Tippecanoe and Tyler, too!

As we wrap up our time here in Indiana, we decided we needed to stop by a few of the places we talked about going before we left. Yesterday, we got a taste of a little American history as we went to visit the Tippecanoe Battlefield. This is the site where William H. Harrison, then a future president of the US, made his name.

In short, there was a town not to far from this location where the Indian nations had formed a confederation capital that was known as Prophet's Town because they were led by a man they called the Prophet. The Prophet and his brother Tecumseh were trying to unite many Indian tribes together in order to resist the further expansion of white settlers in their territory. William Harrison went out to the area in with an armed militia. He sent representatives to meet with the Indians and they all agreed to avoid hostilities until a meeting could be held on the following day. Before the crack of dawn the next day, the Indians decided to surprise attack the militia men. They felt confident they could win because the Prophet told his men that he knew they would not get hurt because the militia's bullets would turn to dust before they hit them. William Harrison had suspected something like this might happen, so his men were prepared that night. In the end, the Indians' attempt failed, and defeated, they stripped the Prophet of his power and evacuated Prophet's Town.

Years later when William Harrison was running for President, there was a massive rally thrown for him at Tippecanoe Battlefield. He had been nick-named "Old Tipp" because of the role he had played in the battle. His presidential slogan became "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too!" (Tyler was his vice presidential candidate.) After his successful bid for the office, William Harrison (AKA - Old Tipp) had the shortest presidency of all because he died months after taking office.

There's your US history refresher for the day, and now on to the pictures...

A collection of "O" faces

This last one was of her folding her arms for prayer for the first time. Very sweet!

Jenna is convinced...

I love how children hear different lyrics to songs that we sing. Jenna is convinced that these are the correct lyrics...

Song #1:

"In the pretty garden the flowers are naughty..."

She insisted that this is how her Primary chorister taught it today. The song really says, " In the pretty garden the flowers are nodding..."

Song #2:

"Five green and speckled frogs sat on a speckled log eating some most delicious pots... Yum, yum!"

She also won't believe me that the song on her CD really says, "eating some most delicious bugs...." That's okay, I'm only a mom. I don't know anything (especially not the lyrics to children's songs).

One for the Grandparents (and everyone else, too)

Chap had his spring piano recital today. I knew that you would enjoy hearing him play. Enjoy!

Spring Fest and Bug Bowl

Ever year at Purdue there is a big celebration that is held called Spring Fest, and the main part of Spring Fest is the Bug Bowl! Calling all entomologists! This is the place for you!

(If you get queasy at the sight of bugs, I suggest you skip this post because there are some disgusting things below.)

I must say that they do interesting things here in Indiana! First and foremost, is a sport I had never heard of before...

Yes, you read their jackets right... cricket spitting! And you are thinking, "You mean they actually get people to put crickets in their mouth!" Yes, they do. And where they find these brave (I mean, deranged) souls, I don't know! We only watched one of these contests, and it involved only kids. As we stood by, I heard one observer explain that the crickets are frozen and they are supposed to spit them before they completely thaw in their mouths. (Gross! Gross! Gross! This is making me cringe even as I type this.) And what sort of prize do they get for winning? A T-shirt that says "Purdue Cricket Spitting" and bragging rights. I'm sure you're wondering how far someone can spit a cricket. Well, the longest spit we witnessed was 17'. Okay, I'm done discussing this. YUCK!

Fortunately, most of the rest of the afternoon was spent doing my kind of bug observing. (And I say most of the afternoon because there was one other delightful event - speaking with complete sarcasm - that deserves it's own post entirely.)

I like the bugs that I can look at on the other side of a glass case.

I have decided that I don't want to live in Africa or South America because they have some incredibly large insects there. Creepy!

Oh, I almost forgot...

We did witness one other disgusting event at Roachill Downs. Roach racing! Yes, they placed a bunch of roaches on the roach track and watched to see which ones ran the fastest. Of course, they don't quite get the point of the track and they run both ways. We also watched races with Madagascar hissing cockroaches hooked up to tiny toy tractors.

Now I want you to look closely at the race track, and realize that all the little spectators are dead cockroaches!

Yes, some professor at Purdue spent hours and hours positioning each and every one of these roaches. Disgusting! And now you know why we skipped the Insect Petting Zoo.

I now ask myself, what makes someone want to become an entomologist?

On to the more pleasant parts of Spring Fest...

It was an absolutely beautiful day, and the kids enjoyed the time outdoors.

And Jenna got her first ride on a horse!

Can he do it?

When you go to the Bug Bowl at Purdue, sometimes you do some pretty strange things!

Anchoring the Noon News

I have really enjoyed homeschooling Robby this year! Especially since it affords us the time and flexibility to do fun, educational field trips. This past week we had a blast visiting our local TV station, WLFI (a CBS affliate here in West Lafayette). Since we have spent the last several weeks studying weather in science, I thought it might be fun to meet a meteorologist and see what he/she does. Well, we got to do a lot more than I had originally expected, and it was so fun!

When I called the TV station, I didn't realize that we were scheduled to meet with the meteorologist who does the noon show (I don't normally watch the noon news). So I was surprised that the person giving us the tour was the same one on the morning news. Her name is Stefanie Davis, and she was awesome! She showed us all the rooms that they use to prepare the news program and how it all comes together, we got to meet the news crew and all the behind-the-scenes people, and then we got sit on the set to watch as the noon news was broadcast live! Very cool!

Before the show, she let us get pictures at the anchor desk. Who knows maybe Robby will be a news anchor someday! He actually has already been a news anchor before at his old school in Mesa. Their school announcements were given by the school's news crew, the Knightly News Team.

Above we are sitting with Stefanie. I have to say that I am very impressed with her (and weather men/women in general) because a lot of the time they are ad libbing their part of the broadcast, and they are the ones responsible for filling the time in the news broadcast if something goes awry during the show.

Here we are with Sue Scott, one of the noon news anchors.

And Robby and Stefanie standing next to the weather center.

I think we both learned a lot, at least I know I sure did!

Easter Egg Hunt Fun!

If you are ever around our house for Easter, you will find that the Easter bunny does some pretty crazy things around here. Every Easter he makes a BIG mess for the kids to clean up. And the mess looks like he got tangled up in yarn all over the house! This year he even left footprints all over my kitchen floor!

Luckily, the kids don't seem to mind the mess, and in fact, they love cleaning it up! (Probably because they get candy at the end!)

This year we did have one casualty though... somehow the Easter bunny managed to catch Dad in his string mess.

Fortunately, Jenna was willing to do what ever it took to save Dad!

By the end of the string ordeal, Chap had an egg shaped ball of string. How appropriate!

And where did all the string lead to? To a good ol' Easter Egg Hunt in the backyard!

(In case you were wondering, Olivia was down for her nap during the Easter fun. I think the Easter bunny knew that she might try to pull the string down!)

Have you ever found $5 in your pocket?

You know those pants that have been packed away for several months and you get them out and find out that you forgot you left $5 in the pocket. It feels like you've won a prize! Well, I've had my own version of it this week, only it didn't involve a pants pocket, and the big win was much, much bigger. Not long ago, everyone in our family had dentist's appointments. As Jenna and I were checking out at our appointment, a vague recollection came to mind that we had paid out of pocket for all of our previous dental visits six months earlier. Robby had just signed us up on the University's dental insurance the day before, so the insurance company didn't quite have our information in the system for the dental office to submit a claim yet. The dental office told me to call back in a week or so and ask them to submit the claim. Okay, so I forgot.

Back to a couple of weeks ago, I'm standing at the desk and asking if they can submit a claim for our dental visits 6 months ago. The billings lady informed me that she thought she could, but it depended on the company and whether we had waited too long to submit the claim. "Yikes!" I thought, "That will be one big mistake if I messed this up!"

Well, thankfully I didn't mess it up! Just a day or so ago, we received the claim report showing the full coverage for all of our visits last October. Hooray! Hooray! So we are getting back A LOT of money from the dental office that I had totally forgotten about until a couple of weeks ago. And I mean A LOT! Of the four of us, three of us had x-rays done at our October visits, and two of those three were full set of bite-wings (like 20 separate bite-wing pics - gagging all the way!) Dental visits are expensive! I'm glad that a least this time, the money is coming back to my pocket. Maybe I should leave it my pocket, so I can do a little dance when I find it there next winter!

Happy Easter!

We have definitely had an enjoyable day sharing with our little ones the true meaning of Easter. We asked Jenna today after church what Easter was about, and she said, "Easter eggs!" Well, sort of, but not exactly. Yesterday we had our easter egg hunt, and the delicious treats found within each of those colored eggs was still firm in her mind, so we enjoyed an afternoon snuggled together as we watched The Lamb of God and Finding Faith in Christ and talking about how much Jesus loves each one of us. Jenna is such a sweetheart and when she pretend plays, sometimes one of her "imaginary" friends is Jesus. I hope that each of our children always remember that Jesus is their friend.

For your view pleasure we took a few snap shots of the girls dressed in their matching Sunday dresses for Easter. As you can see they were having a lot of fun together...

These moments are priceless!

Sorry to miss out on pics of Robby, but he slipped into his room to change out of his Sunday best just as soon as we walked in the door after church.

March Catch-up: Adventures in Iowa

Occasionally, I post status updates on my facebook page, so you may or may not have heard that our house hunting trip to Iowa was a success! After two days and about 16 houses we found our house! Woo!! Hoo!!!

I must say that the Lord works in mysterious ways. I knew that there would be a house that was the right house, but yes, I was totally stressed about finding that house. I was afraid that I had set my expectations too high, and that I would disappointed. After the first day of house hunting I was really worried that my fears were being realized, and we were going to have to make a lot of compromises. More than I had planned on. You know, I was will to compromise, but I also had my hopes of how my house would be. Well the very first house we saw the second day was the house! We both knew it. We felt a peaceful feeling about this house.

I must also say that there are some amazing people in the Ames wards. One wonderful sister, Shannon Taylor, went above and beyond the call of duty to help us find a babysitter for our kids while we went house shopping and even watched them one day herself. She found a wonderful sister, Sis. Zimmerman, who offered to watch our kids as much as we needed while we were there. She was fabulous! And our kids had a great time! Especially Robby because he helped her son build a giant model of Egypt in the basment out of their enormous supply of duplos.

It was complete with the Nile river and a tomb of riches in the Great Pyramid!

Our kids also made some new friends with the children of some old friends of ours Kjell and Linley who only live about 7 minutes from our new house. Linley was also very kind to feed us dinner one night and watch our kids at the last minute when we found out Sis. Zimmerman had sick kids on Friday. (Thanks Linley! We look forward to being your "neighbor" soon!) We are also excited to meet all the other wonderful people in Ames!

We felt very blessed to find the house we did. It was a for sale by owner, and I feel like we were able to get a very good price for it. There were even some great things about it that I feel are huge bonuses, like we are about 50yds from a park with a playground! How cool is that?! After the contract writing was successful, and we realized that (as long as everything goes smoothly between now and the end of May) the house will be ours, a scripture started going through my head. "...unto whom much is given much is required." (D&C 82: 3 - this is an LDS book of scripture, if you are curious to learn more see here.) I know that I have been extremely blessed in my life even without a house. For some reason this transition just made this all the more real. But, I am trying to remember that I have a responsibility to be a wise steward and to do my best to use my resources in serving others. I know that the benefits of a house serve me only in this life, but I feel that there is a bigger reason why we are moving to this house. I am ready to do what I need to and to do the best to be the person I am supposed to be. I am truly excited for this transition now.

I will post pictures of the house once everything has closed and we are moved in. And just so you know, we are in the middle of several great LDS church history sites (Nauvoo - 4hrs., Liberty Jail and Independence, MO - 3 1/2hrs., and Winter Quarters, Nebraska - 2 1/2hrs.). We would love to have you come stay with us on your church history tour! Even if you aren't doing the church history thing, feel free to come and stay with us! We have room!

March Catch-up: St. Patrick's Day

Well, you know I'm alive because I have posted things here and there, but it has been a little while since I provided you pictures. So, without further ado...

St. Patrick's Day

We made our delicious green pancakes (just in case...

the green eggs and ham turns your stomach upside down.) Yum! Yum! We did refrain from turning the milk green this year.

And we had our annual reading of Green Eggs and Ham.

Many thanks to McKormick's green food coloring! We couldn't have done it without you!

Let's have a picnic

When I get busy with various tasks and my kids are left to their own devices, I never know what I am going to find when I re-emerge from the office or bedroom. This day it was to a very cute scene:

Picnic, anyone?

Sign of the trip

Another Jenna-ism

I am sitting on the couch with my three little ones surrounding me and I say, "I have three children."

Jenna pipes up and replies, "No, you have four children because Daddy is going to come home!"

On the bright side of life...

I've decided that the best (or one of the best) part(s) about life is children's laughter. Tonight we were watching a movie and I was thinking how much I enjoy listening to my kids crack up laughing. For Li'l Robby, it's corny jokes, absurd movie scenes, or his favorite Calvin and Hobbes comics. For Jenna, it's silly stories, playing with her brother and sister, and my favorite "tickle-time!" And for Olivia, it's goofy siblings playing games like peek-a-boo and chase, running in the grass, trying a new delicious food, or just anything that strikes her fancy. I need to laugh more just like they do! So what makes you laugh?

To the ASU Administration:

Thank you for once again reminding me that the University's image is much more important than those students who make up the body of its campus. May 14th of this year was to be the high point of my husband's university education. He was scheduled to graduate with his doctorate. A pinnacle that took him 13 years of higher education to reach. We have been dreaming about this day for years. This was to be a day for our family to celebrate this huge accomplishment. Not only the five of us in our family, but also our parents and his siblings, who have been our support system through these years of dedication.

All of us have had this day marked on our calendars for almost a complete year. That is until the university decided to make the day "better" or more "memorable" by inviting President Barack Obama to address the graduates. Oh, by the way, Mr. President can't make it to graduation on May 14th, so of course everyone will be glad to change their graduation schedule to May 13th with less than two months to go till graduation to accomodate the President's busy schedule. Never mind that some of us have already bought plane tickets that conflict with the new time. Did we also mention that now graduates can only have a maximum of 6 guests at commencement because everybody and their dog would like to attend commencement now? Forget about the fact that before there was no limitation to the number of guests, just remember that you get to hear the President. This ticket limitation is also for the doctoral candidates who will be hooded and receive their diplomas at this ceremony. And... as in my husband's case, this is the only graduation ceremony that he will have because the School of Business does not recognize their doctoral candidates in their school graduation.

So now we have to choose which of our loving family members will be able to witness my husband walk across the stage to receive his diploma. Let's see, there's me and my three children, his parents, my parents, and his sister and husband. Oops, that's ten! Excuse us for having a large and supportive family.

Thank you ASU administration for reminding me that commencement is all about the big name speaker and has nothing to do with the graduates. Wait, what was this ceremony for anyway?