Snowmageddon 2015

As Sarah had mentioned in a previous post, Lubbock, Texas is a location of the "not so much snow" variety.  A fact that brings me no end of joy.  I HATE snow.  With a raging passion that dwarfs the fire of 10,000 suns.  Now, even in Lubbock, we get SOME snow.  Usually, what this means is that the ground is covered in a quarter- to a half-inch of "white stuff", then the temperature goes up to something like 60 degrees Farenheit, and it is all melted by 12:00 PM that same day.  I can't tell you how gratifying that is to me.

Now you might ask what happened during my childhood that scarred me for life and made me hate winter so much?  The answer: absolutely nothing.  As a kid, I loved snow.  The problem came when I grew older and, well, bigger.  My circulation got worse, and it became ridiculously easy for my fingers and toes to get cold regardless of how many layers or the kind of protection I put over them.  Once cold, it takes an inordinate amount of time for them to warm up again, so I tend to avoid them getting cold in the first place.  That means, when winter comes, I figuratively get out the wooden stakes, crosses, and garlic and hide behind a rushing river.

This past winter we had planned to take a vacation to a slightly different climate over the break between Christmas and New Year.  For the first time since we have been in Lubbock, I did not need to be physically present during year-end inventory at work, so some friends of ours invited us to head north to visit a resort property they had a time-share at in Oklahoma.  We had planned to leave yesterday.  As usual, the best-laid plans of mice and men...

We were greeted with this:

This morning, the sight that welcomed me as I opened my front door was an extremely ominous one:

The views down either direction of our street.  And yes, that IS our van parked next to that snow bank.

Yes, that snow bank gets up to half the height of our front window...

...and the one in the back is every bit as big.

If you're looking for sizes for reference, we parked our kids in the highest part of the drift and told them to find the ground.

Then there's poor Shadow's house...

But like most kids, Meagan and Jacob were excited at the prospect of playing in the snow, and got their gear on to head outside.

Jacob can be seen making the obligatory snow angel.

The kids had a great time playing outside and I was glad for them from inside my warm house.  As for me and my body, however, we will dread the clearing of the snow from the driveway because we still need to get on the road to the afore-mentioned vacation - two days late.

- Josh                  

Merry Christmas to all...

Christmas.  One of our favorite times of year.  Since we made the decision to cut back on our gift giving (and even change the types of gifts we give), our Christmases have become much more about family and celebration of Christ's birth than they used to be.  There is a different feel in the house around the holidays.  We have not gotten away from "mainstream" gifts entirely, but it's definitely an improvement in my mind.

One of the great things about being in a house, rather than an apartment, is the ability to have room to put up our "big tree".  We can use all our ornaments (with all the memories that come rushing back as we put them up) and putting them on becomes a family affair where we can remember events and times in the past.

As is typical, the opening of presents entirely too early in the morning is every kid's favorite time at Christmas.

This might just be my favorite picture from this Christmas.  Jacob worked his way through an introductory (middle school aged) Chemistry workbook this past semester and really enjoyed learning about the elements and basic chemical principles and concepts.  Sarah and I decided to move him into basic chemistry and figured the best way to do it would be to get him an introductory chemistry set.  He was just a little excited...

So next semester, I will be working with him on going through the experiments.  At the same time, I will be teaching him how to keep a proper lab notebook since Jacob wants to be a professional scientist when he grows up (cosmologist, but they need to keep good notes too...) 

Here are his other presents.  Since he has been into The Legend of Zelda so much lately, we found a fleece throw with the Hyrulian crest on it as well as Skyward Sword for the Wii U.  We also got him a new book.  He got really excited about Brandon Mull's Fablehaven series, so we bought him the first book in the same author's Five Kingdoms series.

Meagan has fairly recently discovered Anime (which would make my friends Dana and Seth proud), and her favorites are Sword Art Online and Fairy Tail, of which she obsesses more over Fairy Tail.  So we got her a couple of seasons of the show on DVD, a pullover with the show's logo on it, and a key chain with one of the main characters.  For her book, we got her the next book in one of her favorite series, the Warriors series by Erin Hunter.

The kids each got new winter coats as well.  Yes, we live in Texas, but both of their coats have lasted for MANY years and it was time to replace them.  You never know when Lubbock might be under a Blizzard Warning...  like now.

Our family was also blessed to receive a DVD put out by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints filled with short videos depicting the life and doings of Jesus Christ as described in the New Testament.  This will be great to watch with our kids, and I expect that we will have many Family Home Evening discussions about them starting in the near future.

I am blessed beyond measure with a wife who knows me.  This Christmas, she purchased One Eternal Round by Hugh Nibley, a book on different aspects of one of the Facsimiles from the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price that has been the subject of much discussion since it was interpreted by Joseph Smith Jr.  She also purchased a hand-made, leather-bound journal with dragon inscription (because dragons are freaking awesome), and a coiled dragon-shaped pen to go with it.

And Sarah?  Sarah got a new (for us) van with all kinds of really awesome features that she wanted so that we didn't have to worry quite so bad about the "health" of our old van while she shuttles kids to piano, clogging, tennis (practice and tournaments that are an hour or more away), and the occasional field trip.

We have been so blessed this year, and while we have had our setbacks, we have had our share of triumphs to go with them.  We are so fortunate to have a place to live, food on our table, and comforts in our lives.  These things are not, ultimately, important in the long run, nor are they the reason we celebrate this Christmas season.

The reason we celebrate is because our elder brother, Jesus Christ, came to earth to offer us the chance to return home to our Heavenly Parents once again. He satisfied the demands of Justice and the Law and offered Mercy to all who would believe on Him, make sacred covenants, and follow His example, repenting and changing our hearts when we made mistakes. His matchless love enables us to become who we were always meant to be, and offers strength and hope in an increasingly sinful and dark world. We are ever grateful for His sacrifice, and as we celebrate His birth, we are grateful that He who was without sin chose to come and offer redemption to all of us who are not, for He was not forced to do so, but did it out of love for us, his brothers and sisters.

May each of us hold brightly in our hearts the love and hope of He who gives us cause to lift up our heads in gratitude and joy. Merry Christmas to each of you, our friends. Whether far or near, kindred by blood or kindred by deed, of our faith or not, we are grateful for every one of you. You are our eternal family, and for that, we are truly blessed.

- Josh                  

This is halloween..this is halloween.....halloween!!

Ahh Halloween, one of my favorite times each year. I enjoy seeing who everyone dresses up as, and all the creativity people have when decorating their homes. Usually, our kids dress up as their favorite character from either their favorite book or movie etc.. This year was no different. Jacob loves playing The Legend of Zelda, and his favorite person is Link. 

Meagan has always wanted to be Jack Skellington from Nightmare before Christmas, and this year we were able to make that dream come true.

 

This year we did things a little different than we normally do. It just so happened that our stake conference, for church, landed on the weekend of Halloween. So Josh attended the Saturday evening session, I stayed home to hand out candy, and the kids went around our neighborhood by themselves. I was a little nervous doing this but they are old enough to watch each other, and know how to stay safe. 

 

Everything went well, they had a blast, and got tons of candy.

 

Even our cat dressed up. I was amazed at how long he kept the hat on. He lasted about 3 minutes before trying desperately to get it off his head. At least I was able to get a picture. 

Happy Halloween to everyone!! 

- Sarah   

Love of Tennis

Meagan has found her calling in a few ways, and one of those ways is tennis. Practices and matches are the highlight of her week. She enjoys it so much, and works on her technique any chance she can. She is on the high school team this year and works hard to make her coach and teammates proud.

Getting action shots with my phone is extremely hard.

 

Whether it is singles or doubles she puts forth her best effort everytime.

 

We have been so proud of her determination and perseverance. This last Thanksgiving she had the chance to play with her aunt Elizabeth, and after they played she commented that she wasn't afraid of her fast balls this time, and that she had a blast learning from her. Elizabeth commented on how much she has improved since the last time they played in June. Even though tennis takes a chunk out of our week for practices and matches, I am so grateful she has this in her life. I am also amazed at the unity this team has. They are always there for you and whether you did great or made tons of mistakes, her teammates are always there to uplift her and encourage her. I love her tennis team.

- Sarah      

2015 Christmas Piano Recital

This year, both Meagan and Jacob took piano lessons.  Their teacher, a woman in our ward, is of the opinion that performances are an integral part of her teaching, so she holds regular recitals for her students to perform in public (along with all the nervousness and pressure that this generates).  The recital at the end of this semester was, predictably, Christmas-themed.  Both Meagan and Jacob did extremely well.  For Meagan, while not her first recital, it was certainly her largest.  For Jacob, it was his first.

Each of the kids did at least one solo piece, a duet, and played accompaniment for vocals (either a soloist or many voices).

 Meagan did a solo of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"...

...and another of Liebestraum (which, while not strictly Christmas-themed, was a classical piece she has worked hard on this semester).

Jacob's accompaniment was to Meagan singing "Go Tell it on the Mountain".

Their duet was Good King Wenceslas.

Because of technical difficulties (who knew that videos took up so much memory on a camera's SD card???), I did not get Jacob's solo or "We Three Kings", and Meagan's accompaniment to "Oh Come, All Ye Faithful" was cut short by about 2/3 of the song.

This is the whole group of students together after the recital.  They all were excellent (and Meagan got to spend more time with her friend Emma - thick as thieves, those two...) and both Sarah and I were impressed with how well they all did.

Here is another photo of just Meagan and Jacob with their teacher.  They really did make a lot of progress this semester.  I was pretty darn impressed with how far they went.  Both of them are learning to sight-read, a skill that I sadly never mastered (my piano playing likely would not have fizzled out the way it did if I had).  We are so blessed to have children that understand the value of good music in the home.

- Josh                     

Another semester of Clogging down...

Well, another semester of clogging has gone by.  This semester was twice-on-Tuesday classes for Meagan.  A Tuesday evening class with her friends (the Intermediate class) and a Tuesday morning private tutoring session with her instructor.  She takes to clogging like a duck to water.  If you watch her throughout the day, you'll catch her practicing her steps while doing chores or moving from one area of the house to the other.  

We love watching her and she is extremely invested in her dance.  The happiness you see when she is dancing is not a face, but the music and the beat as it affects her.  We're so pleased with her progress and her enthusiasm.

This is the dance that the intermediate class worked on this semester.

Last year, Meagan did this song as a solo for the Grace Lubbock Homeschool Association.  She reprises it this year, both faster and with much greater precision.

We love watching her and she is extremely invested in her dance.  The happiness you see when she is dancing is not a face, but the music and the beat as it affects her.  We're so pleased with her progress and her enthusiasm.  Here she is with the 3 classes in her teacher's studio (her teacher is the adult on the right of the picture - pink tie).

- Josh                  

Who'da Thunk....

In writing, this year, I decided to do a program that included history in the process. We are learning about U.S. history, and have been researching Native Americans and the early explorers. On this particular week, the kids were challenged to write a poem about what the explorers felt when they came ashore after the long trip on the boat. To my surprise, Jacob really surpassed all expectations and made and incredible poem. 

The American Explorers

Their hair flowed with the wind as they approached land,

Their eyes twinkled in great hopes of settlement,

Their mouths blabbered trying to fathom the excitement at hand,

And their arms flailed as they yelled in excitement.

They remembered the reason they came.

They hope the Indians are friendly.

They are the great English explorers. 

-Jacob                          

Meagan chose to take on the view of the Native Americans and what they felt or thought.

 Native Americans

Legs kneel down, descending as they peek suspiciously.

Their bodies trembling, and in tremor ever so fearfully.

Their eyes swiftly searching for signs of onslaught.

Their mouths utter a silent gasp.

They then grasp a weapon imperative for stability.

All they dreamed of was amity.

They are Native Americans, who wanted to be left in peace. 

-Meagan                       

I thought they both did a fabulous job, and love seeing the progress they are making. I think we have some poets on our hands.

-Sarah

Finally a reader!!

Jacob is finally an avid reader!! YAY!! He had always disliked reading until we started homeschooling. We gave him so many other options to choose from for reading and it worked! It used to be like pulling teeth, but now he loves to sit and read for fun.

For a long while, he would only read non-fiction but slowly, bit by bit, we got him to read other things, and now he is reading anything that sounds funny or he is interested in. I finally have to "keep" him in books, just like his father and his sister. Way to go Jacob! I am so proud of you and all your hard work!! 

-Sarah

We love to draw!!

Something I have noticed about our family is that each of us love to draw. One of my favorite times of the day is when we go out to the driveway and Josh and I sit and talk with the kids, and the kids each draw with sidewalk chalk.

You can always tell what the kids are interested in, at the time, by what they draw. Meagan loves My Little Pony, and Jacob is obsessed with Link from The Legend of Zelda!

 

I have really come to know the importance of spending quality time with each other as a family. 

"In family relationships, love is really spelled T.I.M.E.”

       - Dieter F. Uchtdorf

-Sarah

Ouch!!

I am not always clumsy, but when I am, I do it with gusto!! 

So we had some friends over for dinner and while getting something out of the freezer, I accidentally knocked over the can of frozen orange juice, which fell out and "lovingly" (NOT) landed on my toe. As you can see, the orange juice won the battle. Oh, well. I learned to never hurry when reaching in the freezer for anything. 

- Sarah

Such a loving child...

Jacob has always had a sweet spirit and a kind heart. The other day Josh was in some unbearable pain. Jacob saw this and went straight to work, making sure Josh had everything and anything he needed. He came to me and said, "I wish I could take some of his pain for him."

My heart just melted and I felt his love for his father and the wonderful spirit about him. For the next few hours, he sat close to Josh and made sure he didn't need anything. What an amazing thought and spirit he had. I am so proud of him and the man he tries to be each day.

Way to go Jacob for trying to model your life after Christ!! 

-Sarah  

I'm bugging out...

While watching Meagan at her tennis match, Jacob happened to see an ant trying to carry off a dead bug carcass. He got super excited, and we began watching this ant try its mightiest to carry off food for his home. We spent the next 20 minutes watching Mr. Ant, and began talking about ants in general. We talked about how he could carry something much bigger and heavier than him. We talked about how ants live and what they eat and the various different jobs that each ant has. He was fascinated, and so was I, just talking and exploring life. One of the best things about homeschooling is just that: talking and experiencing life and learning all about it.

After all of this, I found a documentary on ants called Ants: Nature's Secret Power (In case you want to watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-gIx7LXcQM). They watched it and wrote a paper on what they had seen. When asked what they thought of it, Jacob said, "So cool!" Meagan on the other hand said, "It was so gross.....yuck!" I guess you can't please everyone.

-Sarah 

A Rare Opportunity

My first job as an Engineer (FINALLY!) was at KeyTronicEMS in July 2006.  In 2007, I took my very first "business trip" to our facility in Juarez, Mexico, with my mentor, Ken Holmes (a now-retired specimen of engineering awesomeness).  Growing up, I remember vague tales of grown men taking business trips to "exotic" locales and seeing incredible sights.  The way they described it made it seem like a company-paid vacation.  Apparently, my wife had heard the same stories.  I went.  When I got back, she immediately wanted to know what sights I had seen and what souvenirs I had brought back from them.  I told her, "none".  She was incredulous and asked what I had done for an entire 6-day period.  I told her, honestly, "I woke up at about 6:00 every day, had breakfast in the hotel, and at 7:30 went in to the factory.  We got done sometime around 6:30 or 7:00 PM every day, went to dinner (at which time everybody else is eating too, so it all took longer).  By the time we were done with dinner, it was 9:00 PM and we were exhausted so we went back to the hotel and slept.  EVERY.  DAY."  She never asked me what I did on a business trip again.  They were ALL like that.

All of them so far... except this one.

For a particular project we are working on with Eaton Corp., I traveled to the Baltimore area with our Sales Manager and my Design Engineer.  Often, it is much easier to resolve issues like the ones that we were having face-to-face rather than via email.  Not that the latter is not possible, it is usually just faster to do the former.  It is also a great relationship-builder between companies and teams.  We do our best to plan enough time to address all the concerns a customer has, but sometimes, like in this case, we are just too darn efficient.  Based on the length of the flights (and the routes we had to take) we allotted travel days, not hours, so the 6th and the 8th were "flight" days and the 7th was for visiting the customer.  We completed that visit at 11:00 in the morning.  Lunch with the customer was over by 12:30, and we were left wondering what we were going to do for a half-day.  The obvious and usual answer was to go back to the hotel and work remotely, but I knew that my designer had no way to do so.  We learned, however, that he had never been to Washington DC, before, and both our Sales Manager and I had.  We decided to take him on a tour to some of our favorite sites.  First up, was the National Air and Space Museum.  Our Sales Manager is a private pilot, and I have always been interested in aeronautics and the space program (after graduation I wanted to work for NASA as a Chemical Engineer), so we both LOVED the place.

Several pictures of the things that we saw are below (In the later ones, I thought to take pictures of the descriptive plaques so that you might see what they were...):

This one is from the inside of a Boeing 747 cockpit.

Some of the "experimental" planes used by NASA and the US Air Force:

Old rockets and space modules:

A couple of satellites:

                                 

 

After that, we started in on the national monuments.  The capitol building (the dome was under repair at the time):

The Jefferson Memorial:

I have to stop here for a moment.  I have been here 3 times now.  Twice as a kid and once again as an adult.  I have to say, as an adult, this had MUCH more meaning than it did when I was younger.  I had an actual spiritual experience here this time around.  Over the last several years, I have been studying off-and-on the founding fathers, their writings, American History, Economic Theory, Political Theory, Constitutional Law and Theory, and American Government.  To me, Thomas Jefferson was the pinnacle of American Thought and, while not particularly sectarian, was very definitely a God-made man, who reverenced his Creator and understood the importance of using God as a foundation for an enduring and just system of government.  The quotes within this monument are powerful enough to me now that I had to take photos of all of them. His words are worth studying still and, in my opinion, should be required reading for ALL youth in America today so that they will understand the great inheritance that they have received and treat it with the care and respect it deserves.

The Washington Monument (and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool):

And finally, the Lincoln Memorial:

And old Top-Hat himself...  I've often wondered what he'd say if he were here now.  I think I have a pretty good idea.

By the time we'd been to all of these, everything south of my knees felt like it was going to fall off.  I'm getting too old and too out of shape to be doing that much walking all at once, but I am incredibly glad I did, and grateful that my designer could provide an excuse for me to re-visit some of these timeless locations and gain a new and more mature appreciation for them than I was able to in my youth.  Also, it was simply a more pleasant way to spend an afternoon than sitting in a hotel room in front of a computer.  I don't know that I'll have the opportunity to do that very often, but it was definitely nice this time.

- Josh