Haven's School Fundraiser: Run for the Money--Thank you!

Thanks so much to all who donated to Haven's school fund raiser! He exceeded his goal and will wear all your names proudly on his shirt while he runs/walks/skips/hopefully-doesn't-trip next Wednesday. In fact he could keep wearing this shirt till he goes to college because I'm pretty sure it's big enough.

Hopefully the school reached their overall funding goal as well, but according to Nathaniel, whether they did or not, we are ignoring all future fundraisers this year.

Thanks again!

Gee Family Reunion Photos

Here are some photos from our Gee family reunion held in July. During the reunion we took a tour of the Sea of Galilee even though we were actually at Bear Lake. Having recently toured the Holy Land, Nathaniel's mom was stunned by how similar the real Sea of Galilee was to Bear Lake, so we just called it that for the sake of education and took a tour of the different sites from Jesus's life.

The kids enjoyed it, and if they had a choice between the real sea of Galilee and a shorter travel time, I think they would have chosen Bear Lake anyway. Now we're going to pick a spot in Boulder City to call Disneyland so they might finally stop asking to go there. (Our current answer has been, "Yes, in two years," and a few minutes later they ask if it has been two years yet. Hopefully their sense of time will improve before their missions for their companions' sake.)

The 90 Minute Gold Rush

They say history repeats itself, presumably because humans forget to remember that they've done this before and what exactly they got last time they tried it. Speaking from my experience, I think the past does come to mind when embarking on the decision because we notice the resemblance, but our great powers of reason convince us that the present choice is fundamentally different, and we can maintain that assumption up until we run into the same results.

Yesterday we took the kids up into Mt. Evans, just beyond the historic gold mining town of Idaho Springs for a hike. We hiked along a rushing creek, and afterward dipped our feet in the water when Nathaniel noticed several shiny golden flecks at the bottom of the creek. He put them on his finger to examine them, and though he assumed they were mica, he couldn't deny the very yellow metallic nature of them.

Quaint Little Idaho Springs

So we went back to Idaho Springs for lunch and stopped at the historic gold mine where they now run tours and sell merchandise instead of mining for gold. We bought a gold panning kit that comes with an instruction booklet and a bag of sand mixed with real gold ore flecks for practice. We then took our cheeseburgers back up the mountain and Nathaniel tried his hand at panning for gold... just in case.

The kit came with a tiny glass vile to keep your gold findings, and according to the current price of gold, we would only need to fill 1/32" of that vile each hour to earn an equivalent wage to Nathaniel's current job. So he tried it for an hour, and although he was proud of his newly developed skill manifest by his being able to leave nothing but the heaviest black iron sand in his pan, the gold flecks were the first to go, and no shimmering flecks mingled with the iron at the bottom. 

At the end of the day Nathaniel remarked that it appeared the gold rush happened all over today. People came from far away to try their hand in gold, but the only ones that really profited were the ones selling supplies, food, and lodging.

But in spite of repeating history and discovering the same results all over again, we at least cut the number of years it took the first time to a 90 minute venture. And now that Nathaniel can capture iron, we can start manufacturing skillets for sale. Check back here to purchase your own in about 20 years when we've collected enough iron dust to begin.

Field Trip for the Kids, Minus the Trip

Since we've been in Denver I've tried to find an outing to get the kids out of the hotel most days. Today I suggested Nathaniel sleep in a little and drive the car to work instead of walking because Addie decided to entertain us for an hour or two at 4 a.m. this morning. 

So that left me without a car. 

After the children had exhausted their artistic enthusiasm for the day I was just looking for something else for them to do besides watching PBS Kids, which is their default, when I discovered the magical method for bringing a children's field trip right to our door: pull the fire alarm.

I actually wasn't the one who pulled it, but someone did, so we all got to do a practice evacuation down 4 flights of stairs, and play outside in the courtyard where we heard the sirens of distant fire engines approaching. Once the inspection had been made and the alarm deactivated, we went out front to see the fire truck where the fire men came and introduced themselves to the children and gave them all Junior Fire Fighter Badges!

A Baby Sister for Adalyn!

The verdict is in for baby #4 and it's a girl! That makes a nice even spread for our two kids' rooms and I'm excited to have a friend for Addie Pie!

Mother's Day Feature: All About Grandmas

So here is our traditional Mother's Day video we make for our grandmas each year.

And this is the front of the card we made for them.

With 8 wonderful grandmas we like to honor on Mother's Day, it's nice to do something that can be duplicated... or "octipated".

The Everything Illness

Influenza. The definition has always seemed obscure to me. The term “flu” seemed like it was applicable to anything. When someone vomits for a day, they call it a 24 hour flu, but it is often described as more of a severe cold which sometimes turns to bronchitis or pneumonia, and sometimes can be deadly. Of course the bird flu and the swine flu, and don’t forget the H1N1 flu, all got mixed up in the picture and I realized that people displaying animal like behavior may also be diagnosed with the flu and are highly contagious, which is why I avoid going down to the strip.

Well, this week I contracted the “official” flu and discovered why the name is so easily confused with so many things. The fact is, the real flu is not just a runny nose, sore throat, a cough or a fever: it actually encompasses every symptom the body’s immune system can possibly throw out there.  The name actually derives from the latin roots: “In” [meaning ‘in’] “flu” [‘every possible way’] “enza” [‘terrible illness’]. You may have recognized these roots from the word ‘in-flu-ence,’ or [‘in’] [‘every possible way’] [‘people do what you say’].  (See: Gregorchianmur, Latin Can Mean Whatever You Want it To Because Nobody Checks References, 2012, p. 308)

 It all started with the feeling of nausea and exhaustion, which, being pregnant, I attributed to it being a normal day. Then I got extremely cold and my whole body began to ache. The body aches worsened and forbade any form of sleep the first night. By 2 a.m. I gave up on sleep and started cleaning and making bread. Then I had the brilliant idea that I might take a Tylenol. Having been pregnant or nursing at every moment of my life since 2006, the idea of taking a drug to relieve symptoms has ceased to occur to me, but I realized this case may justify a pain killer and Tylenol was supposed to be safe during pregnancy. So I took 2 capsules, and then drew a hot bath with some Epsom salt. The bath really helped, but because I couldn’t keep from vomiting a few times, I lost all the Tylenol I had taken and continued a pretty restless night.

The next morning I continued with the vomiting, chills, headache, and severe body aches, but then my immune system threw in a runny nose and diarrhea. This is where the animal like behavior began as well. I watched my children dump cereal, cracker crumbs, and banana peels all over my floor, the dishes, garbage, toys and everything else piled up everywhere, and I stayed on the couch and let it happen. You could definitely call it a swine flu at this point. Nathaniel had left his phone in the car all day so he was unaware of the state of things until he came home anticipating a nice lunch and discovered a barn.  He took off work the rest of the day to take care of me and the kids, and started to clean the swine’s quarters, but by evening time, even Immuno Man (the guy who misses every disease we go through) started getting chills, fever, nausea and body aches. 

By day 3 we added a cough and a sore throat to my list and Nathaniel began piling on all the same symptoms I had acquired. Also, there appeared to be some brain impairment as well, as all the productive things we could be doing from our sick bed like reading or writing were all but impossible to perform, thus leaving us to the sole occupation of watching Judge Judy and People’s Court episodes on You-Tube throughout the entire day. Nathaniel discovered these shows one boring night when I had taken a girls night out with some friends and has since become one of daytime televisions most loyal evening watching fans thanks to You Tube. He seems to feel so much better about his life to see  pathetic people get what’s coming to them by these quick witted judges. We found it had medicinal qualities as well for people lying in bed all day with fever, chills, etc. etc. etc., but its cheering effects were not as potent as we had hoped because the contrast to our own lives was becoming frightfully less apparent. Instead of being able to say, “Wow, these people are pathetic! So glad we do not live our lives anything like that!” we can at least say, “See! Other people are pathetic too!” We think this may be the appeal for most of the daytime watchers.

Day four progressed into a very deep and painful chest cough with heightened congestion and sustained fever, and the house had progressed to be all but unbearable. Day five and six has been more of the same, but I’m happy to say we’ve had the energy enough to begin sifting through the ruble in our home and the semblance of order has begun to return.

Is the “everything illness” done unveiling its symptom surprises yet? We can only hope. At least I have not broken out in cankering boils. But I am starting to believe the mortality rates of influenza could be underestimated given that they only track those who actually contract the disease. I am curious how many of their children do not survive the overdose of mac and cheese and Disney movies or the treacherous condition of the home during their parents’ infirmity. I also wonder how many spouses kill over from the barrage of complaints for every symptom known to man. We may never know the real statistics here. I just hope that my little family can recover.

Valentine's Day

This year I happened to be teaching preschool on Valentine's Day, so Haven, Hyrum and I spent an afternoon cutting out hearts and hanging them from our ceiling, chandelier, and ceiling fan. I haven't had the heart to take them down yet, so I'm letting them fall off one by one as the tape pulls away. Then we had a breakfast party with his class and I made pink heart shaped pancakes.

Nathaniel also got me chocolates and tulips, which he stealthily dropped off at the front door with a note that said "From your secret admirer." He left the Tulips for me the Saturday before Valentine's because he would be out of town on the actual holiday. Then, the chocolates showed up with another note with more disguised handwriting on Thursday evening while I was talking on the phone with him in Arizona. We determined it must be a secret admirer for Diana this time, but how uncanny he would choose the same method as Nathaniel. Just as she and I were discussing it in the entryway, a man burst through the front door and we both screamed before we could ascertain that it was Nathaniel returned a day early from his trip. He likes to play on my fears, I guess.

Here are some pics from the week.

Mitt Romney: How Can We Trust this Kind of Success?

It seems the only attack anyone has left to make on Mitt Romney is that he’s just too successful.

We as Americans can’t trust success. We are like the jealous sibling who thinks Mom’s love for Johnny somehow takes away her love for me. There are only so many pieces of the pie and no possibility of new pies being baked in the oven. If someone is doing well, than that must mean someone else is suffering on his behalf. Certainly someone that successful can’t have an overwhelming net positive effect on society and individuals.

So who should we have for a president?  Let’s see what the media and the other candidates are suggesting:

We certainly can’t have a president who has shown incredible success by his ingenuity, hard work, and moral character throughout his life. We need someone who the American people can relate to. We need someone who’s more mediocre. Who works the same job making an average income and never really figures out how to improve that except maybe by investing some of that hard earned money in lottery tickets.

We need someone who, like real Americans, pays more taxes than he legally owes, entrusting his hard earned money to the most efficient and best uses that the government can come up with. Like real Americans, he should have spent his money when he got it, and lived life to the fullest rather than saving and investing back in the economy. If he had done that we wouldn’t expect him to pay more taxes than the average American, and we wouldn’t expect his savings to be contributing to our economy on evil Wall Street where surely it is funding other companies that fire people now and then when they are struggling to make a profit or find inefficiencies in their staff.

We need someone with some real people flaws like a drinking or a smoking addiction, who suffers and submits to the real temptations of American life by cheating on his beloved spouse once or twice, even divorcing a wife now and then to not lose sight of the American dream is that there might be a better one out there.

Well, if you want to go by these standards, than Mitt Romney is not the guy for you. But I have a different standard that says this guy is not perfect, but he’s as close as I could hope anyone could be. And I’m certainly not going to disqualify him for being one the most successful, moral, smart, god-fearing, and hard working people in America who is going through tremendous effort and sacrifice to bring more Americans the kind of success he has had through greater freedom from government, a more responsible independent government, and all the protections for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that we originally entrusted to our government.

My endorsement is for Mitt Romney.