Rock Climbing!

We love rock climbing! We go with my cousin Ryan sometimes up to Camelback and climb the Monk, and it's awesome. It's kindof a scary climb, though, because you have to climb a little area to get UP to the rock that you climb, so when you're climbing up the Monk it feels like you're 200 feet up instead of just 100 because it's already on top of the mountain.


This is my nervous smile. Climbing and I have a love-hate relationship because I'm so afraid of heights :) I got 3/4 of the way up, and i heard some squeaking and all of a sudden TONS of bats flew out from a crack that was like 1 1/2 feet away from me. I'm not scared of bats, but i was so high up and nervous anyway that i kinda freaked out!


I think Camelback is the prettiest place in Phoenix. Love this view!
Jardan's lead climbing. He climbs up the rock to attach the rope to the top for the rest of us. There's hooks along the way that he hooks the rope into, but if he falls he'd fall like 15 feet before one of them would catch him. He's never fallen, though, but I hate watching this part!
Ryan working the ropes. He never smiles in pictures, so I was SUPER happy to get this one.

Hooray! Can't wait for all my siblings to come out so we can all go together!!

Birthday and Halloween!!

This year Eve was LION for Halloween. She thoroughly enjoyed roaring at people and scaring Nana. And...I made her costume!! I couldn't have done it without Mom, who patiently guided me during the week-long process. I am ridiculously proud of myself. It turned out super cute, and fit her very well. Anja gave her this "spider bucket" for her birthday, which was fantastic and SO cute! Eve loves it.
The lion and the cowboy. Love the mustache.
This was on Eve's birthday. THREE!
We did a birthday party for her this year with a bunch of her friends! It was SO fun! We put together a treasure hunt (see above treasure chest, compliments of Dad), and at the end we had Zane hide in the trailer with the treasure, so when they opened the door to get the chest he screamed and jumped out. Unfortunately, he knocked Eve on the head as he jumped/screamed, so she started bawling, which produced a chain reaction and ended with a gaggle of sobbing kids. Too funny, but kindof sad.
Zane in Eve's new princess get-up.
Eve in her princess get-up. With a super-sweet dog that walks and barks! (in our defense, she was NOT a "birthday princess," she thinks a princess is a magical person, like a witch, but good. She doesn't think a princess is a "look at me, I'm the most important person in the world" type of person.)
We had the kids decorate giant cupcakes, but I think they liked the sprinkles more than the cake. We caught Eve and her friend eating handfulls of sprinkles and drinking them right out of the bottle. But it was funny, and it was her birthday, so we didn't say anything.


Happy third birthday, Evie! (or is that spelled Evey? I don't know. But she calls herself Eve-ee).

Mom <3s Snakes

So Jardan, Eve, and I went on a walk a little bit ago, and on the side of the path I spied a snake! Thankfully it was dead. Jardan, being Jardan, picked it up...it had just barely died because rigamortous hadn't set in and nothing crawly was on it. We looked at each other and knew what had to be done--seeing as my mom's FAVORITE things are snakes (she once found one in her yard and called EVERY family member to tell them). Jardan, with a mischeivious sparkle in his eye, carried it all the way home. We thought of SO many things to do with it--some more evil than others. In the end, we settled for the nicest thing we could think of because we ARE living at their house, and we don't want to be kicked out to the curb (this was an ACTUAL fear). Dad also told me that if mom has an anuerism, I'd have to change the diapers. Mom was on her way home from a trip to UT and got in around midnight. We had put the snake in front of the door, and--thank you rigamortous--its head was UP and it looked like it was watching you. It was seriously difficult to walk past it while setting up. We were nice and kept the porch light on, although we were (among other plans) going to turn it off and then flip it on when she was next to it...but our better judgement got the best of us. Above is the after-prank picture with Mom warily looking at it through the screen. She wouldn't get closer.





Just wait a minute for the video, you can't see much but you can hear her yelp and see her run (and hear her yell at me when she sees me standing there...with Jardan chuckling in the background the whole time).

Lesson Learned

My family and I decided to play Boggle on Sunday night. We haven't played it in a LONG time, but it used to be a family favorite. While looking for the directions, I saw a bunch of old, yellowing word lists, and I picked up this one, written by my mom. Can you find the word that doesn't belong? .......that's right: snook. I presented my finding to mom (who didn't even attempt to deny it was hers--totally her hand writing), and we ganged up on her: What does snook mean? We assaulted her with possibilities, while she ripped this out of my hand and tried to throw it away (I saved it, but got a big wedgie in the process) "Hey Mom! I thought I heard someone snooking around outside!" or: "My mind snooked away from me!" or perhaps "Would you take a snook at that?!" After some good laughs, I decided to look it up, just in case it really IS a word. Unfortunately, I found this:

1. Any of several chiefly marine percoid fishes of the family Centropomidae, especially Centropomus undecimalis, a food and game fish of warm Atlantic waters. Also called sergeant fish.

2. A gesture of defiance, disrespect, or derision.

I guess I shouldn't snook my mom.

Lately!

Some pictures: My first day of school and Zane being a funny uncle.




Lately...not too much has been going on! Jardan's looking for work still and I started school last week. My classes are going to be pretty easy--I'm even taking a PhD class, but it will be enjoyable and lacking in busy-work. I'm also taking a Social Work class on public policy (Mom thinks I'm CRAZY for loving it...well, maybe I am!) with a professor who I Adore (note the capital A)!

Also, for my Master's thesis (what I'm doing is actually called an Applied Project) I had to go to DES to get permission to interview DES employees and TANF recipients. I had a meeting last week with a DES Assistant Director and a lawyer from the Attorney General's office, and I nearly threw up I was so nervous. But they were both INCREDIBLY nice and very helpful, and I got permission as well as a bunch of information they had gathered for me. I had been praying for literally weeks that I would get permission, because without it I couldn't go on with my study! So, my planning is finally going to become a reality, and I hope I can find ways to help.

What I'm doing is researching the alignment of welfare policies and services with the needs of recipients. I found out a little while ago that, according to federal regulations, only 30% of the people using TANF (aka cash assistance) are ALLOWED to go to college, and of those who are ALLOWED to attend college, they can only go for a year. This is CRAZY to me because if we want to help people out of poverty, we have to at least PERMIT them to get more education! I'm not even talking about paying for education; I see a real need to change the regulations to allow them to go to SCHOOL! Any thoughts/questions? My plan: do research, and then figure out how to change this.

Thoughts on the Fall

Jardan and I were reading scriptures, and I've always been confused (to say the least) about what the Lord said after the fall. As we were reading, it started to make more sense to me. Here's Moses 4:22-25

22 Unto the woman, I, the Lord God, said: I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
23 And unto Adam, I, the Lord God, said: Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the fruit of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying—Thou shalt not eat of it, acursed shall be the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.
24 Thorns also, and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field.
25 By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, until thou shalt return unto the ground—for thou shalt surely die—for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou wast, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Vs. 23-25 are all direct consequences of the fall, of the earth becoming imperfect (thorns and thistles coming) and also death is a direct consequence of the fall. These things don’t seem to be just punishments the Lord decided to hand out and things that He decided to do because they disobeyed him, but seem to be DIRECTLY the natural result of the earth and humans become imperfect and mortal. So, it would stand to reason that vs. 22 is the same. Because women’s bodies are now imperfect, having children will not be easy. Pregnancy is difficult. Giving birth is painful, it hurts, and it can cause death. Babies also die in the process . These are direct consequences of becoming mortal. It also stands to reason, then, that the last part of the verse—they desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee—is a direct consequence of the imperfection of people. Men are stronger than women, they are bigger, and also now imperfect so (and obviously women do this too, but because men are stronger it’s more so) they will now be trying to gain power over women and over each other. After the fall, women were oppressed. Men did rule and women have been oppressed (often brutally) throughout history. This is a result of the fall—that those who are carnal will try to rule over their wives and gain power generally over women. I don’t think this is a commandment—I don’t think it’s the Lord telling her to let Adam and other men rule over her, or telling Adam and other men to rule over women, I think it’s the Lord saying that now this is what’s generally going to happen because people are imperfect.

I know this sounds awfully pessimistic, but it's not to say this is always the case. This can happen with men or women, but like I said men have historically been stronger and have oppressed women. Those who are righteous, though--whether men or women, do not try to oppress others. ...Just a thought...

HAIR!

New hair today! I love the girl who cut my hair (Erin at Taglio), she was so funny and after showing her the pictures I liked she came up with this and I love it! It's different than what I've had before, but still SHORT! I can make it fun and messy or more sleek. Hooray!