irielife.net

I had no idea when I decided to promote this as an efficient, affordable way of keeping in touch, that it would be such a hard habit to initiate and maintain. We spent last Sunday evening in the emergency room with Katherine and a renegade migraine that didn’t fit her typical migraine pattern so we had our imaginations running wild for awhile and we didn’t get home until around 11:00 PM–too late for coherent thought. We were determined to catch up right away on Monday night–i don’t remember what happened then, but by Tuesday morning we got the news that Mick had died and that has taken up the rest of this week. As funerals go, it was one of the best and we’re very glad we were able to go. The trip home lasted from 7:00 Sunday morning until almost midnight Sunday night–including 3 hours in Las Vegas to replace a flat tire. We sat so long yesterday that the treadmill this morning was positively refreshing. I’m too hungry to write any more now but at least I’m establishing the habit.
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Seth idolizes Corey. During Katherine and Corey’s visit last week, Seth spent most of his time following his uncle around. This video demonstrates how Seth thanked his uncle for reading him a book.

Click on the picture to view the video (opens in new window).
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i ate a 6×6 last week on thursday. on friday night i ate a 4×2.

ben came out on thursday, spur of the moment, to visit from Utah. he inspired my weekend eating. he left on saturday morning.

short enough for you, Corey?

oh, and if you want to see my car in Texas, just go to www.freemantoyota.com and search for a black 4runner – it’s the only pre-owned one they have!
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Katherine and Corey arrived in Baltimore on Sunday and we’ve been on the go ever since. On Sunday we visited Arlington National Cemetery. Lisa stopped on her way through to North Carolina so we all got to go together We watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of Unknown Soldiers. It’s a very solemn and awesome ceremony. Did you know that after the cemetery closes the area around the tomb becomes a restricted military post? At the end of the ceremony we were firmly asked to leave the premises. We came back home for some apple pie and lots of talking.

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another sunday in the singles ward.

after having been called to be the fellowshipping committee chair, I feel grudging obligation to go far too early and cheerfully hand out programs. I feel this obligation mainly because i think they must be struggling to keep the singles actively attending when instead of calling people to do something hard and growth promoting (read: HARD) like teach sunday school, they have to just “call you to be you” – which is what they said they were calling me for. so there i am, standing at the door, trying to learn the names of people whom I knew when I was 14…

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Dear Family,

Today is the first Sunday of 2004, and I hope all of you are only a few days removed from your own New Year’s Resolutions (NYR) list. This post is to fulfill one of my NYRs.

In truth, Jackee made this NYR for me… and a similar one for the rest of you. She has asked that we post to the Irielife BLOG every week a minimum of a single sentence about our week. The maximum post is up to you.

So, I would like to share a few impressions of the Holiday just past, and extend to each of you my warmest wishes for a great new year.

One of the highlights of Christmas this year was to have many of you spend time with us. Your mom and I both realize how blessed we are to have so many of you nearby. I think we had a total of 5 or 6 family dinners, and about as many fires in the fireplace… with time to visit, relax and play some of the new games that are a favorite Christmas gift in our family. So let me try to quantify how MUCH I appreciated your presence (…) this Holiday.

I am going to try to describe this appreciation in the spirit of Lord Kelvin, the famous British engineer who is reputed to have said (turn on British accent here) “Unless you can measure a phenomena and express it in numbers, your knowledge is of meagre and unsatisfactory kind”

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Well, that title instruction slowed me down for about five minutes–if I have to think up a clever title, I won’t ever start, so I have come up with my own personal byline which I will gladly share with anyone else who feels they might be cut off at the pass by having to come up with a pithy title for their musings. I don’t want this to be hard or even consistently clever–that is, if clever just falls from your fingertips to the keyboard then go ahead and charm us all; but if you don’t feel up to anything but two ordinary declarative sentences, then just deliver the two sentences and your duty is done–but I do want it to be consistent. My computer lessons are made ever more streamlined by the ablility to put things in “favorites”–where irielife now resides–so that things I like to do can be done before I get bored with the process. Unfortunately, the stuff I have to learn for the Family History Center cannot qualify in any way shape or form as a “favorite” so it all has to be done the hard way. I’m trying to have a better attitude–unfortunately the emphasis is still on the “trying.”

We are going on a little vacation for four days this week just to see if we can do it. We’re only going to Clearlake so if we can’t take it , we’re only and hour and a half from the ratrace. We’re going to take the old tax records and see if we can get those several boxes down to one or none and then we are going to settle down and make a will if we can find the kit before we have to leave. Can you all hardly wait for next week’s entry?
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So y’know during the holidays, first ward is just crazy with all the kids home to visit established families like the Binghams, Stratfords, Halls, and Koehles… and of course the Stratfords and the Joneses always have fun catching up. So after Sacrament Meeting today I went and took baby Ryan from Rusty, who was sitting next to Sally and was busy telling Cynthia all about his family’s plans. I was preoccupied with the baby until Cynthia turned to me and said, “now your family is from Arizona, is that right?” I, who was only half listening until then, was totally confused until Rusty broke the awkward silence with “actually, that’s SUSANNAH…and this [gesturing to his other side] is my wife, Sally.” I quickly handed off the baby to a dad who was only too happy to reclaim anything that might implicate me and his posterity – which is only legal, Rusty pointed out to Cynthia, in a select few states.
I think I’ll more carefully select the moments that I choose to tend the baby.
Happy Holidays!
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We had an interesting day
yesterday and realized, yet again, that each child Heavenly Father has blessed
us with is highly unique, each in his/her own lovable way.  To
wit:

We went to a ward Christmas party last night. Santa made an
appearance and each kid got to sit on his lap.

Allie:
Allie has
wanted to send a letter to Santa but has been concerned about how to approach
such a task because she “doesn’t want to seem selfish” by presenting Santa with
a list of things that she would like him to give her.  She finally made
peace with sending a letter by altering the traditional tack taken by most
kids.  It is a sweet letter, comprised primarily of statements that begin
with “I like….”.  She was much more comfortable letting Santa know what
kinds of things she likes to do and then allowing Santa to exercise his agency
on her behalf.

At the Christmas party, she sat on Santa’s lap and when
asked what she wanted (so now it was okay to directly state her wish vs. the
letter, which even if traditional, was, as Allie intuited, essentially
unsolicited) she replied: “A book of historical
fiction”.

Camryn:
No letter to Santa.  Surprising given
that when your tether is so long,  I would assume that there would be more
of an esprit de corps with magical beings that would include the
traditional letter writing.  As you’ll see, the letter is probably not
necessary.  Camryn has no problem making her wishes known.

At the
Christmas party, Camryn sat on Santa’s lap and was in charge from the
get-go.

Santa: What would you like for
Christmas?
Camryn: I would like Ballerina Barbie.  It costs
eleven dollars.  I have eleven dollars.  But I don’t want to spend my
eleven dollars on Ballerina Barbie.  I would like Santa to spend eleven
dollars and bring me Ballerina Barbie.

The poor elder in our ward had no
idea how to respond.  I think 4 year olds have an insight into economics
that would make Adam Smith proud.  If Santa has a comparative advantage in
generosity which has preserved him as a going concern through the centuries, then
why not take advantage of this comparative advantage and let him give?  It
is in Camryn’s best interest to apply her resources, which are so limited,
elsewhere.  Her comparative advantage is certainly not Santa’s.  Maybe
free trade would not be such a frightful thing to Democrats if they let a four
year old run the party.  A 4-year old certainly couldn’t do any more damage
than that already being done by McCauliffe and the Nine Angry
Dwarfs.

Seth:
He screamed like someone passing 2 kidney stones
simultaneously and without morphine.  He does not like fat jolly hairy men,
even if they do pass out chocolate.

The Aftermath
At
this same party, some thoughtless person apparently mentioned within earshot of
Camryn that this was not the real Santa.  Camryn appears to have
ruminated on this for most of the evening.  She seemed kind of pleased to
have this nugget of information that she could wield over the more naive members
of her family.  On the way home, just as Allie, whose faith is as pure as
the snow is white, was talking excitedly about asking Santa Claus for a book of
historical fiction, Camryn yells “That was not the real Santa.  It was just
some guy dressed up”.

From the front seat: Silence.  This
wasn’t in the parenting manual we never got.

After a pregnant
pause, Susie did some masterful work reconciling Camryn’s information with
Allie’s pure faith.  We settled on the fact that Santa cannot be at every
ward and social function and so he has representatives (elfs) who help him
out.  We had to be careful — if we led Allie too far down the path of
reconciliation, we knew we were powerless before her logic and reasoning
capabilities.  Again, kudos to Susie.

Later that night, we
knelt for their personal and our family prayers.  Allie expressed gratitude
that she got to see Santa.  Camryn waited politely until her prayer was
finished and then gravely reprimanded Allie, reminding her that it was not Santa
per se. I felt the need to get Allie’s back, so when I said family
prayer I chided Camryn a bit by thanking Heavenly Father that the kids got
to see Santa.  Well, it would appear that there are but a few things that
Camryn knows with absolute certainty and  she is not about to cede any
ground to anyone on these issues.  The prayer went something like
this:

JB: “…we thank thee that the we were able to see
Santa tonight-”
Camryn, in an extremely loud whisper, as if not wanting to
embarrass me by revealing my stupidity to the other three people 12 inches away
from us (her arms still folded and head still bowed, of course): “NO
DAD!  Not Santa! It was an elf!”
JB:
”
“

How do you respond to that?  After containing my laughter, I
just chickened out and continued the prayer long enough to get their minds off
of it and said Amen.

JB

— Well, after I wrote this, Susie read it
and informed me that I confused the timeline.  Camryn did not instruct
Santa himself (or the elf, as the case may be) in basic economics.  Rather,
this conversation took place immediately after she got off Santa’s lap and
someone asked her what she asked Santa for.  However, I left the email as
is for two reasons: 1) the contrast between our kids is the same regardless of
who Camryn was schooling;  2) it reminded us of Lisa, for whom a good story
(and she has many) should never be at the mercy of  unbridled accuracy.
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Guess what? Corey passed his test and is now licensed to drive fire trucks! This puts us one step closer to a job!
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