I Heart Technology

Tonight we held a multi-site FHE. Most of us were at my place. But one of us was over an hour away and couldn't drive in for the meeting. So she called in, and we set up a webcam and the iPhone and  changed a bunch of settings on my gadgets and used technology to have FHE via video conference. She gave us the wonderful lesson she had prepared. It was awesome. 

I recognize many of you already knew how to do this. But I didn't. So just celebrate with me my move up the spectrum of technological forwardness. :-)

Now if only I could figure out how to Skype the treats. Any ideas on that one?

Summer Adventures

Summer is nearly over. What happened? It seems like it just started. Yet, this coming Saturday it will be September. September! I can't believe it.

On Thursday my friends and I decided to go to Tanglewood the next day. The planning was a little frenzied and scattered, but it was a fun adventure. It reminded me that there are lots of things to do nearby that I haven't done yet (or enough, depending on the thing). I would like to be more deliberate about enjoying what I have around me, less wrapped up in the daily routine of my life.

They announced at church today that our meeting schedule will be changing. Instead of starting at 9 am and having the third meeting first, we will start at 12:30 and have the first meeting first. It will be nice to switch, for probably everyone but our leaders' children who now have to come to church during nap time. One more reason to continue helping by sitting on the front row and playing with / wrestling / holding sweet little ones! My favorite part about helping is when it's time for little miss's bottle, and she pauses her constant wiggling to take a little nourishment. The bottle was just at the same time as the musical number again today, and it was so sweet to see her be calm and listen intently as she ate. I love that little beauty, and her big sister, who was so funny when she drew a picture of Jonah "in a submarine" in the belly of the whale. (That must have been how he survived those three days...)

I feel grateful for moments when I can pause and remember that Heavenly Father loves me and wants me to be happy.

A Story

Once upon a time, I was about to graduate from school

but I didn't know what to do with my life.

I knew where I belonged,

but not what I was supposed to be doing there.

So I tried to figure it out

by making a list of my marketable skills and interests.

It must have worked,

because

a few weeks later I found a job

and I loved it.

I found the list again this week.

It made me laugh.

Not because it was silly,

but because it was still accurate!

Here it is:

I am a

detail-oriented,

organized

independent thinker

with a

science background

who is really awesome at

finding patterns & connections between disciplines

and

synthesizing, compiling, and presenting information,

complete with outstanding

computer, technical writing,

and communication skills.

I love

working with people -

teaching, helping, serving, etc -

being a leader,

working independently on specific responsibilities,

and

learning new things.

Success = a day when people are better off

because of the work I've done.

Almost a decade after writing this list,

I am pretty much just the same.

And I am glad.

The End

DV, Day 7

You thought I was done, didn't you. The Alaska part was done, but the trip wasn't! Now you get the rest!

We spent the morning at sea, which was lovely - I read more, attempted another crossword, and amused myself by wandering around to see who I could see. I found a few friends around noon, so we went to the kids circus show. That was mildly entertaining. Then we had lunch, which included the now-typical lengthy post-meal dessert just for fun.

At 2 pm, we docked in Victoria, BC, and set off the boat on my first Canadian adventure. Three of us jumped on a CVS shuttle set for downtown, and made our way to the Royal BC Museum. Oddly enough, my traveling companions managed to get a better deal on the entrance fee than I did (only by a few dollars), but whatever.  (Different agent. Apparently the other one knew about the super secret better-than-your-lousy-coupon deals.)

The exhibits were cool - we saw a bunch of stuff about dinosaurs, a neat photography exhibit about Queen Elizabeth, a land-and-animal-history-of-the-area exhibit, and a "First Peoples" exhibit, that traced the culture of the people living in the area from the earliest known peoples all the way up to about 1990.  It was neat to see the weaving, totem polls, and tools and learn about the culture of the ancient inhabitants of that land. It was also educational to learn about the gold rush, whaling, and other various and sundry things. They had a cool grandfather clock that played music - it looked like it was the original concept behind the record player (like the one I grew up with) - and I thought it would be cool to have a clock like that in my house.

The wierdest part?

Seeing my childhood preserved in a museum case. Mario. The Original Nintendo. Spice Girls dolls. Transformers. Old-style cordless telephones. Baseball cards - the kind that came with the gross stick of gum in the package. (I loved collecting those things, until I was about 10 or 11, when I realized if I sold them I could buy something I wanted more. Conveniently there was a store opening a few blocks from our house, and they bought my whole collection. Best decision I ever made about selling collectibles.)

Who knew my childhood was museum history?

After that, we wandered downtown Victoria.

The Empress Hotel - complete with Canadian flag

We stopped in only at important places like Roger's Chocolates and the candy stores.

This pic taken specifically for Author N, who
(along with my sis) collects Angry Birds plushies.

If I had felt like figuring out how to ship an Angry Birds candy apple to my sister and brother-in-law, they would have gotten more than just this awesome picture. But it did make me laugh!

The view of Victoria from the ship

When we got hungry, we went back to the ship. And ate.

We attempted to watch the sunset, but didn't really get to see anything spectacular, so we just sat around and talked outside on deck 7 instead. And watched the moon rise.

Later we tried to go stargazing (it was the first time we had seen night since we left!) but it was a total fail. There is too much light pollution on a cruise ship, even when it's the only thing around. Oh well.

We woke up the next morning in Seattle. I won't bore you with the details of my trip home. Only one thing is necessary to note: they have Chick-FilA in the MSP airport. That made me happy.

The end. For reals. Although I do want to go on another vacation (already).

DV, Day 6

And so we continue...

Day 6 was relatively boring compared to many of the other days, but I was grateful for a chance to sleep in. We spent the day at sea. So I spent the day with books.

In the morning, I ate too much and finished reading Silas Marner. I found a cozy little place to sit in the library that had enough windows so I could look out if the ship's movement started to make my head spin. It was nice to just sit for a while. And I love the book - so bonus for me!

When I finished, I discovered they had copies of a daily crossword puzzle in the library. So I grabbed one and worked on that for a little mental stimulation.

Then I read another book (one of the #1 Ladies Detective Agency series). In the early afternoon, I found one of my friends and we went to the crew talent show. It was fun. Then I read some more. Then I ate some more.

It was foggy and cloudy all day, so I didn't take pictures of the vast ocean in every direction. But there wasn't much to see anyway.

The evening entertainment was Cirque Bijou, which was pretty amazing. I've never seen a woman do a headstand on the back of a man's neck/shoulders before. This was just one of many things - the other crazy thing she did while her partner was holding her up was bend back and grab her feet (so she was in an oval) and then he would drop her around him (so he was inside the oval) - and catch her with his knees. You kind of have to see it to believe it. I could never do any of that; I can barely touch my toes!

After the evening entertainment, we went to the chocolate buffet. This was pretty neat. See?

Chocolate Sculpture (one of many)

An even more amazing chocolate sculpture

They had about 25 different kinds of chocolate treats for people to eat, and a drooling ice dragon at the entrance:

The welcome dragon. Lit up by blue/white lights.

It was fun. But the best part about going into the buffet every single time was the Washy-washy Team. Their job was to spray hand sanitizer on the hand of every person who walked into the buffet - every time. It was always accompanied by the phrase "washy washy, happy happy!" in a cheerful singsong voice. They were the favorites (if favorites are defined by achieving the loudest cheers) when the crew came out onstage at their final performance. It was pretty awesome.

After eating too much, we walked a few laps around the deck 7 promenade to make up for it.

Other than that, I just wrote postcards. Not too eventful. I actually thought at one point, I think I'm done and ready to go back to work. Then I tried hard to squelch that thought - who wishes their vacation was shorter!?! That's silly.

DV, Day 5

I get up earlier on vacation than I do in real life.

At 6 am, night turned to day when the alarm went off and the light went on. We met in the buffet for breakfast and then got off the boat (we were in Skagway) for our next excursion - glass blowing!

A short bus ride to Jewell Gardens with our excursion director, who happens to be a professional bum of sorts - he has nowhere to call home, just a backpack and a few seasonal jobs, from what I gathered - and we were ready to get started. There were only ten of us in the group, which was nice, and we got to know a cute gal our age who was on her own (there were three of us, so it seemed natural to pair up with her to make an even four).

Our glassblowing expert/teacher was a guy in his mid-twenties who has been blowing glass for 7 years. His goal was to make it fun and entertaining, and he succeeded. (He also reminded me of a former colleague, which was super weird and made it impossible to remember his real name.)

The colors and patterns we chose from

We all picked 1-2 colors, a pattern, and whether we wanted gold leaf on our glass ornament, and then we each had the chance to work with our instructor to make the ornament.

The glory hole - a furnace where you re-heat
the glass so it is hot enough to work with

He did the hard stuff, and we did the easy stuff - turning the glass on its rod as it heated in the glory hole, blowing as he shaped the ornament, etc. At the end, we each got a cheesy picture (this was a mandatory part of the process!) with said instructor.

(As you may have noticed, I generally don't post pictures of entire people, so just imagine two people in an "awesome, thumbs-up!" pose, one wearing a thick gardening-type glove to protect his hand from burning while holding the still-super-hot ornament.)

Adding colored glass to the clear glass we started with

The ornaments had to "cool" in a 950 degree oven all day (and then it was turned off in the evening to continue the cooling process overnight) - otherwise the glass would shatter from the sudden extremes in temperature. After we made all ten ornaments, our instructor made a horse - in about 30 seconds.

A rearing horse, made without having to reheat the glass

Then we had tea. Seriously. Linen napkins, goblets with lemonade, and snacky foods - including cucumber sandwiches, carrot cake, a triangular cheese pastry, salmon quiche, and a rhubarb dessert. It was all yummy, and ended up substituting as lunch (of course, we didn't determine that until later).

After tea, we wandered through the gardens, which were beautiful and ornamented with blown glass. Like this blowfish.

Yep. He's wearing a cowboy hat.

We won't talk about my favorite flowers in the garden, because somehow I didn't take a picture of them, and by the time I tried to write down what they were, I had forgotten the name.

After our excursion ended, we went back to Skagway's downtown and shopped. It was a lot of walking even though downtown was not very big. We stopped halfway through to buy cold water at a local grocery market - that was the smartest thing we did. Once we finished shopping, two of us stayed and watched a movie about the Klondike gold rush (and Skagway's part in it) and then went on a walking tour with a Historical Park volunteer. It was interesting - thousands of people trying to get to the gold by doing crazy things like hiking Chilkoot Pass in sub-zero temperatures with a year's supply of food. Did I mention that the end of the Chilkoot Trail was all stairs? Yep. Stairs carved out of the snow and ice. I'm glad I wasn't a gold prospector in 1898. There are easier ways to get into Canada.

By the time we got back on the boat, we were exhausted. The evening entertainment was a show by a world famous (discovered by America's Got Talent) juggler. He is better at that than I am (or ever will be).

The end.

DV, Day 4, Part 2

I got back on the ship, and after lunch, I moved from there to a littler charter boat that took us through Tracy Arm Fjord and over to the Sawyer and South Sawyer Glaciers. Here is another small sampling of pathetic pictures that don't do the views justice:

Tracy Arm Fjord

Another picture of Tracy Arm Fjord

The glacier basically carved all of the fjord. Rounded peaks are parts that were below the glacier during the ice age; pointy peaks were above the glacier (and therefore capable of sustaining life) during the ice age. That's the hypothesis, anyway. The naturalist on our little boat said that the water is 900 feet deep in places here, which is in itself pretty incredible.

One of two fabulous waterfalls

Isn't it amazing how trees grow right up next to the ocean?

The glacier was cool. Literally. :-) We navigated through icebergs to get close - the Coast Guard apparently doesn't let you go any closer than 1/4 mile away - and stood there in awe, taking pictures. Then we saw it calve - a piece fell into the ocean, we heard the white thunder, and saw the splash - and then everyone stood, lined up on the edge of the boat, cameras poised, just in case it happened again... because who wouldn't want to digitally capture such a fantastic event?

Sawyer Glacier - from about 1/4 mile away. It's much
cooler in real life. (It's not calving in this pic, so don't look for it.)

Sawyer Glacier was pretty awesome, but South Sawyer Glacier was even neater. For one thing, more icebergs. A few years ago (maybe 2004?) the glacier receded almost a foot, which is unnaturally far for a single year. Maybe that's why there are more icebergs.

South Sawyer Glacier

You can also see the striations where the glacier carved away the rock.

South Sawyer Glacier

We also saw two other neat-o things: a rocking iceberg (I was hoping it would turn while we were watching, but alas, it did not) and harbor seals! This was the best picture I could get of the seals, despite there being a few dozen of them hanging around.

Harbor seals!

Needless to say, it was super awesome and totally worth it, and as a result I have no recollection of what I did that evening - although by the time we got back on the cruise ship, I was tired, so it was likely nothing of importance. Relatively speaking.

Looking at all this reminded me of the scripture in Alma, when he testifies "all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it ... do witness that there is a Supreme Creator." (Alma 30:44) He made it all for us! Isn't that simply amazing?

DV, Day 4, Part 1

Day 4 was also known as Glacier Day, and it was one of my favorite days on the trip. It also means there are a ton of pictures to show, so I have to break it up so it will load on your computer. :-)

We woke up in Juneau. After breakfast, I headed off the boat with one of my traveling companions, and we jumped on a bus that took us to Mendenhall Glacier in Tongass National Park. This bus driver was just as entertaining as the rest, and he showed us where to sight the bald eagles and jumping salmon along our route. He also explained the logical sequence of names leading up to Mendenhall Glacier - including...

Mendenhall Loop Road is in Mendenhall Valley, and turns off to Mendenhall Blvd. The valley also contains the Mendenhall River, which feeds into Mendenhall Lake, which is the home to Mendenhall Glacier.

Creative, huh.

Here is what we saw after hiking about 3/4 mile in from the visitor's center to Nugget Falls:

My 360 degree view from the beach of Nugget Falls-1

My 360 degree view from the beach of Nugget Falls-2

My 360 degree view from the beach of Nugget Falls-3

My 360 degree view from the beach of Nugget Falls-4
Note the icebergs in the water.

My 360 degree view from the beach of Nugget Falls-5
Yep. That's the glacier! A little teeny tiny part of it, anyway.

My 360 degree view from the beach of Nugget Falls-6
The falls themselves.

If you've never looked at this from Google Maps, I suggest you do. The little part of the glacier you can see is boring by comparison. These pictures don't do the view justice in the least, but at least it gives you a sense of the amazingness.

Then... it got even better!