Daniel's New Look

This picture was taken right after we picked them up (his glasses). I took the picture in the car while we were still running errands in case I didn't get around to it at home.

Daniel is pretty excited about his new look.  Just about everything out of his mouth is talking about these new glasses.  He's says it's like 3D with them on.  He also commented to me the other day that he didn't much like how he looked before the glasses, but now that he has the glasses, he really likes the way he looks.

Of course, Megan has to be in the pictures.  She's my little poser!

Huge Snowman!!

There is a house not far from where we live, that this year is attracting a lot of attention.  He built a snowman family.  This snowman family is larger than any snowman I've ever seen.  Take a look.  (Thanks Laura for the pictures.)

Simple Joys

I've always been told to make sure to stop and enjoy the simple things of life.  At times, I do find that I enjoy the simple things of life.  However, probably not as much as I should.  It's amazing to me to watch Daniel and Megan, how they really enjoy everything that's simple.  The most recent thing, walking through snow.  Since the first day we had snow, all the kids have wanted to do is play in it.  The first snow we had didn't bring much and so by the time we were able to get out into the snow, it was mostly gone.  A little while later we had a couple of snow storms that have made it possible for the kids to play in it.  Daniel really likes to play in it.  Megan loves to walk in it.

When I take Daniel to school, I walk.  That's the best time for me to get my exercising in.  However, this past week it has been too cold to do that.  And pushing a stroller through the snow is no fun.  But, I've driven to the church and from there all three of us walk to the school.  Megan has absolutely loved that time to walk in the snow.  This has been a gentle reminder to enjoy the simple things of life.

The following pictures are the children playing in the snow.

 

 

 

 

 

Cheaters never prosper...

Last weekend, as is the case on most fall weekends, there was no shortage of controversy over a particular college football game.  The allegation is that the California Golden Bears cheated against the Oregon Ducks by faking injury to disrupt Oregon's offensive rhythm.  The consensus winner of the worst acting job is cataloged here on youtube.

Kevin Hench, a writer for FoxSports.com posted an article today stating that "cheaters never prosper, except always."  The premise is interesting as he explores all the evidence suggesting that cheaters do actually prosper and even gives an example of a soccer team that suffered a foul that went uncalled because the player fouled managed to stay on his feet and did not engage in theatrics demonstrating foul play.

The reality of what he is saying has rung true for thousands of years.  The ancient psalmist lamented the apparent prosperity of those who employed guile in their quest.  The Lord himself in the New Testament acknowledged that sometimes a person might benefit temporarily from dishonest conduct.  Each of us has seen countless examples in our lives where someone else chose not to follow the rules.  Such occasions often cause us to ask ourselves why we follow the rules.

The answer, of course, lies in the effect of the conduct on one's own character.  Dishonesty is a practice, like most others, that become easier with repetition.  The effect of an act of dishonesty is to cheapen one's word or promise.  Even if no other mortal knows of the deception, the deceiver knows and the dissonance between what s/he knows to be right and what s/he did will be present.  At this point, the person has three choices: (1) Fess up to the mistake and fix it, (2) let the dissonance remain and tear the person apart psychologically, or (3) become so callused to the dissonance that it no longer bothers them.  If a person chooses option 3, they have to go through 2 for a while.  Both of those are unpleasant.  However, the true danger comes after one has settled into the 3rd choice because they start ignoring the difference between right and wrong altogether.  Let us not forget that there is a day of reconning for all.  Some might hope that the Lord will be in too much of a hurry to look at every little thing that we did (or didn't do), but alas, he is the Master of all--he's got time.

Only option 1 allows for a clear conscious and worry-free anticipation of meeting the Maker.  While I think Mr. Hench's article spends too much time on how cheaters apparently prosper, I do like his closing lines.  He quotes Connecticut's men's hoops coach Jim Calhoun as saying, "We may have broken rules, but we did not cheat."  Mr. Hench then observes, "It'd be fun to hear Calhoun explaining that to one of his six grandchildren."  I might add...or his God.

Happy Birthday Megan

Our sweet Megan had a birthday this past week.  She is now five years old.  It's amazing how time flies for certain things and drags for others.  These past five years have definitely been a flying moment.

This year was her year to have a friend party.  So, we had a princess party and Megan invited 8 of her friends.  The girls came dressed in their princesses outfits.  We had Aurora, Cinderella, Belle, and other beautiful princesses.  We played 'Kiss the Frog' and Bingo.  The girls had fun playing with each other, eating cake and ice cream, giving the presents and then getting to play with the presents. She received, a couple of FurReal pets, games, a Barbie, a Littlest Pet Shop, a Polly Pocket, and window catchers. 

 

 

 

 

Then the next day we had her family party.   She received beads, games, magnetic dolls (like paper dolls), books, a big lipstick bank filled with stickers, paper, pencils, hair clips, stationary, etc.  She also received a back pillow, clothes, and more hair clips.

 

 

Megan went easy on me with the cake this year.  She wanted a princess party and I thought she would want a glamorous princess cake. But instead of that, she had seen a picture on the back of a brownie mix box that had a recipe for Cookies n Cream Brownies.  That is what she wanted.  Love it!!  It was a really good recipe and super easy.  It was great not to have to spend most of my day decorating a cake.

Happy Birthday Miss Megan!!

Silence Isn't Always Golden

They say silence is golden.  In yesterday's case, I disagree.  Miss Megan does lots of things that are quiet.  She is very sneaky.  Yesterday morning she did it again.

I was trying to clean my kitchen while I listened to Daniel practicing his piano.  It had been quiet from Megan for a bit, but the last thing I saw her doing was coloring.  She can stay focused on one thing for quite awhile.  I had the thought that she had been quiet for too long and that I should go check on her.  But I didn't because I figured she was coloring.  Not long after this thought she came down the stairs.  Megan likes to go into the bathroom and play with the water.  So as she was coming down the stairs I could see that she had been in the bathroom and her hair was wet and slicked back like she often does, but it did look slightly different this time.  She sat in the kitchen for awhile and was reading some of her books to me.  After about 10-15 minutes of this, I looked closely at her.  Her hair had started to dry......and then I could tell what she had really been doing.

That's right.....she cut her hair.  And she cut it short enough and in enough places that she now has an awful mullet.  When I asked her why she cut it, she said that she was tired of it being in her face and that she was tired of having to do it.  Oh my!  She sure keeps me on my toes.

When I told her that I will take her to Michelle's to have her fix it, she became very angry and almost scared.  She then said she didn't want it cut short.  Wait..........then why did you take the scissors to it?

Later that night, I took some more pictures from all angles so that I could be sure that I had enough pictures of this event.

 

 

 

I was able to get her to Michelle (the girl who cuts our hair) fairly quickly.  Thank heavens, because I really didn't want to take her too many places with that mullet she had given herself.  Anyhow......here is the after.  Now we wait for it to grow.

 

 

The Witches and Gardner Village

It's Megan's first school field trip.  The class got to dress up in their Halloween costumes and went to Gardner Village to look at the witches.  With Daniel being off track, he got to come along.

 

 

 

 

Ashley National Forest

This past weekend we went camping to Ashley National Forest.  The reason for this trip was to use up the food from our 72-hour kits.  I got this idea from someone else and thought it was a great idea for rotating our 72-hour kits.  It helped me to know if we really did have enough food to sustain us for 72 hours if needed.  It was a success.

While on our trip we stop at the Flaming Gorge Dam.

 

 We crossed this bridge and the dam 5 times the whole weekend.

 

We went down to the boat launch to look at the really green river.

 On our way to Sheep Creek Loop we stopped on the side of the road to see this view.

On Sheep Creek Loop we spotted this guy.  He looked at us and we looked at him.

 We saw some beautiful colors all around us!

 While on Sheep Creek loop, we were able to take some off road trails which gave us a pretty good view of everything.

Along the way we stopped at many lakes.  We stopped at Browne lake and shot off some potatoes.  We also drove to Spirit Lake.  We had been in the car for a long time and we wanted to let the kids get out and walk for a bit.  We have found some small hikes that we wanted to go do.  The weather was making it questionable to whether we did a hike or not.  But we decided to try one.  Of course we picked the weekend of the deer hunt.  We did not want to be mistaken for an animal, so we got to wear some lovely orange.  

 We took a small hike to Jesson Lake.  It had been raining and a bit of snow while on our hike.  We figured we were only 1.5 miles away from the truck and if it started to really snow hard, we could turn around and get back to the truck before we could get stuck.  We made it to the lake and this is what we saw.  It was neat being so far away from everything and have it snow on us.  It was very quiet.  As we stayed there for a few minutes the snow really started to move in.  When the mountain was a bit harder to see we decided we'd better head out.  The snow was accumulating quickly.  We made it back to the truck but had to wipe a bit of snow off of it before being able to come down.  We were worried about the road conditions.  We were on a dirt road and would be for several miles.  Luckily, the snow pack was only on the road for about a mile before we made it far enough from the snow.  And then Bryan was having the real fun.  We were on a wet dirt road.  His mission every camping trip is to get the truck as dirty as possible.  So far our Escalante is the winner.  I don't know if he'll every be able to top that.

We kept seeing these rabbits (or maybe the same rabbit) at our campsite.  The morning we were leaving this little guy came right up to our fire pit.

 On our way home, we stopped at Red Canyon and saw some more wonderful views.