Adam is Eight

We had another birthday in our home. This one was a little more special than your average birthday. Adam is now a big eight years old. In our church, most kids are baptized when they turn eight. We believe that by the time they are eight they have developed a good understanding of right and wrong and begin to be more accountable for their actions. Baptism is a time for these young people to make their first covenants with God and to demonstrate a commitment to Him.

As bishop of our ward, I interview each of the young people turning eight to visit with them about their feelings about being baptized and to see that they understand what it means to make a covenant with God. It's always a great experience, but it was really neat being able to talk with my own son about such things in that kind of setting. Adam is an amazing boy. He really understands well much of the gospel - he puts things together in his amazing mind and is able to make connections that sometimes I even miss. Beyond his ability to think, though, he feels! He feels in his heart that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true and right and feels that his choice to be baptized is a good and right thing. It was evident his depth of feeling and understanding as I talked with him about his baptism.

Saturday was the big day. About the time we left for the church, it started to rain. Problem was there was a strong cold wind blowing through so the rain quickly turned to ice. By the time it was over, it turned out to be the worst ice storm we've had in this area since we've lived here. After the ice came several inches of snow on top.

Ice and snow notwithstanding, we were able to make the trip safely to and from the church. Several other families braved the slick roads to come and show their support. We were happy for that. The service itself was nice. Adam's great-grandpa was there and spoke to Adam and to the congregation about baptism. I then had the privilege of baptizing Adam. He was very emotional in the font. When it was over, I asked what he was feeling, and he just said, "I feel really really really really good inside." After the baptism Adam's aunt and uncle sang a beautiful song and our good friend gave a brief address after which Adam was confirmed.

Following his confirmation, another of our good friends spoke. She said, "Adam, you are an old spirit in a young body" meaning that Adam's spiritual maturity is well beyond his years (and maybe well beyond many grown-ups years). I thought that was a very meaningful way to say it - he really is an amazing boy in many ways!

After the service, we enjoyed some food and ventured home. Fortunately, we managed to keep our power on through the weekend (many others in the area lost power). Church was canceled so we had just a nice quiet weekend with family.

Following are some pictures of the baptism and also a few of Adam's birthday.

The real reason I haven't blogged a lot lately

OK. I am ready to make a confession to all the blog world as to why I haven't been blogging much lately. I have been super busy and super tired. The reason that I have been so tired is because we are expecting baby #5! That' right folks, there will be a brand new Finch in the world later this year. I am about 14 weeks along (about 3 months). The baby is due August 23. I have really been well besides the fatigue and an occasional flareup of some varicose veins. I hope that now that I am entering the 2nd trimester I will feel even better.

Some of you may remember we had some RH incompatibility problems with Ben. We knew going into this that would be an issue this pregnancy as well. We will start seeing the specialists in Iowa City at 20 weeks. We are very hopeful that things will go well and that we once again will be blessed with a healthy baby. My titer levels (the way they measure how much antibody is in my blood) have been low so far, but with Ben we don't really know when they started to increase, but at 28 weeks they were more high. We will see, but, like I said we are positive and hopeful right now.

We just wanted to share the news. Our family is thrilled, and we want you to be thrilled for us too. Any prayers for our little baby our welcome too.

A transition for Ben

We have been talking it up with Ben, and on Saturday we finally made the switch to a big boy bed. For some of you, you may not consider a toddler bed, a big, boy bed, but anything out of the crib with nothing to contain him anymore is a big, boy bed. He is pretty pleased with himself and the kids have been great at encouraging him. How has he done you ask. Well, he has done really well. The first night or two he was afraid to get up at all after exhortations by both parents, but he has gotten up the last couple of nights, but after he says what he needs to say, and we tell him to get back in bed he does. Naptimes he hasn't gotten up at all. That may be because I close his door all the way at naptime, but not at bedtime. It is fun that he is growing up so much. He is starting to want to be a big boy instead of a baby now, which is pretty tough when your brothers and sisters all call you "baby" instead of using your name. I even got him to wear his church shoes for the first time on Sunday because I called them his "big boy shoes". Now he wants to wear them all the time! He's growing up so much I think in a week or two I will start potty training. He is almost 2 1/2 which is when I started with all the other kids. He is at a fun age, and some of his two year old antics have seemed to die down too. We love Ben!

Anna's teeth

So I mentioned that Anna had lost her two front, bottom teeth. I wanted to post a picture so you could all see. She has not liked us to touch or wiggle them at all. The first tooth she lost was very wiggly for several weeks, to the point where it could have easily been yanked out, but she patiently waited, wanting it to fall out by itself, which it did. I was starting to think it was never going to come out! She is much more patient than me. Her second tooth was getting to that really loose stage, and again she didn't want us to touch it, so we didn't. Unfortunately, it was taken out by a mean piece of garlic bread and promptly swallowed by Anna. At least that is what we think happened. We have never seen the tooth since. No worries folks. The tooth fairy still paid her a visit even though there was no tooth. Anna has loved that she is losing her teeth earlier than Adam did. Her first one she lost about a week before her birthday, and she is proud of the fact that she was only 5 and lost a tooth. Enjoy the picture of Anna. I took it first thing in the morning, so she is still in sleeping hair mode.

Anna's birthday pictures

Well it is about time that I contributed to this blog, so I thought that even though it is 2 weeks after the fact, I would post some pictures from Anna's birthday. She told me she wanted a party, and I said, "OK, who would you like to invite?". Her reply "The Jensens." They are our closest friends here and they have 3 little girls, 2 of whom are close to Anna's age who she adores playing with. We had them over for dinner, spaghetti and meatballs. We played one simple game of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey". We had cake and ice cream. We played a lot with each other and with the balloons. It was a lot of fun and each of the kids even got a goodie bag.

Our beautiful Anna is six now! I can hardly believe it. Over the last 3 weeks she has lost her two front bottom teeth. She has also started full day kindergarten and is doing very well. She is ever sweet and caring. I guess we have told her this enough that now she will tell me that her gifts and kindness and love. It is very sweet. She is definitely a peacemaker and helps our family run more smoothly because of it. Her relationship with Adam has been more involved since they have both been going to school together, but she continues to still find time to play with Lizzy, and even Ben. She will often just come up to me and say, "Hug!" and proceed to give me a big one. It is often when I am feeling worn out or frustrated. She is fun to go shopping with (how many kids can you say that about?). She enjoys looking at things and just being with me. She is also a lot of fun. She can giggle and be crazy with the best of them. She is especially good at making Adam laugh. We love our sweet Anna. Happy Birthday!

Where are we???

Tammy is being stubborn and not willing to blog until I do, so I thought I better write something. I'll write what we've been up to and then maybe we'll go back and fill in more and pictures later. We had a nice Christmas - I think we actually made it through the whole holiday break without any illness which may be a first for our family. I spent a lot of the time off working on our little bathroom project that's drug on for three months now. It started out a simple paint job and has turned into a full remodel. It's coming along nicely though and I'll post some pictures of the finished product one of these days.

Just after the New Year, Adam and I went to a college basketball game - Iowa vs. Michigan State. We've mentioned before that Adam likes basketball - this year he is fanatical. When it comes tournament time, I recommend calling Adam for advice before putting together your bracket. He knows every team (even the little ones) and everything about them - their records, their streaks, their ranks, their conference ranks, their high scorers, you name it. He's filled his little photographic brain with everything you ever wanted to know about college basketball. Anyway, he LOVED the game, even though Michigan State lost (he's a big Spartan fan). We had a great time.

The next weekend we headed to Kansas to meet up with all my family. Aside from the weather and a few weather related delays, we had a great time! My whole family was there - all the kids' cousins (14 in all), Grandma (and her new boyfriend), my brother and sisters and spouses. It was a great time ... until .... Adam and Anna picked up a fever. So we packed up and headed home just a littler earlier than we planned. By the time we arrived, Lizzy had the fever too. I picked it up the next day, and Ben came down with it the following. That was a full week ago, and we're all still fighting it. Lots of coughing, lots of fevers, lots of crying and whimpering (mostly me) . Miraculously (and thankfully) Tammy has been spared. We think we're nearly through it now (though Lizzy had a fever again tonight and Adam has an earache now).

Tonight we celebrated Anna's 6th Birthday. Happy Birthday Anna!!! We'll get some pictures of her out soon and will write a post all about our sweet Anna soon.

One last note. If you've read this far, you must be serious Finch Family Blog Fans, so this is for you! In addition to reading our fine blog here, you can now buy our blog! That's right, pay money to read our ramblings! We've published all our 2006 blog entries in a book called - this is exciting - The Finch Family Blog 2006. You can buy it here.

We're going to go back and publish 2005 also soon. We mostly wanted a hard copy of our blog for posterity sake (in case Google's hard drive crashes some day :-). We found this cool publish on demand place called Lulu.com. You just upload your book as a word document or PDF, then create a cover for it and they print one anytime somebody orders it. It's all free unless you want to buy the book. So, you can choose ... keep reading our words of wisdom for free online ... or wait until the 2007 hard copy comes out next year.

Our weekend--part two

Well now that we are half way into the next week, I am finally ready and able to tell you all about the rest of our weekend. Saturday, Adam was well enough to go to his b-ball game. Then he and I and Ben went to the Ward Christmas party. We performed our duet for the talent show. It was a lot of fun. That kid just doesn't seem to get nervous! Greg and the girls stayed home because they weren't feeling well.

Sunday morning, Liz still seemed out of it, so she and Greg, who also wasn't feeling well, stayed home. It was really hard for me to leave her, and she cried. So I was already feeling rotten as I started the drive to church. While I was driving I noticed something out of the corner of my eye, but didn't really think much of it. Well a few minutes later, I definitely noticed something. There was a mouse inside our car right on the floorboards on the passenger side just sitting there looking at me. I FLIPPED OUT!! I started to scream at the top of my lungs. AHHHHHHHH!! AHHHHHHH!! AHHHHHHHHH!! This was enough to get panicked cries from the kids in the back. I just kept screaming. THERE'S A MOUSE IN THE CAR! THERE'S A MOUSE IN THE CAR! My driving was not at its best either. It was all I could do to keep the car on the road and make the 1/4 mile or so to the next turn out. Of course my screaming scared the mouse to death (along with the kids) so he was no where to be seen, which is probably worse than knowing where he is at. As soon as I stopped the car, I jumped out as quickly as I could and got the kids out swiftly as well (by now they were pretty freaked out. Ben and Anna were even crying). I opened all the doors and the trunk. Now what? I know I'll call Greg on the cell phone. Wait, I don't have a cell phone. None of the businesses around were open either. "Adam, do you want to be brave and poke around with the umbrella?" (Can you tell I really don't like mice?). "No thanks." So I go to the back of the car and get the umbrella. Fortunately it is a long golf umbrella. I duck my head down and look gingerly under all the seats from the view in the trunk. I can't see anything. So, I start poking around. Nothing. No sign of the critter. After about 15 minutes, I decide we have to get back in the car and go the 5 minutes or so back home. Adam was great and got back in and promptly put his feet up. Ben was crying, but not unmanageable. Anna did NOT want to get back in (can you blame her?) Finally, through her tears, she got back in. I convinced her it was the only thing we could do. I brought the umbrella up front with me and laid it on the passenger seat for easy access. I tucked my dress up under me and began talking to myself, telling myself I could do this. I told the kids to make lots of noise, so they and I were tapping the seats and stomping our feet. I was literally talking to myself out loud (remind me again why I am sharing this). I know I was not the best, most careful driver, but we made it home safely.

Greg, of course, comes running out to the garage with a bewildered look on his face as he heard the garage door open. I give him the very short version, "There is a mouse in the car." He thinks it's pretty funny, but I still don't. When he sees how shaken up I am, he is much more compassionate. It's good to be home. I need to calm down and relax a little bit. I wouldn't be driving the van that day. No way. No how.

We've known we had a mouse in our garage (thank goodness not the house yet). I had bought those humane mouse traps so you can catch and release them, but we hadn't had much luck with those, so I just had bougt some of the regular kind. Greg got one and set it in the van and one just outside the van. After I had collected myself, at least a little bit, I took the kids to church in Greg's little Toyota. I hoped there were no mice in there.

Well, I will spare you too many of the rest of the details (are you still with me?). Suffice it to say I drove the car for 3 days. Greg has caught one mouse in the van (it was actually running around in there, with the trap stuck on its leg, he got it in a box and brought it to the park to let it go), and two outside the van. This totally creeps me out. Greg came with me the first time I drove the van. Anna was scared to death. She said, "I don't want mom to drive crazy again." As you can imagine it has been the talk around our house for the last several days. I still feel queasy and nervous when I am driving the van, but hopeful that little event will never repeat itself. I asked Greg to keep a trap in there for a while anyhow. Pretty crazy, huh? The crazy thing is, I just vacuumed the van on Friday, so there weren't tons of crumbs and stuff to eat like there often is. Anyway, who knew this could even happen. I have never heard of it.... until now.

Our weekend part one

Hey there Finch family fans! We had an unusual weekend. As probably some of you have, our family has had the stomach flu this past week. On Friday poor Adam threw up at school in the hall. It was right at the end of the day so he just waited and came home at the normal time. Lizzy threw up as soon as we got home from picking Adam up. Well the dilema was that we were supposed to watch our friends' kids so they could go on a date. I called my friend and told her what was going on, but said that we would still be happy to watch their kids. After much deliberation, they decided to go ahead and have them come. After all, they probably are exposed to all that and more at school. For her husband's peace of mind (who had already been sick that week) my friend brought a bottle of hand sanitizer for her kids to use if they wanted to.

Things weren't too bad. Adam and Lizzy did have lots of trouble so there was lots of cleaning up, but the other kids were all occupied playing with each other so that wasn't too bad, and Greg was actually home to help, so that was good too. So, I was upstairs with Lizzy. Greg was downstairs with all the other kids who were watching a movie. All of a sudden I hear Ben crying. I decided I better go see what was happening. I looked over the rail from the loft and one of the girls said, "Ben drank the Hand Sanitizer!". GREAT!! It was obvious that he did NOT like it and it seemed to kind of burn in his little throat. Greg was trying to wash it out of his mouth with water, but I told him to check the bottle first. What did it say you ask, "If accidentally ingested, call Poison Control immediately". Up to this point in our parenting we have escaped that neccesity. Of course it would be egg cracking, water spilling, wall-writing, head-injuring Ben who would need to test this out. I was a little concerned. We didn't even know the number! Isn't that terrible? Greg looked it up on the internet and called. They asked him a few questions, told us to give him some milk and a sweet snack and keep him awake for 30 minutes and just watch him. They took Ben's name and our phone number and said they would call back in an hour just to be sure he was alright (which they did). Well he was alright. I guess you have to drink an awful lot of hand sanitizer to become really sick. Crazy Ben! We were glad he was ok. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that earlier in the week I had to take him to the doctor to get a head wound glued shut. I will have to post about that another time!

Adam and Tammy at the Piano

Adam has continued taking piano lessons and is really getting good! His piano teacher is an older lady that teaches about 30 kids ages 5 to 18. Last week she held a recital and invited all the kids to play a duet with someone (a member of the family or friend or other). So, Tammy and Adam have been practicing a couple of Christmas songs for the recital.

The recital was held at a place called the Butterworth center. Mrs. Butterworth (not the syrup lady) was the granddaughter of John Deere. (As a sidenote, when we told Adam that he asked "How can a company have a granddaughter?") Anyway, Mrs. Butterworth donated her mansion to the community for hosting of cultural events. The use of the facility is free for any group wanting to use it and is a wonderful place for cultural events. It has a library (or parlor or something) with a high domed ceiling. The ceiling is covered by a mural that was imported from Italy. The woodwork in the whole mansion is extravagant. It was a fun place for the recital!

Press the play button below to hear Adam and Tammy playing "Rudolph". Adam is playing the melody and Tammy the bass part.

Listen Now:

Again, there were around 30 kids or so that performed and the whole event took about an hour. After the show was over, a man, a complete stranger came over and bent down to Adam and said, "Let me just tell you young man that I enjoyed your piece most of all." Adam just beamed. He really did an outstanding job (and so did Tammy - she was way more nervous than Adam was)!



Here's The Christmas Song:

Listen Now:

It's fun to watch our little man growing up and learning new skills. He continues to excel at just about everything he does.

Early Christmas presents

I have already received two great presents for Christmas. They are my big ones, so I don't anticipate a whole lot more. The kids think that it is not fair that I get to see all of my presents before Christmas.

First, my dad gave us a flat screen computer monitor. We are thrilled with it. It really gives us a lot more desktop space. It is great. Thanks dad!

The next one is unbelievably awesome. I have been wanting a nice framed religious print from either Greg Olsen or Simon Dewey. We looked for one in Utah this summer, but didn't buy anything (mostly because we didn't think we could fit it safely with all of our other stuff). I have wanted one for years, but as you know they can be pricey. Well Greg kept telling me that he was going to get me one for Christmas this year so I looked through tons and tons of pictures trying to decide which ones I liked. I gave him a few suggestions (I really liked the ones that had the Savior interacting with someone). He went to work and found one for me. As you can imagine by the title of the post, it came just a few days ago. The amazing thing is he didn't just buy me a print, he bought me a canvas giclee (pronounced zhee-clay). These amazing reproductions look like real paintings! They basically use computers and amazing quality ink and print them right on canvas. It is absolutely beautiful and the image size is sooo much larger than those framed prints. It is Simon Dewey's "Living Water" painting. I just love it, love it, love it! Greg happened to be working from home the morning that it arrived, so he hung it up right away. It justs makes our home feel so nice. It looks so good, I told Greg we needed to buy nicer couches to match our painting! I am so thankful for it, and for my good husband for buying it for me. They are more expensive than a print, but ohhh the quality! It's fun to say the word giclee too, now that I know how to pronounce it. To be prounounced with a French accent. Here is a picture of it on our wall! Aren't I fortunate? Merry Christmas to me! Merry Christmas to me! Oh yes, and Merry Christmas to all of you too.

The Christmas tree

Our tradition is to decorate our Christmas tree the Monday after Thanksgiving for Family Home Evening. The pictures are from that event. The kids are getting quicker in their old age and really enjoyed doing it. Christmas is great with kids around! They just make everything so exciting.

So a few days later, I asked Greg to move the tree for me a little bit, which he quickly and easily did. The next day I wanted it moved a little bit more. I thought it looked easy enough, so Ben and Liz and I made the attempt. Well, I guess I am not as good as Greg, because the Christmas tree fell right over! It fell right on the linoleum where some of the ornaments proceeded to break into tiny little pieces. This elicited a cry from Ben and a scream from Liz. Thank heavens neither of them were under the tree when it fell. I hefted it up and then thought, while still holding it, now what am I going to do? I have a three year old and a two year old to help me stabilize this tree. I sent the two year old up to the loft to watch out of the way of the glass since he already had tried to walk through it a few times. The three year old was actually quite helpful. She held the tree up while I went under and readjusted the stand. It seemed a little crooked, but stable enough. I then tried to put the star back up on top. Bad idea. I managed to knock the tree over again! It fell one more time as I was trying to stablize it again (Greg said after having it fall three times he would have just left it on the ground). Finally I got it up in the stand again, but it didn't seem very safe. I sent Lizzy to fetch some very heavy weights (for her). They were 10 lbs. each. She carried them up one at a time from the basement. She was amazing! All the while I am holding the tree and trying to screw in the screws as tight as I can. The poor tree trunk now had several gouges in it. I had to put the 2 weights on the back of the tree stand to hold it down and a folded up piece of paper under one of the other legs, but it finally stayed up! As you can imagine this took quite a little while. Then I still had to clean up the glass and vacuum. Lizzy did awesome and Ben whimpered and watched, but stayed out of the way. Greg came home and took one look at the tree and said, "Oh my." After the kids went to bed we tried to fix things up a bit. Unfortunately the tree stand must have gotten bent in the falls, so despite our efforts the stand is still stabilized by the two weights and a piece of paper. Pretty crazy huh? By the way, we get real trees every year, This year it is between 6 and 7 feet tall, so it is pretty heavy. Merry Christmas. Moral of the story: Ask your husband to move the tree if it's not in just the right spot!

Ben's eye

Well here are some pictures of Ben's Thanksgiving eye injury. It actually doesn't look so bad in the pictures, but you get the idea. I had him close his eye so you could see how purple it was. I think his face is pretty funny in that one. He is doing much better now. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving

I know it has almost been a week, but I wanted to post about our Thanksgiving weekend. We had some friends of ours over for dinner. The Hamby family. They have 2 boys and a little girl who is two. They are a lot of fun to be around, and we enjoyed having them very much. We split up the cooking, so it wasn't much of a burden at all. Greg made all the pies again this year. He made six: 1 apple, 2 pumpkin, 1 chocolate macadamia nut, 1 chocolate cream, 1 chocolate peanut butter, and one whipped jello something or other. He's amazing! I am so glad that he loves to do it because I don't :) Greg and Adam had a fun time at our ward's turkey bowl in the morning. Adam loves playing with those older boys. Greg was sore the whole rest of the weekend though. The one bad part of the day is that Ben fell down our basement stairs. He fell all the way from the top down to the bottom. He got a major black eye and goose egg. I even looked up symptoms of a concussion on the internet trying to decide if I should bring him in to the doctor's. I decided not to. I did put him down for a little nap though, so he missed Thanksgiving dinner, but was much better off with a little rest. I will try to post a picture of his injury later.

The rest of the weekend was spent putting up Christmas lights and shopping. Crazy Greg went with a friend to Best Buy at 5 am on Friday. He said the store was so full you could barely move. They missed all the really great deals and then waited in line for 2 hours. He vows he will never do that again! I waited until Saturday afternoon to head out, but was able to get almost all of our shopping done. I still have a few more things to get, but I am hoping to get it done this week. I really want to be able to enjoy the holiday and focus on it's true meaning.

Which brings me to what I am most thankful for this year. I feel like I have experienced some great changes in my life this year. I have gained a greater understanding of the atonement and of repentance, and of changing our hearts. I loved reading "The Peacegiver" and felt like it has started me on a better path in my life. I am grateful that we can always turn to the Lord, that he loves us individually. He wants us to be filled with that love and be able to extend it to others. I know I still have much more learning to do, but I feel now the possibility of great change, of great hope, and great happiness and peace. My love for the Lord has increased as my understanding has become greater. I feel like I am starting to change. I am so grateful for this. How great and merciful is the Lord!

I hope you all had a great weekend and are starting to get in the Christmas spirit. I hope you will have peace and time for reflection amid the hustle and bustle. After all it's the most wonderful time of the year!! (Can you tell I've been listening to Christmas music lately?)

Time Out for Women

A month ago, I went to Time Out for Women with some friends. Here is a little photostory. I hope you all won't be ashamed to know me after viewing it! I wasn't sure if I should even post it, but Greg insisted. Only nice comments please!



The music is Hilary Weeks, who performed at Time Out for Women. She was awesome. All around a very fun, uplifting weekend. Highly recommended!

An interesting experience

I have been to very few funerals in my life. I can probably count them on one hand. That is fortunate I guess. This week I attended a funeral for a little baby. It is the first time that I have experienced that. Our next door neighbors are good, wonderful folks who just had their 4th baby 4 weeks ago. They knew before she was born that she wouldn't live long. She was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, a chromosomal defect, in utero. She also had a severe VSD (heart defect), which doctors wouldn't repair because of her chromosomal problems. They weren't even sure that she would make it through labor and delivery. She did with the help of a C-section. Then she lived 3 and a half weeks. They got to bring her home. They felt like every day they were cheating death and were thankful they had her that long. I got to go over and see the baby and hold her. She was so frail right from the start. They named her Hannah. She passed away this past Wednesday and they had a service for her on Thursday. They invited Greg and I to go, so of course we did.

There were a couple of things about the service I wanted to mention. First, I was amazed at how many people were there. So often when someone loses a child, it is a small, very private service. I felt that it was a great blessing to this family to have so many people around them, loving them, showing their support to them. It was a great lesson to me, who tends to hide the pain, and not share it, until it gets to desperate levels. Throughout all of the last couple weeks there have been so many people at their house. Some has been hospice care, but there were many others as well. They found a very kind and wonderful doctor who would do house calls. When a friend at the husband's work found out, his wife arranged for her prayer group to bring in many meals. There were people who carted kids to and from school, etc. etc. It was wonderful to see the support they got. It made me so happy to live in this community. I am sure countless prayers were said on their behalf, including our own family's, for them.

The next thing about the service that maybe wasn't so positive is the manner in which parts of it were delivered. Our friends are Catholic so of course a priest did it. It just felt so impersonal. I don't know how well he knew the family. Basically he just read some stuff, which didn't seem very comforting to me. Thank heavens the funeral director took the time to say a few words, which were much more meaningful. He talked about the grandparents that had preceded Hannah in death and how they would all be fighting over who got to hold her. He seemed to have a real love for the family and appreciate the heartache they were feeling. Greg and I talked about the priest and how impersonal and disconnected he seemed, and I thought what Greg said was profound. Basically he said how can a priest who has never lived life, meaning never married, never had children, never worked outside of the church, know what it is like to hold a little child and love a little child and then one day find that your arms are empty. There is great wisdom in how our church has it's own members serve each other, and Bishops must be married men. It is easier to bear one another's burdens if we have some understanding of what they are.

Another thing that I found interesting was that the family chose to have an open casket funeral. I don't know why, but I expected because it was a baby that they wouldn't. It just made everything seem all that much more real. She was beautiful, and precious. It was just so hard to see her there with no life in her little body. It made me feel the pain for our neighbors all that much more. Just a week or so before I had held her in my arms and talked to her, and now she was gone. Heartache.

One of the services that was rendered to them was given by a photographer. Someone told them about how some photographers offer their services free in situations like these. What this good lady did was take some pictures of their family before she was born and then she was right there at the hospital when the baby was born and took pictures of their family all together. Then she put together a great presentation of it put to music the family had chosen. They played this at the service as well. Very poignant. What a great gift to this grieving family.

Lastly, I think one of the hardest things for me was seeing their 3 other children mourning right alongside mom and dad. Their 3 year old seemed pretty ok, but his dad said he was pretty worried about him. Their 6 year old was really having a hard time, and so was their 9 year old. It is hard to see little children sobbing with great pain and not be able to help. This family believes they will see this baby again someday, and believe that her little body isn't suffering anymore. I think they are going to be alright. I think the love they have felt will continue to buoy them up and help them to keep going. Having 3 other wonderful children will help too.

I came away with a greater appreciation for the miracle and fragility of life. This could have just as easily been me, or you, for that matter. Who is to say that it won't be us someday? We have four wonderful healthy children. That is a miracle. We should appreciate life more. We should love life more. We should savor life more. It is a precious gift from God. How thankful I am for it! How thankful I am that baby Hannah could touch the lives of her family, and many others, even if it was for a short time. She brought love and joy to this family. That is the blessing of a baby.

Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments II - The Domino Effect

Heard about this video on NPR. It's pretty cool. We thought you might like it. Makes you not want to eat mentos and drink diet coke together.

Two more Halloween pics

 
  

Halloween!!!

Well, here are some Halloween pictures for your viewing enjoyment. It was a busy day. The kids had a Halloween parade and party at school in the afternoon (they even let Anna come back even though she is only doing half day). It was a bit overwhelming for Ben, but Liz and I enjoyed being there with Adam and Anna. Then we came home and did our chores. We ate an early dinner with some friends then hit the streets to get the goods. It was cold, but I don't think the kids cared. They literally ran from house to house. Then it was off to our ward's trunk or treat event. Very fun. Holidays are so much more enjoyable with kids. They just get so excited about things. Adam and Anna made their own decorations and hung them up because I don't do a lot of that for Halloween. I think they have gotten just as excited about Halloween as they do for Christmas. It sure has been a lot funner for me. I even bought myself a t-shirt to wear on Halloween. Hope you all had a good one too! I will let you figure out what the kids were.
 
 
 
  

Pumpkin Painting

We still don't exactly trust the kids with long sharp knives, so tonight instead of a pumpkin carving festival, we had a pumpkin painting festival (I still carved mine!). The kids all did a great job with theirs!

Wisconsin

Last weekend we took a trip to Wisconsin to visit Tammy's brother Todd and his family. We had a great time - played some fun games, took a long hike through an amazing corn maze, ate Wisconsin brats, and had an all around great time. The drive home along the river was nice too with the fall leaves falling.
Cousin Alia with the kids.
Here's Adam enjoying a view from a high bluff overlooking LaCrosse.
No blog entry is complete without a picture of Benny. He had fallen a few days earlier and still had a nice scratch on his head.
We tried for a family picture, but this is the best we got. Doesn't Tammy look great?!! 

Don't turn your back

I wanted to post a little bit about our little 2 year old Ben. He has only been two for a few weeks but he is doing his best to show us he is two. I don't know if it is because I am busy and often distracted with helping the other kids, but he is always managing to get himself into trouble. I can hardly turn my back on him for a moment without something happening. One of his favorite things to do is to turn on the water in the bathroom and have some fun playing in it. He can climb on the toilet and reach it, so I never know what I am going to find when I go in there. In the kitchen I have started putting the stool out in the garage because he was always getting himself, and the floor soaking wet "doing the dishes". It is not uncommon for us to find writing all over him or the wall. In fact there is one wall I think I am going to have to paint to get rid of the writing, and I can't tell you how many times I have scrubbed off his face and arms after he has been coloring with his sisters. The tabletop is also a favorite drawing spot of his. He has also succeeded in putting about a ton, maybe half a roll, of toilet paper in the toilet at one time. It would have been more, had Anna not tipped me off to what was going on. He also has figured out how to open the fridge and will often pull things out of there without me knowing. Yesterday it was steak sauce that was being toted around the house, with no lid, of course. He has also dumped liquid smoke in my spice cupboard so it always smells like outdoor cooking now. He is tall enough to get his own water from the fridge door now, and I already mentioned how much he loves water. I am now using the lock on the door that stops the water from coming out, a button which I thought I would never use. I wasn't even sure why it was such a great feature, but now I know. Thank heavens he can't reach the buttons yet. Sometimes I will give him something to eat. He will immediately put his hands in it grab a big handful, then rub it all over the table, then all over his face, then all over his hair. The other day, I gave him some milk, let me rephrase that, he got some milk out the fridge, it was one of the girls cups that already had milk in it, I guess he was feeling water deprived since I locked the water on the fridge door, so he decided to dump the milk in his hair. I didn't notice 'til I heard the giggling. Tonight beats all though. I was reading to the older three and then went into the bathroom to get their toothbrushes ready. Ben had turned on the water and gotten his toothbrush and was brushing his teeth... with the hand soap. The soap was all over the counter and he kept wiping his mouth and making this face. I could smell it on his breath. It must not have been too bad though, because he didn't cry. I guess I won't ever be able to threaten him with washing his mouth out with soap, eh?

The funniest thing is, despite all of his trouble, he is the cutest thing ever! Adam will often ask me, "Is he the funniest of all the kids?" He just makes us laugh so often. Lizzy's common response to me about Ben is, "Two year olds sure are hard to take care of." Anna has learned just to let him have his way. We all can't help but smile when he is around. He is funny. He is sweet. He is a little troublemaker, but I think that is part of his charm. All of you grandparents out there are just sitting out there laughing, while all of you parents of young children are thinking, many I'm glad that's not my kid! When Ben is a parent raising a two year old, I will just chuckle to myself and remember days and weeks like these!

India - wrapping it up

Well, after a grueling 36 hour journey, I made it back home earlier this morning. I'm exhausted! We left Pune on Friday morning and flew to Delhi. We had some time to kill before our flight left Delhi, so we toured the city a little. We saw a very tall old Minnaret and a ruined Mosque and a newer Bahá'í temple called the Lotus temple. They were all kind of neat to see, but I think we were a little tired of sightseeing and ready to head home so they weren't as impressive as they could have been. We caught our flight out of Delhi just after midnight this morning (India time) and flew for nearly 16 hours to Chicago. After a couple of hours getting through customs, we made our connecting flight to Moline and arrived here about 9:00 this morning.

Tammy and the kids were waiting in the airport and it was GREAT to see them again! I had a great time in India and will carry fond memories of my time there, but am SO glad to be home again. Now I'm just trying (somewhat unsuccessfully) to stay awake until bedtime so I can start adjusting back to American time.

Thanks for all of your interest in my experiences in India. It's a great place to visit if you ever have the opportunity!

India - the team

One of the best parts of my India trip was getting to know the team I work with here on a more personal basis. We've been working together for several months, but it's really hard to get to really know someone with only a few meetings a week over the phone. This experience has been great for that.

From left: Pallavi, Yashveer, me, Brij, Anil, and Sridhar


The team really treated me well during my stay. I mentioned earlier about the lunches they took me to last week. This week, on Tuesday, they treated me to a night on the town. We took off from work on board several "two-wheelers" (motorcycles). I've not ridden motorcycles much in my life (my brother had a dirt bike when we were younger, but that's about it) and I've certainly never ridden motorcycles in the kind of traffic or roads that you find around Pune. It was a little scary for me at first, but I eventually settled in and enjoyed it.

First stop for the evening was my very first Bollywood movie. Bollywood is India's version of Holleywood that cranks out lots of high quality movies every year. In fact, I've heard it reported the Bolleywood movies now bring in more total each year than Holleywood movies (quantity of movies produced and quantity of people viewing them play into that). The movie we saw was called "Ghosla Ka Khosla". The movie was great - it was all spoken in Hinglish (Hindi with a little English mixed in) so I didn't follow the dialog too well. Even without the dialog, I followed the plot easily and knew the context of most of the conversations. The movie was very enjoyable - you can read more about it (in English) at http://www.khoslakaghosla.com/

After the movie the team took me to a little hidden restaurant in the middle of a small villiage in Pune. We had to take some pretty crazy little dirt roads back into the village to get to find the restaurant (no signs). The restaurant was outdoors under a bamboo leaf roof. Marble walkways led to private secluded tables. The tables were set low to the ground and we all sat on the ground on pillows and padding (no chairs). This is traditional style Indian seating. The food as usual was great - and the ambiance and setting were perfect.

After the fun evening at the restaurant, one of the team drove me back to the hotel on their two wheeler and we called it an evening. Thursday evening I treated them to a fancy meal at the hotel I was staying at and again had a great time together. [Side note: By the way, I mentioned that the hotel was really nice. Well, Thursday Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt arrived in Pune to start shooting a movie there and were staying in the same hotel we were in. I never saw them - I think they snuck them in and out of the hotel pretty quickly, but it was still kind of fun to have some famous people staying where you are.]

Too many new posts!

Hi all. Following are several posts I've written the last few days but haven't been able to publish due to problems getting on the Internet. Sorry to hit you with all of them at once! IMPORTANT: Tammy posted a really nice article last night. Don't get sick of reading all of my posts and miss hers!

India - The culture

I want to write a little about my observations of the culture here in comparison to U.S. culture. I mentioned before that the Indian people seem very happy generally. I think that much of that happiness comes from the way the people live their lives For one thing, they are very relationship oriented - it seems most things in life revolve around other people and relationships with those people. Because of that, there seems to be much less selfishness than in America - everything is done with a mind on the family or those in the community around the individual. A few examples of this:

* The people here are all very service oriented. They serve one another and strive to see to the comfort of those around them. This is particulary true of foreign visitors - I've been treated almost like royalty since arriving.

* The young people I spent Saturday with (see blog entry about day 9) were very supportive of one another. In the U.S. a lot of times young friends spend their time together teasing and tearing down and poking fun at each other. There is tremendous sarcasm among U.S. youth. Indian youth also have fun together, but I didn't notice a single instance where one put down another (even as a joke). They were always encouraging of one another and very friendly to one another. Even when one was a terrible dancer or a terrible singer - there were no jokes or laughter - only encouragement.

* People spend their evenings and weekends with their families and neighbors. It seems there is much less of individual media consumption (rather than playing video games or surfing the web or watching T.V. the people are relaxing with their families and visiting neighbors).

* The people live much more simply than Americans. Life is much less about acquiring things and much more about sharing what you have to make those around you happy.

Not all is well here - there are still very pronounced social divides (castes) within society here. This can be a little uncomfortable at times for a foreigner. I don't really understand how the caste system works, but there is definite division between classes of people here. For example, we were going to lunch the other day and approached the elevator to ride to the cafeteria. There were two custodians that had just gotten on the elevator as we approached. The man I was with just made some gesture and the two custodians got off of the elevator and allowed us on. There was plenty of room for them, but they were not allowed to share an elevator car with us. I've had similar experiences time and time again here.

I've talked some with the young people on my team about marriage customs here. Marriages are generally arranged by parents of the youth. People don't usually choose their spouse. One young lady told me that it's okay because with her parents are more mature and much more understanding of what marriage takes than she is. They know her well enough that they will find a young man that will be a good fit for her. Divorce is not well accepted here and marriages arranged this way generally work out.

One young man on my team is experiencing the down side of this though. He has a girlfriend that he likes very much and wants to marry, but she is from a different caste. It will be impossible for him to marry her without being abandoned by his family.

India continues to become more and more westernized all the time and some of the traditional customs are weakening a little. The changes are coming in both positive and negative ways. I've been reading in the newspaper here about a debate going on in the national government to legalize pornography. It's currently illegal to distribute pornography in any way in India. Mainstream media (television, movies) is very clean compared to American media largely because of these laws. Every article I read is supportive of easing that ban on pornography and allowing some distribution of it. I was filled with great saddness reading that - if they only knew the consequences that are coming from that movement!

Economically India is growing tremendously. I saw in the paper this morning that the gross domestic product here grew 9% in this recent quarter and seems to be growing as fast every quarter. That is bringing new prosperity to the country though there is some debate because it seems that prosperity is leaving the poor behind. I think the money will eventually trickle down to benefit everyone here though.

That highlights some of the major characteristics of Indian society I've noticed in my short time here.

India - Pune

The city of Pune is located on the western side of India about midway between the north and the south of India. It's about two hours drive east of Mumbai (Bombay). There are three seasons here - winter (October-March), summer (April-June), and the rainy season (July-September). We're here during the transition from the rainy season to winter. The weather is nice right now - highs in the 80's with occasional showers. Winter gets a little cooler - highs in the 60's or 70's. Summer is very hot - highs around 110-115. The rainy season brings a lot of rain off the Indian ocean so this area is very green and wet. It has rained at least a little every day that we've been here.

Pune seems to be a more modern city than the areas we visited last weekend between Delhi and Agra. In those areas we saw a lot of primitive housing, primitive transportation, and poverty. Here there is definitly still a lot of poverty, but it's not everywhere like we saw up north. It's not as common to see animals roaming the streets - modern vehicles, motorized rickshaws and motor bikes are more common. Pune is a big city with lots and lots of people everywhere and plenty of big business.

I wanted to talk a little about construction of these modern office buildings here - it's very different than in the U.S. There is not much heavy equipment used here - most everything is done with manual labor. For example, you've all seen the pictures of women carrying big jugs of water on their head. It's a very common sight in India. So the construction companies, rather than use concrete trucks and concrete pumps, hire these women to carry concrete up into the buildings. There is a never-ending stream of women going up into the buildings with a jug on their head. At the bottom someone is mixing concrete and filling their jugs. Then the women walk up into the building and the men dump the concrete into the forms to make the building. Most women here dress in beautifully colored sarees and the construction site is no different. Somehow they manage to keep their dress clean and beautiful even in the filth of the construction site. Also, all of the scaffolding and ladders are made from bamboo poles lashed together with twine. When the buildings are finished, they look as good and as sturdy as any American high rise built with modern tools and heavy equipment. I'll try to get some construction pictures to post later.

India - The food

Most people visiting India either love the Indian food or hate it - not much in between. I came fully expecting to not like the food at all, but have really enjoyed it. I'm given the option of American food nearly every meal but have chosen Indian most of the time and have nearly always really enjoyed it.

Food here is served in two ways - veg or non-veg. About half the people here are strict vegetarians and the other half will eat some meat like chicken, fish, lamb, and goat. There is no beef served here (holy cows) and pork is considered unclean and also not served. So, at any restaurant, you order either from the Veg menu or the Non-veg menu. The food looks and tastes essentially the same regardless of the menu. It's normally a spicy gravy (curry) served with flat bread (roti). Traditional meals are served without silverware - you use the roti to sop up the soup and gravy. Restaurants always have silverware available though.

Most Indians think Americans don't like spicy. They always want to order things less spicy for you. I always ask for more spicy - in fact Indian spicy pales in comparison to Mexican spicy so even ordering extra spicy is easy to handle.

Meals are usually served with desert - something small and sweet. One common desert (I can't remember the name) has a little cake doughnut ball soaked and served in syrup (that's as close as I can describe it). Ice cream is also served a lot for dessert.

India - Day 9

Saturday was a nice break from the rigourous work routine we've held during the week. We got up early and went to the office to meet with all of our extended teams for a team excursion. Only one from my team was able to come, but there were about 25 in all that made it.

John Deere owns company buses in India. These busses drive around Pune every morning and pick up workers to take to the office or to the factory. We borrowed one of the busses for our Saturday excursion.

We drove about an hour from Pune to where the air is a little fresher and the spaces a little more open. We had made reservations to spend the day on a "farm" (where else would a bunch of John Deere employees want to go?). We arrived and the "farm" and were vastly disappointed initially. It was really just some family's house with a moderately big yard (by Indian standards - it was still smaller than our yard in Bettendorf).

Our plans were to play cricket in the morning, but the lack of space for a cricket field quickly dashed that idea. We still got our the cricket bat and knocked the ball around a little, but couldn't really play a lot. Cricket is by far the biggest sport in India. I had never played, but it's similar enough to baseball that I didn't have any trouble.



After the cricket play and some breakfast, we played another game called kibida (I think). It's a game where all the players are in a box (about 10 yards x 10 yards). There are two teams which each stay in one end of the box. One player from one side crosses the mid line and tries to tag players from the other team then make it back across the line. Players from the other team try to detain the player that crossed and keep him from crossing the line back to his side. If the player makes it back across every player he touched is out. If the player doesn't make it back across he is out. First team to run out of players loses. I enjoyed that game - it was pretty physical though.




After the kibida game we went on a "trek" (a.k.a hike) up a mountain behind the farm. It was a pretty good hike to the top but offered some really nice views from the top. It's the hazy time of year in India (just after the rainy season) so the views weren't as nice as they could have been. We saw a wild four foot long cobra on the way up and some other wildlife I'd never before seen (like a scarab - a big bug). As always there were plenty of cows around.


The peak in the distance is our treking destination.


Here's the whole group about half way up the hike.


This was our guide on the hike and view from the top.

After the hike we were all pretty tired, so we lounged a bit on the porch of the farmhouse. They let me use one of the traditional cots and take a short nap. After lunch someone asked - what are we going to do now? The leader of the group said, "Now we drink beer and dance!" So we all went into the farmhouse in the living area (also the kids bedroom) and drank beer and danced. Only about half of the group drank beer - the other half were observing a period of abstinence from alcohol and other things during a religious festival that's going on now. I'll let you speculate which half of the group I was in!

I was expecting the dancing to be some traditional dancing that they were going to teach us Americans. Turned out they just wanted to dance. So the music and dance styles were very much like Americans dance - some disco, some techno, some of everything. The music was Indian pop music - similar to American pop. The strange thing was that there were no women in the group. Just a bunch of guys dancing. It's very normal here for guys to get together and dance and girls to get together and dance separately. You'll also often see guys holding hands with each other walking down the street. It doesn't mean they're homosexual - it's just part of the culture and accepted and normal here. They persuaded me to dance a little - though I never was much for dancing so did as little as possible!

After the dancing we piled into the bus and returned to Pune. Because of the festival the roads in Pune were very crowded and it took a long time to get back to the hotel. Indians love to sing, so all the way they sang Indian songs - some traditional, some modern. Everybody took a turn so of course I had to have my turn. I sang "Old MacDonald had a farm". It was a big hit.

It was a really fun day altogether. I was fun to see the kinds of things the people here enjoy doing. It's altogether very similar to what young people in the U.S enjoy doing.

India - Days 3-8

After the very busy and long day on Saturday, we took a relaxing Sunday morning and just stayed around the hotel. Late Sunday afternoon we flew from Delhi to Pune arriving in Pune late evening. We are staying at the Le Meridien hotel in Pune. It's a very nice, 5-star hotel offering every kind of service imaginable. They even stop by every night to pull back your bedcovers for you. I'm not used to being waited on to that degree.

Monday morning we headed to the office for the first time. John Deere's technology center is located in Magarpatta Cyber City on the edge of Pune. A few years ago a bunch of farmers got together and came up with this idea of developing their farmland into a Information Technology park and so started Magarpatta City. The city is circular and built around a big central park. The first ring around the park are large modern office towers (I think there are 12 in all - about 6 have been built. Outside of that ring is a second ring of office buildings. John Deere owns one of those second ring buildings. There is also a residential area, restaurants, and schools all within the walls of the city. The entire city is walled and gated to set it apart from the rest of Pune.



Arriving at the office, we met up with our teams for the first time. My India team consists of a project manager, two senior developers, and two "freshers". Freshers is their term for kids newly out of college still learning the ropes. The purpose of my visit is to develop a better working relationship with this team and to train them more on what we are trying to accomplish in our project. So, we meet every day for a few hours for training sessions, then work together the rest of the day on project tasks. Working hours are different than we're accustomed to. The workday generally begins around 10 am and ends around 6 or 7. We've actually been staying until 8 pm most nights so that we can be in some meetings with our teams in the U.S. (8 pm here is 9:30 am in Illinois).

On Tuesday my team took me out to a nice restaurant in Pune (I don't remember the name - I really don't remeber too many names of things here). It's a restaurant featuring food from the Bangalore region of India. We were there for nearly three hours and went through something like 6 courses of food. It was great, but certainly not the most productive workday I've ever had!

The rest of the week was pretty much the same. Get up early and work, eat breakfast, go to the office, meet with the team, have lunch, work with the team, work with the U.S team after they arrive, go to the hotel, have dinner, then work some more until late.

Where have I been you ask?

Well, I have been holding back on the blogging the last week and a half or so. Greg has been gone and I kept thinking that he would be posting more, but he has had trouble connecting to the internet in his hotel. He also has the camera so I can't post any fun pictures. I have not wanted to detract from his India trip because it seems so cool, but I couldn't stand it any longer so you get to hear some mundane things from me.

First I have read some excellent books lately. They are church type books, which some of you may not like, and to tell the truth, I don't read them that often myself, but we bought a few while we were out west this summer. The first I think if you are a woman you should read. It is called "Mary, Martha and Me". It was written by Camille Fronk Olsen, who was one of my professors at BYU. She taught one of my favorite classes, Women in the Scriptures. This talks about the different ways we serve and learning to serve without being cumbered in service. It is really good. I just wanted to mention it.

The second one, I highly recommend to anyone. It is called "The Peacegiver" by James Ferrell. It is a fiction book, which the author calls an extended parable, that is about the atonement. It is about a guy name Ricky who is having major trouble in his marriage and he feels like he has been really patient through all of it and kind of places the blame for everything on his wife. As he is sleeping one night, his deceased grandfather comes to him and they are allowed to be placed where they can actually view true scripture stories. These give the grandfather teaching opportunities which in time help Ricky see that the way out of his problems, of anyones problems is the atonement. It is a pretty powerful book which makes you take a deeper look at where you stand with the Lord and if you are unknowingly, or knowingly, sinful or hurtful towards others and the Lord. It has really given me a stronger desire to take a look at myself and find where I can change. It has also made me realize that I should study the scriptures more deeply. There are so many things in them that can bring us clarity, that I have missed so often. I gave this book to my friend who does not like to read at all. She rarely reads and does not enjoy it, but I convinced her. She finished it in 2 or 3 days and ordered 4 copies for her and for her family members. I also enjoyed sharing it with her because it opened our discussion up to more meaningful and deeper things. So read it and then share it. It really is one you have to read.

Lastly, I am thankful for General Conference. I think that probably like many of you it is something you anticipate and look forward to. I can't say that I was able to give my full attention all the time (I think you understand), but there were things in there just for me. So many of the things I have been pondering and searching for, were there. It is just a reminder that the Lord loves us all and wants ALL of us to return to him. There is hope for all of us. Why would we not make that effort when the promises are so great. I want to be better. I can feel him calling to me. It is a good feeling to feel loved.

India - Day 2 - The people and poverty

I want to take a few minutes and write some of my thoughts about the people and conditions in India. As I was preparing to come over here, many of my coworkers who have been here warned me about the poverty and the horrible living conditions of many people here. So I came in expecting that and thought I was prepared to handle it (after all I've seen poverty at times in my life before). Turns out I was SO unprepared for the reality of life here. The scale of the poverty here is just unimaginable - it's everywhere and deeply disturbing and very disheartening. People live in the most unimaginable conditions - many just sleep on the side of the road - others build shelters from tarps or tree branches or trash or mud or any other way they can be creative. Abandoned buildings are dismantled brick by brick and people use discarded building materials to build their little shacks. And it's not like there are just a few communities where the poor live - it's quite literally everywhere. We drove for four hours to Agra and saw very few if any areas where there weren't people living on the side of the road. The sanitary conditions are horrible. The bathroom is the side of the road and bathing is done anywhere you can find water - normally filthy dirty ponds.



I have to admit, the first few hours of seeing this I was repulsed and really didn't want to be here. I felt disgusted by what I saw and just wanted to run back to my nice clean cozy home in the U.S. and forget what I was seeing. But I guess as the day wore on, I started to see things in a little different light. As I watched people going about their daily lives, I didn't see a lot of despair among them. They seemed somehow content and happy with their lives. There wasn't the anger and envy or resignation we see among some of the poor in the U.S. Instead it's a people making the best of a bad situation. This was especially evident looking into their eyes (I believe you can learn a lot just looking into a person's eyes). I really felt a depth and a goodness in these people - a real understanding of life that doesn't appear in the eyes of too many Americans.

As can be expected in a situation like this, there are lots of beggars looking for handouts or looking to sell cheap trinkets for money. Everytime we would get out of our car, we would be immediately mobbed by people wanting something from us. As we were working our way back to the car, people would surround us and try selling us their goods as aggressivly as possible. They would even climb right into the car with us if we allowed it (and a few did). They wouldn't take no for an answer unless our Indian friend (travelling with us) would intervene and tell them to go away.

I have a soft spot in my heart for little children and would usually cave in and buy something from them. There was one particular little girl that I won't soon forget. We were at a rest area (if you can call it that - not like an American rest area). A little girl (about 4 years old) was there with her dad. He was playing some kind of musical instrument and she was dressed up in some outfit doing a shy little dance and asking for money. I had made up mind that I was going to ignore them and just make my way back to the car. As they approached I turned around and walked back into the rest area. They followed but of course didn't go inside. As I came back out, they were waiting there and started doing their little show. My coworkers and I just walked past them and went to the car. I climbed in the back and everyone else got in. The little girl had followed us to the car and was holding our her little hand for money. About the time the doors all closed I looked out and saw the little girl looking at me with a sad kind of look. As I sat there looking at her and thinking about how she lives and the life ahead of her my heart broke and I could only sit there and think "Hang in there little one." I smiled at her and gave her a big wink of encouragement. Most unexpectedly, she winked back at me and a huge smile spread across her face. As we pulled away she just started waving goodbye beaming with that big smile. I'm not sure why she made such an impact on me, but I thought about her for a long time in the car after that. I wish I could have done more for her.

I should say that while there is poverty, there isn't much hunger. People seem well fed and well nourished. Also, I feel very safe here. While I don't think my wallet is always safe, I don't feel personally threatened at all. I've only had one day's worth of experience but already feel like I'm understanding the people here better. I hope that understanding continues to grow. I so far feel really good inside about the people I'm meeting and seeing here.