A new game for long drives

We have a card game that we revised the rules for. Each card has a character, a place, an event, or some other element of a fairy tale story. In our version of the game, you are dealt a random hand of 4-7 cards depending on the age of the person and a "they lived happily ever after card" that gives them a goal. The person's job is to come up with a story using all those cards to reach that ending.

I modified that game further. Instead of using the cards at all or generic fairy tale inhabitants, I made a list of characters from fictional works we five Watsons know, a place, and a mission. With only those few elements, we come up with a story.

On a recent long drive, we told the tale of:

• How Legolas and Christoff escaped from the Hundred Acre Wood
• How Sir Robin the not-quite-as-brave-as-Sir-Lancelot and Jiminy Cricket escorted a princess from Uluru to the Sydney Opera House. (It involved a lot of running away!)
• How Princess Buttercup and Bashful the Dwarf stopped the evil wizard of Motunui.
• How Molly Weasley met up with her old flame, Jafar, at WalMart one day and they forgave each other for the misunderstandings and heartbreak that marked their time at Hogwarts (before Molly met Arthur, obviously).

My favorite was Superstar's insightful tale of how Mother Gothel and the young Tom Riddle traveled to the year 2323 to obtain a powerful device that would grant them immortality. They only found one seed that could grow the medicial herb that would cure any ailment, including old age. So Gothel betrayed Tom and sent him back to the orphanage, escaping with the golden seed. And it is because of this story that Tom Riddle was so obsessed with avoiding death and becoming immortal himself, setting him up to become You-Know-Who!

Judging from the kids' reactions, this new one is a harder game, but they enjoy the stories we do come up with more.

My random number generator tells me the next stories will somehow involve Abu the monkey and George Jetson finding a lost dog (Astro?) in Paris, France. We may also learn about how Grand Moff Tarkin and Aragorn sail to the promised land (South Africa?)

We went to DisneyWorld in Feburary 2022 - a conversation

<Each paragraph begins with the name or letter of whoever says it. If there is no introductory letter, then it's me, Derrill>

My dad speaks at a regular pension conference in Orlando, Florida each February. That has become a convenient opportunity for him to take some or all of his family with for some Disney World fun. We hoped to go up in 2021, but couldn't for obvious reasons, but made it this year.

To prepare, we went back to the very beginning, Snow White, and watched all the animated Disney movies up to around the 1980s before the trip happened. This was a project we spent many months on because we watch movies so infrequently.

Joy: We also watched Youtube videos about some of the rides. The kids enjoyed that. They made a list of rides they wanted to go on at each park. We also prepared our Disney points

By spending money on our Disney credit card to get Disney dollars back

Joy: So we could spend them at the parks.

Since we had also managed a trip to DisneyLand in the summer of 21 when Aunt Virginia died, that also helped the kids, and JT especially, get ready for the larger park and get some of our favorites done in the same year at least. My brother's family joined us for the trip to Disneyland, but couldn't come for Disney World.

Superstar had been to Disneyworld and Disneyland as a toddler, but had no memory. Princess had also been to one but didn't remember. So these trips were the "first" times going to Disney for all the kids!

Pop, Emie with baby Lucy, Steve, Princess and A
JT, Grandma, Joy, Superstar, and Derrill

Codex Boturini as read by a Latter-day Saint

Back in the mid-1700s there was a fellow named Boturini who traveled through Central America gathering historical writings about the Aztecs and other native peoples. The Codex that bears his name depicts the story the Azteca/Mexica people told about where they came from and some of their history. Here is part of the first page:

First I'm going to quote the Wiki article on Codex Boturini, then I'm going to reread it the way it sounds to me.

The codex depicts the events of the Mexica migration from Aztlán and their history from the years 1168 to 1355 AD.^[3] It begins with a priest leading Chimalma, fabled ancestor of the Azteca, from Aztlán via a boat.^[18] Once they arrive at the shore, near Colhuacan, they build a sheltered altar for their god, Huitzilopochtli, who ordered this migration.^[19] There they also encounter eight tribes that desire to accompany the Azteca.^[20][d] The Azteca agree and the nine tribes set out under the leadership of the four god-bearers, Chimalma, Apanecatl, Cuauhcoatl, and Tezcacoatl, each carrying a tlaquimilolli.^[21]

Over folios 3 and 4, the Azteca are transformed into the Mexica when Huitzilopochtli chooses them to be his people and teaches them to sacrifice blood to him. He also instigates the split of the Mexica from the other eight tribes ... . An Aztec (left) carries out Huitzilopochtli's instruction to break from the other eight tribes in a nighttime discussion. ...

What I hear:

It begins with a priest named Lehi, traveling from Jerusalem via a boat [1st Nephi 2-17]. Once they arrive at the shore, they build an altar for their god, Jehovah, who ordered this migration [1st Nephi 18]. They also encounter other people who accompany them, under the leadership of his four sons, Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi. The Lehites are transformed into Nephites when God chooses them to be his people and teaches them to sacrifice [animal] blood to him. He tells Nephi to split from the other tribes [before they kill him]. Nephi and the righteous flee in the nighttime [2nd Nephi 5].

For a mostly-oral tradition passed down over 1000 years until it's drawn up in the Codex, I find the parallels between the journeys more than coincidental. I found Boturini from reading Elder Moses Thatcher's pamphlet, Divine Origin of the Book of Mormon from the 1880s. 

The Articles of Food

(A parody of the "Articles of Faith" by Joseph Smith that the children and I worked on at the dinner table tonight.)

1. We believe in the use of forks, knives, spoons, cups, plates, tortilla shells, sandwich bread, and so forth.

2. We claim the privilege of eating healthy foods according to the dictates of our own tastes and allergies, and allow all our children the same privilege, let them avoid meat, dairy, or whatever else they will.

3. We believe that a man will suffer for his own poor eating choices and not for those of the person sitting next to him.

4. We believe that all mediocre food may be saved by application of the condiments and sauces of the kitchen.

5. We believe that the first condiments and sauces of the kitchen are: first, salt; second, Lawry's; third, immersion in ketchup; fourth, laying on of cheesy white sauce.

6. We believe in the literal gathering of ingredients.

7. We believe that a cake must be made by Mom by yumminess and by the laying on of ice cream.

8. We believe in being polite, chewing slowly, not talking with our mouth full, maintaining pleasant conversation, and in blessing the hands of the person who made the food; indeed we may say that we follow the recipes of Alton Brown: we eat all cuisines, we have learned many recipes and hope to be able to learn all the recipes; if there is anything yummy, healthy, of artistic presentation, or praiseworthy, we seek after these meals.

For the record, we do not believe in the same diet that existed in the pre-historic days, namely the Paleo Diet - in case anyone wondered. We also recognize that some of these things we believe in are aspirational in nature. :)