Get The Word Out!

What announcements were in your Church bulletin this past Sunday?

The Cub Scout pack meeting?  A fireside reminder?   Ward temple night coming up?

We had all those and this one too!

"The warm weather is causing baby rattlesnakes to hatch on the Mormon Center grounds and they are now living in the flower beds and bark areas.  Please watch your children!"

And I am the Sunbeam teacher to 6 rambunctious children whose favorite thing while heading to class is to run in the bark and pick flowers.  

 Baby rattlesnake:

 Our church building is located on a unique property.  There have been rattlesnakes found in the downstairs bathrooms right next to the Primary room and Dan and I were sitting on the stand one time when we noticed some activity on the back two rows.  We later learned that a rattlesnake had entered the chapel!  And there is a story/legend that when camping was allowed on the property, the scouts found a rattlesnake.  The scoutmaster promptly chopped off its head and roasted it for dinner.  Up until the temple was completed, this sign greeted you on the drive up the hill:

Hoping for a bite-free summer!

Just For Me To Remember!

Occasionally Dan has meetings in Monterey and when I am able, I like to go along. It's so fun to get away. We stayed at a newer hotel on Cannery Row.  It had its own "sandbox" in the room, a live orchid and was situated right on the bay.

The view out our window.

The group hosted a dinner at The Sardine Factory, a famous restaurant on Cannery Row.

They brought us each one of these frozen lighted swans with sorbet to "cleanse our palette" in between courses.

And for dessert we got our own Baked Alaska.

During his meetings I went for a walk to a harbor where I heard there were lots of baby seals.

I got to see quite a few but I was back quite a ways behind a fence.  Why is it that kids are always playing and mothers just want to rest?

After the meetings we made a visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  It is a great place!

What amazing things are under the sea!

I tried and tried to get a good picture of this sturgeon.  I was very fascinated by it.  They are very large and can live in salt and/or fresh water.

The Aquarium was featuring an exhibit on jellyfish and I snapped this picture at one of the tanks.

Later we sat in the back to watch the otter feeding.  Dan scooted up close for a few minutes.  Later when I looked on his camera I saw this picture.  I was just amazed at the great shot he got!  Yeah right!  He got a great shot of a POSTER!

The Lazy Gardener!

A vegetable garden can be a lot of work!   And sometimes even after all the work, there is barely anything to show for it.  It's always worth it to try though.  

But I have discovered a fun little secret that has worked for three years in a row now:  Late September arrives and I'm at the grocery store.  I see a packet of seeds for $1.00 and think: Maybe I should plant some peas.  I toss the seeds in the cart and a week or so later, I remember I have them.  So I head outside and spend 5 minutes planting them.  That's it!  I barely think about them again.  I don't water them, thin them, feed them or weed them--nothing!  

And then in March I start noticing all the flowers turning into pea pods!

Yum!

We picked bags and bags of these this year.

Wish all my gardening was this easy but then I wouldn't learn some important things.
But I guess it's OK to be lazy once in a while!

If you've stuck with me this long: Our newest little pea in the pod is going to be a girl!  

Congratulations John and Sara!!

What He Does!

Dan's calling involves lots of meetings and interviews, lots of presiding and speaking, but I  have found it interesting to see the variety of other things he 

needs to do for his calling. 

Here are a few from the past few weeks and one upcoming:

1) Attended a training meeting in our area with Elder L. Tom Perry and 

Elder Richard J. Maynes

 2) Presided at a YSA Kickoff Fireside for a statewide Young Single Adult Conference coming up

3) Attends meetings as Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Sacramento office of LDS Family Services

4) Spoke at an 11-year-old Scout Camp-Out on a Friday night

5) Spent time at a stake Youth activity which was planting flowers and other work on the grounds of the temple (He took the pictures below from that event) 

6) As often as possible he is out visiting the members of our stake.  In the past two weeks he has spent 3 evenings visiting members of our stake with one of our Elder's Quorum presidents and two of our bishops.

7) He will conduct and introduce the speaker, Elder Marlin K. Jensen, at the next CES Fireside which will be broadcast around the world from our building we call Mormon Center.  He will also host a reception for Elder Jensen before the fireside.

(Side note: It's also our stake conference that day!)

My Interesting Day!

Most of my days are pretty much the same.  

So it's fun when things happen to change it up!

Here was my Monday:

On Sunday I was talking about all the interesting people I have been discovering while indexing.  I told Dan:  I bet somebody will even get to index some Eskimos.

Imagine my fun surprise when I downloaded a batch from Alaska and they were all Eskimos!   And they had last names like Wejiauanna, Kujutelluk, and Nuyokpuk. Their occupations were either "Trapper" or "Ivory Carver" for the whole page.  

Then I had a visit from a Federal Investigator!  He was there to interview me about my son, John, who is seeking a security clearance at his new job.  And yes, he showed me his ID badge.  I had to answer a lot of questions.  After it was over, two things stood out:  He was very impressed that such a high level of security clearance was being requested.  And he was very impressed that not only had my son majored in Physics but that he also had learned Korean and received a minor in it. (The investigator had spent a year in the military at their language training facility trying to learn Japanese for 8 hours a day but never really learned to speak it. He couldn't fathom that our missionaries only study for a few weeks!)

And finally we had an interesting Family Home Evening.  We learned about all of the amazing things that have happened in April through the years of church history.  The Astles had gone through the Church Almanac and gleaned the information which we then discussed: Everything from the Dedication of the Salt Lake Temple on April 6, 1893 to the postponement of General Conference in April 1919 due to the influenza epidemic to the changing of the term Primary "Superintendent" to Primary "President" on April 18, 1942 to the church reaching 6 million members on April 30, 1986.  

Great month and as it turned out April 16, 2012 was a great day for me!

(These are our FHE friends)

Let The Fun Begin!

 I am excited to take part in the digitizing of the 1940 U.S. Census!

The Census was under restriction for 72 years and was released on April 2, 2012.

There were 132,164,569 people in the U.S. in 1940.  The volunteers have already indexed 17.7 million names and it's only been a little over a week!  

After working on a couple of batches I decided I needed to add some fun just like we did for General Conference.  What if I indexed at least one batch from every state and kept track on a map?  Sounded fun to me!  Unfortunately, by the time I decided this, the state of Delaware was already done.  Oh well, it's big country!
I am keeping track on my side bar and got off to a good start!

I didn't realize how addicting, interesting and fun it would be!  It hasn't even been another week and I am already all over the map!!  I'm trying to catch at least one batch as the states come up.  Delaware had the third lowest population of any state in 1940.  Wyoming and Nevada were the bottom two, so I'll have to keep checking to snag one from those states!

\

Just think--someone will be indexing all those early Hollywood stars like Clark Gable, Bing Crosby, Jimmy Stewart and Bob Hope.  Someone will index Joe DiMaggio and Jackie Robinson, President Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, and even President Heber J Grant!  And someone will index my parents and grandparents!

As I've been working through the states, I have been reminded once again how important each person is.   To someone they are part of their family, they lived on this earth (and are maybe still living!) and they are unique and special and loved by our Heavenly Father.

Some of the interesting things I've worked on so far: A lot of people of Armenian descent lived in Fresno in 1940; No surprise--lots of Scandinavian names in Minnesota; I got an enumerator with bad handwriting in Kansas; Did a batch of names from a prison in Indiana (not a single person in the batch was in their 20's or 30's); I got a little hung up on some Polish names in New York; Of all the states I've done so far, Oregon had the most people born out of state; and tomorrow I will attack an Indian Reservation in Montana!

What a wonderful and diverse country we live in!

Bunny Fun!

We had a fun party on Easter Bunny Day (Saturday)!

Each child was assigned a color and they tried to wear some of their color as part of their outfit that day.  Here they all are!

(The colors were used for all of the games such as the Egg Hunt.  They were to hunt for the eggs of their color.  It worked out great!)

The Egg Hunt:

Pin the Tail on the Bunny:

Egg Stepping game:

 Eggs and Spoons:

 Egg Balloons:

 The Park:

 The Lunch:

Who would have thought that one of the highlights would be all these peas growing in our garden?  The kids loved picking them, opening them and eating the yummy peas inside.  David got some peas and put them in his plastic eggs and asked his Mom to hide them for him.  And he was just as excited opening them when he found them as if they had a jelly bean inside!

 The Decorations: 

(Everyone who colored pictures ahead of time got a prize!)

 The prize was a magnifying glass!

(Note to self: Do not ever buy your grandchildren a magnifying glass again unless you want to hear the following six different times: "Grandma, you are SO huge."

At least the party was a huge amount of fun!