Summer 2 - California!

California was incredible. A week on the beach in a condo with Mom, Dad, Leslie and Clay, and Alison and Brandon is hard to beat. It was so fun to be with family and be on the beach, and the weather was pretty top notch. It blows Texas out of the water. Pictures say it all, so here they are:

One of the funnest things was seeing all the boys play together

This picture sort of captures the motion of it all, with all 4 boys  busying about playing in the sand

It was a bit sketchy climbing over the rocks with babies... but I'm glad we did it!

Owen wants to try his luck on the waves

Rarr

Having fun with Uncle Brandon

Good times

No CA trip is complete without trying to surf...

Showing off Dad's skills with a collage above and a video below. The best stand up paddle board surfer his age in Tucson.

One of the most scenic playgrounds ever

Enoch fell asleep almost every day as he was eating a sandwich, usually as he was chewing

Enoch also figured out how to get out of the pack and play. After putting him to sleep , an hour  later we would find him sleeping in our bed :0

This video is more about showing how Enoch and Michael play together than it is about showing how fast Michael can crawl, but Michael is super speedy. So speedy that I don't think he'll have motivation to walk for a long time.




A fun fun fun trip, thanks Mom and Dad!

Summer part 1 -- Tucson

School is back in session and we tried to make the most of my month off. We were very fortunate to be able to go back to Arizona and then to California on our family trip. It was great. During the few days we spent in Tucson before California, we went to Mt. Lemmon. It is so nice up there!

Enoch is quite the hiker! He ran almost the entire mile each way

Michael is getting so big

Balance skills!

 

Cute grandma-grandkids picture 1

Cute grandma-grandkids picture 2

Such a beautiful little area

 

 

Michael is a crib sleeper or car-seat sleeper. Whenever he falls asleep as one of us is holding him, we feel like it's a real treat. I'm faking it here, but Michael is definitely out

Epic Lake Livingston; Chase comes to town

Somehow I talked Sharon into going camping last week. I said camping by a lake in Texas in July would be awesome and she trusted me. I was eager to try out our canoe on something a bit more ambitious than the pond by our house, and Lake Livingston, about 60 miles northwest of Houston, sounded like a good bet.

We got to camp around 2:00 and it didn't take Sharon long to comment that it felt like Hell. We set up camp and eagerly headed to the lake for a swim. We had a nice time (except for the fire ants that attacked Enoch) and returned to camp for a nice dinner.

Then, Hell returned. The bugs homed in on Sharon. I forgot the diapers when we took the kids to shower, and by the time we got out of the cramped shower with clothes on we were just as sweaty as before. Both kids decided to have a screaming fit. Both babies were eventually ready for bed, but after 5 minutes of silence in the tent they both started screaming. Michael was drenched in sweat. After 2 hours of chaos in the tent, both kids finally fell asleep.

But then they slept for 8 hours straight. All in all, not too bad!

Nonetheless, Sharon insisted it felt very Hellish, and I reluctantly accepted her claim that it was absurd to bring babies camping in the middle of July in Texas. Sharon made it very clear that our camping trip was going to be cut short to one night instead of two. And that she was never going camping again in July in Texas.

In that case, I decided we better have an epic day trip on the canoe.

At the time it seemed like a grand compromise. We go home early, but maybe be a little more aggressive on the canoe than we would otherwise be. In reality, of course, when you talk a mom into doing anything with 2 babies in a canoe, it's anything but a compromise. It's a devil's deal. And I guess that makes me the devil. 

But it was awesome! I went onto google maps and estimated the route we took:

If we had gone straight there and back, it would have been 2.5 miles each way for a total of 5 miles of paddling. Adding in my novice navigational skills makes it about 6.

Looking at the map, it seems a bit crazy that we would even think about traveling across 2.5 miles of lake with a 10 month old and a 2 year old in a canoe. Maybe we're bad parents. But we had plenty of food, water, life jackets for everyone, and I knew the weather forecast was clear of wind and rain. The lake was also busy enough that we could have called over a power boat if we truly came into dire straights.

In reality, it was sort of a spur of the moment decision to go to the island. We were just paddling around the bay and I commented about how fun it would be to paddle to the island.

Sharon said, "What's stopping you?"

I said, "Partly it's just that it's far away, but mainly that there's a high probability that the kids will explode in the middle of the lake."

She nodded her head, and when she replied that it was OK if we wanted to go I decided it was all the permission I needed. We were off.

8:15AM and we're doing great, leaving the bay

We couldn't believe our luck when Michael fell asleep so Sharon could help me paddle

30 minutes later, the island sort of seems bigger

We made it! Time to find a beach

Fun times

A perfect, shaded beach, made all the more satisfying because there are no beeches where we were on the other side of the lake

It happened... the kids blew up right in the middle of the lake on the way back. Both of them were screaming and begging for their momma. Sharon shouted, "I can't believe you put us in this situation!" I tactfully replied that I prophesied this would happen and that we both shared responsibility. Maybe not the best comment to make :0
Oh and yes, Michael's life jacket is off. Let he who is without sin ---

We finally made it back! You can see the island in the background. Everyone became much happier as they lay in the shade with a relatively cool breeze. I let them relax, went to pack up camp, and we feasted on watermelon and jumped into the lake before driving back to Houston.

All-in-all, it was one of the funnest trips I've been on in a long time. I think Sharon even has some fond memories, too, amidst the ones that remind her of Hell. In my opinion, this version of Hell ain't half bad, but I get the gist. Thanks for putting up with everything, Sharon!

For completion's sake, here's some video of us on the lake.

A few pics of the previous night:

Chase is in San Antonio right now doing an anesthesia rotation, and he came down to spend the afternoon with us. It was a lot of fun to hang out with him. Ever since my neurology professor told a (made up?) story about someone getting stabbed at the best buffalo burger joint in Texas, I've always wanted to go there. We seized our chance with Chase in town and went to Bubbas Burger Shack. It pretty much is just a shack, and it's right under the freeway. Ghetto, but great burgers. And now we can all say we've eaten buffalo.

We also went to the Waterwall, which was more impressive than I imagined. If you wanted to build a fountain that reminded you of Niagara Falls, I would say this is a good way to do it.

Thanks for taking our pictures, Chase!

Doing our part to share the gospel

Teaching this tomorrow, here is my lesson plan:

Teachings of the President George Albert Smith, Lesson 13, Doing Our Part to Share the Gospel

Goals:

·         Every member of the class will set a goal and work towards being able to serve as a senior missionary when they are older

·         Every member of the class will feel the desire to, as President Smith recommends, “Do something every day to bring the light to our fellow beings.”

·         Every member of the class will understand that being a good member-missionary requires branching out to neighbors and friends. Our neighbors cannot see our good example if we don’t associate with them and instead live like hermits.

·         We won’t be too timid when sharing the gospel.

Preparing for senior missionary service

Ask a member of the class what they see themselves having accomplished and doing in 30 years.

One of the lessons that you’re supposed to learn early on in life is to have a plan.  Consider the following truism that you’ve probably heard: If you fail to plan you plan to fail. If you had the chance to serve a mission, this was something you were forced to learn with daily and weekly planning sessions. We’ve all heard that it is a good idea to have short, medium, and long term goals.

For me, it’s easy to set short-term goals and it’s easy to set medium-term goals. In college, I had a medium-term goal to get into medical school. To accomplish this goal, I had many short-term goals to accomplish such as getting involved in research, getting good grades and test scores, finding opportunities to shadow physicians, and getting a job. During one of my interviews during the medical school application process, I was asked what I saw myself doing in 10 years. I hadn’t really thought of that question before, and I was left stammering something out about being a doctor and practicing medicine in a hospital. It’s all a bit blurry, but I don’t think I got into that school. Today, one of the biggest things I need to figure out is the answer to that very question. Once I figure it out and set that long term goal, I can make the appropriate preparations to accomplish it.

President George Albert Smith (GAS) had something very interesting to say about preparing to serve as a senior missionary, and I think it relates to the discussion of setting long-term goals:

“Now that the time is near at hand when the bars will be let down and the barriers overthrown that have been raised to the spread of the gospel, when the sound of the voice of the Lord shall come to you, through his servants, “Prepare to go into the world and preach the gospel,” do not do as Jonah did, do not try to hide or run away from your duty; do not make excuses that you do not have the necessary means to go; do not set up foolish things in the way of your vision that will prevent your seeing eternal life in the presence of our Heavenly Father, which can come only by reason of faith and devotion in his cause. Let every man set his house in order; let every man who bears the priesthood, set himself in order, and when the call comes from the servants of the Lord, telling him to go into the world to teach the truth, to warn the children of men, as our Father requires they shall be warned, let no man hide behind some foolish thing, to be swallowed up, if not by a great fish, by the foolish things of the world.”

Discussion: about this quote, planning to serve a senior mission, and the obstacles to doing so. Point out some information from the senior missionaries opportunity bulletin that says the average cost for a senior couple mission in the U.S. is over $2000 and that the payment you make on rent/utilities will not exceed $1400.

Do something every day to bring the light to our fellow beings

Mention that President GAS not only emphasized the need for spiritual and temporal preparation for full-time official church missionary service, but that he also emphasized being a missionary in daily-life.

Quote:

“Every member of the Church should delight in teaching the truth. We should each do something every day to bring the light to our fellow beings. All are precious in our Heavenly Father’s sight, and he will adequately reward us for enlightening them. Our responsibility cannot be shifted to other shoulders.”

Discussion: How is this done?

Don’t be a hermit, get to know your neighbors and share the gospel with them!

Along similar lines to the previous discussion, we can’t do something every day to help our fellow beings get to know God without actually associating with our fellow beings.

Quote:

“I think this great organization we belong to ought to be able to set such an example that people in our neighborhoods, not members of the Church, seeing our good works, would be constrained to glorify the name of our Heavenly Father. That is the way I feel with regard to that. All that we need to do is to set an example, be good men and good women, and they will observe it. Then perhaps they will afford us the opportunity to teach them the things that they do not know.

If we, as members of the Church, were keeping the commandments of God, if we put upon the truth the value that we ought, if our lives conformed to the beauties of its teachings, so that our neighbors, observing our conduct, would be constrained to seek after the truth, we would be doing splendid missionary work.”

Discussion: I don’t have any neighbors that are similar to me. Nobody has young children, most people are older. It can really easy to just come home from a long day of school and have a righteous, happy little family that reads our scriptures together, prays together, eats together, goes to church, and lots of other righteous things that my neighbors would never even see. President GAS mentioned setting an example and allowing our neighbors to observe our conduct as an excellent mode of missionary work. What kind of example and what kind of conduct is he talking about that would lead to successful missionary work? Maybe it relates to the following quote where President GAS talks about being friends with people from other churches.

“I am grateful to have a host of friends in the various churches of the world, scattered in different places. I am grateful for those friendships, but I will not be satisfied until I can share with them some of the things which they have not yet received.”

Quote:

“There is great opportunity for every one of us. I would like to emphasize individual missionary work by each of us among our neighbors. We will be surprised, if we do our best, how many will be interested, and not only will they be grateful to us because of our bringing to them the truth, and opening their eyes to the glories and the blessings that our Heavenly Father has prepared, but they will love us and be grateful to us throughout the ages of eternity.

There are so many things that the Lord has bestowed upon us that other people have not yet received. Surely we are not going to be selfish. There should be in our hearts a desire to share with every other soul as far as possible the joyous truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So, as we go forward, each of us, each having an influence with our neighbors and our friends, let us not be too timid. We do not need to annoy people, but let us make them feel and understand that we are interested, not in making them members of the Church for membership, but in bringing them into the Church that they may enjoy the same blessings that we enjoy.”

Discussion: Ask if anyone has experiences to share about being surprised.

Discussion: Discuss what it means to not be too timid. I worry all the time about being an overbearing neighbor and being annoying. I think the truth is, however, that I’m too timid way more often than I am annoying. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. I’m not very spiritually mature to be able to recognize if it’s the spirit telling me to back off a bit or if it’s me just being shy or wussy.

Time permitting, point out the following quote and encourage everyone to not raise a doofus who goes out to the mission field and waste’s everyone time. It’s OK if you were that kind of missionary, but with a lot of prayer and diligence there’s a good chance your son doesn’t have to be.

“A dozen men qualified for the work are worth more in the mission field than a hundred who are ignorant of the truth and who themselves have to be taught before they are capable of explaining it to others.”