Dustin, Alicia & James

Elder Bednar gave a fantastic CES Fireside last month about using technology. Unfortunately we missed the original broadcast, but listened to the mp3 on our recent drive to Colorado. We were amazed at his powerful and direct language and his choice of topic. An excerpt:

Today I raise an apostolic voice of warning about the potentially stifling, suffocating, suppressing, and constraining impact of some kinds of cyberspace interactions and experiences upon our souls. The concerns I raise are not new; they apply equally to other types of media, such as television, movies, and music. But in a cyber world, these challenges are more pervasive and intense. I plead with you to beware of the sense-dulling and spiritually destructive influence of cyberspace technologies that are used to produce high fidelity and that promote degrading and evil purposes.

You might think he is talking about pornography, but in fact he spoke about other negative influences of technology. He shared stories of several individuals who were completely consumed in their cyber world, such as online gaming or Second Life. I was amazed at how strongly he warned against the dangers of allowing technology to rule your life, while carefully commending the strengths and blessings that appropriate technology can bring.

Brothers and sisters, please understand. I am not suggesting all technology is inherently bad; it is not. Nor am I saying we should not use its many capabilities in appropriate ways to learn, to communicate, to lift and brighten lives, and to build and strengthen the Church; of course we should. But I am raising a warning voice that we should not squander and damage authentic relationships by obsessing over contrived ones. “Nearly 40% of men and 53% of women who play online games said their virtual friends were equal to or better than their real-life friends, according to a survey of 30,000 gamers conducted by … a recent Ph.D. graduate from Stanford University. More than a quarter of gamers [who responded indicated that] the emotional highlight of the past week occurred in a computer world.”

He also touched on illegally copying music or videos as well as taking unnecessary physical risks for the thrill of an adrenalin rush. It is simply amazing to me how well he touched on these things that are such a challenge for our generation and are often easily overlooked.

It’s worth the time to internalize this talk. You can read it here, or better, watch or listen to it here.

Well, I spoke too soon about escaping last Sunday’s storm without any hail damage. It turns out we have a lovely large ding in the middle of our trunk. And maybe another one or two smaller ones. But we are so happy it doesn’t look like Swiss cheese and that we didn’t have any glass broken. Besides, since the car isn’t exactly fresh off the lot, it’s not a big deal. The beauty of older cars!

I don’t have a picture of the ding, but I do have a picture of another bit of damage we had on Sunday. Little JJ had a good trip and fall right into the leg of a table which earned him a nice big black eye:

It healed quite quickly though and he’s all back to normal.

We also paid a visit to the local “beach”–a man-made reservior and beach not far from my parents house. JJ wasn’t interested in getting in the water (it was pretty cold!) but he did love playing in the sand:

With my grandpa there, we had four generations:

And although JJ wasn’t crazy about the cold water, he did have an opportunity to try life as a fish thanks to an educational display:

We also got together for a little birthday party for grandpa–here’s the clan:

The trip wasn’t complete without a backyard project–Dad, Dustin and Grandpa managed to get this fence post pulled up and poured over 400 lbs of concrete to make sure that thing never moves again. The house will probably fall over before that fence post does.

We were having such a good time that we decided to stay an extra day–it ended up being a wonderfully relaxed day, and we were glad we did.

Some might have noticed I haven’t been blogging much lately. It’s true. My prime blogging time has been filled with either yard work (a little) or early bed times (a lot). I’ve really been enjoying earlier bed times, and haven’t always had a lot of desire to do anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary.

Some might recognize this condition as overall laziness, or more astute observers might guess that it’s something else. Although I can’t say it’s not total laziness, it may more of a condition known as pregnancy. Yes, around November 21, our three will soon be four (or five as we sometimes nervously joke about).

We’ve kept it on the d-l somewhat for quite some time, but as it’s getting more difficult to suck in, it’s time for the news to get out. I’ve enjoyed keeping my pregnancies quiet for as long as possible–the more people ask how I’m feeling, the worse I tend to feel. And when no one else knows, it’s almost like it’s not real, making the pregnancy that much shorter when you finally do break the news. But it gets hard to explain why you’re not doing any races this summer or to completely hide the fact that by 9 pm, you’re completely wiped out.

We can’t believe how many family and friends we have that are also expecting withing about 10 days of us. Between the two of us, we have two cousins, one sibling, a best friend, a client, a friends daughter and probably others we’re forgetting all due right around the same time. Wild!

We got to see cousin Emily while in Colorado (read her miraculous story here) who is also technically due Nov 21. She’s expecting triplets though, so she’s just slightly bigger and will probably have a shorter pregnancy.

We have some great pictures comparing our tummies, but I don’t have them handy at the moment, check back soon.

We had a great trip to Colorado to visit Alicia’s parents and extended family. JJ is by far the star of the show, currently the only grand-child and great-grandchild. That’s not going to be the case for long, so it’s a good thing he’s enjoying it!

Perhaps the most unexpected excitement happened while we were at church. It was about 1:50 and church was supposed to end at 2:00. I was walking the halls with the little man who wasn’t so interested in the food storage lesson that was being given in Relief Society. The skies were dark, and after a while it began to hail. JJ and I were watching out the glass doors with a handful of other people when everyone in the chapel began streaming out. My first thought was “Whew, we made it through another Sunday.” But I was wrong. I didn’t know what time it was, and didn’t realize that the meeting in the chapel should have lasted until 2:10 and the other meetings should have gotten out sooner. I walked down the hall to find Dustin and my mom. Before I found them, I heard someone say there was a tornado nearby and that we all needed to huddle in the hallways. That got my heart beating a little faster, but I quickly found Dustin and my mom showed up shortly after that.

I calmly explained to Dustin the things we learned in Tornado drills all through elementary school, that if we heard a train coming, we needed to duck down and put a book over our heads. We didn’t have any math books, and as soon as my mom arrived, she wanted to go outside and see it. We have had so many tornado warnings that rarely produced any damage that when there’s a warning, we head outside to see if we can see the funnel cloud.

We were corralled into the cultural hall where they were singing hymns, said a prayer, and made updates about the storm. We could hear hail pounding on the roof, and were just sure our car would be hammered with dents when we left. Finally, around 2:30, we were allowed to leave and were relieved to see large hail, but no dents. It was still quite windy and rainy, but no golfball sized hail–that was good.

It turns out that some men working in the clerk’s office could see the tornado above the high school across the street. We wish we’d seen it. Turns out I was just looking out the wrong window. That’s too bad.

At the intersection one block from the church, there was a fence blown down and quite a bit of broken debris in the road. It may be that the strong winds blew it down and it was run over, but I like to think that the tornado touched down right there super close to us. I like a little bit of adventure.

We made it home and met up with my sister Carrie, who had been attending the singles ward at another building and my dad and grandpa, who had been at grandpa’s ward. We all had different but similar stories of the tornado experience. We came home to hail everywhere, and we still have some big pieces in the freezer:

My poor mom had finally gotten these flowers planted–they’d been sitting on the porch for almost two weeks before she found time to get them in, and less that 24 hours later they were pounded. They would have been okay where she had them!

It turns out that the tornado did touch down and caused a fair amount of damage at the Southlands Mall just 3 miles away from where we were at church. My mom had just been shopping there on Friday. I think that’s the closest I’ve ever come to a tornado. It turns out the only severe injury was a guy trying to take pictures. Maybe it’s a good thing we had to stay inside the church instead of looking for the funnel.

A couple weeks ago Dustin did the Salem Triathlon. It was great fun but not without a few snags.

We started out on the wrong foot when Dustin woke up quite dizzy and light-headed Saturday morning. When breakfast and getting up didn’t help, we abandoned our plans to be there with plenty of time and he went back to bed for an hour. We managed to get there with enough time and get Dustin signed in and set up. Here’s our favorite cheer-leader, complete with bran muffin on his lip and lap:

Dustin slowly started feeling better as the morning went on, but didn’t really start feeling good until about halfway through the swim. But he did start feeling good and finished strong in the swim.

Although he’s on a mountain bike, rather than a road bike, Dustin does a great job of keeping up with a lot of athletes on much faster bikes. That is until he got a flat tire. Thankfully he took a patch kit and was able to finish the race–props to him for sticking it out. It’s the only time he’s raced without an extra tube, of course.

He finished with a strong run an overall time of 1:37. Not bad considering 15 minutes was spent fixing his flat.

I got to chase little J.J. during the race–I almost felt like we’d done a triathlon ourselves!

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Lately I’ve had a few experiences that made me wonder why I would ever buy anything new.

A while back, when I realized that JJ’s only pair of shoes were on their way to destruction thanks to his obsession with the outdoors, I decided to check out the thrift store to the north to see if I could find any good garden-worthy shoes for him. I left with a pair of hiking boots, a pair of sandals, five shirts, two pair of shorts and a toy phone for $12.75. And they all look pretty good. See here:

I couldn’t believe it. Even on their best day, all of that would have been at least $50 at Wal-Mart.

Not long after that, we saw some friends at a BBQ and they had their toddler in a portable high chair. They said they take it with them everywhere. After a messy wrestling match with our little guy that resulted in more food on us than in his stomach, having a portable chair for him sounded pretty good. They said they got theirs at Kid-to-Kid. I wasn’t familiar with it, but basically they pay you for your like-new kid stuff and then they sell it in their store. I decided it was worth a peek, so I stopped in one day and found this little gem (the chair, not the kid):

It was under a sign that said bathing, so at first I thought it was a potty. A second glance though, and it was exactly what I wanted. Even more than I knew. I mostly wanted a chair that was portable, but it turned out that this thing was infinitely easier to clean and took up so much less space than the monstrosity of a high chair we were using. It has been worth every penny of that $12, probably four times that. You can buy one of these new for about $25 online. I’m pretty sure it would work fine to start your kid in one of these, as long as they can sit somewhat well. Just say no to the high chair, and yes to one of these!

These were invigorating finds. The kind that you are just so excited about, because not only did they solve a lot of problems, but they were also a fantastic deal. They were some of those happy little finds that seem to be just a wonderful little gift from above.

Thanks to my old roommate Amber for sharing this. Made me feel good even if it’s not real!

And I’m not sure about that new study. Pulling your hair back into a pony tail is almost as good as a shower, isn’t it?

We’re halfway through General Conference weekend and I was just sitting here thinking about how much I love and look forward to this weekend.

My parents always made General Conference a priority and established great family traditions - they gave us all notebooks and helped us establish note-taking habits, they bribed us to be good (we grew up watching it at our church building rather than at home on TV) with a McDonalds lunch between sessions on Saturday, and we usually had whole wheat cinnamon rolls to enjoy throughout the weekend.

Now we all remember those times with fondness–those traditions not only strengthened our family relationships, they ingrained in each one of us kids a testimony of and love for the Prophets and Apostles and the importance of their counsel. We’ve reflected on it now, and realize that there weren’t many other traditions that would have had as positive an impact as those did.

Watching conference with a little one makes for some adjustments. He likes to run around, talk to himself and do all things distracting, but he did manage to sit still and be quiet for a few short intervals here and there. There may be hope.

During Sister Lifferth’s talk about reverence, I watched him prance into the kitchen and begin noisily emptying the pans out of the cabinet. It seemed rather ironic. We’ll keep practicing.

He did get quite interested when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang. He stopped what he was doing, watched the T.V. and did a little dance. That’s my son!

My siblings came over to watch it with us, which we always enjoy. We love to recreate as many of our family Conference traditions as possible, although the McDonalds tradition seems to be on it’s way out. That’s okay with me.

Thanks mom and dad. You’ve given us a wonderful gift.

You’re right, mom.  I’ve really been slacking off lately.  Here you go, complete with links to a larger version.

And we even managed to take a real video of the little man sorting the spices. Most of our videos begin the way this one ends. You have to click on the link to download it–sorry! Next time I’ll try to remember my youtube login and do it that way.
Spice Sorter

And the Rex Lee Run - I’m not so entertaining, but when my brother gets on, it’s pretty good.
Rex Lee Run

I am anything but an impulsive shopper. Nearly every purchase requires thought and consideration as to whether or not it will be a worthwhile purchase.

But the instant I saw Dr Seuss’s ABC’s in board book edition, I knew I had to have it.

I grew up with Dr. Seuss’s ABC’s.  Family folklore has it that my mom would read it to my sister and I 20 times a day and had it memorized. When my sister was three, she could “read” it, but in reality she also had it memorized.

So you can imagine my delight that not only I enjoy reading it at least 5 times a day to my little guy, but he does as well. And I know I almost have it memorized . . .
BIG A,
little A
what begins with A?
Aunt Annie’s Alligator, A,a, A!

BIG B,

little b

What begins with B?

Barber, Baby, Bubbles and a Bumblebee?

Would anyone like me to continue?