According to various formulas developed between 53 and 35 years ago, I’m right in my ideal weight zone. Some people have even called me “athletic-looking”, which I think is a sycophantic way of saying “skinny”. Therefore, I thought I’d kindly share with you all how I manage it.
Sahm Dai Gweilo
Sahm Dai Gweilo — Google says the Cantonese word for three is Sahm. Depending on the context Dai might mean family generations. Gweilo translates as western men so I’m hoping this is how you’d represent my three generations of men — in China.
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The Last Autumn Leaf
November 8th seemed impossibly far away when Gerrit opened his mission call back in June and learned of his assignment and reporting date. As he’s watched his friends get their calls after his, but leave before him, he’s said that he feels like the last autumn leaf clinging to the tree. But the day has finally come.
Favorite Family Funnies
One of the joys of parenthood is the surprising and often unintentionally funny things your kids say. I started keeping track of some of these, and now that my children are old enough to be funny on purpose, I thought I’d share some bits of dialog I’ve collected from their earlier years.
Two weeks of tortillas and trenches
This summer I had the amazing opportunity to go on a humanitarian trip to Mexico through an organization called HEFY (Humanitarian Experience for Youth). My dad gave me the impossible task of summarizing the two most incredible weeks of my life and not have it take three hours to read. So I am going to try my best to keep it relatively short, and pick some highlights from my trip journal.
Remembrances of My Step Dad
Dwight Dean Peden, May 3, 1935 – February 8, 2017
The Chimpanzee
In some personality categorization schemes, people are compared to animals: The “drivers” are lions, the “analyticals” are giraffes, and so on. Dean cheerfully placed himself in the “expressive” category — the chimpanzees. My earliest memories of Dean, from when he showed up in my “tween” years, are of wild piggyback rides, rattling dentures, bird calls and angry squirrel impressions. He was abundantly affectionate to mom, telling her she was beautiful, playfully kissing her, and complimenting her profusely on dinner (even on the nights when he did the cooking). He was always ready with a joke.
Continue reading “Remembrances of My Step Dad”Nativity
On Saturday our family honored our annual tradition of hanging out on a farm in Alpine, Utah in the freezing cold. It isn’t a secret snowboarding hill where horses pull you to the top (though that would be cool). Rather, it is the site of an annual living nativity started by a family in our ward.
Millennium Falcon
We’ve just had the most vexing day — very vexing indeed.
No, I haven’t just woken up from a coma or sustained a head injury causing me to speak like a 19th century heroine. I have no desire to give you affright, chastise ne’er do wells for being beef-witted blackguards, drink from a stoup, or give a concert on my pianoforte. But, as is our wont to make you ware of our sundry and varied exploits, I will share our most VEXing experience.
Wizarding Wednesday
When the topic of school’s fall break came up a few weeks ago, Afton immediately said she wanted to go to Disneyland. Or, even better… Harry Potter World! I didn’t know there was such a thing, but apparently there are three of them at the Universal Studios parks. A trip like that is more ambitious than our typical fall break plans, and cost and time off from work made me reluctant. The boys both said they weren’t interested in going at all, so we tried to think of other options. Afton kept lobbying for a few days, but fearing she was pressuring me too much, left a cute note on my nightstand saying, “We don’t have to go to disnyland [sic] if you don’t want to.” Would we really go on a family vacation and just take her? I guess so.
Recording Artist
When Gerrit and I ran into a roadblock on our current project (more on that another time), we visited a ward member, Matt, in hopes of some guidance. We got a little advice, then Matt talked to us about his own projects as an amateur composer and recording engineer, which recently led to a fun experience for Afton.