Freedom!

No one ever tells you how truly awesome it feels to reach this stage.

Our kids are now all old enough that we can all go for a bike ride together.

No complaining, no tired legs, no one that can't keep up.

Yesterday we rode for almost two hours.

So much fun!

Valuable Lessons Everywhere...

My family and I stay connected playing this little game "Words with Friends" on our various tablets and phones.  I have a game going with each of them and I generally add a word or two, or three, every day.  Dan likes to laugh at me and try to compare it to the time they spend on the Wii.  My addiction he says...

But I would like to point out the educational benefits of this game.  I am learning words and what they mean more than I ever did in school.  The beauty of this game is you can just throw some letters on the board and try your luck with submitting them.  It will let you know if you have a real word.  And sometimes this pays off in a big way.

Take, for instance, the word I played this morning (for 57 points, may I add): 

VATU

Ever hear of it?  Me neither.  It was just a desperate attempt to use a V and a U before the game runs out.  But here comes the learning...

When I end up with a word it accepts and I don't know, I like to look it up.  (My sis used the word qoph.  Turns out it is the 19th letter in the Hebrew alphabet.  Who knew?)

But I digress.  Vatu is apparently the national currency for the island of Vanuatu.

I thought for a moment that was a made up place from literature or something.  Kinda sounds Fantasy Fiction worthy, right?  Turns out it's in the South Pacific  near Fiji and the Solomon Islands.

Turns out I don't know much geography in my own world.

So here's to those great little time wasters that turn out to be fairly educational after all...

Photography

In honor of my sister who loves to take photos, I though she and others might enjoy checking these out.  A 3 part series of 50 photos that will blow you away.  Some very beautiful things.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1WajtF/www.pxleyes.com/blog/2011/12/these-50-photos-will-blow-you-away/

Ah, stumbleupon.  What a lovely waste of an hour!

New Piano Music

I love when someone unexpectedly points you towards something you really like and turns out to also be useful.  I signed up a new piano student this week.  When I asked him what composers he likes, he immediately said Yurima.  This student is Korean, and I had never heard of his favorite composer.

Thank goodness for the internet.  I looked him up and found this:



Dan and the kids walked through the room at the time and all of them stopped to listen.  It is really beautiful.

Even better, I also found a site where you can download and print the sheet music for his pieces.  (see here: http://yiruma4ever.blogspot.ca/).  Very helpful for me because Dan has asked me to be the background music for his Mother's Day Tea and I was fretting about what I might play.  My library is still on the small side and very classical oriented and there is no music store in town.  Now I have found something that will work!

Thanks, my young student!  I teach you, but you teach me too!

Why Didn't You Vote?

Voter turnout yesterday is estimated at 46%.  Wow, way to go Albertans. 

Remember when we were in school?  46% was a fail.  A big one.

We have failed.

We have failed to value a right that incites civil war in other countries.  People die to get it.

We have failed those who have gone before us fighting to ensure that right to vote would not be taken away from us.

We have failed to educate ourselves on the political platforms of those running, and then taking a stand to show them what we think.

We have failed to send an accurate representation of our vision of the future of our province.

We have failed to tell the government that we, the taxpaying citizens of Alberta, are really the ones who run the show.

So if you didn't vote, why not?

Regardless of how you would have voted (that's not what I care about), why didn't you?

The campaign was 4 weeks long.  It was covered in every newscast, every newspaper, twitter, blogs, etc.  Plenty of time and opportunity to get informed.

Or was it?

I have my theories.

I'm pretty sure if they had a voting app the numbers would change dramatically.

By the way, my turn voting took about as long as it takes to play a couple rounds of Angry Birds.

Food for thought.

Interestingly, the other 54% of voters will still feel entitled to whine when decisions are made that they do not like.  I do not feel sympathy.  If you want an opinion, prove it in four years when your chance comes around again.

I am disappointed today, but I know we can do better....

Snow, a Trip and a Future Missionary

Last week we were riding our bikes, playing outside, spring cleaning the house.  Just when we thought spring had arrived for good, winter realized it had really procrastinated this season and took one final stab at it...

We were going to go to Grande Prairie that weekend.  Not so.  This week it is rainy and misty, so here's hoping that winter has gotten that out of it's system and is ready to go on vacation til November.

We did make it to Grande Prairie this past weekend and had a lot of fun.  We went to the new multiplex swimming pool ("better than Wii!" says Malcolm) and it was one of the best pools we've ever been to.  Clayton has been asking for a suit for a while now and there is a Sears in the city.  He and Dan dashed inside at 6, right as they were trying to lock up, but a really nice lady led them to the right area and set him up.  Doesn't he look so great?  He was so excited to go to church.  Who knew that was all it would take?

Easy Family History Work - FROM HOME!

Madison and I have stumbled across family history work that we can do from home - and it's easy! 

We were trying to complete a family history goal in her Faith in God booklet and I asked Sis. Britton a question about it.  In return, she told us to visit familysearch.org/1940census.

It's pretty simple - go to the site, set up your login (this can simply be the same one you use when you visit any church sites to order materials etc. or familysearch), follow the instructions and start indexing names from the census.  If you can read and copy, you can do this!  We have completed 3 batches and we only joined yesterday.  Easy!

They are listing the 1940 census as priority and are trying to complete it as soon as possible.  So this is for you if...

You want to do family history but don't quite know where to start.

You want to work at it from home.

You don't have access or time to go to the family history library.

You have kids involved in the Faith in God program or YW/YM who have applicable goals.

You have kids who want to be on the computer and you want them doing something useful.

Just because it's really interesting (think about it - who were these people?  Their names and histories are cool.  You can't help but wonder about their life stories...)

Thanks Sis. Britton for showing us this option and passing the Family History bug along!