I accomplished something!

I can't believe how much stuff I got done this morning!  It is so nice to not have to worry about homework this week.  I got up this morning at 6:30am...35 minutes after my alarm went off the first time...  so I was worried that I'd started off bad and wasn't going to recover.  I did though!  =)  We all had oatmeal for breakfast this morning.  My kids LOVE oatmeal (the flavored kind that comes in the packets).  London had a field trip today to Eaglecrest (the place to go skiing here) so I had Caleb make the lunches and I french braided her hair so it would stay out of her face, and helped her remember to get all her snow gear.  Isaiah got up really late and was still eating breakfast at 7:50am...school starts at 8am.  Brooklin got up and was sneezing like mad.  We have all had some sinus something and she is the last to get it.  She really wanted to go to school today to show off the new shoes she bought (she bought her very first pair of shoes with her babysitting money...black "converse".  the short top kind) and the new shirt I bought her.  I made her stay home.  She was kind of bummed, but she understood.  (I gave her some NyQuil and within an hour she was sound asleep with a book propped open in her hand.  I left her home while I ran some errands later on and left her a note on the whiteboard and put the phone next to her head in case she woke up and didn't know where I was).

I drove the kids to school and when I got home, I had to fight the urge to plop down in front of the computer.  Instead of playing on facebook and reading people's blogs I:

• took a shower
• prepared three packages to be mailed.  (Marnie: mailed you the flannel squares for the baby quilts. Lisa: mailed you some clothes for your girls. Heather: Remember about two months ago, I called and asked you if I could mail you a box of stuff??  Yeah...it is finally on it's way, slow boat mind you, but it should be there within a month).
• pieced the back for my king size quilt
• called the quilting lady and set up a time (tomorrow at 10am) to take it in to be quilted
• did two loads of laundry (washed and dried, but so far not folded)
• went to the post office and mailed the three packages
• went to one bank and made the boat payment
• went to another bank and made a principle payment on the house
• drove some papers in to the mortgage company for out refinance (closing at the end of this month)
• went in and interviewed a property manager for renting our house
• ate lunch (a teriyaki chicken wrap from a cool Thai restaurant I didn't know existed!)
• went to Fred Meyer and got some groceries

This was all by 12:30 pm!  I don't ever do this much stuff by lunch time!  If I hadn't called Brooklin at 11:30 to ask her about a book I wanted to get her but didn't know if she already had, she probably wouldn't have known that I even left!  haha!   Now I am gearing up for the kids to return from school.  I told them that we would make cookies for FHE (family home evening) tonight.  I am also hoping to have a REAL dinner tonight...one that I cooked and not something frozen that I just reheat!  It feels like I haven't cooked if forever!  This is such a great feeling... =)

Lucky Lissa

Last Saturday we took the whole family to the home show here in Juneau.  It cost us $15 to get in.  ($5 each for Darwin, Brooklin, and I...the other kids were free).  We had fun walking around and looking at stuff, but we really went with two purposes...to find someone who would give us a free estimate for painting the inside of our house and to sign up for all the free prizes.  hehe!  We found only one person who was a house painter, (she called this week while I was in class to set up a time to come by, and I haven't returned her call...oops) and we signed up for every raffle we could.  The next day after church, I got a phone call from some guy from the home show.  He was calling to tell me that I had won a set of drills!  haha!  I went down this week to pick them up at Alaska Industrial Hardware and apparently they are really nice (and expensive)!

I won a DeWALT 18V Compact Lithium Ion Compact Drill and Impact Driver Kit that retails for around $270!  I don't even know what an impact driver is...haha!...but I am a nice wife and I'm going to give it to Darwin.  He is very excited, but hasn't had a chance to even see it yet, because he left early on Monday morning and I hadn't been in to pick it up by then.

The reason this post is titled Lucky Lissa, is because that is one of the names my family used to call me when I was younger.  One day, I went out into the backyard when we lived in Pasco, WA (so I was somewhere between five and eight years old) and found 23 four-leaf clovers!  My mom helped me save a few of them by sticking them in between two sheets of clear laminate paper.  I gave a few of them away and I don't really know what happened to most of them, but I'm pretty sure I still have one of them in a box of my childhood memories.  I think I am pretty lucky in so many things.  I have a great life...not gonna lie...I have the best husband for me, awesome kids, I've been able to live in some of the most beautiful places in the world (or at least the United States...hehe), I have the gospel, the scriptures, and a ton of cheerleaders and friends in life.  I have won a few things by chance, but I am grateful for the things Heavenly Father has blessed me with in this life. 

Mouth Power

The kids and I braved downtown Juneau this weekend.  It isn't all bad down there, it is just insane trying to find a place to park.  All the streets are narrow and nearly all of the parking is along the street, and I am not good at parallel parking.  We went down to see the Mouth Power exhibit at the Juneau Museum.  It was a cute setup.  They had a giant set of teeth with a huge toothbrush and floss the size of yarn.  There was a dentist's chair and several small white lab coats so the kids could pretend to be the dentist.  They had some displays about smoking and tobacco use and several animal skulls so we could see different kinds of teeth.  While we were there, London sat down in the dentist chair and said, "I have a really loose tooth.  You should come over here and pull it out."  I thought she was playing, but she was serious!  I walked over and yanked out her tooth!  haha!  She lost a tooth at a display about teeth!  Pretty funny.  We bought her a souvenir tooth holder from the gift shop. 

After the museum, we stopped in a little new/used bookstore on our way back to the car.  We all love books.  Brooklin bought four books, Caleb bought two, and I came home with four or five.  We had some other shopping to do on Saturday (since it IS a special day....lol!) so we walked back to the car and drove to the stores.  We went in to Payless Shoes at one point to buy Isaiah some new Sunday shoes.  After picking out some that fit him, we all started trying on random/crazy shoes...super high heels for me, knee high lace up converse for Brooklin, wedge heel tennis shoes for London...I think even Caleb tried on a pair of shoes.  It was getting time to go, so I told the kids to start cleaning up all the shoes we had gotten out.  London was sitting on the floor surrounded by boxes of shoes, and said to no one in particular, "I could do this all day..."  We all had a good laugh at that one!  We came home and played a game of Settlers of Catan and then had French Toast for dinner.

Darwin has been in Florida this past week visiting with his brother's family in Satellite Beach and this week he's attending a Cruise Ship Expo (I think) in Miami for the Coast Guard.  He should be home on Saturday night...hooray!  We have been having fun talking with him over the internet.  We both have laptops with a webcam in them and we have been using Yahoo Messenger 10 to video chat.  The kids and I all squish into the picture and have fun seeing and talking with him!  I love video chat!  We just tried out Skype today, and it seemed to be a good option as well.

Bob

This week is my Spring Break.  It is so hard to blog during school.  It seems to me like I have more homework than ever before this semester, but that isn't what this post is about.

Meet Bob

Bob was Caleb's flour baby last week.  The entire 6th grade got their flour babies on the 4th, and had to take care of them until the 9th.  The teachers did a kind of hat draw to determine whether the kids got a boy or a girl baby and one boy ended up with twins!  They had to take care of the baby for 5 days, make sure it wasn't left alone, and that it didn't get any holes

Caleb was a really good dad!  He got babysitters for Bob when he had an activity that he couldn't take care of Bob, he never forgot Bob in the car or at the house (I did!  I left Bob in the car last Sunday when I was supposed to be babysitting...bad grandma!  haha!), and he was caring and kind to Bob.  Once he came upstairs without Bob, and I asked him where he was.  He said, "Oh.  Bob is taking a nap.  I read him a story, and put him down for a nap."  I looked at the other kids, and they confirmed that he had indeed read a storybook to the flour sack, and put him down for a nap!  I almost cried!  It was so cute.  I'm so glad he took the assignment serious.  I hope that we don't have to experience any of our children with a real baby before they are married, but I am glad that he decided to do the assignment and didn't treat it like it was dumb.

So....we're moving

 from this....

...to this.

I have visited Oahu three times in my life.

Each time, I distinctly remember saying something like "Nice place to visit, wouldn't ever want to live here."

For me, there are just too many people in one place.  I decided to see just how many that was.

There are approximately 900,000 people living on Oahu.  There are only 31,000 people in Juneau and 625,000 people in the entire state of Alaska!!  71% of Hawaii's total population lives on Oahu, which is only 9.2% of it's total land area.  Oahu has an area of 607.7 square miles with 112 miles of coastline. (44 miles long by 30 miles wide).  Juneau's land area is 2716.7 square miles

Today we got orders to move to Oahu.

We were actually made aware of this situation on February 16, but couldn't tell anyone for sure since we didn't have orders.  Darwin called me and told me the detailer called him and told him that they wanted to move him this summer to Sector Honolulu Investigations Division.

(I guess I should insert here that we kind of knew we might have to move this summer and were hoping that we wouldn't have to.  Darwin had a rank advancement in September, and is now the same rank as his boss.  Originally, his command wrote him a letter of recommendation requesting that he stay in his position for the remaining year we had in Juneau, but somewhere along the way that letter became obsolete...just because...)

Anyway...

After he got that call, he called me to let me know.  I have to say that the second he told me, I had an adrenaline rush...like something amazing just happened.  I was so excited!  Then I caught hold of myself and tried to be upset that we had to move.  I've tried not to act too excited either, but really...I am excited.

When we found out that moving might be a possibility (I would say that we have know this might happen since December) Darwin went in and filled out his "dream sheet"...the list of places that he would like to live that had jobs that he was qualified to do.  His top few picks were Seattle, Portland, Yorktown,VA, and I think one in California.  He did have Honolulu somewhere on his list, but not for the job he is going to do.  We haven't ever had this happen before.  We have pretty much picked everywhere we wanted to go, because EVERY SINGLE ONE of our moves have been overseas...Idaho to Kodiak, Kodiak to Washington DC, Washington DC to Juneau, Juneau to Maui, Maui to Juneau, and now Juneau to Oahu...and when you go "overseas" you typically get one of your top picks.  Now this Juneau tour was #20 on our "dream sheet", but the detailer called us and asked us if we would like to go back to Juneau or Kodiak (and we could turn both down if we wanted)...and we picked to come back to Juneau, so I count that as picking where we got to go.  

The only person that isn't really excited is Brooklin (she cried when I told them all).  We set her up with an email account and a facebook, and I think that this time will be a little easier on her.  She is trying a little to not focus on it or be too sad about it.  We keep reminding her of how much fun she had scuba diving and going to the beach.

My only concern is what we are going to do with our house, but God seems to even be helping with that too...almost even before I had a chance to worry about it.  We have had three different people call and ask us if they could rent our house before we even had our orders!  I don't know anything about renting out a house, but that is on my list of things to do this week...call around and find out what there is to know about renting and property managers and that kind of stuff.  I'm pretty sure that we couldn't sell it for what we owe on it anyway because since we bought it, prices have fallen a little and we financed some of our closing costs.  Who knows...but I'm glad that it is hopefully going to be a small worry and not a big one.

So that is the big news.

This is also my 300th post!!  hehe =)

Last night at the Glacier

Darwin and I went out to the glacier last night to do some homework for my photography class.  This week we are working on taking pictures in the dark and light painting.  There was nearly a full moon last night, so it wasn't  as dark as it could have been, but the pictures turned out pretty amazing.

I learned a little bit about taking pictures of the moon.  There is a rule called something like "Sunny 16"  Basically, you set your aperture to 16, your ISO to 100 and then leave the shutter open for a long time (I left the shutter open for a full minute for this shot).  I had to take several shots to get it to not look like a shining blob. =)

There was some event going on at the visitor's center and it was all lit up, so I turned the camera on it's side and got the moon and it in the same shot.  I wasn't as successful at getting the moon in focus on these, but if you notice, there was some fog last night, and it made a big ring of light around the moon...breath taking.  I don't have a wide enough angle lens (my widest angle lens is an 18-200 mm) to get the whole ring, but believe me, it was really pretty.

This is a shot I took before we started light painting.  We went out to photo point and set up the tripod.  This was taken at 9:31 pm.  I left the shutter open for 30 seconds at f/16 ISO 800.  If you click on the picture you will notice several red, blue, and green dots in the photo.  I learned last week that these spots are called "dead pixels" and are spots on my sensor that are sort of broken.  Interesting...I never knew that individual pixels could just go out.  The only way to "fix" them is to use photoshop to clone them out, or get a new camera! =)  From looking at this picture, I have a lot of dead pixels!

 

We got out the light sabers and a few flashlights and then had some fun.  I think if it would have been darker, the light sabers would have turned out cooler, but the LED bar flashlight (used to write Alaska), and the LED key chain light (used to write Juneau) we brought turned out really good!  I had fun spelling out words and then seeing if we could read them.

It was getting to be about 10:30 pm, so we decided to pack up and go get dessert before going home.  I thought I would try a few shots while walking of the sidewalk lights.  I took two long exposure shots of the lights and they both turned out black!  I was bummed because I thought they would turn out pretty neat.  Then Darwin casually says to me, "Is it because the lens cap is on?"   OH MY GOODNESS!  It was on!  No wonder the pictures were black!  hahahaha!!!

This is what I was hoping for!  We were already in the parking lot, so I just opened the shutter and waved the camera around.  You can see the sidewalk lights all in a row right on the left/center edge of the photo.  I wish I could have gone back and tried again running past them, but we were getting pretty cold.  We had been out for an hour and a half. =)  Maybe I will go back again soon.

Well, other than homework (which even I am sick of hearing about)...we are all doing good.  We got our new mattress delivered on Thursday.  We bought a Tempur-Pedic Cloud Supreme mattress last month, and it finally got here.  We've slept on it for two nights now, and I've slept like a log.  It is still a little weird...I think it feels like laying down in play-doh...hahaha...but it is very comfortable and I don't wake up at night because my hips or shoulders are numb.

We also found out on the 16th that we MIGHT be moving to Oahu THIS summer!  We should have orders by Monday or Tuesday.  We knew it might be a possibility that we'd have to move, but we had really hoped we could stay in Juneau for another year (or more).  Darwin and I both feel really good about the move...almost peaceful.  It is hard to describe, but I felt like I should be mad or angry or more stressed out, but I'm not.  I am really pretty excited...which I did not anticipate.  I always said I wouldn't ever want to live in Oahu, because it is a big city, and I like living in smaller places, so that is why I can't figure out why I am so excited.

There are two things that we are REALLY excited about for sure though.  We get to live by a temple!  How cool is that!  The last time we lived in a place that we could drive to a temple was in 2000 when we lived in Washington DC!  Ever since then, it has been a plane ride to go to one.  We are super excited that we will be able to drive to this one...and be able to go more than once a year!

The other cool thing about moving to Oahu, is that our amazing adoption worker, Sally Lee, is in Oahu.  She really is the sweetest lady and has kept in contact with us and presented us with options, even when we weren't her clients anymore...which is way more than our agency here did.  We are excited to call her after we get orders, and tell her we are coming!  She always says to us, every time we talk to her, "Oh!  I really want to do your placement!"  I was seriously thinking that if we had to move, there wasn't anyone who could convince me to go through another homestudy with LDSFS and pay another $500...I was ready to give up, seriously.  This is the only situation (that I totally didn't think was even a possibility) that I would continue with LDSFS.  I was pretty sure that we were just going to have to re-evaluate and try another way to find our missing baby.  I'm hoping that this time (the third time's the charm??) we can be done waiting to meet our child.

Well, I think that is all I can think of right now.  I'll blog at you all later! =)

Some Stuff

I am still just barely keeping up with my homework, but I have to take a break from it.  (24 photography assignments, 7 economics assignments, and 2 accounting assignments).  This picture was for my photography class.  We have to take one picture of each color in the color wheel (light, not paint wheel)...so that would be red, green, blue, yellow, cyan, and magenta.  This is for my magenta photo.

Anyhow, in way more exciting news...WE PAID OFF OUR VAN!!!!  I had to get our taxes done asap (so I could file for the FAFSA and some scholarships before Feb 15th)...and we ended up getting a nice return.  We decided to pay off my van and buy a new mattress for our bed (we are both having our arms/legs/hips go numb during the night...getting old is fun).  We had about a year left to pay on the van, but it was so exciting to just get it done early!  I got the title for it on Saturday!  We are going to apply the money we were paying for the van towards our boat now...I think it is called a snowball payment or something...anyway, so we will be able to pay that off faster now (especially since the van payment is more than twice what we are paying monthly for the boat)!  I am super excited to be actually paying off debt in a productive way.  It is a great feeling!  When the boat is done, we are going to put the van and boat payments into the truck payment and see if that can go away as well!  I'm hoping to have those paid off in the next two and a half to three years.

All the kids are doing good...Darwin is good.  London's gerbil had six more babies on the 8th!  We gave three gerbils to the Pierces on the 6th (Saturday) and I took the dad and the one baby boy out of the tank then too (since Toto was looking really fat again and they mate as soon as the female gives birth).  I thought I would have at least a week before she gave birth, but two days later Brooklin was trying to pet Toto, and I heard her yelled, "EWWW!  There are babies in here!"  The first set of babies were only 37 days old!  Anyway, we gave another two away on Monday of this week, so now we have one baby girl and the dad left to find homes for, for now...and then six more babies in four and a half weeks.  Isaiah is keeping one of the first babies (a tan girl) to replace his boy gerbil.  The factory has been turned off! thank goodness!  I think he named his new baby gerbil Peanut Butter...but he isn't sure he wants that name for her...lol.

Well, that is all I can think of.  I love school, but it is sure harder this semester than I thought it was going to be!

Glub...Glub!

There isn't much for me to write about.  I feel like I'm in over my head this week.  I have 20 assignments due between now and next Monday (15 of them are for Photography).  I also had activity days tonight which is fun, but I didn't have any time to plan anything for them to do!  Last night my Superman came swooping in and calmed me down (I was kind of panicking) and fixed everything for me.  I don't know what I would do without him.  He listened to me and all of the things I was worried and stressing over, and then he just took them from me.  He didn't do my homework...but he got on the internet and searched and printed everything I was going to need for activity days tonight while I took a shower.  I felt a giant weight lift off of me, and I am so grateful for him and his willingness to help me.  I spent two hours last night doing photography homework (this photo is one of my assignments), and then spent five hours this morning working on Economics and Accounting homework.  I finished three Economics assignments (but there are eight more assignments due by next Friday) and I got one of the two Accounting homeworks done.  I'm not out of the deep end yet, but I am feeling much better about being there.

...oh, and I forgot to mention that all six of us are speaking in church on Sunday...and my talk isn't even started!

February Goals

Today is the 3rd??...and there are only 28 days to begin with?! I better made these new goals quick and easy! =)

1. Update my giant "family pictures" frame. I have two giant picture frames in my living room with pictures of each of our combined 13 siblings and their families and a big family picture of each...one for Strassers and one for Jensens. I bought these frames at Costco about four years ago...and I have (almost) never updated the pictures! There have been many new people added to our family in the last four years. Let's see...I think I came up with nine babies that have joined our families that are not in the pictures on my wall!  I have almost all of the updated pictures for the frame, I just need to put them in.  I'm not going to sabotage my goal by requiring that if I don't have an updated picture then the goal hasn't been met.  (Although, it would be really great if you all could send me an updated picture.  I will definitely be stealing from all your facebook albums and blogs if I don't have a hard copy for some of you).

2. I will refrain, cease, and desist from playing Mafia Wars and Farmville on Sunday.  I have a slight, nay consuming addiction to these two facebook games.  I don't think I am ready to say goodbye to facebook altogether on Sundays just yet, but I think can give up these two games for four days this month.  When Darwin and I were first married, I was really gung-ho about keeping the sabbath day holy...no TV (unless it was church related), no video games, and I was more focused on good activities.  I give all the credit to my mother who was a stickler for good Sunday activities... reading The New Era, writing to missionaries, writing in my journal, listening to church music, that kind of stuff.  (Thank you Mom!)  BUT, Darwin was not as into the no TV and video games thing (and I do realize that he reads this blog and may not agree with this) but I quit worrying about that part of keeping the sabbath day holy.  Now I'm feeling the need to be a little better at focusing on the Savior on Sundays...it is His day after all.  And just to clarify something...Darwin told me just last week that he didn't think we should watch The Soup (which is on late night cable for a reason) on Sunday evenings (I didn't see any reason not to) so he isn't as "lax" as I just made him sound.

3.  I will exercise for at least 30 minutes every Tuesday and Thursday.  Darwin's sisters recently decided to have a "biggest loser" competition.  They invited me to join them and they set up a blog.  I originally signed up for a core conditioning class this semester that was on Tue. and Thur. mornings, but because of another of my struggles...not being able to let things go, (I had a "power struggle" with the teacher last semester in the spinning class and am still not ready to let it go and fully forgive her) I dropped the class a week before school started.  It was the only class I was going to have on Tuesday or Thursday, so now I have two "free" days built into my school week.  It's actually really good I did, because the homework in my economics class takes several hours to complete and having "free" days to do it works out great.  On the downside, I am not "responsible" to be in class exercising twice a week, so I haven't been.  Typically, I don't make exercising/eating healthy goals, because I don't have anyone but myself to check if I'm doing it, but now that there are weigh in's each week, I feel the need to be a little more responsible.  I would love to have 15 lbs disappear...I'm just not in love with the work it takes to make them vanish.

So, these are my goals for February.  I hope I can make them happen.  I am going to continue working on the quilt and trying to read the lessons for church on Sunday...I just need to focus on some of my other areas for the next few weeks.

January Resolution Summary

I just went back and reread my goals for January.  They were all reasonable, reachable goals but I did not make 100%.

1. Reorganize and declutter my filing cabinets I was able to clean out several files and revamp the way I was filing some of the everyday type of papers.  This was the main reason for the goal, and while I probably could have gone through many more files, I feel like I accomplished my original intention; which was to throw out things I didn't need to be keeping (old phone bills from Maui...) and make it easier to throw out stuff later on.  Instead of having a file folder for each little thing, I made six folders labeled Jan/Feb, Mar/Apr, May/June, etc (two months of "stuff" in each folder) so when the "stuff" is a year old, I can get rid of it for sure.

2. Read the lessons for Sunday School and Relief Society BEFORE Sunday. I accomplished this goal without fail for three weeks.  The fourth week I did read the lessons before class, but not before Sunday (I read the material before church on Sunday, which is an accomplishment in itself since we have 9 am church this year).  The final Sunday, I did not read either of the lessons.  I had been taking my scriptures and such with me to the girls' piano lessons but the last week of January I had some homework that needed attention, so I read my accounting book instead of the scriptures.  I think to further the establishment of this goal into a good habit, I should try to read the materials earlier in the week, because Saturday (the day after piano lessons) isn't really an option and is also the last minute possible...or procrastination...one of my many bad habits.

3.Finish a quilt for my bed.  The quilt is not finished.  I finished all sewing all 273 blocks (and 13 half blocks) needed for the quilt on Jan 14th.  I sewed all the blocks into 13 rows of 21 blocks (and one half block) by Jan 28th.  By Jan 31st, I had sewed 6 of the 13 rows together.  I still have to:  a) sew the remaining 7 rows together. b) cut and sew together a 6 1/2 inch boarder and then sew it to the quilt top.  c) get a backing piece together...i have the material, but i need to sew it together.  It is just a solid color, but the quilt top is bigger than regular width fabric, so I just need to sew two or three widths together.  That's it.  I will post pictures when i am finished and then again when it gets back from the quilter.  I definitely had enough time to complete this project.  I just applied a bad habit (procrastination again) and didn't get it done.  I will continue working on it...especially now that we are waiting for the new mattress we ordered this weekend to get here.  (Thank you tax refund...) =)

I will post my February Resolutions later today...stayed tuned!

Caleb's 12th Birthday!

Caleb celebrated his 12th birthday this Friday.  He got some fun gifts (an Indiana Jones lego set, a set of seven Bakugans that transform into one big Bakugan, a magic trick set, an Indiana Jones DVD game, and a brand new suit and tie),  and we ate out at Bullwinkle's pizza.  He asked for brownies instead of cake this year so I made him some divine brownies with peanut butter chips and peanut butter frosting. 

The coolest thing that Caleb got for his birthday was the Aaronic Priesthood.  He was ordained to the office of a deacon today shortly after 1pm by his father, Darwin Jensen; our bishop James Kearns, and the Young Men's President, Reuben Willis.  Bishop Kearns interviewed Caleb last Sunday and found him worthy to hold the Priesthood, and we are so proud of Caleb for being a worthy young man.  Today he was given his Primary graduation certificate and repeated the 8th Article of Faith in front of the whole congregation.

Caleb, we love you very much and are so happy you are part of our family.  We are so excited that you are taking the first steps to becoming a missionary and a worthy husband and father.  Thank you for being a great student, a caring older brother, and an awesome son!

 

**This next part is for those who are not familiar with the Priesthood of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  This is from the church's website.  I am only copying the part up to deacon, but if you would like to read the whole thing, here is the link.**

Doctrine and Duties Doctrine and Duties Doctrine The priesthood is the eternal power and authority of God. The two divisions of the priesthood are the Melchizedek and the Aaronic (D&C 107:1). Young men 12 to 18 years of age, and older men who are new converts, are ordained to offices in the Aaronic Priesthood. God gives priesthood authority to worthy male members of the Church so they can act in His name for the salvation of the human family. It is the priesthood authority by which John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus Christ, teaching faith, repentance, and baptism for the remission of sins (Matthew 3:1-17; Mark 1:1-11). Aaronic Priesthood authority includes the ministering of angels and the preparatory gospel, which is the gospel of repentance, baptism, and the remission of sins, and the administering of outward ordinances (D&C 84:26-27; 13:1; 107:14, 20). Priesthood keys The exercise of priesthood authority is governed by those who hold its keys (see D&C 65:2; 124:123). These keys are the right to preside over and direct the Church within a jurisdiction. The Lord Jesus Christ holds all the keys of the priesthood. He has given His Apostles the keys that are necessary for governing His Church. Only the senior Apostle, the President of the Church, may use (or authorize another person to use) these keys for governing the entire Church (see D&C 43:1-4; 81:2; 132:7). The President of the Church authorizes presidents of temples, missions, stakes, and districts; bishops and branch presidents; and quorum presidents to hold the priesthood keys they need to preside. A person who serves in one of these positions holds the keys only until he is released. Counselors do not receive keys, but they do receive delegated authority by calling and assignment. No priesthood keys exist on earth except with the officers of the Church. Offices and Duties of the Aaronic Priesthood Priesthood offices are divisions of authority with different rights and responsibilities of service. Offices in the Aaronic Priesthood are deacon, teacher, priest, and bishop. The bishop oversees ordinations to these offices. Deacon Worthy brethren may be ordained deacons when they are at least 12 years old. A deacon follows counsel, sets a good example, and may (1) pass the sacrament, (2) collect fast offerings, (3) care for the poor and needy, (4) be a standing minister appointed to "watch over the church" (D&C 84:111), (5) assist the bishopric, (6) serve as a messenger, (7) participate in quorum instruction, (8) serve in quorum leadership positions, (9) fellowship quorum members and other young men, (10) be baptized and confirmed for the dead, (11) speak in meetings, (12) share the gospel, (13) bear testimony, and (14) care for the meetinghouse and grounds.

Lightsabers and shutter speeds

While I was blog surfing one day, I came across this really great blog called Filth Wizardry. This woman is like the Martha Stewart for coming up with fun things to do with kids! I found her blog back in December and I really don't remember how I stumbled upon it, but I'm so glad I did! This idea isn't the first I've pillaged from her site. Back in December, I used her idea to make candy cane shaped cookies for Christmas with my children.

This week I made a visit to her blog and found this awesome idea...making lightsabers out of flashlights and balloons! On top of making a fun thing for the kids to play with, she also suggested turning out the lights and taking pictures of them playing with a long shutter speed...tons of fun for me too!! The post also talked about how she painted one of the walls in her house with glow in the dark paint, and then let her kids "draw" on the walls with an LED light! (and of course taking pictures in the dark again...I love this!) We went to Home Depot and they were selling a teeny 7 oz. can of the glow in the dark paint for $8.96!! I decided I didn't want to spend $72 to buy less than a 1/2 gallon of paint to do one wall, so we left and tried Fred Meyer. They had 8 oz. cans on sale for $3.49! We bought 4 cans of paint and decided that we would buy a large sheet of wood and paint that instead of a whole wall. We haven't bought the wood yet, but we plan to in the next week or so and have another party in the dark!

My kids played with these "lightsabers" for over an hour...and got them out the next day and the next day too! The first two pictures were with the lights on and with a flash so you could see them. The rest of the pictures are with either an 8 second, 6 second, or 3 second delay on the shutter speed. I am taking another photography class this semester, so maybe I can use one of these for one of my assignments!

Darwin working...?

*notice he is doing a "shaka"? maui will never leave us. =)

Battle of the Books

B. participated in Battle of the Books this year. The competition was held in her school library on Friday. There were four teams of three kids from three middle schools in our district. (The two main middle schools and the Montessori school). Below is a brief explanation of what Battle of the Books is from this website.

The Battle of the Books is a statewide Alaskan reading motivation and comprehension program sponsored by the Alaska Association of School Librarians. The goals of the program are to encourage and recognize students who enjoy reading, broaden reading interests, increase reading comprehension, and promote academic excellence.
Lists of books are chosen and questions are written for all grade levels. Students read the books, discuss them, quiz each other on the contents, and then compete in teams of not more than three students to correctly answer questions based on the books in a "quiz show" format. Questions begin with the words "In which book..." so that the answer will always be a title and author. Teams may participate at the local, district and state levels of competition - with the exception of K-2 students whose competition goes only through the district level.
New lists of recommended titles for each level are compiled each year by a committee of librarians and teachers based on the "Criteria for the Selection of Titles" in Appendix A. An attempt is made to vary the titles chosen according to genre and difficulty so that readers may encounter a broad range of books. At the annual AkLA conference, the official booklist for state competition for the following year is set so that planning to obtain the titles can begin.
The statewide program involves a cooperative effort by many local groups. It is popular with students and has provided new opportunities for academic competition. Battle of the Books has also proven effective in its specified purpose - to stimulate an interest in reading.

This year the book list for 7th & 8th graders was:
Big Empty by JB Stephens
Boy Who Owned a School by Gary Paulson
ER Vets by Donna Jackson
Flint by Louis L'Amour
Giver by Lois Lowry
Magyk by Angie Sage
Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat
Red Kayak by Cummings
Stepping on the Cracks by Mary Downing Hahn
Trickster's Choice by Tamora Pierce
Outsiders by SE Hinton
Vampire Kisses #1 by Ellen Schreiber


The kids have one "thinker", one "speaker" and one "scribe/writer" on each team. They answer 16 very precise random questions. The librarian (who is from Boston and apologized for not being able to pronounce her "r's"....so funny!) would read a question, then a timer would start. The teams had 30 seconds from the time the librarian would finish reading the question the first time (She always read the question twice, but the timer would start after the first reading) to have the scribe write down the title and author of the book that answered the question. If they wrote down the title but not the author, they got 5 points. Title and author were worth 8 points. Author only was worth zip! When the thirty seconds were up, the speaker could then read off what they wrote down. (there was an adult checking to make sure that what the speaker said and what was written down matched). After eight questions they had a sort of halftime and they read the scores so the kids would know where they were in the competition. B.'s team was leading at the half.


This is a question from the competition. I pushed pause during the wait time because I was recording with my phone (which I have never done) and didn't know how much I could do, so you won't hear the second reading of the question and you won't wait the whole 30 seconds for the answers. If you can't hear the video, the question was "In which book does a character put catfish in the toilet?" All of the teams get this one correct. (Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat)

At the end of the competition the two teams from B.'s school were tied for 1st place with 93 points. They have tie breaker questions in case that happens, and the two teams had to have 5 tie breaker questions before B.'s team won! They will get to participate in a statewide competition via telephone conference sometime in February.

The winning team! We're #1!

Also, B. and her team mates got their pictures in the newspaper on Friday. The link is here.

We really haven't had any good snow this year.

Another picture from my phone.

This year, we haven't been sledding once! We have had a few good snowy days, but they are always immediately followed by several days of rain which leaves us with sheets of ice everywhere. =P We haven't even had very many really cold days. This sign was posted a few weeks ago in the school parking lot.