Holidays with the grand parents

It was glorious and grand to drop in on my mom and dad to celebrate a belated christmas with them. They are totally christmas people which makes it even more enjoyable. One of their fun new toys - gifted by sally and dale - was a singing hound dog which delighted and amused Eden to no end. She could not get enough of its singing

then there were a few photo ops with a few my favorite people

Merry Christmas Day

Hope you are up and at it - we are.

A late, but wonderful start as we read Luke 2, enjoyed family prayer, then raced down-stairs oldest first. Everyone received at least one delightful surprise; and grateful once again there is a pet in the family - as we welcome Tengu.

More as the day progresses

Just finished a rugged game of hockey - unfortunately the wrong team won.

Merry Christmas Eve

Drop by for cinnamon rolls and orange juice! 10am - 12

Christmas Eve is a day full of traditions and today we enjoyed favorites. One old, One renewed and One new. The morning started early, particularly early for Rindy as she made over 300 home-made cinnamon rolls for friends who stopped by throughout the morning. Great friends, great visiting, and undoubtedly great rolls.

We cleaned up the mess and headed downtown to the Science Museum. In addition to our traditional milking contest, a quick visit to the U505, and the reason for the season somewhere between 50 – 100 nationally – themed Christmas trees, all large, all beautiful with the largest and the finest in the rotunda. Great beauty and great joy of the season.

Back home for an appetizer – Tuna Fish Pizza. A once disdained meal of Spain brought to life with mirth and flavor.


A great story for another time; as we now await a feast with a game of Killer Bunnies.

City of Joseph

Being a family of inspired field trips, the day of blizzards and storms inspired Rindy to take the kids to Nauvoo - The City of Joseph - on this the anniversary of the birth of Joseph Smith. And so with strains of "Come to Nauvoo it's the place for me and you ... " they drove the 4 plus hour trip for a Christmas viewing of Nauvoo. The enjoyed the temple, visiting a few of the homes, and a few of the exhibits.

'Can you hear the call, come one and all to beautiful Nauvoo"

Scrabble

I know, I know, Quiddler is the word game du jour in the Wilson family. Candidly, it is the word game we most frequently play; however this evening we had a few more minutes and so we pulled out the scrabble board. It was a vigorous and engaging game with excellent word choice and combinations BUT . . .

Parker who was in a competitive mode trumped the game by posting the accompanying photo to demonstrate - DETAINED - for 83 points. It turned the course of the game as he won: parker - 213, tim - 208, rindy - 163.

Ouch, losing in hockey is one thing but losing in scrabble is quite another.

The Killers

So I am not always, well seldom, on the cutting edge of pop culture. Nonetheless, The Killers are a group I enjoy on occasion, and was surprised when a co-worker shared with me that their lead singer is LDS.

So I wiki'ed the guy, and guess what Brandon Flowers is an active Latter Day Saint. So go enjoy: Are we human, or are we dancers?" from this globe trotting, international sensation, who isn't singing church hymns but has an interesting sound.

Brothers

We are grateful for our children and grateful that they have brotherly relations that are supportive and uplifting. Grateful for opportunities and challenges that bring them together. Evan has valiantly completed what he was called to do in serving the Lord and serving a full-time mini-mission. He had a busy day returning and reporting.

With siblings in tow we convened with the Stake High Council for Evan’s official accounting at 6:45am. He stood and gave a simple accounting of working hard, studying, zone conference, and his companions, teaching, and participating in a convert baptism during his service; and included a simple testimony. Then President Peterson (and isn’t it interesting what divinely inspired and in-tune Stake Presidents are; in-tune not only with the Spirit but with people within their stewardship) asked him a few questions that created a teaching opportunity on multiple levels; one of which was asking if Evan would share with this group his missionary scripture. Once again, Rindy and I held our breath, as Elder Evan directed them to open their scriptures to the New Testament, then to Romans 15, then to versus 20 – 21, and then he read it aloud. Yes, bringing the message to “those that have not heard might understand”.

Naperville 1st Sacrament meeting was the next venue on the schedule. The return talk based on a section about Jesus Christ out of Preach My Gospel. As only Elder Evan can and would he spread his talk, which he had typed out, on the podium and surrounding the podium so he would keep them in order. He did a great job – on task, on message, and parts incredibly clear.

Leaving Naperville 1st early, we drove off to the Aurora Spanish Speaking Ward where Evan spoke in companionship with the High Councilor visitor, Taylor Manning, who had asked Evan to speak. Elder Evan did well as he gave his talk a little slower and a little clearer. The twist this time was that Parker was the interpreter. Parker went line by line in Spanish sharing the message. Not only a great experience having the one son report but even better with the brother coaching, helping, and translating side-by-side.
The culmination of the day was as we left the Chapel an Hispanic sister came up to us in tears saying how her husband’s sister had down syndrome and they had never imagined the possibilities, and never any vision of what could be the potential until seeing and hearing Evan. That alone, that by itself, even if there were no other associated miracle, of which there were several, made the mission of Elder Evan worth the twenty years in becoming.

National Geographic Moment reprise

Seeing the coyote awhile back was enjoyable but the infrequency of national geographic moments in Illinois has been disheartening. This week has elevated spirits with two neighborhood sightings: 1) Mackey saw two deer as she walked to school one morning and then today 2) two fox cavorting in the lot behind our home. YES, feeling of home.

Daily Habits

We were discussing the other day which was worse not talking with God daily through daily prayer or not listening to Him daily through daily scripture reading. What do you think?

I must admit being grateful for both and mindful that both significantly impact the tempo and tenor of a day and a night. We are about done with the Book of Mormon, yet again, and truly enjoy the Book of Ether. Tonight's reading Ether 6 with at least two highlights

“taught from on high” requires. . . (Ether 6: 17)
the bending of the whole soul through worthy living to become attuned to the Holy Spirit of the Lord, the calling up from the depths of one’s own mental searching, and the linking of our own efforts with the teaching of the Spirit. Pres. Harold B. Lee Ensign June 1971


“spiritual promptings” (Ether 6: 12)move us on occasion to great joy, sometimes to tears . . . The Holy Ghost causes our feelings to be more tender. We feel more charitable and compassionate. We are calmer. We have greater capacity to love. Ezra Taft Benson, Come unto Christ, pg 20

New Traditions

Well, Thanksgiving came and went without an 18 foot tree, a 16 foot tree, a 14 foot tree, well I guess without any tree showing up in the family room of our rental home. But we are not without holiday spirit. A Santa Reindeer has parachuted down the chimney and arrived chez us. A bit of holiday cheer. HO HO HO

Wicked

With some scouring, we were able to get tickets for Wicked before it leaves Chicago.

We drove downtown, found a great parking place, walked back to Macy's on State Street to see the window displays, Christmas tree(in their version of the OakGrill), and FAO Schwartz, none of which disappointed. While walking to Macy's we lucked into an outdoor Christmas market with this and that holiday crafts and some food vendors. It is the Daley Plaza, Chicago Christkindlmarket 2008 (aka Kringle Market), a traditional German Christmas Market. Huge Christmas tree in the background provided the context for another blurry nighttime photo


Wicked was wickedly good. We tried deconstructing the creative process wherein the writer hatches the original idea of taking an American classic and re-crafting it so that the villains become heroes and the heroes become less sympathetic; adds originality to the blend and delivers a product that stands along side the original OZ as though they were made for each other or at least crafted from the same cloth. Some of the favorite tunes include: "No One Mourns the Wicked", "Loathing" - (What is this feeling) and "Pop-u-lar". Good time....

Temple Day-Game Day-Parade Day

Early Friday afternoon Rindy, Brig, Blair, Julie and I headed off to the Chicago Temple. It takes around 40 minutes to drive there, not unlike going to St Paul. It is wonderful to attend the Temple with the your friend / wife and children. A peaceful uplifting afternoon. A great Thanksgiving tradition.

Friday was sleep in late day, temple day, game day, parade day, and Black Friday - hope for good retail sales day; all of which yielded good results. The new game we played extensively this weekend was "Wise or Otherwise". Unfortunately, the wrong people insist on , or is that persist in,winning

As the sun set and before it became too chilly we headed downtown to the Naperville Christmas parade. A truly small town type parade with local clubs and merchants, oddly enough 3 clubs of Irish dancers and of course Santa

You would think that seeing a blurring Santa would be the highlight but NO

the family loved the animal shelter group - they wanted to adopt a dog.

Time will tell if / when there will be a sequel to Eby - Chief - Scout

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a beautiful and temperate day in Naperville that rolled along in lovely fashion. Blair, Julie, Eden, and Brigham all safely arrived; Evan was somewhere serving in Chicago; and the rest of us were here at home. We dressed in our Black & White attire and headed to Aurora to a local church making-do as a food shelf for the day. Our role, as you can tell by the attire, was to serve food and accommodate, assist and chat with patrons who came in for their Thanksgiving meal. Another new tradition to start here in Chicago land. It was nothing spectacular but it was great to participate in and enjoy serving others for a few hours.

The Feast was grand.

As usual Rindy made a spectacular, flavorful, delightsome repas. The basic titles might be expected but the outcomes were far from normal as each had a taste of its own. My favorite was the new stuffing recipe. A home-made recipe of: sausage, garlic, apricots, mushrooms, pecans,onions, nutmeg, cinnamon, bread, celery, and all your basics. It was the best. (Even made for Sunday breakfast left-overs for Julie and Eden.) The sweet-potato boats were a close second

La Serviette

So Thanksgiving was kicked off in a different fashion this year - with 1,750 folded napkins. After being briefly trained in the fine nuances of linen napkin folding the family folded and folded for a local restaurant that was providing 1,750 Thanksgiving meals for those who had no place for their own this holiday. A great beginning of new traditions.

He Shoots. He Scores. GOALLLLLL

Josh isn't the only one in the family with a love of hockey.We have always enjoyed both watching the Wild and being wild ourselves whether in boot hockey, broom ball, ice hockey , or street hockey.We do not live on water anymore but we did bring our hockey goal, sticks, pucks and game with us.

This afternoon's games started innocently enough. First the re-assemblage of the net, (took abit to remember how) and then a few games in the driveway.The games were well played and in the informal games Parker was king. Unfortunately when it came time to keep score things were not as tidy. We played an accuracy game and the rankings were Rindy, Tim Parker.
And then the gloves came off and Tim & Rindy buried poor Parker.
Soiree Canadian and hockey night are back.

Parker was missing Rob & Matt, David, Ty & Al.

Churchill Woods ForestPreserve

Scouting and camping continue to be one of my passions and sources of enjoyment. The opportunity has arisen here in Naperville to work with the Varsity Scouts (14 -16 yr old boy scouts). The deacons and priests are larger groups so we invited ourselves (the teachers) to join in on a deacons camp out. The troop has not been going out quite monthly, so unlike in MN when we take advantage of November to do merit badge work in shelters and save our tent camping for January, this was a outdoor camping merit badge kind of outing.

Zero hero camping is similar whether you are in Minnesota or Illinois given the right temperature. Late night with its 15 Degrees Fahrenheit was chilly. The river we camped next to froze (not quite thick enough for ice-fishing, with fishing being one of the intended activities) but that did not stop us from having a grand time. Unlike a true zero hero there was no snow. A great group of scouts, leaders and dads, a great day in the BSofA

Of Aging Part Deux

President Hinckley taught that all need – a calling, a friend, and nurturing in the good word of God not only for salvation but for personal well-being. The application of those teachings typically defines how we should support new members of the church; however and perhaps moreover of late my ponderings have considered how this applies to the aging saint as well.

The only calling my 90 yr. old father has is as a husband and father – he cherishes that calling and gets frustrated when he can’t magnify and fulfill it to his fullest extent.

A friend – he has out lived most of them. All of his needs could be met in assisted living but it does not provide the love of friends gathered around him, to visit and support him physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Lastly he needs to be nurtured in the good word of God– he can’t get to the temple, he can infrequently get to church, yet he still yearns to be nurtured. He thrives on the visit of his home teachers, of a rich phone discussion on doctrine, on the sharing of one's sabbath oblations or daily studies.

So to me an answer for the aging amongst us lies in following the prophet, in addressing their needs as President Hinckley would. For us as a family to provide a friend, a calling, and nurturing.

ElfYourSelf

A fun part of the holidays that I am deeply involved in,includes the website http://www.elfyourself.com/ . A fun distraction from thee day to day grind.


Go elfyourself and spread the fun.

Go see parents cut the rug fantastic at: http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/kVR6B4BUCB9jlbcW

November Visitors

The favorite visitor . . .
. . . has learned to crawl

Big brother stops by with some pointers.

the pointers cleaned the floor - thank you

Peniata Party

So, it is grand to have visitors.

It is grander to have visitors you love.

The Peniata's were on their way home from a volleyball game in Indiana, so they stopped by for a quick visit and meal of scones. The home is always open and visitors always welcome and food close to ready to be served.

Sometimes I might be a little slow with the post but I will get there.