Pick-chures!

So this is our backyard view from downstairs....and me mowing it. Hazzah! Exciting eh. Stay tuned for more.

Back in the saddle again...or in other words Maryland

Since being home..for two days might i add... I have been to the gym twice, mowed the lawn, gone to the commissary, exchange, and costco. I have also eaten myself sick with fruit and successfully caught up on this season of So You Think You Can Dance. Altogether I haven't been extrememly productive. Except today I briefly went antique-ing. My how I love that. I'll post pictures probably tomorrow. Until then Guten Nacht.

slack linging + cops + polygamists = 4th of July weekend

Zions Narrows (above)

Let me tell you that being back at school is a total and complete nightmare after the gnarly weekend I've just had. On wednesday night me and three roomates packed up and drove to Zion's national park. We arrived there at about 2:30 in the morning Thursday, slept for a few hours, woke up, and went hiking! Zion's beautiful this time of year, absolutely beautiful. The first day we hiked Hidden Canyon and Emerald Pools. Friday we hiked the Narrows and Saturday we hiked the Subway. To do the Subway you have to have a permit because they only allow 20 people a day. They do this in order to preserve the environment and so things don't get really backed up. The actual hike is only 9.5 miles but it takes forever because there are a bunch of technical spots. Back to the permits for a second. So, usually people apply for the permits like three months in advance, and it is done by a lottery. Just because you apply first doesn't mean you'll get it. A few permits are set aside for walk ins at the park (that would be our group). To get those walk in tickets you have to be at the park at 6 in the morning waiting for the rangers to open up. People get there at like 4 in the morning though, and due to fourth of july weekend being the busiest weekend in Zion's people were getting there at 2. Ridiculous. Our friend Bryon (the big cheese) who was with us volunteered to go wait in line at 1:30 to TRY and get permits. Turns out when you are third person in line you have some power. The two people ahead of Bryon were getting permits for another hike so Bryon was first for the Subway. Miraculously he got our eight permits....but further back in line were these three guys. They knew they were so far back that they wouldn't get in so they bartered with us. They offered to pay for all the permits if Bryon would ask for 11 instead of eight. Of course he did. Duh. Who wouldn't? It worked out perfectly because the maximum group size is twelve and we had eleven. Perfect right?! basically what I'm getting at is that the Subway is a hot commodity and we are dang lucky to have gotten the opportunity to do it, especially on the fourth of July.

Moving on. We stared the Subway at about 10:30 and got out by 6:30. Afterwards my car and our new friend Jenny from Russia packed up our campsite and headed off to St. George to meet up with some friends from school. We went up to this bluff to watch fireworks. My roomate Jeri and I still had a lot of energy and decided we wanted to hike down the bluff and back up again. Right as we jumped down off the ledge the cops showed up saying that we were in the blast area and had to leave immeadiately. Well jeri and I hid. The ledge we jumped off was a overhang so we tucked underneath it right against the wall. Everybody left and the dumb cop came by with a flash light at least 3 or 4 more times catching people and kicking them out, but he never saw us. Poor man is blind. We ended up staying up there and watching the foreworks. It was pretty epic.

Ok here goes the crazy bit. One of our friends we met up with, lawrence, was borned in raised in Colorado City,. if you know anything about colorado city you know it is the FLDS headquarters. Lawrence was born and raised in polygamy before he and two brothers converted. He has four moms and 40 brothers and sisters. Since we were close to Colorado City we decided to spend the night there. let me tell you, that house was huuuuge. Me and my roomates ended up sleeping on the trampoline, but still. We were at a polygamists house for goodness sake. How fetching cool is that. Heinous. Anyway those people are the nicest hardest working people ever. Their roads aren't paved and there is sand all about so a bunch of peoples cars got stuck. Man alive those polyg boys were so quick to get out and start pushing it wasn't even funny. I really respect them...well their work ethic at least. Quite the experience to say the least. The nezxt day we woke up and started the drive back to rexburg. On the way we stopped in to a sacrament meeting and also I dropped my Morgan to say hi to everybody. Dar and Shay were back and happy as well as jamo and Larissa. Construction across from Grandma's is insane. It looks super nast. Anyway I have to go do some stuff. i wish I had more pictures but my camera was in a dry bag most of the time and a hassle to get in and out. But I will put up a link to my facebook album that has the few pictures from the trip. Love all.

*mind.... not all the pictures are from Zions. They are from the whole summer semester so far.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/album.php?aid=281184&id=812770150

Creating Your Own Family History

So, as most know I am taking a family history class this semester. We had a group assignment due Monday and my group was presenting on family histories. My portion of the presentation was to discuss how you can start compiling and creating your own family history, and it was a topis that really intrigued me. I figured I would blod about what I learned. here goes:

I. What should be included in your own book of remembrance?
From the research and reading that I did I found that spiritual and ecclesiastical experiences should be included. This includes church records, inspired writings, testimonies, genealogies, and biographies. A passage from "Genealogy: The Book of Remembrance" reads, "Members of the church should be encouraged to make their books of remembrance a record of spiritual and ecclesiastical experiences as was done anciently. The book shoudl never become a catchall for miscellaneous records. Pictures, portrait pedigrees, and the like may be added, but nothing should detract from the sacredness of this record." It goes on to say, "A knowledge of written testimonies and spiritual experiences of family members binds the hearts of the children to the fathers and helps them understand the doctrines that pertain to the exaltation of the family." Now I know it said in the quote that miscellaneous records should be avoided, but I feel that there are a place for those things. My suggestion was to make two separate books. The one family history would be a more formal account of gospel related things and the other would be a "secular book" I guess. Something more like a scrapbook, for things such as family reunions.

II. Be guided and inspired what to include and record by the holy spirit.
In yours book of remembrance should be found the story of the family, especially the story of its spiritual life, written by inspiration. The language of inspiration is pure and undefiled. The Spirit of the Holy Ghost will dictate to you which of those spiritual experiences you may wish to share with family members to help increase their testimonies of the Gospel. Those can include, but are not limited too: missionary experiences, conversions stories, blessings (patriarchal, fathers, etc.). Personal characteristics; traits you and others have noticed, things like patience, integrity, etc. Also gospel principles; principles and doctrines you have come to truely appreciate and understand during your lifetime.
Remember you might not understand why you are writing these things down, they may not be for you, but for your posterity. "Men should write down things which God has made known to them."

III. Outline for a Family History: How it should be set up
1. Personal records - HIGHLIGHTS of each family members life. Kind of like a timeline
2. Biographies - A more detailed formal account of each members life
3. Sacred personal and family experiences
4. Genealogies (these are just suggestions, you can include as many as you want!)
- 4 to 5 generation pedigrees
- Family Group Sheets

IV. Start NOW!
What better time? The longer you wait the harder it is to retrieve and recall some of this information.

There you have it folks. Family history is bomb.

Great Harvest Bread

HAZZAH!!! So I am on this no sugar diet and my roomate LIndsay came home from the temple today with a loaf of cinnamon burst great harvest bread. Of course I am in serious distress because I love cinnamon burst bread. The search began. I got online to try and find the igredients in before mentioned bread. After about an hour of searching I found out that Great Harvest subsitutes refined sugar for honey! Natural sugar! So I can eat it! And I did!

"it don't matter if you're black or white"

Today Michael Jackson died. A huge blow to the music world. Soon after finding out, I refused to believe it. But it is in fact true, the man in the mirror is gone. I went on a tribute bike ride and listened to his whole "Bad" album. Tommorrw I will commemorate by wearing all black. All those who wish to join me are welcome.

Rest in Peace Mich-o

ate a slice of wonder bread and went back to bed

Howdy all. Well i'm sitting at work again. No fear...I am allowed to do this sort of thing while at work as long as nobody in the lab is working finale or audacity. Speaking of computer things I must make a plug for pandora.com. It has gotten me through many a dark day at work and long study sessions. For all of you that have not yet registered for pandora and experienced the genius that it is should get on that ...like now. Currently I am listening to the Regina Spektor station and occasionally I switch to the Third Eye Blind station as well.

Ok so this weekend there are only four out of the twelve at my house. It is weird. Due to this the four of us are going to gather together and build a fort, sleep in it, and watch dance flicks. In other news, I would have you know that I have registered to run in the dam marathon (thats straight up what we call it madre. Sorry if your ears are bleeding). Mind it is really the teton dam marathon and I am only running the 5k but still, that is pretty nifty. Ooohh I even get a swag bag. Comments on swag bags: 1) the word swag is ultimately cool. 2) swag bags usually have free food samples...heh heh yeah. 3) included in my swag bag is a shirt that says "I ran the dam marathon" baaha we think we are funny in eastern Idaho.

Last night me and my roomate Rachel went to music in the park. An earwig crawled up my leg and I saw a really cute dog. Then we went and did a service project. An excellent service project. BYU-I is trying out a new program where a few wards sign up to plant flowers on campus. So we all met up and the school provided all these flowers and we planted them. We got signs to put in our beds that say something along the lines of BYU-I and the grounds people would like to thank the 18th ward (thats me!) for planting this here garden of luscious foliage. What was most awesome, was walking past those flowers today and saying "Hey, I did that!" Afterward Rachel and I went to pita pit. sooooo satisfying.

Well I just took some pictures of myself sitting at my computer at work. I think I will put them up now. Don't know why the lighting is so different in them. Oh well.