Frozen Cyclones

Guest blogger Robby here. The contract's signed, and I'll be an Iowa State Cyclone next year, joining the Management Department as an assistant professor.

Iowa State has some family connections: My uncle Wayne worked as an agronomist there until a few years ago and his wife Toni graduated with an accounting degree from ISU.

I really liked the folks out there, and we're grateful to have had such a good employment opportunity, especially in a difficult economy.

But one thing we're going to have to warm up to (so to speak) is the weather. Iowa is further north than I had ever realized. Now I've always known where Iowa belonged on a map, but I guess I never paid particular attention to the fact that it's right up next to states like Minnesota and South Dakota. Brrrrrr.

For example, how many of these ten cities are further north than Ames?

Boston, MA
Chicago, IL
Cleveland, OH
Hartford, CT
Laramie, WY
Logan, UT
New York, NY
Omaha, NE
Pittsburgh, PA
West Lafayette, IN

Got your answer? Okay, scroll on down.























Answer: Just one--Boston would be 12 miles up the road if it were slid over to central Iowa. All of the other cities lie south of Ames. (Guess Iowa's not quite as middle America as I thought.) As it turns out, Ames isn't just farther north than a lot of cold-weather U.S. cities, it's even farther north than some points in Ontario, Canada.

But farther north doesn't have to mean colder, right? After all Seattle is farther north than Chicago.

So here's the real question: How many of the following cities are colder than Ames (i.e., lower average January temperature)? Cities farther north than Ames are designated with a double asterisk.

**Boston, MA
Chicago, IL
Cleveland, OH
Hartford, CT
Laramie, WY
Logan, UT
New York, NY
Omaha, NE
Pittsburgh, PA
West Lafayette, IN
**Anchorage, AK
**Berlin, Germany
**Billings, MT
**Boise, ID
**Buffalo, NY
**Calgary, Alberta, Canada
**Detroit, MI
**Donetsk, Ukraine
**Geneva, Swizerland
**Helsinki, Finland
**Ithaca, NY
**Kodiak, AK
**Leipzig, Germany
McMurdo Station, Antarctica
**Milwaukee, WI
**Novosibirsk, Siberia, Russia
**Oslo, Norway
**Rapid City, SD
**Reykjavik, Iceland
**Saint Petersburg, Russia
**Spokane, WA
**Stockholm, Sweden
**Toronto, Ontario, Canada
**Warsaw, Poland

Make your guess in the comments. Answer next Sunday night. Popsicles to the winner!

So what are you doing on Black Friday?

I don't know about you, but I've been redesigning my blog! (If you are reading this in google reader click through to see the changes.) Ta-dah! What can I say, I was getting a little envious of everybody else's cute blogs. Plus, Robby hated the background I had thrown up on our blog a few months ago. So now I have gone from him disliking my background to disliking my new title. I just keep reminding him that in reality this is my blog since I do almost all of the posting! He just posts occasionally as a guest. We tried to come up with another title together, but nothing else we could think of fit with the new design. So for now it stays.

Anyhow, many thanks to Andra for posting links to the tutorials she used to do her blog face lift back in September.

Little Robby turns 10!

As the days, weeks, and years of Little Robby's life thus far have passed, I know I have found many joys, but it is at times like his birthday, that I realize how much time is now gone. As a child, each year seems an eternity, but now that I am a mom, each year seems but a fleeting moment. I know Robby is not grown yet, but to think that his time as a child in our home is more than half way over is hard for me to imagine.

My labor of love this week was putting together a slideshow of Little Robby's life. Seeing each of these moments that I remember so vividly on the screen, makes me wonder whether I have savored these moments enough. Our children are only little for so long. Yes, I will admit that I have cried a little this past week... not because he's making me older, but because I sometimes wish I could sneak back and relive some of these moments with him.

I am so very grateful to have Robby as my son. He is a blessing and a miracle in my life. I know that there will be many moments to come in his life that I will cherish just as those in this slideshow, but now I realize that I need to slow down and savor this moment because it only lasts so long.

I hope you enjoy reflecting with me...

Reflections on Proposition 8

I’ve watched with keen interest over the past few weeks as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (of which I am a member) has been targeted by protesters for its support of California’s Proposition 8 which preserved traditional marriage in the state. Over a dozen Church buildings have been vandalized, some Church members have walked past picketers to get to their Sunday services, and the Church’s Los Angeles temple was forced to close at one point.

Leaders of the Church—whom members revere as modern-day prophets—took an unequivocal position on Prop 8, urging members that, “Our best efforts are required to preserve the sacred institution of marriage.”

In light of the Church’s strong stand on the issue, protests by segments of the gay community have been somewhat unsurprising. What has been more striking has been that a noticeable portion of Church members has also opposed Church leadership on the issue. While the absolute number of such dissenters has been relatively small, I think Prop 8 portends increased levels of conflict within the Church over social issues in the coming years.

Church leader Harold B. Lee said:

“We have some tight places to go before the Lord is through with this church. The power of Satan will increase; we see it in evidence on every hand. There will be inroads within the Church.... We will see those who profess membership but... [are] trying to lead people not to follow the leadership that the Lord has set up to preside in this church.

Now the only safety we have as members of this church is... to give heed to the words and commandments that the Lord shall give through his prophet.... There will be some things that take patience and faith. You may not like what comes from the authority of the Church. It may contradict your political views. It may contradict your social views. It may interfere with some of your social life.

But if you listen to these things, as if from the mouth of the Lord himself, ... the promise is that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; yea, and the Lord God will disperse the powers of darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good, and his name's glory."

The gay marriage issue will be just one of many polarizing issues that will sift the Church. Sooner or later, each one of us will be tested. The key to our protection will be a willingness to follow the Lord’s prophets.

Robby

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More...

• For a ground-zero perspective on Prop 8 from old family friend Chelsea Combs, see here or here.
• A first-hand experience by my sister Andra with Arizona's similarly worded Prop 102 is here (registration required).
• Also, Elder Neal A. Maxwell weighs in on the subject here.

This post is worth the wait!

I know I have been out of my blogging routine, but we haven't had a lot of blog-worthy material... until now! Check this out!

And I promise that I will have another blog-worthy post this week-end... especially since something very big is happening this weekend for our boy. If you're wondering what, it invovles me crying because my baby #1 is getting older than I can believe. Check back Sunday night.

Happy Halloween... take two!

If at first you don't succeed, try again using Firefox (see the previous post.) I don't know what it is, but if I can't load things using Explorer, Firefox usually comes through for me. So you don't have to wait on my Halloween pics after all!

One thing I have learned is that the more kids you have the harder it gets to have them all looking at the camera at the same time...

First Jenna looks away...

then Olivia blinks her eyes...

and then Olivia looks away. Oh well, you get the point.

And for our Halloween characters we have Sleeping Beauty,

a jedi knight,

and a bumble bee!

And the prize for the best "treat" in the candy bucket goes to...

Our dentist for giving all the kids toothbrushes AND a bag of candy. And as my childhood dentist had posted in his office "Brush only those teeth you wish to keep!" (especially after Halloween!)

Sweet dreams everyone!

Happy Halloween!!

Okay, so after 15 or so frustrating attempts to load my halloween pictures to blogger, all I have to show is one picture. I guess everybody else is trying to load their equally cute halloween pics tonight. Well, I can't wait on a server to catch up to the demand because I have a very early morning tomorrow, so my teaser picture is Jenna...

demonstrating what our kids looked like this evening after eating a healthy portion of their Halloween candy.

(More Halloween pictures to follow.)