Road Trip!

What men of ALL ages do when they go on the road together...without female supervision...

Tanner thought this was the perfect place to, well, you know.  

At least he was discreet ;-)

Then they visited the fish...

Isaac decided to stick his hand into the tank....

I am just glad they are all home in one piece!

A LOVELY STORY ABOUT HELEN KELLER

My Mom emailed this to me today....Thanks, Mom.  I needed THIS...

This is an excerpt from 

A Place of Knowing 

by Emma Lou Thayne

(Emma  Lou also wrote Hymn # 129, Where Can I Turn for Peace …)

Many years into my adulthood, when asked by a Jewish poet friend why I stay  in my Mormonism, I explained it with a story, the details recounted by my mother. It is my mother’s story transposed into an allegory about  My believing.    When I was a little girl, my father took me to hear Helen Keller in the Tabernacle. I must have been about eight or nine and I’d read about Helen Keller in school, and my mother had told   me her story.  I remember sitting in the balcony at the back    of that huge domed building that was supposed to have the best  acoustics in the world. Helen—everybody called her that—walked in from behind a curtain under the choir seats with her teacher, Annie Sullivan. Helen spoke at the pulpit—without a microphone—but we could  hear perfectly, her guttural, slow, heavily pronounced speech. She  spoke about her life and her beliefs. Her eyes were closed and when it   came time for questions from the audience, she put her fingers on her teacher’s lips and then repeated for us what the question had been.    She answered questions about being deaf and blind and learning to read   and to type and, of course, to talk. Hearing that voice making words  was like hearing words for the first time, as if language had only come into being—into my being at least—that moment.  Someone asked her, “Do you feel  colors?” I’ll never forget her answer, the exact sound of it—   “Sometimes. .. . I feel . . . blue.” Her voice went up slightly at the end, which meant she was smiling. The audience didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.  After quite a lot of questions, she said, “I  would . . .. like to ask. . . a favor of you.” Of course, the audience  was all alert. “Is your Mormon prophet here?” she asked. There was a flurry of getting up from the front row, and President Grant walked up the stairs to the stand. She reached out her hand and he took it.   All  I could think was, “Oh, I wish I were taking pictures of that.”  “I . . . would like . . . ,” she said, “to hear your organ . . . play . . . your famous song—about your pioneers.   I . . . would like . . . to remember hearing it here.” All the time she was speaking she was holding his hand he had given her to shake. I liked them together, very much.  I remember thinking, “I am only a little girl    (probably others know) but how in the world will she hear the organ?”    But she turned toward President Grant and he motioned to Alexander Schreiner, the Tabernacle organist who was sitting near the loft. At the same time, President Grant led her up a few steps to the back of the enormous organ—with its five manuals and eight thousand pipes. We were all spellbound. He placed her hand on the grained oak of the console, and she stood all alone facing us in her long, black velvet dress with her right arm extended, leaning slightly forward and touching the organ, with her head bowed.  Brother Schreiner played “Come, Come, Ye Saints,” each verse a different arrangement, the organ pealing and throbbing—the bass pedals like foghorns—as only he could make happen.  Helen Keller stood there—hearing through her hand and sobbing.  Probably a lot more than just me—probably lots of us in the audience were mouthing the words to ourselves— “Gird up your loins; fresh courage take. / Our God will never us forsake; / And    soon we’ll have this tale to tell— / All is well! / All is well!” I could see my great-grandparents, converts from England, Wales, France, and Denmark, in that circle of their covered wagons, singing over their fires in the cold nights crossing the plains. Three of them had babies die; my great-grandmother was buried in Wyoming. “And should we die before our journey’s through, / Happy day! / All is well! / We then are free from toil and sorrow, too; / With the just we shall dwell! / But if our lives are spared again / To see the Saints their rest obtain, / Oh, how we’ll make this chorus swell— / All is well! / All is well!”  So then—that tabernacle, that singing, my  ancestors welling in me, my father beside me, that magnificent woman, all combined with the organ and the man who played it and the man who  had led her to it—whatever passed between the organ and her passed on to me.  I believed. I believed it all—the seeing  without seeing, the hearing without hearing, the going by feel toward something holy, something that could make her cry, something that could move me, alter me, something as unexplainable as a vision or a mystic connection, something entering the pulse of a little girl, something that, no matter what, would never go away. What it had to do with Joseph Smith or his vision or his gospel I never would really  understand—all I know to this day is that I believe.

The Results...

...as you already know, that Romney WON Idaho!

My OWN county, on the other hand, not so much.

Things That I Loved about the Caucus:
-That a prayer was said before the process began.
-That the Pledge of Allegiance was also said, and everyone cheered afterwards.
-That of everyone we chatted with,
NO MATTER WHO THEY WERE VOTING FOR that night,
one thing was completely AGREED:
We all need to vote for the Nominee, whoever it is!

3 Regrets About the Caucus:

1. I regret that I couldn't convince more of my like-minded friends to come out and vote.
(I know, I know, Romney won anyway, after all, but I just want people to get IN THE HABIT of voting, in general)
2. I regret that I didn't eat a big dinner before going.  We were there for more than FIVE hours!

(Who ever thought it was necessary to vote, then eliminate the person with the least amounts of votes, then vote again, and again, and again, until you end up with the overall winner?   Why not just go with the top vote- getter in the first place?

I KNOW there must be a good reason - I really do want to know.
Will someone please explain?)

OH - I know I only stated two regrets, not three.
I couldn't think of the third one!
I am really glad that I participated :-)

Idaho Super Tuesday!

This Republican primary cycle, Idaho actually has a say in who the nominee will be.

I am going tomorrow afternoon to stand in line

( I assume there will be lines, since for the Washington state caucus
on Saturday it was standing room only)


to caucus (strange word and an unfamiliar way to vote)
for MY choice of nominee.

I am looking forward to - literally - having my voice heard.

I will report back!

Guess who I will be voting for....:-)

I am Not a Ron Paul fan but....

A friend of mine texted this photo to me. 

I think it's pretty funny, don't you?

(That might just be an Obama look-alike, though.  What do you think?)

You have to read this story....

This year, our Christmas was a little something like this

Thank you.

Life, explained...

TWO WOLVES 

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle 

that goes on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between 

two wolves inside us all. 

"One is Evil -  

It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, 
false pride, superiority, and ego.

"The other is Good -  

It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, 
compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"

                The old Cherokee simply replied,

 "The one you feed."

(Merry Christmas!)

A Challenge, from Me to You!

Lately, I have been feeling like my life has been in the doldrums.   I don't even know exactly what a doldrum is, or where it's located.  Is it like a dumpster?  Because that's more where life's been lately - The big ol' trash dumpster.

So one night nearly a month ago, I saw that a blog-friend of mine, M-Cat, had posted on FB 

(don't you love it when your blog-friends transform into FB friends?  I do!)

that she was doing the Ironman Challenge.  Now, this Ironman differs from the three event, run a marathon, swim 2.4 miles, AND bike 112 miles All In One Day Event,  in one way:   you do it over a 2 week period of time.  

This hit me in the head, struck a chord with me, and totally put me right there!  

So, the Monday after Thanksgiving, I got busy with it.  Since the idea is to do all of the events spread out a reasonable period of time, you could break down the events any way you want to.   For me, the best way was,  with with the running and the biking, was to alternate doing a lot of one and a little of the other each day, and throw in the swimming where I could.  

The swimming is what I was most worried about.  We have an awesome new rec center (relatively)  near our home, so that wasn't an issue.  It was that my techniques was terrible - pretty much a cross between a dog paddle and a side stroke, alternated with a backstroke so I could catch my breath without drowning.      But I was pleasantly surprised - I ended up really enjoying the swim.  And next time, I will try to do the bike ride on a real bike, instead of the stationary one that I am grateful that we have, but really bothers my butt!  

So, to get to the point, I did it!  And, if you are at all into fitness, I would completely recommend it.  Although before doing this, I couldn't imagine how someone could do all of it in one day, and now, I really really don't know how a person can do it ALL IN ONE DAY!  Do you?  Have you or has anyone you know ever done it, and how did they train for it?  Just curious....


I am planning to do this again sometime after Christmas.  Who wants to join me?  Last time I posted my progress on FB, but I could post it here, too.

Happy Thanksgiving!

One of our Thanksgiving traditions is to bake - and of course eat - lots and lot of pies.

Today we had:
Pumpkin
Banana Cream Cheese
Lemon Meringue
Chocolate Turtle
Mocha Chocolate
Apple
Blueberry...

                                                                              

.....and Blackberry!

I am thankful for my many friends - in real life and those that I have met here on the Blog.  May you all receive many blessings!

They sent my Tax Return back! AGAIN!!!

In response to the question:

"List all dependents"

I replied -

"20 million illegal immigrants;

"3 million crack heads,

"2 million people in over 243 prisons;

"Half of Mexico ; and

"535 fools in the U.S. House and Senate.”
PLUS 
"1 inept jerk in the white house"

Apparently, this was NOT an acceptable answer.

(This didn't really happen to me.  It was in an email somebody sent me.

But it's priceless, right?)