June Update - Just say 'no'

Brittney has been very busy this month. She is doing summer school every day from 8am to 12pm for two students who failed math and reading. Then she hurries home for lunch before racing off to her U of I class she is taking from 1pm to 4pm. It is good for me that she is busy, because it encourages me to be anxiously engaged in preparing for my presentation at the American Dairy Science Association meetings next month and for my preliminary examination this fall. I've also been to a dairy nutrition conference in Dubuque, Iowa. One of the topics discussed was related to my research (feeding straw to cows during the dry period) and one of the presenters stated that more research was needed and I just thought to myself, "wait until next month and I'll present more research on it." Dubuque is right on the Mississippi river. Here is a picture of me there:Last Saturday we drove down to St. Louis to hear the Mormon Tabernacle choir sing with our friends Robert and Victoria Bales. Robert said it was one of his life dreams to hear the choir in person. It was neat to accompany him in pursuit of his dream. The choir is so amazing to watch and listen to. The evening passed too quickly (though the 3 hour drive home at 10:30pm did not). Our friends from Champaign (the Kitchens) sat two seats away from us without us even planning it. Her dad is in the choir and we got to meet him afterwards. He said they had a photo shoot earlier in the day under the arch. A helicopter flew around the arch taking their pictures while they melted in the sweltering heat wearing their tuxedos.

Brittney has felt very busy this summer, not really enjoying her break. I decided that she needs to start saying 'no'. So I have been practicing with her with such questions as:

Brittney, would you like a piece of chocolate cake?

Then can I have chocolate cake for breakfast?

Can I have your piece of bacon?

Do you want to do the polar plunge with me next year?

Is there any boy cuter than me?

If any of you readers have questions that you know Brittney will say 'no' to, please add them to my list.

Ten Years Ago Today

"I went through the Holy Temple in Bountiful. Dad was my escort. Dad and I went in a room where the temple president told us the temple was also called the Mountain and University of God. Mom, Grandpa and Grandma Smith and Richards, Eileen, Cheryl, Kathleen, Linda, Mark, Randy, David, Marie, Jolene, Scott, Bishop and Sister Shearer, and Vern Pankrantz went through the endowment with me. It was a joyous occasion to see each of them as they entered the Celestial room. I can't imagine the joy it will be in the Celestial Kingdom. Rebecca tended Kendra outside. We went to Robintino's after. We, Mom, Dad, and I went to Nielsen's for custard." (From my journal)
Ten years ago today I went through the temple for the first time. Last month I was able to go through the St. Louis temple. As I walked around the outside of the temple, I felt humbled with great reverence and awe that God would allow me to enter his Holy House and serve in the way I serve.
Last month I was able to participate as one of my good friends went through the temple for the first time. There are few things that bring me more joy than seeing someone I love go through the temple for the first time. As Elder Scott said in the last general conference, "What a joy it is to be able to participate in the work of a temple!"
A couple weeks ago, my eye irritated me day and night. I couldn't sleep, and I couldn't read, I didn't know what to do with myself. After a couple days of this I called and set up an appointment with the eye doctor. In the past, I had not always strictly followed what the eye doctor advised. I wore my contacts for 4 weeks instead of 2 weeks, I used the cheap contact solution, instead of the more expensive type she recommended. Now as I went to the eye doctor, I was ready to do whatever she asked me to do, exactly as she asked me to do it, if only my eye would quit bothering me.
This is the attitude we should have as we attend the temple. We have been separated from the presence of God. The temple teaches us about the atonement of Jesus Christ and how we can return to the presence of God. We must be ready to do whatever He asks.
The doctor gave my a prescription for eye drops to take three times a day for a week. I must admit, there were a couple days when I missed one of the three times. Likewise, even after the first time we go through the temple, we will not be perfect; we will need to depend on the atonement for repentance. Now my eyes have quit bothering me. Because of the atonement of Jesus Christ, if we do what we are asked, including receiving the ordinances of the temple, we can return to the presence of God.

Camp Ondessonk

On Mother's day, I was riding back to Champaign on a bus full of boy scouts. Our friends, Denny and Anne Anderson are scout masters of troop 17 from the Lutheran church here in Champaign. Back in December, Anne asked me if I would be willing to chaperone a scout trip they were taking over mother's day weekend because they needed more adults. I excitedly agreed when she told me a little about the trip. This was no ordinary camping trip - we didn't stay in the expected tents. Instead, we slept in tree houses. Yes, tree houses. I mean what else would you call it.


But, the adventure starts before then.
I took Friday afternoon off work so we could get to the church on time to leave for the camping trip. All last week, Bruce had been complaining about his eyes bothering him. After many eye drops, I suggested Bruce go to the eye doctor before we leave for our camping trip to see what the eye doctor can do for him. I walked in the door Friday after work, expecting to pack and leave for our trip. When I asked Bruce how the eye doctor went, he told me that he has cornea ulcers and can't wear contacts for a while. Having only worn contacts for the past 5 years, Bruce didn't have a pair of current glasses. Lens crafters made glasses in an hour, so we were quickly on our way. We also had to pick up a prescription for Bruce's ulcers so we were now crunched for time. We rushed to lens crafters, hurridly picked out some frames and sent them back to have lenses crafted. To our great surprise, they took longer than an hour. We couldn't be too late to the church or we knew we would be left behind. Frantically, Bruce grabbed the glasses when they were finished and flew out the door. He ended up going back to Lens Crafters on Monday when we got back to get them adjusted because they kept sliding off his face. There's nothing like going camping to break in your new glasses.
Either way... before we left for Lens crafters I asked if Bruce had packed our bags. He mentioned that he started to put things in a bag, but didn't consider it actually packed. Since we were crunched on time, we grabbed what was in the bag and left. I knew we were with boy scouts, so they should be prepared with everything that we lacked. To our great horror, we realized that night that we didn't pack our toothbrushes. We didn't want to borrow the boys.' (They may not have even packed them, I didn't see the boys using them.) The small bottle of mouthwash stuffed in our overnight bag was a decent substitute.
We rode on a school bus to the camp ground. However, this isn't an ordinary school bus. It is the new and improved school bus, complete with tables for playing cards.


I found it quite humorous to have a big yellow bus parked at the base of a campground. It was quite a resource - a place to store all of our food away from the pesky raccoons. A huge storm passed through the area just before we got there. They had a down pour of rain and winds up to 100 mph. Many trees were blown down over the freeway, and it only stopped raining about 6 hours before we arrived. Although the camp area was muddy, the weather was perfect considering what it could have been. The wind had stopped blowing, it didn't rain (good thing since our tree houses were only 3 sided), and the sun did poke its way out from behind the clouds. I had a blast. We took the boys out on a 10 mile hike (I don't think we quite made it 10 miles since most of our trail was too muddy and washed out to go through it, but we came close), and had most of the meals cooked for us.
On our hike, we came across an actual waterfall. I didn't know those existed in Illinois.


Due to the large amount of rain we received lately, there was a small waterfall (usually non existent) behind our cabin. It made it hard to sleep at night, but Bruce and the boys sure loved to play in it. Most of you won't be surprised that it was Bruce's idea to play in it first.

For dinner on Saturday night we partcipated in the traditional troop 17 meat on a stick grill out. Throughout the day, the boys carve a meat cooking stick. A slab of raw steak is placed on the stick and cooked over the camp fire. The tradition is to eat your steak directly off your stick. Bruce really got into this, and after his 3rd steak, he finally cooked it to perfection! One of the best steaks he's ever eaten.


We didn't get much sleep, but we had a lot of fun. It was one of the most unique campouts I've ever been on. I also earned my very first scout patch - Camp Ondessonk troop 17 patch. I guess I better get a vest to sew them on.

School play

In February, 2 of my 8th grade students approached me about their interest in writing and performing a play. They had an idea for a play and wanted my help in making correcions and directing the performance. I agreed. A couple of weeks later, they expressed interest in turning their play into a musical in which they wrote thier own songs. Although I was quite surprised by their ambition, I did my best to encourage them and referred them to the music teacher for the song part. A couple of weeks later, both students admitted that writing their own songs was too hard, but still wanted music in their play. This is when the music teacher and I joined together to turn their play into a musical review. Even if the final result didn't go too well, we thought it was different enough that everyone would still probably like it. Mrs. Anderson and I spent an entire Saturday afternoon polishing up the script, deepening the plot, and adding more character development. Soon, we had character personalities that matched the actor/actress, a list of Western songs to compliment the theme, and a vision for how we wanted this to go. Every spring, the music department puts on a spring concert with performances by K-4 choirs, 7/8 band and 7/8 chorus. We worked out a way to perform the play on stage, while the chorus and band provided the music. What we ended up with was a lot of time spent rehearsing and an enjoyable evening.
I must say that I was quite impressed with the final performance. It was the first time all of the students actually did what they were supposed to do almost perfectly. They finally delved fully into thier character and used facial expressions and gestures in just the right places without me telling them.
I did play a small part in the play. The final scence of the play was a square dance. I choreographed a simple and short square dance in which I put on some boots and a cowboy hat and called out the moves. In the eyes of some of my 7th grade boys - my lines and actions was the best part of the entire performance. I did invest a lot of time in this play, but the rewards were well worth it! It was fun and kept the attention of audience members old and young.

Trip to Utah

The first week in April, for my spring break, we travled to Utah to see family. We didn't have any travel disasters this time, but we did have an enjoyable time visiting with family, going to the zoo, and going to general conference.
We arrived in Utah on Thursday night. Friday morning, we attended a 10 year mission reuinion. It had been 10 years since the dedication of the madrid temple, half way through Bruce's mission president's service. Bruce didn't know many of the people who attended and was one of the younger ones. I also put a damper on any prospective conversations when I continually had to respond that we don't currently have any children. Needless to say, I found myself sitting apart from others and listening to others conversations which were limited to children and "the mission." The highlight of the night was listening to President Mask brag about the quality of the missionaries in the Spain Barcelona mission. Right before we left, Presdient Mask gave me a hug and told me that it was very brave of me to attend a mission reunion to support my husband, and that I must be a pretty special wife.

We were fortunate enough to get tickets to the Sunday afternoon session of Conference from our stake in Illinois. I had never attended a session of Conference in the Conference center despite all of my efforts. It was really neat to sit in the presence of the apostles and prophets and hear their words of council and guidance. We parked a couple of blocks away from the conference center, so we avoided all of the traffic and went through security really quickly. General Conference is a special time of the year and something I look forward to. I marvel how everyone who listens gets something completely different out of the same conference talk. That proves that the spirit is the one doing the teaching, and the speaker is just the messenger. It was a neat opportunity.

We went to Hogle Zoo with Bruce's younger brothers and sisters and my neice, Linda.
Judging from this picture, Linda needs to grow a lot more in order to be as big as a gorilla.

Seth and Linda loved the merry-go-round.


I had a narrow escape from the treacherous lion.


A train took us by buffalo and sheep - a true delight for 4 year old Seth. Finally, we posed as a family with what some would call our very distant relatives.



I beg to differ - I do not come from a gorilla.

We enjoyed playing Killer Bunnies and other various games with my family. We stayed up late, tried to sleep in, and sadly the week went by way too fast. We had to fly home in order to go back to work.

St. Louis Arch

Near the end of March, Bruce and I traveled to St. Louis for the weekend. We drive down to St. Louis once a month, but the only thing we do down there is go to the temple. This is not a bad thing at all; infact, we love going to the temple. However, St. Louis has so many other cool things to see that we wanted to do something else in addition to our temple trip. We left early on Friday morning, played in town all day, stayed over night, and attended the temple on Saturday. Although we enjoyed what we did in St. Louis, we realized that some things take time, and we need more than just a day to do everything.

The gateway to the west is a landmark commemorating Lewis and Clark and all the other explores and settlers who opened up the west. Nothing can quite compare to the experience we had while trying to make our way to the top of the arch.
We got to the arch visitors center pretty early in the morning, and rushed to the ticket line. After standing for only a few minutes, we were told that the south tram was not currently working so they weren't selling any tickets to the top until they could fix the tram. We browsed through the Westward expansion museum and decided to buy some tickets for the Lewis and Clark movie. Just before the movie began, they started selling tickets for the top again. We quickly jumped in line and purchased tickets to rise to the top immediately after the movie ended. At our appointed time, we jumped in line eager to find our way to the top.
Instead, all we did was

WAIT!

WAIT!!

WAIT!!!
2 hours after our original launch time, we were moved to the north tram line where we waited for an additional 45 minutes. The south tram broke down again, which made everything delayed. Finally our moment had come. . We crawled into the small pod, rode the 3 minutes to the top and saw....


The view was actually quite spectacular. We enjoyed the view and enviornment of being at the top of the arch. It is one of those things that you should do once and only once. I didn't mind the ride, I didn't mind the view, the cost wasn't even that bad, it's the wait I can't stand. Granted that we waited longer than most people to get on the tram, it still took all day which left no time to do anything else we wanted to do in St. Louis. Our tram was supposed to leave at 1:30, and we didn't actually take off until 4:30. 3 hours of time we could have spent at the zoo, the botanical gardens, or the science museum. I can say that I have been to the top of the arch.
Enjoy the pictures.

P.S. I didn't choose this music. It automatically started playing when I pasted the link to the slide show! Sorry! Don't judge me, it was an innocent mistake.

Yes, Success! Music is off. Thanks Tannie!

Race pictures

This picture was taken after we arrived home with our medals still on.
I mentioned earlier that I would post some pictures and blog more about our marathon race. It was the first marathon race in the Champaign/Urbana area. They had over 9500 participants in either a 5K, half marathon, or full marathon. People from all over the world came to run. Some were qualifying for the Boston marathon.
Although I don't like running, the environment of the marathon race was awesome. It was really neat to see the stampede of people running in front of me, and hear community members cheering us on throughout the entire 13.1 miles. I can't speak for Bruce, but I actually had a lot of fun running it.
The first 6 miles went by really fast. At mile 7, my calves started hurting and cramping. This made me nervous since I was only half way finished. I kept pushing forward, and they eventually stopped. At mile 9 my thighs started cramping. Mile 10 and 11 were extremely difficult. I honestly didn't think I was going to make it through since I hadn't ever run this far. After I passed mile marker 12, I knew I only had 1 mile to go and I picked up the pace a little. When I saw Memorial Stadium and was near the finish line, I started sprinting. I entered the stadium and realized I had to run the full 100 yards of the stadium, then circle back to the 50 yard line to the finish line. At this point I was actually running out of breath, but I pushed forward and sprinted as fast as I could. With 10 yards to go, I heard the announcer call my name as coming across and I saw myself actually cross the finish line on the big screen. I ended up crossing the finish line 3 seconds ahead of Bruce, and the announcer didn't call his name. I'm sorry Bruce!
It was a neat experience for me. I thought about training harder and doing the full marathon next year, but that is still under careful scrutiny. I haven't run since. It took me a couple of days to get over the stiffness, and then I haven't had much free time to run. I don't feel like I have to sacrifice things anymore since the race is over. Hopefully next week I will start running again. Even though it is not my favorite past time, I feel like I am in pretty good shape.
Enjoy the pictures. We didn't have a camera. Here is a link to the pictures taken of me by the marathon group.

Here is a link for Bruce's pictures

Here are some pictures our friends took of them running.