My Beloved Water

Today I read the headlines ...Fiji Water shuts operations in 'unstable' Pacific nation. Wait...WHAT!?! I had to read the article twice because I couldn't BELIEVE someone would shut down my FAVORITE water company!!! A US bottling company is pulling out of Fiji because of taxes being too high. Lame! How dare they! I need and want my water. Why couldn't the Fijian government tax cigarettes, toilet paper, soap anything...why my water?? I want to cry. Boo!

*note* I am not selfish in real life, but I am DEEPLY disappointed. =(

Thanksgiving Countdown

Oh, I am so excited! It is almost Thanksgiving time!! My home is all a bustle with the merriment of decorating for this wonderful holiday. Last week Sashi, Ian and I made hand print turkeys, cornucopias, pilgrims and thankful dots and plastered these all over the house. Our home is looking so festive! I adore all holidays, but thanksgiving is one of my favorites. I enjoy teaching the kids about the pilgrims and their quest for religious freedoms. I love to tell them how strong willed these people were to move away from everything they knew and to "start over." I have them imagine what this would be like, to be a pilgrim. Ian thinks it would be too hard to live back then, because he doesn't know how to farm. "We would all die mom, becasue I can't grow food." Sashi thinks it is dumb not take bathes and she wonders why the pilgrims didn't like to be clean. "Don't they like soap mama?"

For school one day we played a game called being thankful. Each kid had to tell me what they were thankful for and then write it on a big dot. Then, each of these dots were placed on the wall as fast as they could put them up. The goal was to get as many dots as they could on the wall. Our house is covered in these dots. The kids wrote things they were thankful for here is just a few: food, blankets, soap, TV, video games, medicine, doctors, clothes, toys, shoes, tub, shower, bed...etc. When you come into our house, it is easy to laugh because of the chaos on my walls. Ian thought it would be funny to play a joke on his dad.
(Hubby walking into the the house)
Ian: Dad are you feeling well?
Dad: Um, yes I feel fine.
Ian: Are you sure?
Dad: Yes (pause and looking around)
Ian: Do you see spots before your eyes?
Dad: Yes, I do see spots! (Dad is now laughing at all the thankful dots)

Did I tell you? I LOVE to cook and bake. This is another reason why I totally love this holiday. I love to try new recipes and will bake and bake. The house smells so yummy. I adore the smell of cloves and nutmeg!

Thanksgiving is a time for family and friends to get together and to rejoice in life. It is a time to thank God for everything that we have. I love being thankful. I think it is one of the most important things to do in life. It is wonderful to be grateful.

I am thankful for life and the joy it brings me each and everyday. I hope there are holidays in heaven, because I do not think I could live without them.

Misguided Game

Ian is totally into board games this year. He wants ALL of the old Hasbro games plus others that he sees in the stores. I have been collecting games these last 12 months and have a pretty good collection so far. Today we played the board game Life. I remember LOVING this game as a kid and was all excited to play with them this morning. We all sat down on the floor and set everything up and started the game. WHOA! This game is a little different than I remember. You can sue people and take all of their money....what the heck?!? I can have a life changing operation...weird. Dude, I can take out a loan for as much money as I want??? What is going on here with this game? I guess the creators of Life decided that the game needed a face lift! I guess it must have been lacking sales or something because now we can play the Game Of Life all raunchy style. My kids at first were a little upset when someone got to take all of their money, because of a lawsuit. Then they started to change. They wanted to sue each other and they would look for the spaces to land on that said "lawsuit." Sashi yelled at one point, "My life is made for suing!" Ian didn't want to play anymore when Sashi had sued him 2 times in a row. He said he wasn't having any fun. I got to have twins and then had a "life changing operation." I guess I wasn't happy being a mom. I do not know what to think about the "NEW" Game Of Life. I wasn't sure if I thought the game was fun or not. I do not know if I like my kids suing people....even if it is just for pretend. Ian wanted to know what "life changing operation" meant and I had to tell him... thanks to this wonderful family game. I guess there is no more innocence for the kids of the New Millennium . I guess I am behind the times because I like the old game. Why can't people just get married and live happily ever after?

I See Dead People

(singing)
Genealogy I am doing it, my genealogy. And the reasons why am doing it are very clear to me. I will keep my book of remembrance, I'll write my history. It's a record of my family, my genealogy.

I have been working on my family's history for a year now and I have been loving every minute of it. It started out as a fun-thing-to-do while Ian was at 11 year old scouts, now it has become a passion. I work for an hour and a half once a week at the Family History Center and then for an hour on Sunday at home. I have always had a love for old things....old photos, documents, artifacts and stories. I started this love when I was very young child. I adored the family stories my father would tell to me and would beg for more. At the age of 11 I would dig "out the old box of photos" my mother's parents had hidden under their bed and would look at each and every one until I had faces memorized. I would drag the box down stairs and ask my grandfather, "Who is this?" He would tell me and I would memorize it. I was always grateful my grandfather was a patient man, because there were HUNDREDS of photos in that box and we went through all of them. I would bring down that box once a week and ask for stories of people in the pictures. I have hundreds of facts stored in my brain about these wonderful people. My mother's parents were not the only ones that I begged to tell me stories. My father's family also had old pictures. I stumbled upon these one day while I was poking around in their living room. I remember getting SO excited that there were photos that I could look at. I really do not remember asking if I could rifle through all of their photos...I just did it. I would ask my grandmother as she would walk by, "Who is this?" My grandmother would tell me and then I would ask her another question, "What was she/he like?" I do not know what my grandmother thought about me asking her questions, but she never stopped telling me about the people in the photos. I think it is funny that EVERY time I went to her house I pulled out that drawer and look and memorized faces. Someone asked me once why I liked photos and why I looked at the faces so closely and I remember telling them, "because I do not want to forget what they look like." I still wonder if they thought I was a nut case.
When I started to do my genealogy last year I just put down every name I could remember from when I was a child. Then the next week I would go to the computer and look up the persons death and birth dates. Then I would check the Churches websites to see if everything matched up. Lots of names did...lots did not. If there were errors I would go back to researching. I made lots of phone calls to my parents for information that I couldn't remember or was too young to ask about. Something amazing happened to me while I was working. I felt close to the person who's name I was working on. I found myself talking to them (in my head) wanting to know why I couldn't find them on the computer? I felt deeply troubled if a name did not match up to what I had. I know these people were real and that they needed to be found and written down. I feel very strongly about this. I love doing family history and I know that I will never stop...no matter how frustrated I become. I love family.

Piano Mama

When I was a young girl I used to take piano lessons. I learned my scales and all the notes and would practice for hours. I loved playing. The music I could make brought joy to my heart and I craved to hear it after a long day of school. I would jump onto the piano bench and let my fingers go. If my day was happy I would play a waltz or a ballad...if my day was stressful I would go after the marches and fast songs. The faster I would play the more the stress seemed to magically melt away. When I became a teenager I found the piano was a good friend to lean on when I was down. The music I played made me feel cheerful and I liked that happy feeling .. I played the piano a lot as a teen. While I was at college my father had a piano and I would go downstairs and play when I needed a stress relief. I played all the way up to getting married. My husband I moved and we didn't have a piano. Life got busy and the piano playing stopped. I had to work and then I had children. I had more imporatant things to do then to play on a piano. I missed playing. I would tell my husband that I needed a piano, because I was forgetting how to play. Then last year we bought a piano. The joy that I felt when we brought the piano into the house can not be put into words. I cried. I remember feeling complete, as silly as that sounds. I sat down on the piano bench and started to play the one song that I could remember. I played the song three times. While I played my children came and sat down beside me and listened.
I did get very rusty over the years. I laugh how I can't remember my left hand. I know it is somewhere in my memory but I have to find it. I play every day starting over relearning everything I have forgotten. I play my son's piano book and practice when I can. I can feel the left hand coming back. I played the Entertainer the other night and Ian came up to me and said, "Wow! Mom that sounds good." This made me very happy. I am now working on Christmas songs. It is wonderful to have my beloved piano back in my life.

Christmas Is Coming

(Singing in my head)
Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat
Please put a penny in the old man's hat.
If you haven't got a penny, a ha' penny will do,
If you haven't got a ha' penny, then God bless you.

I adore Christmas music. I enjoy the simple stories that are told through song. I love how the music makes my heart dance. I crave it and can not wait until I can blare it throughout the house. I sing with my children and share what the songs mean. Today we went over the song Good King Wenceslas.


Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stephen
When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even
Brightly shone the moon that night
Though the frost was cruel
When a poor man came in sight
Gath'ring winter fuel

Ian, Sashi and I went line for line talking about everything that was going on in the song. We talked about how important it is to help others and to see when people are in need. It brought me joy to sing and teach a song that I have always loved. Another love of my life is this man

I truly love this man.... Mr. Bing Crosby. His voice is amazing and I could listen to him forever, but when you pair up his voice with Christmas songs...WOW! My Children can recognize his voice and will yell "Is that Bing?" Their favorite song that Bing sings is:

Pat-A-Pan
Willie, take your little drum
Robin bring your fife and come
When we play the fife and drum

Tu-re-lu-re-lu
Pat-a-pat-a-pan
When we play the fife and drum
Christmas shall very joyful be

Like the men of olden days
Who the king of kings did praise
With the sound of fife and drum

Tu-re-lu-re-lu
Pat-a-pat-a-pan
With the sound of fife and drum
To the Lord we shall bring our praise

For the last two weeks my kids and I get into the car and drive around with Christmas music blaring away.
They sing with gusto with "my man Bing." It makes me smile to know that I am making memories with my children. I know they will always remember singing in the car with Bing and mom.




Here is a secret (whispering) I have to play Christmas music in my car because my husband doesn't like Holiday music in the house before December 1st. I try and be respectful and wait, but in the car it is fair game =)

Star Gazing

Tonight I looked at hundreds of stars twinkling above me. I saw the sun and moon move across the night sky in a slow but hypnotic motion. The temperature was a warm 70 degrees and a little bit stuffy. Where was I? I was at the wonderful Juneau Planetarium. Juneau's Planetarium is the ONLY one in Alaska. It has been running for about 40 years in the Marie Drake building. The admission is free and all the workers are volunteers. Right now there are two scientists that work the giant star machine. You can tell they love their jobs and get a kick out of teaching people about the Universe. My family has been going to the shows for two months. We have enjoyed the presentations and have learned a great deal. Ian is totally in love with all things having to do with astronomy. He HAS to go to the shows and will talk about the future shows throughout the month. He wants to help out with running the machine and wants to ask questions about everything. Ian's love for science is great....so we will do anything and everything to help him learn about the Universe.


Tonight's show was about The Earth Without the Moon. It was fantastic! We saw pictures and slides with the earth covered in water. We learned about the stages the moon goes through and what it does to the tides. Did you know Easter would not exist without the moon? Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox..We found out it would have to be a set day if we didn't have a moon. Hahahaha. All in all we had a great time and can not wait until the next one at the end of November.