(Thanks to Lauren for the picture.)
This is our most recent family photo (thanks for all your skill, Dan!).
It was wonderful, and it was such a great opportunity to feel our Savior's love and to remember those things that keep up us anchored in Christ. In addition to all the family meals on Saturday and Sunday, we also took family pictures (including the one above).
In the evening, we took a FHE to Battle Creek Falls, which was very pleasant.
Thursday, bright and early, I went up to Camp Mia Shalom with a couple of other leaders. We got to Girls' Camp in time for the five mile hike.
We also participated in the humanitarian project and were there for the testimony meeting. I particularly liked the theme of this year's camp: Anchored in Christ (I'm going to post something about it later).
So after months of planning and weeks of work on the new sprinklers, I finally put my garden in last night. First I started with Klay's truck full of topsoil (Nate won 2 cubic yards of it in a contest). I shoveled most of it out by myself to add to the garden, which looked like this before I started:
I found these beautiful flowers along with some lemon mint that actually survived from last year (this is a real surprise since I thought I killed all the herbs I planted).
Here are the trellises. So far we've planted a few winter squashes, zucchini, crookneck squash, watermelon, pumpkin, sunflowers, spinach, tomatoes, basil, peppers, strawberries, dill, parsley, and summer savory.
I'm still preparing the side and flower gardens with extra soil we have from the project, currently housed under the carport. Great motivation to get it finished. Anyway, I hope to share our bounty later in the season. :D
The kids try to show how big they are.
Getting a drink out of the lion's head.
Ryan, Sofia, and Sadie make friends with a little tiger.
Greeting the bald eagle after the World of Flight show. Sofie was fascinated and kept telling the keeper, "That's a bird!"
Thanks to Nate, I got to go with the Laurels on a retreat last weekend. We went up to the Wildings' property, which is overwhelming in both size and beauty. They were so kind to let us stay up there. A couple of the girls were able to bring their mothers. We ate great food and enjoyed reading the Book of Mormon for hours on end. After 10 hours of hard reading, we were able to get to the beginning of Alma! I appreciated the spiritual discussions and especially being able to see how everything fits together. Below are Whitney, Lauren, and Katie as we read!
So out we all went, and some time was spent making a snowman grow.
And then for more fun, we walked in the sun,
And Austen read in a chair.
And then they desired to sit by the fire. Oh, what a busy pair!
Dear Mr Branson
REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008
I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit.
Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at thehands of your corporation.
Look at this Richard. Just look at it: 
I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?
You don’t get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue hasn’t it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in: 
I know it looks like a baaji but it’s in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you’ll be fascinated to hear that it wasn't custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It’s only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.
Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So lets peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what’s on offer.
I’ll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat their with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.
Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this: 
Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It’s mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.
Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard.
By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it’s baffling presentation: 
It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn’t want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.
I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point.
Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on: 
I apologise for the quality of the photo, it’s just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson’s face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel: 
Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I’d had enough. I was the hungriest I’d been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen.
My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations: 
Yes! It’s another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff.
Richard…. What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I’d done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard.
So that was that Richard. I didn’t eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can’t imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary.
As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It’s just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it’s knees and begging for sustenance.
Yours Sincerely,
XXXX
