365 - Duolingo

Yesterday I scored a 365 day streak on Duolingo. Duolingo is an app that helps you learn different languages. As you complete lessons, you score experience points (xp) to keep track of how far you are, and if you meet your daily xp goal it adds to your streak*. I'm a real fan!

I've been using it to:
refresh my German (21,328 xp)
learn Spanish (17542 xp) and Chinese (6918)

Duo, himself

and putter around in Portuguese (2089) and French (1526).

The German lessons have mostly succeeded in reminding me of which gender various nouns are and added some words and phrases that a missionary rarely needs to use, like business terms for handling accounts.

Before trying Spanish on Duolingo I had read the Book of Mormon in Spanish twice. The app has been VERY helpful in filling in a lot of gaps and making me very confident in my ability to read Spanish. Hearing it or having conversations with native speakers? Still not so much. I can follow along a Spanish church lesson or talk as long as I already know what they're talking about and it makes a lot of sense, but if anyone starts telling a story about something that happened to them I don't already know, I get completely lost.

Joy has joined me in working on Chinese. The other day she listened to a sentence in Chinese and asked if I could translate it. I could tell it was in the lesson on nationalities, but I couldn't figure out what country they were saying. I admitted that and asked, "So what country IS he from?" And that was correct: What country is he from? *LOL* I was able to say a few phrases to a transfer student successfully. That was nice. My favorite sentence is "Teacher please help my younger brother," because with Chinese tones it sounded like a perfect background for a techno song. I'll mutter that phrase over and over, banging out a beat with my dry erase markers or what have you just having fun.

They recently added a competition, where you are paired with 49 others who are active this week. At the end of the week they total your xp for that week. The top 10 of you go up a level, the bottom 5 go down a level, and everyone else stays where you are. After a few attempts, I've made it to level 4/5, where I hope to stay for the foreseeable future.

5000

As newlyweds, I told Joy I wanted to celebrate every day of our marriage. We kept count of every single one of them on our calendar and reminded each other of how many days we had been married. Then it was every 10 days. Then every 25. Or 100.

Well, it's TIME for a milestone. Joy and I have officially been married for 5,000 days (that's slightly over 13 and 2/3 years).

You found what???

To celebrate, I picked up some flowers after dropping Superstar off at school, and surprised Joy with ... a new, unopened board game of ... WIZARDS!

Wizards came out in 1982 and was one of my favorite board games growing up. The players apprentice themselves to wizards, druids, or sorcerers and go around doing good deeds to thwart evil and eventually gain enough trust of the various factions to unite the holy crystals, unmask the (random) ancient wizard who has turned to evil, and Save the World before it Falls into Darkness. It's complex, high replayability, epic fantasy with magic and elves and unicorns against demons and dragons and all that good stuff.

I can't believe it!

Shortly after my brother and I got married, we had a conversation about who would inherit a few things we were both interested in and we agreed that he would get Wizards while I got Advanced Civilization. After the conversation, Joy told me she was sad about that decision, so I have had it in my heart for a dozen years to find our own copy. Well, ebay came through!

Happy 5000 Days of Happily Ever After!
And since we were sealed in the San Diego Temple approximately just about ... NOW, that means we have also been married for 120,000 hours, 7.2 million minutes, and at some point today 432 million seconds.

10-13 years ago

(For anyone vaguely curious, we will hit 6000 days on Halloween, 2021. See you then!)

Warning: Cute children at large

Princess had a wonderful school picture.











Princess was eager to get ready for Christmas, so she dressed up as Mary.

The kids keep getting bigger, especially JT who has grown out of three Sunday outfits in three months.  But that means lots of pictures of the little guy looking sharp!

Microwave vs. Nigeria

Our microwave broke down a couple weeks ago while my parents were visiting for Christmas. We hurried off to the store to order a new one, but it won't arrive until this Friday. So we've been reheating food in the oven, toaster, or stove top for - almost like our pioneer forefathers. ;)


We have this saying that we still use. When the lights go out, it reminds us of the 'privations' we had in Nigeria - specifically the routine power outages 3-5 times a day. We turn to each other and say, "Welcome to Nigeria!"

Joy has commented twice now that we can't even say that. In Nigeria, AUN supplied us with a microwave. And though the electricity would shut off regularly, and sometimes for a few hours at a time, we were never days on end without a microwave to complement our stove and oven. She says: "Isn't it funny to feel like there could come a day when we feel how spoiled we were in Nigeria" compared to the US?

We were always aware of how good we had it in Nigeria compared to other Nigerians, and regular contact with other friends living abroad helped us recognize how pampered we were by our institution compared to theirs. But it's one of the very few times that we have felt better off in Nigeria than here. "Ode to having a new microwave by Friday!" quothe the Joy.

Someone had a birthday last month ... Joy

For Joy's birthday we spent a lot of time together. Normally that means playing board games while the children are asleep, but I've been too tired with seminary for much of that.

We were very blessed with friends who wanted to babysit the children for us. So we went to see Macbeth. Or, we went and saw half of Macbeth at Tarleton. That whole "too tired to stay up late for seminary" showed up again, and Macbeth IS after all one of the more bloody of Shakespeare's tragedies ... so we called it a night a bit early (much to Joy's relief; she asked me the next night to never show her Macbeth again).

In review, Lady Macbeth did a great job. She spoke most clearly and was readily understandable. Most of the cast had no real feeling for the language, and much was lost in trying to sound Shakespearen and like Brooklyn gangsters at the same time. Macbeth's Marlon Brando impression fell flat and the lighting on every single one of his soliloquies was horrid. They were trying for a half-light/half-shadow effect, but it ended with the half facing away from the crowd lit and the whole face facing us shadowed, or the "window" outline covering his eyes and the top half of his face, leaving his mouth visible. The witches also blew their lines all to bits -- so excited about racing around the stage and cackling that if I hadn't known the prophecy by heart I never would have known they said he would be king. So, yeah, we weren't missing out too much in the second half, we're guessing. Most of the cast was also in Alice in Wonderland that we saw just before that, a 30-min production. The kids loved it to pieces. The actors did better in Alice than in Macbeth.

We also had a glorious drive to the Dallas Temple. Some friends in the ward drove up at 5am (from nearly an hour away!) so that we could leave before dawn. As we drove through the early morning mist and watched the sun rise, we had just the happiest, most peaceful time and drew closer as a couple. A very, very happy morning.

We enjoyed a morning at the local corn maze (pictures must be somewhere) and we went to the Chinese place for their ice cream - only hard-serve place in town.

Joy has always loved ice cream cakes, but this year she had me remake the ice cream too - we bought some dark chocolate, to which I added cookie pieces, and then arranged slabs of ice cream, more cookies, and chocolate/whipped cream layers. Add some Nutella to that and you've got a really good cake!

We also took several walks along the local trails as a family. 

Here are some more pictures of Joy and the happy children opening her presents. "I got books from my favorite author, Sarah Eden."

Hoo's there?

 

Parody: Our father just said brrrr

Superstar and I tend to be the most impervious to changes in temperature in our home. But when it drops from the 80s to 39 degrees, even Dad can get a little chilly. Here's a song for the morning to the tune of Rejoice, the Lord is King!

Our father just Brrrr! It's cold 'cause our dad said brrr.
Everyone come inside and put on a sweaterrrr!
Put on some socks! Put on a hat!
It really is as cold as that.
Put on a layerrrr and say a prayerrrr
Because our father just said Brrrrr!

JT gets his milk groove back

For something like 3.5 months, John-Thomas has not been allowed to have anything with milk-products in it. He's had some tummy troubles for years and that was the latest suggestion from the doctor after they stuck probes up his nose and down into his intestines.

It looks initially like it might have done some good. While he was in Utah, JT's gagging decreased. When they got home, it was only a once-a-week kind of thing, so it looked like this was a big part of the solution. By now, though, he's back to where he started and showing no improvement whatsoever.

We drove out to Denton to see the doc again, and he confirms it sounds like milk is not the solution. He now informs us that there were not only a lot of white blood cells in his intestines, but also a lot of histamines, so it's definitely allergy related and probably dietary but it might be environmental too. The thing is, the allergy testing he did came up with mostly negative results or minor results, 0+ or so. The only thing that is a 2 he doesn't eat regularly and he has nothing that came in at a 3-6, which is normally when a body gets noticeably bothered by something.

We know JT has environmental allergies - we do and he and Superstar both react to the allergens around here at the same time we do. So the next step is to take him to our allergist and get him properly tested for food and environmental allergies and go from there.

As we were driving to the doctor, JT calmly asked, "Is life supposed to be hard?"
Joy's inspired answer was Yes, but it's also supposed to be joyful.

To celebrate the return of milk and a couple other milestones in his young life, we took him to get a milkshake.

What have we learned from our grand 3.5 month experiment? We could totally live off soy milk (for cooking and baking) and almond milk (chocolate flavor for drinking) in an emergency. It keeps for a year and is a lot yummier than powdered, so I'm thinking this will become a fixture in our food storage.

While I'm talking about food, I'll mention that Joy started the Naturally Slim program I went through 2 years ago. We liked it when I was doing it; we like it again as Joy goes through. So we're going to be implementing some of the elements of it at home on a regular basis, trying to teach the kids to take small bites (as Princess always has), to pause between bites (the way JT does), and to be more aware of when they're full (Superstar can even say no to cake when he's full). After eating 10 minutes, pause for 5; oh, and no sweets after today until Halloween, and from then on
we'll be more purposeful with our sweets.

Funny little things on a Wednesday

I love the form I get from work, asking me if I have anything that falls under export controls. To help me know if I do, they give me examples, starting with military aircraft, and including nerve toxins and nuclear weapons. *LOL* Yeah, lemme look around a bit. Might have one hiding under this textbook. Ah, the life of an economics professor is delightfully dull. Except, of course, at home:
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The little one got to go on a field trip to the fire station with his Christian pre-school. The coolest thing he saw? A dog picking up a cell phone in its mouth.

He's got a doctor visit Friday. "That means I won't have Bible study!" he moans.
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When I came home, my daughter handed me a folded piece of paper with a barely concealed excitement. I read the invitation ... to a balloon's birthday party. Held two hours ago. "Oh. Then it's tomorrow." I'll be teaching a class then. "Saturday!" Saturday it is.
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The older one is writing a book that includes several of the other boys at school. He told me before bed how he is trying to convince the character representing one of his friends to become his evil henchman, but the character refuses.
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I came up with a new parody for my trade class at the beginning of the year to the tune of Uptown Funk. I have been chomping at the bit for us to cover enough of the class that the song will make sense. Tomorrow is the debut!

Except for last night at the dinner table. The two older kids enjoyed it very much and were proud that they got to hear it first. I was just pleased I remembered the lyrics without a cheat sheet!

Someone had a birthday a while back: me

I turned 40 just before school started, so that happened.

Joy made me this glorious chocolate peanut butter lasagna cake... that no one else liked. So I get to eat it ALL by MYSELF! I worked through a good piece of it over the next week and froze the rest. Wonderful, decadent, gooey, scrumptiousness! I got the recipe from a Facebook video - thanks to those of you who like tempting people with glorious recipes!

Thankfully for the rest of the family she also made some vegan chocolate cake muffins. That goes along with JT's non-dairy diet, so everyone could enjoy those. It's the recipe we got from Moosewood in Ithaca

My biggest present easily was having Joy return home with our two youngest in tow. Three weeks without my sweetheart were long and hard, even if Superstar and I could enjoy an amazingly long board game tournament.

I got some nice presents, including an expansion for Terraforming Mars, a food scale to weigh ingredients to a tenth of a gram, a couple new board games, some sheet music, and a lovely collection of books I've started working my way through.

I decided I really wanted a pinata this year, so I got this giant dinosaur. We had fun making a short movie of the JT running away from the dinosaur (below the fold).

Farewell to a hymn

With the First Presidency's announcement that Sunday meetings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be shortened to two hours, there are a lot of changes. For the most part, I am excited to move forward and see what the Lord has planned. When they announced three years ago that they were going to put a renewed and increased emphasis on making the Sabbath a delight, and worshipping at home, I had no idea they were preparing us for this. And who knows what this is preparing us for!?

But amid the rush and excitement, I do need to mourn for one of the changes. I need to in part because I know almost no one else will mourn its passing: The second hour will not begin with a hymn.