an evening at home...

Tonight I sat down with my two older kids to watch the movie "RED", which, by the way, I learned stands for Retired, Extremely Dangerous. hahahaha! About a fourth of the way in Lilly suddenly asked Thomas if he knew what his facebook status was....what was it, you ask?

"I love my little Sister Erin! This is a poem I wrote for Her!

E is for energetic

R is for randomly Awesome

I is for interestingly enough my favorite person too! :)

N is for Naturally beautiful"

I laughed so hard I cried! He ran upstairs and deleted it, no sense of humor somedays! Thomas is a huge fan of Morgan Freeman so when the movie ended he was completely shocked that they had actually killed off his character. Then Thomas wondered aloud if Morgan Freeman might have a 17 year old granddaughter...the mental image in my head was not very pretty!

Anyway, it was a fun movie, I love the cast!

By the way, now that I am posting blogs I realize just how much I do not remember of the rules of grammar...yikes!

Jesus the Christ, chapters 3&4

Aaaahhhhhh! It gets easier to read! I wonder if it's like Shakespeare, you just have to get familiar with the style of language used in order to read it? I took a Shakespeare class in college and really enjoyed reading it, so a couple of years ago I picked up my old Shakespeare book for a little light reading and found that it was very difficult to read...just like Jesus the Christ was difficult at first.

Chapter 3: "The Need of a Redeemer"

In order for us to progress spiritually we needed to be able to make our own choices, the Eternal Father knew that we would sin. "It was not His design that the souls of mankind be lost; on the contrary it was and is His work and glory, 'to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. (Moses 1:39)'". So it was decided that we would need a Savior, an atonement.

Chapter 4: "The Antemortal Godship of Christ"

I liked this chapter the best so far. First of all I had to laugh when I looked up the word "antediluvial", which means before the great flood, or before Noah (paraphrased of course). I think "before the flood" would have worked just as well.

Anyway, this chapter talks about the Holy Trinity, or as we more commonly call it in our church, the Godhead. We believe that God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are one in spirit and purpose, but separate physical beings and this chapter lays out the scriptural reasons for this belief. It also talks about the names of Jesus and the meaning of them. Very interesting information in this chapter.

Jesus the Christ, Chapters 1 & 2

Our ward had New Beginnings Tuesday night and challenged the young women (and us leaders) to read the book "Jesus the Christ" by December 13th. Tonight I read chapters 1 and 2. I've decided that it's an interesting challenge and I'd like to share the journey with whoever might happen upon my blog. So I'm not promising anything except that I will try to report here once a week...please note that I used the word TRY.

The first thing I noticed about this book is that James E. Talmage liked big words, and lots of words! I remember hearing somewhere that the length of the sentences a person uses is an indication of their intelligence, so Brother Talmage must have been a GENIUS. I think this book is challenging for many readers just because the words used and the way they are used will be overwhelming. I hope that the girls will be persistent and keep chipping away at it!

I was really here and I really lived...

going to the temple with Grandma

I've been taking my Grandma to the temple every other Saturday for about 4 years now and I'm beginning to think that the reason she's still alive at 101 is so that she can get me in the habit of going regularly before she dies.

When we started it was just so that we could spend some quality time together and because she loves it so much, it's nice to make her happy. I really had no intention of attending quite so regularly after she passes away, but lately I've been thinking about it a little differently. We go often enough that we know quite a few of the temple workers and have come to love them. A couple of them recently have said that they hope I'll keep coming after Grandma is gone, and it's made me start thinking about what I will do when Grandma is gone. I have felt like it was a sacrifice of my time that I've made for Grandma's benefit and because I wanted to really know her. Yesterday I met a woman who goes to the temple every Saturday and takes her daughters with her. In talking with her about her children I commented that her children seem to be about the same ages as mine, she said, "oh, I've got ten kids, my oldest is 25"....yikes! I thought I didn't have time! So, I guess I better start thinking about what I'm going to do when Grandma can't go with me anymore.

http://www.mormon.org/faq/#Temples

Die Trying

Driving home from work today I was behind a car that had some kind of large musical symbol in the back window (a clef of some kind), I don't know because I am musically illiterate, anyway, I noticed that first. After awhile I noticed some small words at the top of the back window...so with a little effort I could see that it said "DIE TRYING". I pondered this while sitting at the red light and wondered if it was referring to music, or something else, and if so, what? or if it was more of a general statement about always trying to be better, perhaps we should all die trying to be better than are now? I guess I'll never know, but I do like the idea of always trying to be better.

Bel Cantos Choir Tour

Oh my! I started this clear back in May and it's been sitting her soooooooo neglected all this time!

this is the girls preparing to perform/compete by massaging each other

This is their performance at Segerstrom Hall

another view of the stage with the balconies, isn't this beautiful?

the organ solo was incredible!