Boys like chess.

I recall the days of yore when Ben (younger brother) and I discovered my parent's chess set.  It was a nice set of sculpted (molded?) chess pieces with long faces in cream and black.  In subsequent years, we had to re-learn what chess pieces looked like, because most people's chess pieces were more symbolic than the ones my parents had.

We would have been 11 or 12, and felt pretty clever.  We read through the instructions, set up the chess board, and started learn how to play.  It seemed like I did a good job of discovering ways that I could really wallop Ben.  Games would take a while, as we considered the ramifications of our moves and learned to plan three or four moves in advance.  Only, it couldn't last.

After a while, Ben discovered that he could beat me again and again due to my eagerness to get the game moving a bit faster.  He would carefully measure the benefits of each move, and I would react sometimes too impulsively, or allow sacrifices with a bit too much reckless abandon.  Good strategy, eh?  Make the other player want to get the game moving so that he's carelessly aggressive!

Well, for the last three days, we've had a sick boy in our house.  Ian has had a fever, and it's on its way out.  BUT>  he wasn't healthy enough to go to a baptism at church with the rest of the family so I stayed home with him.  I thought it was time to pull out our glass chess pieces, dig out some patience, and teach Ian how to play!

It was fun to watch him learn the rules and play with quite a bit of consistency (except he kept forgetting about knights every once in a while).  In the end, he beat me once, and I beat him once.  What a fun afternoon for a sick boy and his dad!

Time chunks, my perspective

Do you remember when your age was the new number that you were given each year?  You identified by it almost as much as your name.  It was a very important characteristic.  Sometimes when Blake is introduced to people, they'll say something like, "Hi Blake!" and his answer will be "I'm fee."  (Three)

I remember getting so excited to get a new number.  Like six to seven was memorable, because we were having a birthday out on the lake fishing from a pontoon boat.  I recall seeing a photograph of me holding up seven of my fingers with great pride!  The other day, a member of our ward came over, and asked Ian how old he was, "Seven and a half."  Remember when you were so proud of your half!?  It was a big deal!  Book-keeping was not an issue.  Now I have to compute and ask myself: what year is this, what year was I born, and have I had my birthday yet this year?  Honestly, I have a hard time keeping up.  Maybe that's part of the point.

When we were kids, there were lots of age-based transitions.  Kindergarten after you are 5, you could be interviewed for baptism at 8.  I remember being on vacation and getting teased (or supported?  whatever it was, it was attention that I felt awkward about) about becoming a pre-teen.  Oh dear.  A pre-teen!  Age 12 had it's own strangeness.  Then we would look forward to being a full-teenager, eligible for an age-based driving permit, then license.

The years ticking over felt so significant.  Part of that might have been that we dated all of our school papers.  I remember feeling the impetus of changing from 1992 to 1993.  Seriously.  1992 just flowed, it was a part of my state of being, then all of a sudden this awkward number 1993 came along.  It took some getting used to, and felt monumental.  Now the only significance of the year turning over is that my bank checks won't clear if I put the wrong date at the top.  (On the other hand, the seasons fly like I had never considered they could, and I feel like my babies are growing up way too fast.)

When I was a kid, I really looked forward to being a missionary, and saved my earnings in a bank account for that day when I would be an adult, living somewhere on my own, preaching the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.  Fast forward to 2000 when I arrived to the Preston MTC and I felt like a big kid being asked to be mature and do something important.  My ability to fulfill that expectation (maturity!) probably ebbed and flowed a bit.  Most of the time, I felt like I had to keep answering the question of how such a young (baby-faced) American was allowed by his mother to live a continent away on his own.  I never felt shy or timid.  Though there was that one time when I ran into someone from my first area (after having been in England for more than a year) and they said they remembered how quiet and timid I had been as a new missionary.  (Really?  Or do they just say that to all missionaries?)

I got married at age 21, but didn't feel any disadvantage for it.  Marching through with confidence and dedication seemed to work in other realms of my life, so establishing a household would work out just fine.  There was this really odd feeling of being discounted as a inexperienced, non-contributor in one of our family wards in Utah.  I guess it was just the feeling of being pre-judged not based upon me, but upon my life status as a young newlywed.

This categorizing is inevitable, but pre-judging based on categories isn't really necessary.  Here are a couple of examples where I've seen some impacts of this tendency:

Undergraduate vs. Graduate:  At BYU, it seemed like the undergraduates generally didn't mingle with the graduate students.  Graduate students always seemed to be the old and wise, so focused, and their sense of fun was much more tempered.  (Maybe for many cases, this was true, but certainly not a rule!)

Newlywed vs. Oldywed:  In our married student ward at church, everyone was newlyweds (less than 5 years married), but it was interesting to watch how some of the 19-21 year old women had a hard time socializing with the 22-24 year old women.  I think there was one woman who was 27, and she was definitely an anomaly.   There were quiet appraisals of each other based upon child count, years before graduation, and other external factors.  I think Jen and I did a decent job of not looking after these external  judgements and mingling with people of a variety of vital statistics, but not everyone found it so easy.

Renters vs. Owners: In our current ward, when we moved here it seemed like people welcomed us well enough, but when they heard we were renters (instead of home owners), that our tenure in the ward was already doomed, and perhaps our value (long term) to the ward was in question.  And yet, we've been renting the same place for nearly 7 years, and I think we've done a good enough job at demonstrating our stable, steady contribution.  Perhaps in some ways, the perspective of time/tenure is shifted since we include a military base, and a long-time member is anyone who has been here longer than the 3-4 years of a military rotation.

I guess the conclusion that I'm trying to illustrate is that there's a natural tendency to create a perspective that hinges upon age, that actually discounts (or promotes) a person purely on life status.  Here's a potential application--from that verse in Timothy 4:12, I think the advice was at first about just acting like a true disciple, regardless of how people might pre-judge you:

Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.

But what would happen if we also made a concerted effort to apply this in reverse:

Avoid judging another person's youth or seniority; but see their qualities as believers, in their words, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.

Things I wish I'd known about earlier...

Some people cleverly assess, "You don't know what you don't know."  I think I'd like to add, "...until you know now that knowing then would have been so much better."

Do you ever have those moments where you just think, Boy, I wish I would have known about that long ago!?  I get those moments regularly.   Here are a few:

1.  When you take your own family pictures on your digital camera, often you can set it to some sort of "Blast Mode" where it will take up to 10 pictures in timer mode with programmable increments.  This would have been incredibly handy to know about back in the day when we would take one, then go back and click in timer mode to take another, then another, then another.  Now we say "go" and get 8 or 10 shots, where one of them turns out quite good!

Keep clickin.  I need your eyes, boys!

2. Medicines of many variety.  There's nothing like living with the pain of some condition for a while only to find out once you're better that there's treatment that can take care of {it} quite easily.  As a very generic case: Did you know that you can get Neosporin with pain relief now?  I've found that a wound heals in like 3 days when I use triple antibiotic, and like a week or more if I don't!  I can't believe it took me so long to stop trying to "tough it out."  (There are many other medications that cure various ailments that aren't worth waiting to see if my body will heal itself, but for your sake, I won't bring them up.)

3. Dash-board back-lights.  They are quite simple to replace, in the long run.  For the first 8 years of us driving our Corolla, I was certain that there was no back-light to the temperature control panel.  Then one day, I thought out of the blue, "I wonder if it covers bulb replacement in the repair manual?"  Voila!  There was an answer!

4. You can get bits and bobs to replace parts on your car on Ebay.  In the car mentioned in (3), we bought it with a blank in the dashboard where the clock should have been.  You know, a base model really is a base model!  A few minutes on Ebay and $10 later, we solved the problem that had eluded us for so long.  (Honey, remember when we bought that little LCD clock that velcroed to the dashboard?  You remember, the one that melted right off in the hot Tennessee summer?)

5.  Once Jen got a Home Depot line of store credit and was given a power sander as a free gift.  For years I used it and wondered why the suction bag wasn't collecting any of the sanding dust.  Well, turns out that poky plastic thing is meant to perforate the sandpaper so the fans can suck up the dust. Duh.  I should have read the instructions, and I could have prevented LOTS of dust in the basement.

6.  Last summer we had this problem with our oven that it smelled of gas, and wouldn't turn on unless we were willing to cook at 450 F.  Even then, it would sometimes take 45 minutes to heat up.  Something was wrong.  Well, about 9 months later, we get to poking around and find out that the ignitor was worn out.  Twenty bucks on Amazon, and we were cooking like champs again!  (Why did we not investigate for 9 months?  You got me!)

7.  Going to bed with a hot water bottle or letting an electric blanket warm up your bed for you is blissful.  Granted, you could also heat up your house for the night, but isn't it just so much more economical to heat up the part of the house that you are most concerned about?  I mean really.  No reason to heat the whole house just to generate a warm bed for you to hop into.

8.  You can get a car battery backup to keep in the trunk instead of jumper cables.  Then you don't have to worry about pestering a stranger for a jump, situating cars, and worrying that some helpful soul will actually damage your car trying to do something he knows nothing about.  My dear old dad gave me one for my birthday a few years ago (or was it Christmas?  I'm getting to old to remember), and we've probably already used it a dozen times!

9.  Baby powder on your feet at the beach helps keep the sand from sticking to your sweaty skin as you make your way back to the car.  This is a helpful hint we just tried out this summer, and whaddya know, it works!  I can't believe we've been tracking sand around all these years.

10.  I made many batches of apple sauce, and later on baby food, by pressing rendered fruits and vegetables through a sieve.  Little did I know that after cooking them, running them through the food processor as good as pulverizes them to a pulp.  Now seriously, this sounds obvious, but there were many years that I didn't treat it as obvious.  Moving on.

11.  I know this is commonplace now, but seriously, I can't get enough of the 110V to 5V USB chargers.  Remember when you had your ONE choice for your cell phone charger, and if you forgot it you were toast?  Now with common charging cables, and most of them compatible with USB plugs, these nifty adapters are incredibly useful.  For that matter, I picked up a couple of the 12V USB chargers for the cigarette lighters in the cars, and now we have no excuse for having a dead cell phone!

12.  And this lesson I seem to have to learn again and again:  Toss the old food rather than eating around it.  I have learned this lesson many times, (which means I haven't learned this lesson, right?)  I don't dare list examples, because it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

What are some of the things you've learned along the way that would have been helpful to know earlier?

Restricted activities

{A post by Joe.}
Have you ever thought about what you should say when you greet someone who you know has a very routine life, but you want to be interested in them?

image from here.

Some people walk a well-beaten path and don't look for adventure.  Sometimes these are single friends who aren't victim to the ups and downs of having children in the home.  Sometimes they are our introvert friends who don't get out much because doing so makes them feel uncomfortable.  I recognize that everyone has hobbies and interests, and that I suppose makes the best place to start.

I can be supportive by showing interest in what the other person is interested in.

But then, there is a class of people who are constrained based upon age or health.  For example, when I was a kid, I often visited Sister Stubblefield and Sister Keys and Sister ______ with dad, who was their home teacher for church.  It seems like if you visit a person in a nursing home, you might say, "How have you been?"   Then the answer might be (or almost always is) health related.  You wouldn't probably say, "What have you been up to?" for fear of making the person embarrassed because there's really not much variety in the daily routine.  You could ask other questions, like "How are your grandkids?"  But then, you run the risk of asking a question that they don't know the answer to.  I once asked a widow whose children were estranged how her family was doing, and all I got in return was tears.  Good going, Joe.  Make the dear lady cry.  It's much easier if the elderly person still has hobbies (even just checkers, TV shows, or reading the paper).

If a person doesn't have something to look forward to, perhaps I can BE what someone looks forward to.

image from here

I have a friend in prison that I was recently prompted to write a letter to.  I had that same dilemma... you don't really want to ask, "How are things going?" especially when you know that prison is the pits and there's really not a whole lot to talk about.  (Am I wrong?)  You could ask about the day to day activities, I guess, but in the end, the expectation is that the response is likely to be on the pessimistic side of things since activities are so restricted.

I can let the person know I care about them as a person even though they have very little choice with their daily activity.

Then there's the other side:  You could just jump right in and talk about what you've been doing, offer the update on work, the family, the world around you.  Quite ego-centric, but at least there's less risk of making a person feel lame.  Or perhaps not?  Perhaps describing the activities that you have been up to will just make the insecure or home-bound or cell-bound feel bad about being left out, or yearning for the days gone by when they were more able to participate in the joys of life.  Is this a catch-22 case?

So I leave it to you:  What in the world can I say to someone who is (more-or-less) confined to life condition that is relatively uneventful (such as a nursing home or a prison) and not sound like an insensitive jerk who is so wrapped up in self?  The fact is that I hold a certain place in my heart for these individuals, and want them to be comfortable and happy as much as their circumstances allow... which allowance might actually be very low at the moment.  An enigmatic situation, if you ask me.  Thoughts?

More details on our house.

Some of you wanted to know more about our new house.

Well, it has floors.  And a ceiling.  And walls.  Really it has everything you need in a house.

In truth, I want to know more about the property too.   Much of getting to know it will involve living/working/playing there over the upcoming years (exciting!)  Houses in New England have character, but I feel like our relationship with the house is off to a great start.  I guess I should be more specific.

Features that I'm looking forward to getting to know:

• the 10x12 garden shed
• the pair of apple trees that need pruned so they'll bear fruit again
• the climbing trees in the backyard

• the Heatilator in the fireplace, and 
• the Suburban Automatic Wood Heater in the basement

• how to refinish wood cabinets and install hidden hinges
• how to spruce up a bathroom

• what's the best use for under-eave storage

•  how to seal up Jaousie windows for the winter

Stats that I already know:

• Nearly twice the square footage of our current house (we'll have 1918 sq. ft. of heated living space!)
• Twice the square footage of our current basement (storage! workshop!  future finishing!)
• Four big bedrooms instead of three
• Two baths instead of one, and three toilets instead of one
• Two decks instead of zero
• Three above-ground entrances instead of two
• One potentially usable attic instead of zero

Yes, this is just a trickle of details.  I'm just so excited for the move, I want the newness to linger on.  Plus we haven't closed yet, and we've got two more weeks until the papers are signed.  That ought to give Jen a chance to write something inspiring and lovely about how much we love our new house!

My pie? It hath lost its savor.

{A post by Joe.}

I ran into a bit of an issue last night.  Back story: my friend Peter who lives in the Marshall Islands for work came to Boston to visit the corporate offices of his employer.  Each year when he comes for a site visit, we have him over for dinner (because we love him and his family that much!  We're so sad they're half a world away.)  The first time he came to visit, I had just made a beautiful apple pie and he admitted that neither he nor his wife makes pies, and apple is a favorite.  Well, the next year, knowing he was coming, I made another pie for him, and it was delicious.

Yesterday, who strolled into church?  Our friend Peter!  Of course, we invited him to come and chill with us for his Sabbath day and break his fast and catch up for a while.  Recognizing the makings of a tradition, I offered to make an apple pie.  A Kwajalein Atoll Pie.  I have Sister Lepley's crust recipe, which is perfect every time.  I have frozen apple pie filling from last year's apples.  Perfect!




{Kwajalein from the sky.}
Only.  This time it wasn't perfect.   Jen took a bite, and said, "Joe, there's something wrong with this pie." Thinking through the steps.  Oh no!  I forgot the salt!  In my zeal to blend the fats and water into the flour, I forgot the salt!

She took another bite.  "Joe, I don't think it's just the salt."  I considered the filling.  It was a bit watery, because I didn't add any cornstarch.  "Sorry dear, I should have added cornstarch to thicken it."

A third bite.  "This isn't just a salt or liquid issue, there's something else."   I took a deep whiff of the pie.  I knew the smell.  I brought the flour tub that I had just refilled over to her and had her take a smell.  Then I dipped my nose in (and got a puff of white baker's flour on the tip of my nose) and declared that the flour was rancid.  Bleh.   The pie had to go.  Sad night in the Jackson house.  I took Peter's pie and from him (I think he was still enjoying it?) and dumped it.  What an embarassment!?

The back-story is that another friend was moving out of state and didn't want to travel with food storage.  What's more, much of the canned food was out of date, and not good for much.  He was just going to dump it all, but I told him I'd take whatever he didn't find a use for and would feed it to the pigs.  (Turns out the pigs like macaroni, pudding, and powdered milk quite alot!)  I hung onto some of the staples, figuring they might still be good and pigs wouldn't really go for plain flour/sugar etc.  So it turns out, when the label says flour is good for 5 years, they don't really mean 8 years.  Once several years ago we had a problem with mildewed sacks of flour, which I tried to extricate the good flour from the middle of the bags away from the edges (hint: FAIL).  Now this year I tried to stretch some old flour by including it in something sweet (also: FAIL).  Tonight we tried one last ditch effort.  Banana bread which has a host of other flavors.  (guesses?  FAIL).

So, as it was the Sabbath I got to thinking about salty scriptural metaphors.  I was also thinking about the salt because someone at church was saying their grandfather was a salt of the earth type of guy.  What a strange phrase.  I think he was meaning for the case where the salt of the earth means humble and unpretentious people.  Or from Matthew 5:13,

 13 ¶Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

There are lots of different interpretations for this verse, but here's the one I'm going to consider today: Scientists have declared that salt cannot really lose its own flavor.  But one thing I've always noticed is that salt makes OTHER flavors stand out more.  Broccoli? Better with salt.  Same with watermelon, meat, potatoes in their many varieties, soup, even bread.  Salt seems to bring out the best in an ingredient.  It helps the item accentuate what it really does for the meal.

It's my opinion that salt is like the "motivational speaker" of the ingredient world.  Without salt, I can tell you there would be much less french fries eaten.  As the salt of the earth, I think the disciples' job was to bring out the best in people and help them project their best flavor-- essentially to repent and prepare for the salvation of the Lord.  (Perfect the saints, proclaiming the gospel, caring the poor and needy, perhaps?)  What if the apostles failed to spread Christianity and help in the work of salvation along the way?  Wouldn't that be similar to having a salt shaker that you don't use to help bring the flavors out?  In my opinion, in that case the capacity of the salt is wasted.  It loses an opportunity to make something savoury.  That would be utter foolishness!  To let food remain bland when you have salt nearby.  Good for nothing salt.  Kind of reminds me of another verse where the earth could go to waste:  JSH 1:39

 39 He also quoted the next verse differently: And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming.

I have never read this to mean anything about destruction, though I'm sure many people do.  Instead, I read this to describe what would be magnifying our earthly purposes and what would be wasting our time.   The hearts turning to their fathers I believe means that those of us who are alive should be interested in proving that we are of the noble birthright by linking ourselves to Father Abraham and Adam and the other patriarchs/matriarchs of God's chosen people. This link comes through binding ourselves to our forebears by being knowledgeable about them and uniting our families back through the lines through the sealing blessings in LDS temples, where some of those blessings are reiterated.  To me, this establishes another of the earth's purposes:  for certain performances and ordinances to be completed. (Often termed "Redeem the Dead.")  Latter-day Saints hold that earthly religious ceremonies are a prerequisite for heaven.  In the end, if we are not creating and preserving these family links, then how are we whiling away our time on earth instead?  Seems like anything less than preparing for heaven would be wasted effort, since everything else will surely pass away.

Here's one last thought:  When I was a kid Ben and I would have Cheerios with a couple spoonfuls of sugar sprinkled on top each morning.  As a prank once, I switched the salt and sugar.   He didn't appreciate how the salt over-powered his O's and milk, and he had to dump it.  On the other hand, I forgot to switch the containers back, and the next loaf of bread I made was a salty brick of door-stop bread.  Likewise, I had to dump it.  Used improperly or unused in the first place, we miss opportunities to let the SALT of the earth fulfill it's purpose.  In this case, not only the salt is wasted, but the other ingredients in the recipe also go to waste.

A first savings account.

{A post by Joe.}
Do you remember your first savings account?  I don't remember exactly when I opened it, but I know there were balloons, a free hot dog, snow cones, fridge magnets, face painting, and a clown making twisted balloon poodles/hats/light sabers, etc.

That was back in the good old days of the local Credit Union's Young Savers Day (or called something like that) where every child who put in another $10 or so into their account got to come to the party and get free gifts.  For a couple years, they were giving some pretty neat collapsable duffel bags that could zip end-to-end as round and flat as a frisbee.  I recall they were our typical beach bag growing up.

Well, this week we had a family council and talked about our move in a couple of weeks.  We talked about how we had saved up our money in the bank to make a down-payment, and how we were getting a mortgage to borrow the rest of the money we'd need from the bank.  Ian asked how long it would take us to pay back what we borrowed, and I told him about 30 years.  He seemed kind of concerned about that prospect, and offered, "Well, what if I save up and help pay the mortgage?  Then we could own the house a little faster?"  

What a noble offer!  I told him I appreciated his help, but he had some very important things to be saving for as well, like his mission and college.  He wanted to open a savings account.  Recalling a deal that my parents had made with me, Jen and I offered the same plan: Any money he would tuck away at the bank for savings we would match 1 for 1.

He was really looking forward to this, and prepared his money on Friday night for a visit to the bank on Saturday morning.  He uses one of those LDS divided banks (tithing, spending, savings) and made sure everything was in order with his tithing and spending money, then counted out $3.06 to take to the bank.  I gave him another $3.06, and he put it in a little zip lock bag and then he labelled it.  "6$ 12c"

On Saturday, Ian, Blake and I walked to the bank, and we talked about the things he might do with his savings some day.  When we arrived, the bank was empty of customers.  Three ladies sat at their stools behind the glass chatting.  At my urging, he went up to one of the tellers and said, "I'd like to open an account, please."  The response, which was just as steady and professional as though Ian were any adult new customer was, "Please step into the first office, and I"ll be right with you!"  I was so proud of him.

Through the process, Ian provided all the information about himself and his contact information, except his mother's maiden name (that's a tough one!).  After a few forms and co-signer signatures, he was presented with a pass-book.  He proudly carried his folder of documents tucked under his arm the whole way home.  I hope he remembers what it felt like to be "in charge" of setting up his own savings account-- he really takes pride in doing adult things like that.

Not alot of fanfare for the event, but he took it very seriously, and is eager to periodically make some deposits.  For the record, I did call Granddaddy, and when he heard, he said, "Did you get a free duffel bag?"  Sorry, not this time!

Family Demographics

{A post by Joe.}

A while back somehow I got interested in finding out about common last names.  That is, why do we assume that "Smith" is the most generic American last name?

I found my way to the List of Most Common Surnames in North America, and see that Smith still has a heft lead by about 20% over Johnson.  I can't say that I know a bunch of Smith's though.  I had a friend in High School Marching Band, a friend growing up at church as a kid, I work with one, and know there's a family at church now with that surname... but that's all that comes to the top of my head.

More interesting to me is satisfying my vanity and finding out more about "Jackson".  Looks like between the 1990 census and 2000 census, it dropped a few places (from 13 to 18) because of the increase in common names like Garcia, Rodrigues, Martinez, and Hernandez.  Oh, and Martin.  But Martin is neck-and-neck with Jackson, so it's not like we just got blasted out of the water by the Martins.  We can still catch up with them!

Back to the statistics.  Looks like out of 100,000 people, about 247 will have the surname of Jackson.  That's about the same statistic as the number of Mormons who live in the towns covered by our ward boundaries.  Coincidence?  I think not.  I am just as likely to be a Jackson as I am to be a Mormon.

Here's what I didn't expect: of the Jacksons, about 42% are white and 53% are black.  I had no idea!?  I mean, my whole life people have been asking me about my cousin Michael, but I just figured Jackson was as British as it gets.

Then I sit and think, and there's Samuel L, Jesse, the Five, Randy, Bo.  On the other hand there are Andrew, Stonewall, Joe, Shoeless, Peter, Phil.  There are hundreds more that someone thought was famous enough to make a wikipedia page about (and if I were more well-rounded, I would know about more of them).

If I did a bit more research, I would probably find that Jackson is more common in the south, and that African Americans assumed the name of their owner during the slave-holding era.  (A potential source: claims that lots of Jacksons live in order of poularity -- Texas, California, Florida, Georgia,  Alabama, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, as well as Lousiana.)

Bonus question: What do Utah and Maine have in common?
Answer:  See here.

How to find your perfect house.

{A post by Joe}

Guess what this picture means?

Yes, you guessed it.  We're buying a house!

We have been in the same rental house for 80 months now.  When we arrived in 2007, we had a 1 year old Ian and a very small section of the moving company's semi-truck worth of furniture.  The half-duplex we've been in has been perfect!  We selected it very methodically by scoring it on a spreadsheet against other candidates using weighted sums.  Our selection criteria were much simpler then, but were comprehensive, nonetheless.

Here's a look into how we make all our major life decisions (including, but not limited to: housing, employment, children's names, and car purchases).  First, we pick categories that we think are important to us.  For our first rental for our first job, we picked the categories that we thought we would be able to appraise during that 3 day house-hunting trip two months before I was to start work.  You can see the categories below included things about the location (both town and neighborhood), and the house situation itself (interior and exterior features).

Then, based upon these key features, we gave an importance score on a scale from 1 to 10.  Interestingly, the things that were most important to us in 2007 were the categories of:

• Noise (we had been in an apartment with neighbors above and below us in Provo... we weren't willing to do that again!), 
• Laundry (we had a 1 year old, and required regular access to a fresh batch of clean onesies),
• Size (no use in moving to a place where you have no room to expand for a few years).

Then, we scored each of the houses that we looked at according to our perception on each of the categories.  It was important for us to be as fair as possible and would go back and look at the other housing scores in specific categories, and readjust as necessary.  This was the best part.  We could be just as choosy as we wanted, critical and complimentary.  HONEST.  For a baseline comparison, we added our Provo Apartment to the list.  One of our objectives is to always be moving up in the world... which is to say, if a house is not better (in general) than our last place, we should wait and see another one.  

To arrive at an overall score, I computed the weighted sum of each category of importance for each house's score (e.g. Paul's neighborhood contributed 8*5.5=44 to the score), then normalized by dividing by the maximum number of points possible to make it more like a percent (i.e. the number of points if the house got all 10s).  

The following table summarizes the results of  4 housing alternatives compared with our Provo Apartment, as available to us in 2007.

Category Importance Pauls Phyllis's Corey's Call's Provo Apt Neighborhood 8 5.5 7 9 6 7 Commute 6.5 9 8.5 4 8.5 9 Cost 8.5 9 8 6 6 9 Niceness/Quality 7.5 8.5 7 9 8 6 Ian-Compatible 8 9 7 3 9 9 Size 9 8 9 8.5 7 6 Yard 6.5 7 9 3 1 6 Luxuries 6.5 7 8 8 8 6 Guest Ease 3 6.5 8.5 8 3 5 Noise 10 5 9 9 8 1 Laundry 9 3 7 8 10 10 69.61 79.73 69.64 71.12 67.27

Here's what I see:  

• All of the options were an improvement over the Provo Apartment.  (which we loved, especially our neighbors)
• It's tough to beat a commute walking up the hill to campus.
• The house we ended up with had the most usable space and the best yard.
• Our current house was only the BEST in three categories (Size, Yard, Guest Ease), but was consistently favorable in the various scoring categories.
• We didn't go with the cheapest, or the nicest... but the one that was the best for us.

Through the careful methodology, we really found just the right place for us.  It's true.  Even better, we've fallen in love with many of the things that drew us to this house.  The culdesac, our basement, our forest and wildlife, our neighbors, Ian's school, the ease of access to work/Boston/shopping.  Even as our family grew and we had to get creative with furniture and space utilization in our half of the duplex, it was difficult to see that any alternative rental could meet our priorities the way this one has.  Many, many factors have gone into us knowing that things were lined up just right to put is this house for this period of our lives.

SO...back to the picture above.  Yes, we are moving.  Yes, it's nearby.  Yes, we'll give more details soon.  For the inner nerd in you, I present to you some of our analysis of the 7 houses we toured (with virtual tours, internet snooping, and drive-bys, it's possible to skip all the "junk" and go straight for candidates these days!)

Note here that our categories are more specific now, based on 10 years of marriage, a real estate agent who wanted to know exactly what we were looking for in a house, and a realization that we wouldn't be able to get everything on our list.  We tried to cluster the categories by must have, should have, and wish list, with a additional subjective categories at the top.  We ended up making offers on H Ave: 1936 (they scoffed), M St: 1920 (they countered almost the same as list), M Rd: 1989 (they competitively countered, we chickened out), and C St: 2009 (they countered, we counter-countered, then we re-offered their counter, because it's the house we really want!).  (Identities of the houses obscured to protect the innocent.)

There's SO Much to say about the house, but I've already gone long on this entry, so I'll leave it to you to consider the priorities we wanted for this house, how beautifully this house scores, and how giddy we are that we received a mortgage commitment letter this week for our first house!

More info to come.

July, the month of Months!

July really needs to be segmented into three time periods:  July 4th Weekend, Trip to Utah, and Recovery.

But first, we'll have a look at the pigs.

They're starting to look pretty good, eh?

After many, many years away, we renewed one of Jen's childhood traditions and went camping at Sebago Lake State Park in Maine.  We stayed for two nights, and I can see now that you'd need a solid week to make it a really relaxing break.  There's just so much to do!  Much of it involves sand in your swim trunks, burning the bottoms of your feet on hot sand, and enjoying the cool, clean water!

The other part of camping at Sebago that is lovely is that if you go with good friends (Calls and Koyles in this case) you really have a jolly time.  There are menus to compare, ducks to observe, frogs to catch, sparklers to ignite, canoes to paddle, naps to take, glow sticks to distribute.  Camping really is the life.  It was a perfect way to spend Independance Day.

Then for our Trip to UTAH!!

Our first day there, we visited Temple Square.

The boys were VERY reverent, and had lots of insightful thoughts.  They noticed things that they had seen during General Conference and were interested in seeing a few places in particular.

So we saw the Salt Lake Temple, the Tabernacle, the Conference Center (and roof!), the Church History Museum, and had a little time on the grounds as well.  It was tiring for a warm summer day, but worth it.

And then there were TRAINS.

Promontory Summit, UT

We decided that people from Utah don't actually go to Promontory, but only train enthusiasts and out-of-staters.  We fit both categories.  Ian inspected both the Jupiter (Pacific RR) and the No. 119 (Union RR), and decided the Jupiter was the best.  Blake enjoyed just watching and listening, and especially took in the steam engine demonstration as the 119 made it's way up and down the track before making its way to the engine house for the night.  We enjoyed the dioramas and the replica of the Golden Spike (the real one is at Stanford University).  It was hot and the water-fountain tasted a bit sandy, but the afternoon was very well-spent at Promontory.

We had some sentimental eating and sentimental meeting with dear friends and food.  It really is a great blast to be with people we love.

It was fun to revisit places at BYU that bring back so many fun memories.  Someday, I imagine that Ian, Blake, and Graham may have their own memories of their trips to and from campus, or around the grounds!  We were sad the Bean Life Sciences Museum wasn't open for tours, though.

We also made sure to build in plenty of down-time to play, relax, and just drive around as needed.  It was a hoot.  I love seeing our boys grow in independence and exhibit their capabilities and preferences.  Everyone's got something on their mind-- it's nice to see it expressed every once and again!

More to come.  We haven't even STARTED the part about the JACKSON Gathering.

Yeah.  In July we took hundreds of pictures.  True dat.