Smith Family Journal

Family Letter China Report

2011-08-21T14:33:00.000-07:00

Dear family,

It’s been far too long since we’ve contributed to the family letter, so here’s my (Chad) annual offering. We’ve had a busy year already. In fact, it’s only six months in and I’ve already used up all my vacation days. Our biggest adventure was in May when we took Steph, Josh and Sam to China with us. Though there is many tales I could tell, I’ll share a couple of the highlights here. I also had the privilege of going to the Helaman’s Encampment with Josh and Sam. That was a powerful experience in so many ways. My favorite part was the opportunity to see so many old acquaintances, including relatives and old missionary companions. It was also a great test of courage for Joshua and I climbing Table and Whistler Mountain. Our other big news is that we just bought 10 acres and hope to build next year. Finally! Let’s start with a few China stories.

Going to China happened a lot like most of our big adventures in our family. It started with a strategically placed seed of an idea from my dear wife. I’m pretty sure she plans these things out knowing my built in resistance to big changes and expensive undertakings. I think she may have even started this process a few weeks after she and Steph got back from their big trip to Europe. It came in the form of an offhand reminder that her friend Siobhan was now living in China and had offered all her friends lodging in their home if they came for a visit. My reaction was, “that’s nice, too bad we just did a 5 week Europe trip, planned to buy an acreage and build a house in the next 2 years and too bad we aren’t independently wealthy. One day honey…”. Wisely she just kept up the subtle reminders until early this year, when I started to notice library books appearing on Chinese history, culture and travel destinations. Then she enlisted the kids in the idea and before I knew it, the income tax return had been claimed and the Visa limit upped to handle the “possibility”. When my weak arguments that we needed to be wise with our money were battered down with cries that the kids were getting older and would soon be out of the house without any significant memories, and before I knew it, the travel agent had been contacted and the flights booked.

Secretly of course, I knew I would love to travel and have the experience, but it is dangerous to let these things be known. So I outwardly sighed and inwardly got excited about a trip of a lifetime. When asked what the best part of the trip to China was, Sam listed the inflight movies on Air Canada near, if not at the top. Typical. 13 hours of back to back movies and even he was tired of it, but being his first flight, he had a right to be excited, I guess. We arrived in Beijing, weary but excited to begin our adventure. We were fortunate to have the son of an old family friend from our Edmonton 7th Ward days meet us and bring us to our hotel. Andrew Gibb recently married and started attending school in Beijing. He arranged “black cabs” for us and speaks Mandarin very well. We spent a few days seeing Beijing, including going out for an expensive signature dinner, Peking Duck. Though it was unique, I would be surprised if any of the kids remember too much about it as it came at the end of a long walking and extremely jet lagged day (they fell dead asleep at the dinner table). But at least we’ve got pictures to remember it by.

One of the most remarkable things we found about China cities was how much they changed from day to night. Daytime, it is easy to see the run down conditions and often stark poverty, but in the cities especially, at night, the neon lights go on and it transforms into an almost magical place. Our first night in China, we were so excited that instead of doing the sensible thing and resting and recuperating, we decided to immediately head out into the lighted streets seeking adventure, and in my case, humiliation. Our hotel was near a popular, modernized street in Beijing with brightly lit up buildings often sporting multi-story video screens called Wang Fu Jing street. On one side of the street, we discovered an open meat market. Lined up for nearly a block was every type of meat you could imagine on a skewer with large Wok pots boiling oil behind. Being much jet lagged, and with the spicy sweet smells of a new country in our nostrils, we staggered around without any planning and were immediately besieged by skillful street vendors who spotted my tourist naiveté almost immediately. As I asked about different meats, the vendors pretended to not understand and instead of just telling me what I was asking about, they would immediately throw it into the pot. 8-10 sticks of everything from shark and octopus to beef and snake went in and before I knew it, I was stuck holding a bag of hot, dripping and smelly shish-kabobs. I asked how much. “130 RMB” came the reply. As my foggy brain tried to compute the conversion to Canadian, I remembered that I should barter and lamely offered 120. Immediately, they accepted and I retreated, suddenly realizing that I had just spent $25 dollars on some crazy meat. I finally met back up with Jen, only to discover that she also had purchased a set of sticks. We all tried a few, realized that we didn’t mind shark meat but would never want to try snake meat again and ended up throwing ¾ of it away. Lesson learned… at least until the next time I got suckered into a “deal” (too embarrassed to tell you about that one).

By far our best experience in China was our tour of the Great Wall. We went on a tour of a part of the wall north-east of Beijing with a British guide who has studied and walked the wall for more than 20 years. His name is William Lindsey (http://wildwall.com/home.htm). He was very affable and offered a tour where we went to a small Chinese village and stayed in an open courtyard home on large cement beds with VERY thin mattresses. Funny thing was that my back felt better on Chinese mattresses than on my soft squishy mattress at home! We went on three 10 km hikes up to and on the wall including one hike at 3 am to catch the sunrise. It is a remote area of the wall, and we saw almost no one else on the wall the whole time. The wall is “wild” and very overgrown and crumbling in places, but it was an amazing experience to stand on a high wall tower and see it stretch in 3 directions to the horizon. Rural China held far more appeal to me than the congested, polluted cities, but everything was a neat experience.

After Beijing, we flew to Guilin where we saw some beautifully surreal, Kung Fu Panda style, scenery. We took a trip up to some rice terraces and got to experience a cultural presentation of the Yao people whose women only cut their hair once at age 18 and keep it wrapped up high on their head. While watching a presentation, I somehow found myself up on stage along with 5 other suckers to participate in a mock marriage ceremony. At one point, after the ceremony, there was a celebration dance where we made a circle and did a cheer. What to my surprise when the “wives” behind began pinching all or our buttocks as their expression of “love”. By the time the dance was done, the embarrassment was gone and the soreness had replaced it!. The next embarrassing part came when I realized that I had drunk a small sip of rice wine they had offered as part of the act. After the first sip, I knew it was alcoholic and so I faked the next drink. Finally, I got to sing a love song to my new bride. I chose “I’m leaving on a jet plane!” So by the time I had finished the act, I was practicing polygamy, another women had touched my butt and I had broken the word of wisdom. All while my family sat watching and laughing uproariously.

Next we want to Shenzhen across the bay from Hong Kong where our friends lived. We had a fun experience going to church there as they meet every other week in different homes and conference call each other to be prepared for the possibility of the government not allowing them to congregate. That week was Relief Society instead of priesthood, so we lucky guys got to go home early

Our final destination was Hong Kong and it turned out to be a memorable one for more reasons than one. We were wowed by the amazing architecture, the crazy number of sky rise apartment buildings and the absolute plethora of neon and lights at night. The boys and I enjoyed a day at Ocean Park amusement park… that is until the next day when we discovered that Joshua had somehow lost his passport there! After a frantic multi-pass search through all our bags and rooms, we had to resign ourselves to sending Jen, Steph and Sam home with Jen’s sister Kurri and her son Calvin while Joshua and I stayed an extra day to work out a temporary passport. As stressful as it was, we felt the Lord blessed us and we were able to replace the passport and get home within 24 hours.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience that we probably won’t do again… at least until the Visa is paid off and Jen starts hinting about the next outrageous trip we end up taking

Canada Day Fever

2009-07-01T08:13:00.001-07:00

I woke up this morning with the feeling that I should be community minded today. Maybe I was inspired by some of Mel's experiences I read about on his Blog! I decided to go out to the Leduc Canada Day breakfast and prayed that I could meet someone. So I did! And I met Craig and Wendy and their two children (whom I've forgotten the names of!). They are from Manitoba and we had a delightful conversation about our families. Craig is a health inspector for the Federal Government. They are from Manitoba and are a wonderful family. Didn't get into a gospel conversation, but that's ok for now. Maybe I'll meet them again and can continue the conversation. Leduc isn't all that big after all :)

Then, as I biked home, I noticed that my neighbors out back were packing up their van. I had never met them as they are one over from the back and aren't out back all that often. I went over and said hi and had yet another wonderful conversation. Evan and Catherine Engel are from Saskatchewan and have two little boys Ethan and Egan. Evan is a Welder and works close here in Nisku.

In one of the TJEd forum talks from the SLC Forum this year, Shannon Broookes talks about us being in a 4th turning (http://www.fourthturning.com/) and that one of the best things to be doing in a 4th turning is to focus on family and community. He challenged everyone get to know the 10 neighbors around you. So far I only know 3. Now I know 4 :)

This morning early, Elder Deaver joined me for a P90X workout. I don't think he anticipated it being as intense as it was. Of course with someone there to do it with, you tend to work harder to show off or at least compete. It's almost a sub-conscious man thing. Anyways, now my arms feel like they are going to fall off!

Last night I bought a back packing stove. It's an MSR WhisperLite International. It's pretty small and cool. It works with a bigger pot though so it should be good for our trip. I boiled some water and had some hot chocolate last night.

Random Update

2009-06-29T14:54:00.000-07:00

Today I have just a few thoughts and reports to share. I chose to ride my bike in today and I'll have to say the 2nd time was easier than the first time last week. Part of it was less wind, but I think my body is adapting too. The only rough spot came as I was crossing a street on Ellerslie and 109 st and was at the same time trying to adjust my headphones and mp3 player. Holding on with just one hand, I didn't see the drop of in the curb in time and ended up over the handle bars and scraping myself all up! I haven't done that since I was a kid on the gravel roads back home!

I also enjoyed having a bike meter to help me. I now know how fast I'm going, how long I've gone (in time and distance) and what my top and average speeds are! Very cool. It took me a while to figure out hot it did the measuring (I'm kinda slow for an engineer sometimes!). It has a magnet that goes on the spoke and it passes by a sensor every time it comes around. Then, you program the little computer display with how far your wheel goes in one turn. Voila! Isn't simplicity beautiful!

Have you got July's Ensign yet? I was reading the article in there on modesty by Sylvia Alred, and one of her comments opened my eyes to one of the possible symbolic meanings behind the aprons that Adam and Eve wore to hide their nakedness from the Lord after they had partaken of the fruit. If you recall, after they had partaken of the fruit of the tree of Life, their eyes were opened and they quickly realized (with some prompting from Satan) that they were naked. Satan urges to hide and make fig leave aprons. Then the Lord comes and teaches Adam and Eve that the apron is not enough to hide their nakedness and directs the Savior to make garments for them to cover their nakedness.

I suddenly realized in reading that article how very symbolic this account is. Consider that our nakedness is unworthiness or sin that causes us shame in the presence of the Lord. When we sin our first impulse is to hide it and to try, by our own efforts to cover up or make up for the sin. But ultimately, in the Lord's sight, it cannot be hid by our own efforts. Only the Savior can cover our sins so that we are no longer ashamed in the presence of God. And he does that through covenants symbolized by the garment. It is interesting, as we learn in the temple, that we do not discard the apron, but rather together with the apron and the garment and the keeping of the covenants we make, we become worthy to enter into the Lord's presence. We still need to do all we can to overcome and "cover" our own sins, but only together with the Savior can they truly be blotted out and allow us back into the Lord's presence.

I just listened to a speech by Oliver DeMille about freedom. He taught that to preserve freedom, we must think symbolically or poetically verses or in addition to literally. In other words, we need to think beyond what comes to us at face value and see its meaning and portent. Furthermore, there are many meanings that come when we think poetically or symbolically. My thoughts above are only one of many possible meanings that can be taken from this account of Adam and Eve. He called it sensora plenorium vs. sensora solo (latin). I believe that this is consistent with the way that the Lord educates and teaches.

I welcome your comments on it.

One more week to go!

2009-06-26T11:32:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm really missing my family today for some reason. I've been able to keep pretty busy and occupied the last few days, but today is a slow day at work and so I've had more time to think about it. Sigh.

Yesterday I was able to go do some home teaching to the Munsters. Johnathan just lost his job again and so they were discouraged. We shared the June message about letting prayer raise us up above the clouds or dispair and discouragement and discussed practical steps for Johnathan. Leonard, my companion, is being layed off this week as well, but is in a much better position having worked 12 years with this company. They are providing career and job replacement counselling so he is going to share all that with Johnathan. Then we just need to help him keep the next job he gets. It's the keeping the job that is his challenge.

Afterwards, we went in to Bishopric training. I really enjoy meeting with the priesthood and especially meeting with the bishoprics and the Stake Presidency gives me strength and hope. I was called on to share our approach to housing the missionaries. The Stake's goal is to get the missionaries all in members homes this year. We are one of the few wards that is doing it and we've just had the chance to challenge multiple members in our ward to do it. We have had a good response and were able to get a plan passed by the mission president stretching out over the next 3 years.

Today I'm starting to get our things on order to go camping. I took our propane bottle in to get filled only to be told that it is over 10 years old and they wouldn't fill it unless I got it inspected! $60 for a new one! Then I got our registration back for the van as the little girls had played with and lost our documentation. After work today I'm going to crack open the tent trailer and see how it is doing.

I made a fun little animated picture of Sam just for something to do. Here it is:

Just me and the missionaries now

2009-06-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

Just talked to Jen this morning. Sure good to hear her voice. She and Stephanie are signing up for their cruise excursions and Jen called to warn me about the Visa bill :) I remember when I was in India. Some things are just a once in a lifetime experience and worth a little financial pain. They just saw Athens and are loving every minute there it sounds like.

Life on the home front has been a bit eventful. When I got back from Glenwood, I noticed that the damp smell was back in the basement. Sure enough, the carpet under Sam's bed was wet! I first thought that it must be coming from the outside again and was dreading having to tear out the wall and ceiling to find the leak. Then I happened to notice that there was a puddle at the bottom of the fridge. After a few times cleaning it up it also happened to open the cupboard under the sink and noticed a large puddle! Turns out our taps are leaking inside and that was right above Sam's bed! Fixed that up and now things are drying out!

All this perfectly timed to coincide with the missionaries coming to stay at our house for a few weeks!

The next thing I noticed was that the back tire on our van was showing tread! So off to the tire shop we went to get a new tire and picking up a full sized spare just for good measure on our trip out to Vancouver this next month. Good thing money grows on trees, right... right?

Hope your all having as much fun as I am (aside from pining away for my wife and oldest daughter that is).

Back from Southern Alberta

2009-06-20T19:15:00.000-07:00

Hi again,

I haven't written since I and the kids headed down south to Mom and Dad Smith's place. I'm back now for the 2 week marathon alone until Jen and Stephanie get home. Pray for me :)

Here are some of Jen and Steph's pictures in case you're not on facebook:

Here are pictures from our trip down south. It was a good time as I was able to help Dad build a back deck on the house!

We also had an early fathers day celebration and played baseball out back on the lawn that Joshua mowed!

Hot Hot day

2009-06-13T21:38:00.000-07:00

Wow was it ever a nice hot day!

This morning the boys and I did some cleaning on the house and got the games cupboard all dejunked. Once we'd had a good lunch (Kraft Dinner and hot dogs is healthy, right?), we went for a long bike ride. We went down by Telford lake and had a snack, then went over to a school park and played, threw a frisbee around and tried not to get too much sun!

Angie was going to come over for a bit,but they had to postpone till Monday to get some gas in the van.

Joshua came back this afternoon after spending a very fun overnighter with Ryan Stotthart. It was Ryan's brother Noah's birthday party and they had an extra ticket to go paintballing and Josh got invited. He is now sporting a nice round bruise on his belly, but loved every minute of it.

Tonight we went to attend Marissa Murphy's convert baptism. That's 10 in our ward this year! We started out with a goal of 6, then moved to 8, and now we're resetting it again!

Afterwards, we went over to the Murphy's for a BBQ. It was a beautiful night and everyone enjoyed visiting outside and playing in the park behind their house.

Spiritual Day

2009-06-12T06:07:00.000-07:00

Hi Again,

I'm writing this for yesterday as I forgot to do it. Any references to 'today' means yesterday. A little mental gymnastics for ya'll.

I really enjoyed today. I had forgotten to fast on Sunday, so I fasted today. Both for myself to be strong while Jen is gone and for members of our ward.

This morning we worked together to clean up a bit and get the girls ready and then, after scriptures and prayers, headed off to Auntie Kurri's for a much anticipated 2nd sleep over in as many weeks. We got there in time for me to take Calvin into his school. I had a good talk with Calvin. He's a real responsible and smart kid. He's enjoying making a James Bond movie as a project at school.

From there I went to work and had a busy and productive day. After work, I stopped by a local Wal-Mart and picked up a few more camping supplies (bear bells, some rope and some straps for the backpacks). After, I went into the temple which is very close to my new office. Had a wonderful session and came out feeling peaceful and inspired.

Picked up a movie and some groceries on the way home. I prepared my favourite solo meal (spaghetti stroganoff) and watched Valkyrie. It's a story about one of the many assassination attempts on Hitler during the 2nd World War. Thought provoking.

I also got a message on the machine from Jen. She mentioned that they went hiking in the Swiss Alps today. What wonderful experiences they are having!

I read something very interesting in Ann M Dibb's talk from the last General YW meeting. In it she talks about as a YW she unconsciously developed certain qualities as she tried to choose the right. One of the things she mentions was that she was "increasing my virtue". That struck me. I often think of virtue as something you have or you don't.

Have you ever thought of virtue as something that is dynamic and can be strengthened and grown? Comments welcome on this subject (haven't received any comments on this Blog yet, so might as well go fishing for them :) )

Girls are missing their Mom's today...

2009-06-10T21:20:00.000-07:00

Today was the first real day that the girls started to say they wanted and missed Mom. Amelia woke up crying for Mom and had to be distracted. Then on the way to drop Sam and Josh off at youth activities, we were listening to a ballad on the radio and Abigail started to get weepy saying that that song made her miss her mommy. They did better than Dad! He's been a sap since the 2nd day : See my grumpy face!

Today was a good day for Math in our home. All three boys passed off their 12 times tables with a grueling verbal test covering off at least 70+ random multiplication factors each. Benjamin, since he had already done it yesterday, did his as division instead! Can you hear Dad's twisted chuckle at having the kids at his mercy ... Woooaaahahaha.. eh hmmm, sorry.

Another beautiful day today. We were mad we forgot the camera or we could have had some McDonald's play place pictures for you. Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, Dad has some pretty good heartburn from it all.

Tomorrow the kids get to go to Auntie Kurri's for another sleepover, so their pretty excited about that. Dad is looking forward to going to the temple tomorrow night.

Beautiful Day today

2009-06-09T18:50:00.000-07:00

Sun was shining when I woke up this morning but I still wasn't able to pull myself out of bed in time to do P90X... TOMORROW, there is always tomorrow. Need to get back into it. No use doing it then letting it all turn to flab again!

I'm hoping to get my bike back tomorrow as I took it in to change the tires to road tires for my Venturer trip in August. I'm planning to try and bike into work (~30K) a few times. That should help the fitness level a little!

Now that I think about it, we forgot to do scriptures and prayers this morning! We'll do scriptures tonight. I'll have to assign Ben to remind us about it.

It was back to times tables again today for Nintendo priveleges. Ben has passed off his all 12 times tables first. Sam is hot on his heals. It seems to come pretty natural to Ben and Sam is highly motivated. Josh has petered off a bit with discouragement. Need to find a way to excite him about it. He knows about half of them, which is much better than a week ago!

Taco Soup for lunch, thanks to Sis Francis from yesterday. The girls and I took the boys to swimming lessons and on the way back from picking them up after the girls fell asleep until about 5! Abigail needed as she was crying at the drop of a hat! Amelia seems to just put herself down at nap time every day without anyone doing anything. She's pretty self contained for a 2 year old. Must be all the older brothers and sisters.

The boys assignment after swimming was to figure out how to move the trampline over to the cement pad. They did a pretty good job and didn't wreck anything. That allowed me to mow the back lawn finally.

After work, we packed a few snacks and went out to weed the garden. It was still a beautiful day outside and our garden wasn't too bad off. Someone had been helping us water so there was a nice muddy circle in the middle we couldn't get to, but, with the help of Bro. Carlson's rototiller, and some good helping by all the boys, we got most of the weeds, especially the thistles. It felt good to get our hands dirty. Ben was in charge of taking pictures.

1 week down, 4 to go

2009-06-08T21:07:00.000-07:00

A week ago today, Jen and Steph left for Europe. It feels like longer to me but I'm a bit of a sap when it comes to being away from my wife for too long. It was good and it helped to talk together last night.

Today went well. Wendy Francis came and got the kids before lunch and they spent the day at their house playing while I got some work done. Sam came back for gymnastics.

While Sam was in gymnastics I payed a visit to Campers Village. I was able to pick up some foam rolls for our camping trip and be sorely tempted by the latest and coolest back packing gear, especially the new jetboil stove system for a mere $180!

Here are some pictures of Sam in gymnastics class today:

After gymnastics we headed out to the Francis' for FHE and to pick up the kids. It was a good night. Abigail came home extremely cranky and crying until bedtime. After stories she was out like a light! Whew!

Hmmm, do we miss our Mom?

She Called... She still loves me :^)

2009-06-07T21:58:00.000-07:00

Finally talking to Jen! I was pouting because the kids talked to her this morning and I was at my meetings. We talked for 30 minutes (for $30). Worth every penny.

Steph is really loving being with other kids who are pursuing the same educational ideas and pursuits. She has most loved the art, especially DaVinci paintings and writings at Windsor Castle.

In London they saw castles, the Shakespear Globe Theatre and even got to see the broadway musical "Wicked" (Les Miserables was sold out) which Jen described as AMAZING.

They are in Paris now and have found the contrast between Paris and London quite stark. Paris is much less well maintained (the subways especially). They are going for a boat ride on the Sienne and seeing the Eiffel Tower today.

Lots more to tell. They are going to try and find an internet kiosk and post some comments and pictures hopefully soon.

A busy Sunday

2009-06-07T19:02:00.001-07:00

Hi Again,

A busy Sunday comes to a closes with some news from Europe. Jen and Stephanie called about 10 am this morning and talked with Josh and the kids. Unfortunately, I was already at meetings so I missed the chance to talk with them. :*(

They are now in Paris. The sad news is that Stephanie got her camera with 500 pictures on it stolen. Hopefully Jen can hold on to hers! Life can be disapointing at times. Josh said she cried for a day.

The Blakey's were kind enough to bring the kids home and to have us over for supper tonight. Now we're all just vegging before bedtime.

Here's some random pictures I took yesterday and today:

Found the Camera!

2009-06-06T22:31:00.001-07:00

I found it! I had put it in my backpack to take pictures of my little office at work. Then I forgot where I put it. Posting a couple of pictures just because I found it :)

I posted this one just so you know it's really me doing this Blog :)

Here I'm starting to get ready for our back packing trip after our Vancouver trek. Found these backpacks for ~$55 at Costco! Good deal (we hope).

We just need to decide what Sam can carry. These two here are 85 Litre packs and I ordered 2 65 Litre packs from Costco Online for $70 each for Josh and Stephanie. Sam is so small, he'll probably just end up carrying his clothes and a sleeping bag in a day pack.

It's almost midnight. I'm going to try and see if I can catch Steph and Jen at midnight (7 am London time)

Saturday is a special day, it's the day we get....you know the rest

2009-06-06T22:03:00.000-07:00

Whew. That was a long day. Unfortunately we've lost our only camera in the house for the moment so I still don't have any pictures to share! Would have liked to, as we went swimming today and could have had some cute ones!

The day started out with everyone sleeping in till past 8 am! We had a great breakfast of sausages, eggs and waffles. Everyone helped as we cleaned the house with only a little frustration on Dad's part. That earned a trip to the pool where we spent 3 hours trying to stay off the lifeguards blacklist as we tried to keep track of the two little girls runnig and splashing every which way. Josh was pretty good at helping.

The hilight for Dad was making it to the top of the climbing wall (another reason I wished we'd had the camera!). Last time we went swimming with Stan and Karla, I wasn't able to make it to the top of the wall even though Jen was! My manhood being challenged, I swore I would work out till I could do it. So, over the last 3 months working out, I was anticipating the climb again.

Josh watched the little girls while Ben and I went into the deep end and I made my attempt. I was pleased to find out that I was able to scale it quite easily this time. In fact I did it 4x! P90X works!

After swimming, Josh watched the kids while I went and conducted Rick and Betty's baptism. It was a wonderful experience as their 2 boys, both just recently baptized and holding the office of priest, baptized their parents. We have had an outpouring of the Lords blessings. This was baptism #9 in our ward and #11 since December 18th! Just tonight I received word that Marissa, the 14 year old grand daughter of Rick and Betty has committed for next Saturday!

Tonight we watched another Liken the scriptures movie (Alma in King Noah's Court). It was ok, but none of them have come close to comparing to David and Goliath in quality and songs.

We finished the night with Napoleon Dynamite! What a dumb (but funny oddly enough) movie. Sam was in stitches and Ben liked it, but Josh thought it was way too silly. Quite quotable though :)

Looking forward to Sunday tomorrow.

Smith Movie Night

2009-06-05T22:10:00.000-07:00

I did end up going to the office for work today as I had to go out anyways to retrieve the kids from Auntie Kurri and Uncle Tad's place. After work, I stopped by the bike store and bought a few anticipatory gadgets for the August bike trip. I have been wrestling with the idea of buying a road bike for the trip, but after looking around, I realized that any road bike from a decent store (Read NOT WalMart or Canadian Tire) comes in well over $600 up to $10000!

So I decided instead to go cheap and put road tires on my current mountain bike and fix it up. Hopefully I don't live to regret that decision half way between Jasper and Banff!

Tonight after bringing the kids home, we decided to stay up late and have a movie night! We watched "Baptists at our Barbeque" and "The Best Two Years". They are fun to watch. The best 2 years is both painfully and joyfully accurate at times :)

Morning Entry

2009-06-05T07:27:00.001-07:00

Yesterday the kids went to Auntie Kurri's for a sleep over. They were very excited about that!

I've been very proud of our boys this last few days. I made a deal with them that if they learned the times tables they could earn time on the Nintendo. That was a good motivation as all 3 have now memorized their 12 times tables! We'll definately have to review to retain it all, but in 3 days they passed off both verbally and on written timed tests their multiplication tables! Our house was littered with practice sheets.

I went into the office for the first time yesterday to set up my new "office" (read "cubicle"). It was a bit of an adjustment as I went from a 15x10 office in the old place and found myself in a 5x10 cubicle! Yet another motivation to work from home!

Last night I had a good "Bishop" night as I was able to teach a discussion with the missionaries and visit with 2 families in the ward with Brother Sands. We visited first with Rick and Betty who are very excited to be baptized on Saturday. Then we visited with Sis. Leslie and the Bidulka's. I love getting into peoples homes and visiting one on one.

This morning after an early conference call, I emailed Leonard Blakey and we went out for an early bike ride. Leonard made it part way and then I kept going out to the Carlesons to see how our garden is doing. Looks like a few potatoes are poking up as well as a nice crop of thistles and some crab grass! As it rained last night I wasn't able to get on and do any weeding, but we'll go out as a family next week for FHE and do some weeding hopefully. On the way there, I took the gravel side road. Took me 35 minutes. Then on the way back I realized I could jump onto the parralel Highway 2 and that took me only 15 minutes! What a difference pavement makes. It's always a bit deceiving how far things are really when you drive there. I had had it in my mind to take the kids on a bikeride there pulling girls in a trailer. Now I don't think that's such a good idea!

Glad today is done

2009-06-03T21:19:00.001-07:00

Today was our busy day. Work from home went well as the boys are being very good about helping with the Girls. Dad has layed down a few house rules and the boys were able to earn some Nintendo priveledges after getting a few new games. The deal is that for every multiplication table row they memorize, they get 10 min of Nintendo. So far Josh and Sam have done up to 7 times tables and Ben is up to 6. It's had its stressful moments, but they have worked hard and know them pretty well so far!

We took some time at lunch today to take a bike ride to the park. It was a beautiful sunny day and we enjoyed a picnic lunch there. The girls had fun feeding the geese.

After work we had to run Sam to the West End for gymnastics. We waited for him by going to the library and playing and reading there.

The evening ended at the church for youth activities. Joshua got to go on a bike ride and Sam went to the Noel's for cubs. Ben hung out with Carlos Mckenney and I watched the girls with Gord Sands and Ruby Mckenney's help while I played a bit of ultimate frisbee with the Priests and Teachers.

Hope Stephanie and Jen are having a good time!

See you all tomorrow!

Keeping up the Routine

2009-06-02T08:37:00.000-07:00

First day dawns alone without Mom and Stephanie. We started off pretty well. Dad excersized, everyone helped make breakfast and clean up and now we're on to learning time while the little girls watch a movie and Dad works.

We took some time this morning to study in 2 Samuel 11 about the fall of David. What a trajic moment in history! We especially thought about it as we have recently been watching the Liken the Scriptures video about David and Goliath.

It's a beautiful day outside so we're looking forward to going out at lunch for a walk or bikeride. We'll post some pictures from that too!

Jen called today from London. It was evening for them. As soon as they got to London, they had time to drop their bags in their room and join the group for a walking tour of downtown London. Jen said that Stephanie took about 150 pictures already and could not help herself from breaking out in spontaneous giggles periodically :) Sounds like they are doing well. Hope to hear directly from them this Sunday. If they can get to an internet connection, hopefully they'll post us some comments and pictures as they go!

Up, Up and away to the movies we went :)

2009-06-01T21:23:00.000-07:00

Tonight we celebrated Jen and Steph's successful launch of their Europe trip by going to the movies. We saw the new animated moview "UP!". It was fun and Amelia even stayed in her seat.

The Adventure begins...

2009-06-01T17:31:00.000-07:00

Well, the day has arrived. With tearful farewells (mostly Abigail) we bid farewell to our beautiful and beloved oldest females in the family. Steph and Jen are off to London! I (Dad) dropped them off at the airport at 5:45 and stayed just long enough to be sure they made it through the first steps.

It's going to be quite an adjustment having them gone, but we've got some exciting activities planned and hope to have such a good time while they're gone that they will wish they were here instead!

Pray for us !

Next 5 weeks

2009-05-31T20:54:00.001-07:00

We hope to post our activities over the next 5 weeks as a way of staying in communication with Stephanie and Jen on their trip through Europe!