We went home to TX for Christmas! It was a really busy visit. We didn't get to spend enough time at home, but real life calls. We were soooo sad to leave everyone and come back to the snow and ice, but I probably got more sleep last night than I did the entire time at home!
We went to Round Rock for some dental work, six flags, Cheesecake Factory, looking at Christmas lights, shopping, church, watched movies, ate lots of junk and also lots of yummy food, and had lots of fun.
Thanks for those of you who voted in the poll. Sorry to keep bothering everyone with this stuff but it's just so important to talk about. Everyone picked either 10 or 17 countries that our military continues to maintain a presence. Your optimism is outdone only by our government's ceaseless spending and reckless foreign policy. The reality is that our military is currently in 130 countries. Any country we have ever been in for a war related reason (or practically any other reason for that matter) we have never left. We continue to operate military bases in peaceful ally nations where frankly we have no business being. Kind of shocking huh? No wonder our implicit federal budget deficit is over 53 trillion and growing at breakneck speed.
You really don't need to specify a week or a day for that matter, playing with trains is a constant. Addie is getting to be very smiley. It's a lot of fun to talk to her and have her respond with something other than spit up.
Carrie, Colson and Griffin came over to play. It was really fun to have them here again. Jack LOVES his cousins.
We had a pretty decent snow storm over the weekend. Turns out that Jack really enjoys the snow.
You're thinking it does look familiar, but why? I'm sure if you have kids you've seen a run like that many times. But you might also be thinking of this...
You don't need to watch the whole video to get the idea.
Over recent months my mind has become increasingly troubled with the direction in which we are headed as a country, the wars we will have to fight and the future we are giving our children. I spend as much of my free time as I feel I am able in learning about what true liberty is and I regret to say that the report is horrifying. If the saying is true that “evil prevails when good men do nothing” then the good men are definitely doing nothing, and lots of it.
Some of you who will read this have likely already been turned off and will not finish reading this or simply just don’t care. This is not to say that what I specifically have to say is ground breaking, but taking a step back to see where we are as a supposed republic is paramount. I have spent a significant amount of time thinking about how to awaken people to a sense of patriotic awareness on this front. It is difficult, near impossible I would say to get the masses of Americans who have been blessed with so much to show even the slightest bit of interest in what is becoming of our nation. People will stand in lines for hours to get in to the latest Harry Potter movie or buy the newest version of the Wii but you would be hard pressed to get people to try and educate themselves about the gravity of our current political plight.
Recently I purchased a copy of the Communist Manifesto and have been reading it along with several other books outlining the essential fundamentals of liberty or, in the manifesto’s case, the antithesis of liberty. I feel both are important to understand.
The ten points of the Communist Manifesto are as follows:
Here are the 10 measures the proletariat will use to bring about the full realization of the communist utopian dream, once they have the political power: 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly. 6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. 8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country. 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. I hope someone is beginning to see what I’m talking about. We have, as a nation, fully embraced several of these communist doctrines and are in the process of adopting the rest. The greatest travesty of it all is that even if everyone were fully aware of this, and I feel that on some level most people recognize this, it would not be motivation enough to get off the couch and do anything about it.
In addition to this here is a piece of audio recently aired on the Glenn Beck show but it is the former Secretary of Agriculture (under Eisenhower) Ezra Taft Benson
“Unwise legislation, too often prompted by political expediency is periodically being enacted that seductively undermines man’s right of free agency, robs him of his rightful liberties, and makes him but a cog in the crushing wheel of regimentation which, if persisted in, will end in dictatorship.” David O. McKay
On Sunday after church we tried to take some family pictures for our Christmas cards. It wasn't the best experience we've ever had. I love this picture because it pretty much sums up the whole experience. I'm having a good time, Jack has had it, Addie is sleeping, and Eric is trying his hardest to look like he's having fun.
A few days ago, Evanston had a Lighted Parade. I was excited because I thought Jack would really like it. So we bundled up the little ones and headed out.
This is Addie in her little outfit that is supposed to fit babies up to 3 months old. You probably can't tell, but her legs don't even make it half way down. I guess that's good news because it will probably fit her longer than 3 months.
The newspaper said the parade was from 6-7. When we got there we realized what they meant to say was 6-6:15. We missed all of it, but I did manage catch a glimpse of a pretty awesome tractor covered in Christmas lights. So the lighted parade has made it on our list of things to make sure we do next year since we missed them this time around. We still wanted to do something Christmasy (I realize that's not a word) so we went home, started a fire, and had hot chocolate. This was Jack's first mug of the chocolate goodness. He loved it! So much so that he threw a fit when he drank it all and found out he wasn't getting a refill.
I love how when your plans are unexpectedly changed you still manage to have a good time. Tantrum or no, we had fun!
One of my absolute favorite things about living where we do is common sense almost always prevails. I love that, especially these days where things seem to be so confused and turned around. Along those lines, here's a story:
One day I was at Staples (one of my favorite places to feed my office supply addiction) and I was perusing the pen isle when I saw it. It was the perfect solution to all my work related pen problems. It was the NASA pen that can write upside down, in freezing temperatures, through grease and dirt and underwater. This was perfect for when I'm outside in the winter trying to write some notes about a house and its snowing or raining or I get hit with a ball of grease dropped from an airplane. This pen has been very good to me over the past few years and I often brag about it when I get the chance.
Well, one day last winter I was measuring a house and writing on my file folder with my NASA pen, and it was snowing. The homeowner was helping me measure (for some reason people always think I need help measuring, but in reality it's a thousand times easier when I measure solo) and he asked about the ink in my pen freezing. I took the opportunity to tell him all about my precious pen and how it is superior to all other pens in the case of snow storm writing. I told him all about how it can write in virtually any condition. I'm sure I went on in some detail and at length about my pen.
This gentleman was the prototypical Wyoming man. He had a deep, gruff voice and his words were few and thought out before they left his mouth. He asked if he could see my pen, and I gladly handed it to him. He examined it for a short time and asked if I wouldn't mind telling him how much I paid for it. I told him and he grunted out a "hmm" and handed it back to me. I suspected there was more to that response and asked him what he thought. He replied: "Well, I would have just used a pencil."
Needless to say, I don't brag about my NASA pen so much anymore.
This place is in the Uintas. I thought it a little ironic to have a nudist ranch in a place where you will freeze to death 9 months out of the year and every evening if you're not wearing clothes and lots of them.
Just like in the movie Cars, they moved the highway and it died.
Ill advised mullet. I only wish my cell phone camera had better resolution...apologies.
Jack has always been really good about not getting in to what we ask him to leave alone. With that said, he is beginning to find out how to tear things apart when he's left alone or we have our backs turned.
The newspaper said the parade was from 6-7. When we got there we realized what they meant to say was 6-6:15. We missed all of it, but I did manage catch a glimpse of a pretty awesome tractor covered in Christmas lights. So the lighted parade has made it on our list of things to make sure we do next year since we missed them this time around. We still wanted to do something Christmasy (I realize that's not a word) so we went home, started a fire, and had hot chocolate. This was Jack's first mug of the chocolate goodness. He loved it! So much so that he threw a fit when he drank it all and found out he wasn't getting a refill.
