Missing

MISSING:

For my birthday, BJ got me Lego Harry Potter for our Wii.  That was less than a month ago.  Today we went to play it again and it has gone missing.  We have the case, we're only missing the disc.  Please help us find it!

Reward:

Dinner.

Unless you maliciously* stole it.  In that case, we'll give you our full and complete forgiveness.

Seriously.  You can even leave it anonymously on our doorstep.  Or lie through your teeth about how you got it.

Please?

*If you accidentally stole it, the reward of dinner still stands.

Birthday Cake

While in Riverton, we had a birthday party for Kessa.  BJ's parents came back into town, my parents came to Utah that weekend, so we took advantage of it and had a party.  I had a fun idea for a cake and my mom helped it become possible.

Stage one ended up with a pocket of missing frosting, making it look like a mouth.  Maybe a side view of Pacman?

Here it is all frosted and put together.

And with all the accessories.

Bad Mom

Sometimes I am a bad Mom.  I see Kessa doing something she shouldn't be, and instead of stopping her, I take pictures.

Like eating rocks.

Or…

Eating cheerios...

Feeding them to Jax...

Then grinning mischievously when she realizes she's been caught.

A week in Riverton

Remember how we went to Idaho for a week?  Well, soon after we got back (like two days) we went up to Riverton for the rest of the week.  BJ's family was vacationing in Vancouver and Teresa came home early for a summer gym class (so that she can take more electives during the school year).  We went up to stay with her and to transport her to and from class.

Here she is when we picked her up from the airport.  Turns out it was bad shot. Oh well.

One morning Teresa made her own breakfast.

 And made it all fancy schmancy.

Kessa loved to explore! So many new things?  She especially loved looking under things.

Her favorite spot was looking out the window in the door.  She would go there at least 10 times every day and just stare.  You can also see Jax and his ball here.  Kessa is his arch-nemesis.  He gets markedly less attention when she's around and he is Not OK with that.

We had lots of fun with Teresa that week.  I'm glad we got to spend so much one-on-one time with her.  And Kessa loved the extra attention.  Thanks for playing, Teresa!

Garden Update

Previous posts: Garden, Garden Part 2

All in all, I am quite pleased with the garden.  We had to replant some stuff, and the beans aren't doing so hot, but overall, it's doing fantastically.  We've already eaten a bunch of lettuce, spinach, cauliflower, broccoli (note: never plant 6 broccoli plants), zucchini, peas, tomatoes, borage, cucumbers, and a few carrots, beets, and yellow squash and a bean.  And now Travis is leaving for a month, so I get a month of harvest all to myself.  Mmmm.  Zucchini bread, here I come!  :)

Alright, here are some before and after shots.   (Some stolen from those previous posts.)

Front Garden:

Before

After

Back Garden:

Before(ish) (We didn't get a picture when it was a weed patch)

After

Close-ups

And… the hammock.  That was supposed to go in the back garden, but it was too big, so it's in the back yard instead.

First ice cream

Kessa's birthday was June 6.  Travis and Andrea came over for dinner that night and we made ice cream.  Mmmm.  So tasty.  We decided that Kessa should have her first real taste of sugar to celebrate.  I think she liked it.

At first she was timid about taking little bites.

But after she tasted it, she ate it ravenously.

Kessa's blessing

Ok, so this is way overdue, but I just recently got the pictures for Kessa's baby blessing.

Her dress was made by Grandma Lovell. Isn't it adorable? Here are some of my favorites pictures.

Scariness

I was driving down Center Street to the freeway today and was stopped at the light at Orem Blvd. I was just kinda looking around and noticed this guy in a motorized wheelchair going over to push the button for the pedestrian light. Between the sidewalk and the pedestrian light is a small grass hill. He couldn't reach the button from the sidewalk, so he started to move up the hill and proceeded to continue rolling right onto his back. I watched in horror as he fell out of his wheelchair, head hitting the sidewalk, hat flying out into the street. I audibly gasped and threw my hand up to my mouth. Luckily the light turned green right then, so I quickly turned right, pulled into the Roberts' parking lot, taking up 2-3 parking spots, and tried frantically to free myself of the seat belt and get the car in park, etc.

I was frightened to see that the guy was still there on the sidewalk by himself. It had taken me a minute or two to get to the parking lot. But as soon as I got out of my car, there was another guy at my side and we both ran over to him.

He was laying on the ground, eyes closed. I was frightened. My heart was threatening to crack a rib or two, spurred on by the torrents of adrenaline pumping through my veins. I just knew he was dead or at least unconscious. I knelt down next to him and shook his shoulder. His eyes flickered open. Relief flooded over me. "Are you ok?" both the guy who ran with me and I asked together. "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine." "Did you hit anything?" the other guy asked. The guy on the ground answered a bit sarcastically, "Yeah. My head." Humor was a good sign.

So the other guy started to help the wounded guy to his feet while I tried to stand his wheelchair back up. Have you ever lifted a motorized wheelchair? They are ridiculously heavy. I also spotted a piece of rubber on the ground. Trying to figure out where it belonged, I searched the wheelchair. It went on the joystick. Then I had to try to move the wheelchair over to the guy who was now being assisted by Guy #2 who had just joined us. I tried to just push the wheelchair over, but that doesn't work very well in a motorized wheelchair. We finally got him back in his chair as another lady showed up. The whole while, we just kept asking if he was ok and he kept assuring us that he was fine. He seemed quite chill about the whole thing, if even a little embarrassed by the attention.

I pushed the pedestrian buttons for him, then told him so. "Oh, is that what I was doing?" Uhhhh… bad sign. Then he glanced over and was like, "Oh yeah. I was trying to reach that button when I slipped back." (Ok, better sign.) Then he decided to go on his way. The other lady refused to leave until he crossed the street safely*. Me and the other two guys then left just as another woman joined the fray.

We got to the parking lot, all still shaking from the rush of adrenaline. Turns out the first guy didn't see what caused the fall, only the fall itself. He was afraid that he may have fallen into traffic. The second guy didn't see the fall at all, only the guy laying on the sidewalk next to his wheelchair.

I'm glad I was there to help the guy. More so, I'm glad other people responded as quickly as they did. I never would have been able to help that guy into his wheelchair. It took two grown men to do that. I'm glad I didn't have Kessa with me, because I don't know how I would have handled that. Would I have left her in her car seat in the car in the heat? Would I have taken the extra time to unbuckle her, then try to help the guy with a baby in tow? And mostly I'm grateful the guy was ok.

That was a very scary experience.


*I realized as I was driving off that we should have checked to see if his eyes were dilated or anything, in case he had a concussion. Oops. Really, I hope he's ok where ever he is.

Reverence

D&C 107:2-4 states:

The first is called the Melchizedek Priesthood… because Melchizedek was such a great high priest.

Before his day it was called the Holy Priesthood, after the Order of the Son of God.

But out of respect or reverence to the name of the Supreme Being, to avoid the too frequent repetition of his name, they, the church, in ancient days, called that priesthood after Melchizedek, or the Melchizedek Priesthood.

The ancient church renamed their priesthood to avoid the too frequent repetition of the name of the Supreme Being.  BJ and I talked at length about this today and read it two different ways.

1. God, or in Hebrew, Eloheim, held enough reverence to them that they renamed their priesthood to lessen the amount of times it would be said. This makes sense as God is typically the one attributed the title Supreme Being.  Also, because it is the only name actually said in the English translation (which was translated by God into revelation by Joseph Smith) in the phrase, "Holy Priesthood, after the Order of the Son of God."  It doesn't make sense because Eloheim is written many times in the scriptures and it never seems to be held in any sort of exceptional reverence like we see here.

2. Perhaps "Son of God" was just a wordy way of saying Jehovah.  Scriptural language tends to say things in a much more wordy way in English than it was said in Hebrew.  (Example: Thou shalt not steal in Hebrew is actually a simple, "Don't steal".)  This would make sense because the name of Jehovah was very sacred in the scriptures.  The word for the Messiah was only said once a year, only by the High Priest, and only in the Holy of Holies.  When it was written in scripture, it was written without vowels (YHWH) so we still don't know for sure the exact pronunciation (though we have a pretty good guess).  In our current scriptures, we see it written as LORD in small caps.  (Now you know!)  Though, we see that written all over in our scriptures, too.  The difference is that Eloheim is allowed to be spoken whereas YWHW* is not.

Which name this is referring to actually has little bearing on the reason for this post.  Mostly it was part of my thought process and discussion and I have soft spot for sharing cultural things for Bible topics.  :)

Really where my thoughts went when I read this was more along the lines of reverence.  Why is it that the name of Deity was so sacred that they would rename their priesthood to make sure they didn't say it too often?  I mean, saying the name of the priesthood is usually in a gospel context.  It's probably not like it was used in casual conversation.  Though, BJ points out that we do use it that way at times.  Like if we talk about a Melchizedek Priesthood Quorum activity or something.  And I suppose that if the ancient church was anything like our current church, it would have been easy to abbreviate the name of it, just to say it faster.  (Home, Family and Personal Enrichment, anyone?)  And that would detract from the sacredness of the name as well.

I find it odd mostly because we don't currently hold names in such a light.  We don't have any names that are too sacred for us to say.  (Or on the other hand, any names that are too feared for us to say.)  I have a hard time relating.  I mean, I don't use the Lord's name in vain.  I don't use it as a swear word or a shock tactic.  But in gospel conversations, I have no problem at all saying God or Jehovah in respect to those beings.  Why is that?

I'm convinced that as a culture at large, we don't give proper respect to deity.  Is it possible that as a church culture we still don't give proper respect?  We understand that we shouldn't use His name in vain (thanks to the 10 Commandments (which the simple fact that it is one of the 10 commandments shows that perhaps the ancient church struggled with the idea of reverencing the name of God as well)), but is that enough?

If the name of God were rarely said, it would draw more attention to His sacred nature.  As it is, has God become more of (for lack of a better term) a household item?  Do we treat him with the reverence that He deserves?

I'm not sure.  I don't want to turn all Pharisaic on you here.  I don't want to grab one verse of scripture and make it out to be a bigger deal than it was meant to be.  But still, it is an interesting thought.  How do I reverence God and Jehovah?  Should I be doing more?  Do they hold a special place in my heart?  Or are they much more common in my mind**?

Thoughts?



*Fun fact.  The word Jehovah was actually made up as a name for the Lord based on this word (called the tetragrammaton).  The Hebrew word for lord (like the lord of the vineyard) is adonai.  If you take the vowels from adonai, or lord and add them to the consonants of YHWH, and then say them all like an ancient Jew would have, you'd get Yahowah, which in current English is Jehovah.
** Another fun fact.  I used the word "God" 11 times in this blog post.  Well, make that 12, now.  See?  Totally easy and acceptable to say in a gospel setting.

Meat. A lot of meat.

My parents recently butchered a cow and split the meat (and cost of butchering) between us kids.  For $103.11 BJ and I got the following:

• 3 Chuck Roasts
• 2 Arm Roasts
• 1 Rump Roast
• 1 Sirloin Tip Roast
• 4 Rib Steaks
• 2 Round Steaks
• 4 T-Bone Steaks
• 3 Top Sirloin Steaks
• 4 Stew Meat packages
• 1 Rib Steak/Top Sirloin Steak
• 29 ground beef (1.5 pounds each)

Note: That's the number of packages.  I believe each package of steak comes with 2 or 4 steaks in it.  (I haven't opened one up to be sure.)  And the roasts vary in size, but they're all fairly large.

All in all, I think we got an awesome deal. I mean, even the hamburger alone I would have spent about $87 on at the grocery store.  That about pays for it all.  And steak and roasts cost a bit more than hamburger.

I think we'll be having beef for dinner for awhile.