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.