American.

Allyson and I had to stop about twenty minutes into the movie as people came home and it was time to feed them all. We left off at the part where a girl in the class is telling the teacher how she hates all white people (she's Hispanic - what I personally have always considered "white!") She hates them indiscriminately because of the opportunities and power they have just because they are "white."

As I thought about this for the next hour, I felt so much guilt. Not because I don't think these children ultimately have the same opportunities I do (as they more than "proved" by the end of the movie,) but because I used to drive by these same kids and their world every time we went to Long Beach to take sailing lessons - without knowing any of this was going on. Here we were in our giant motorhome or our nice van, taking a long weekend to go sailing on the ocean, while this whole world of violence, hunger, fear, and abuse was happening around us simultaneously. Talk about "ugly Americans" abroad - I felt like one in my own country!

No, I don't think it's my responsibility or even "ability" to save the world. I know I don't have it in me to do even what this teacher, Erin Gruwell, did for one group of children. But it IS my responsibility to be AWARE of it - to CARE about it -to do what I can about SOMETHING, not to just blithely go about my life thinking everyone is as happy and content as I am. Isn't it?? I don't know. Surely something to think about...

I highly recommend this movie to everyone.

My "Survivorman"

I came home from a meeting tonight and Jeff was hard at work in the garage. I thought, "Oh, good. He's finishing the workbench top!"



But no, he was trying to start a fire with a Les Stroud "prison match" that he saw on "Survivorman."



It was so funny. On the same day that my friend LaRae posted pictures of her husband trying to start a fire with a Survivorman "fire bow," David brought Dad a late birthday present- "Survivorman" DVDs. We had never seen the Discovery Channel show before, but five episodes later we are hooked. (I think Les must be a little bit crazy, but Jeff thinks he is COOL!)



If you looked at LaRae's pictures, you'll see that obviously the prison match (made from an empty, broken cigarette lighter, a tissue, and a flint) is more effective than the fire bow (though rarely as available in a real emergency.)



Think Tom Hanks in "Castaway." It must just be a guy thing!