Battle of Bentonville artillery demonstration

 In March we went to an artillery demonstration at the historic site of the Battle of Bentonville, which was the last battle in the Civil War before the surrender at Bennitt Farm. We got to see them fire the cannons and then look at the cannons up close, then we looked at the memorials and the Harper house.

 "Mom, I'm cold and really tired!"

Replica of one of the houses where the Harper family's slaves lived:

This is the Harper house, which was used by the Union as a hospital at the Battle of Bentonville. Inside it was set up to look like it did when it was being used as a hospital, complete with "bloody" rags in the room where they performed amputations (which, apparently, they got pretty efficient at doing).

Bolts in Tires and Feeling Stuck

Last week I shared this story with Heidi's primary class at church, and I've been thinking about it throughout the week.

On December 30, 2008, Ryan and I started driving from North Carolina to visit Ryan's brother in Florida. We expected the trip to take about eight hours. But instead we had some setbacks. First there was a terrible accident near Savannah, Georgia that completely stopped several miles of freeway traffic for three hours. Then we stopped to get some gas and accidentally drove over a bunch of junk in the road that we couldn't see until it was too late because it was dark. A few minutes later the left front tire was sounding funny, and when Ryan stopped and looked he found that there was a bolt in the tire and the tire was leaking air. At this point it was quite late, so we knew the places that could repair it were probably all closed. We didn't know what to do. If we couldn't get the tire fixed we would be stuck all night.

We pulled into a gas station thinking we would put the spare tire on. Then Ryan had an impression from the Holy Ghost that he should go into the gas station and ask if there was a place that could fix our tire. It seemed silly to even ask because it was so late, but he decided to follow the prompting. The assistant manager at the gas station didn't know of any place, so Ryan asked where we could change the tire to the spare without starting a fire and we went outside and started getting ready to change the tire. But before we'd even pulled everything out somebody drove by and told us about a Pilot station that could put the spare tire on for us. He had heard Ryan talking to the assistant manager inside the gas station. At the Pilot station it turned out that they actually had the tools to pull the bolt out of the tire and patch it up, and instead of charging us the manager just told us to tip the other worker.

We didn't get to Jared and Kristi's house until 1 a.m., but we were very grateful that through the guidance of the Holy Ghost we had been able to get our tire fixed and we weren't stuck. It's an experience that we've drawn on several times over the years as a reminder that God is aware of us and will guide and direct us on our journey through life.

As I've reflected on that experience it's been interesting how it parallels our current situation. Ryan's been applying for postdocs since last fall. We had a verbal offer for a job in February but it got retracted because of some budget problem at that university (a bolt in our tire). It feels like it's getting late and we might be stuck. But we have felt several times that God has a plan for us, so we are trying to continue to put our faith in him that he will guide us and help us meet the right people so that we can move forward.

February pictures

Blanket fort/popcorn fun:

The Valentine's Day craziness:

New haircut:

We had been eating airbread for a while because it was so busy, and I finally got around to making homemade whole wheat bread. As soon as it got out of the oven, Heidi said, "Mom, can I have a piece of bread right now? I know I'll get burned, but I don't care." I think we went through a loaf and a half that day. I make good bread.

Tut, tut, looks like rain!

Playing outside:

And in February, Kevin learned how to ride his bike! (Skip to the end of the video where he manages a nice long ride.)

Children's Museum of Alamance

Children's museums are kind of a pricy family outing, but occasionally we like to indulge. I had heard about the Children's Museum of Alamance and I was waiting for a day when Ryan could come with us because taking three kids by myself was a little intimidating. We were finally able to go on Martin Luther King Day and had a great time. It's always fun to see what creative ideas the different children's museums come up with.

Trying out an old fire truck:

Ann Marie's favorite part by far was taking care of the babies in the hospital section. She would have been happy to spend the entire time wearing nurse's scrubs and pushing the babies around in the stroller.

Painting on glass? What's not to love? Every once in a while workers would close off the area and spray it all down with soap and water, which was also fascinating.

Kevin played a long game of delivering mail all over the children's museum. It was so cute.

Heidi enjoyed working as a cook/waitress in the restaurant kitchen.

They had this cool beanstalk that the kids could climb. Can you find Kevin?

We finally gave in and let Ann Marie paint, which she loved. She did get paint on her clothes when we were trying to wash her off, but it all came off easily in the washing machine.

Heidi took a turn being a mail lady.

Other fun activities included the theater area with dress-up clothes and puppets, the farm/grocery stand, and the hospital/dentist office area.

Quiet book

A few years ago I made several quiet book pages, but I never got around to putting them together as a book, which meant it all got scattered all over the house. It got so bad I seriously considered just throwing it all away. In January I finally got around to getting all the pieces in one place and making it into a book, so here is the final product.

Velcro numbers (I had to reattach almost all the velcro):

This is a felt face with various face parts you can use to make faces. The face is glued to the page and the rest of the pieces go in the beige colored bag. This is one of the kids' favorite pages. This was one of the few busy bags I saved from the busy bag swap several years ago (big mess and I would not do it again). I used to have a magnet that could be used to move the paper clips around, but that disappeared and I haven't found an adequate substitute yet. There's also a zipper for zipping practice.

Touch and feel page with several different swatches of fabric.

Left side is a guy eating spaghetti (red yarn) out of a bowl. You pull the button on the image above to make the spaghetti go into his mouth. The downside to the string is that Kevin thought it made a great leash/kite/thing to drag the book around, but now he doesn't do that as much, so it's worked out. Right side is various buckles/things to adjust.

Left side has button flowers (still haven't found one of them), right side is for counting or just playing with the beads.

This was a lot of work and to be honest if I could go back in time I would tell my past self not to bother. Until recently Kevin and Heidi didn't have a lot of interest in it, although Ann Marie does play with it more. It's fun (but a little messy) for sacrament meeting.

January pictures

We've had several technology changes happen in the past six months. Ryan and I got smart phones and we aren't really taking pictures with the camera anymore because it's so convenient to use our phones. So Ryan has pictures on his phone that I haven't gotten around to importing and that therefore will not be featured in this series of catch-up posts. And if you take pictures on your phone it's really easy to just share one on Instagram. Then our computer died and even Ryan was not able to resurrect it, so we had to get a new one. The hard drive seems fine and I don't think we lost any files, but we were using Picasa and Google has stopped supporting Picasa, which means we can't download Picasa anymore. So now I'm trying to find a replacement for Picasa. I'm trying out Windows Photos, which has some basic photo editing abilities, but so far it's making me annoyed and I'm not sure how much of that is because it actually is annoying ("We automatically made this album for you! Isn't that convenient?" "No, that's not convenient! Just let me do that myself and leave me alone!") versus me being frustrated trying to figure out a new program. It's definitely not as good as Picasa and I don't think I'm going to stick with it. So I guess that's why I have almost four months of photos to share on my blog. I'm going to try to get caught up, but there probably won't be much editing or cropping on the photos. Then again, I don't usually do that anyway. Anyway, here are some pictures from January.

My mom found these dresses from when my sister Melissa and I were kids.

Some kids sleep with teddy bears. Kevin sleeps with electronics.

We had some snow days and the kids enjoyed playing in the snow to varying degrees. I was grateful we didn't have two weeks straight of snow days like last year.

Kevin's primary talk

Today Kevin gave a talk in Primary. This was the first time I didn't have to just write his talk out for him. We both sat down and talked about his topic and he wrote a lot of it himself. He was so cute giving his talk. I have to admit Ryan and I had to hold in laughs a few times. Here is his talk:


Hello! My name is Kevin. Today I will be telling you about the prophets.

In Doctrine and Covenants 1:38, it says: “What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, . . . whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.” That means that when the prophet says something, it’s like Heavenly Father is saying it.

Today our prophet is President Monson! Here are some of the things he has taught us:

In the last General Conference he said: “As we follow the example of the Savior, ours will be the opportunity to be a light in the lives of others . . . To each of you, I say that you are a son or daughter of our Heavenly Father. You have come from His presence to live on this earth for a season, to reflect the Savior’s love and teachings, and to bravely let your light shine for all to see.”

He said: “It is essential for us to live within our means.” That means we should save our money and we should not spend more money than we earn.

President Monson often teaches us to serve others. He taught us about being kind to others.

He taught us about being patient, which means to wait and be polite. If you don’t you might hurt someone or break something.

President Monson said why it is important to follow God’s plan. If Satan comes up to you and tells you what to do, do not follow him. Follow God’s plan. The plan of salvation is very special, and if somebody breaks it, God will be very sad. That is why it is important to follow God and the prophet. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.