California Water Crisis

I grew up in California’s central valley, and I know that the agriculture industry there is really hurting. The California farmers can’t water, so they won’t plant their fields. That means our produce prices will only get higher, and we will have to rely more on food imported from other countries or grown ourselves. (Go here to learn about food storage and gardening.) It may be time to plant a garden in containers or our yard. Scary when we have an economic crisis and a food crisis too. Is there any way to help these farmers get some water? I hope so.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YWbXzm8Nd0

Hi-cup

Have you ever tried to get your kids to take you seriously when you have the hiccups?

“Come on guys it’s time for ch-u-ores.” No movement. “Hunter, get u-i-up and clear the kitchen coun-huh-ter. Emma, do you think I’m kid-up-ing? Go empty the dishwa-a-sher now-hu-ow.” I can’t help but smile at how ridiculous I sound.

So then they were laughing at me. But they were also doing chores so I guess it worked out all right.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Well it’s official.  Our ward boundaries were changed.  The whole stake was realigned because we had two giant wards, and three little ones. I wasn’t too worried about it until last night when we had the big meeting. They began by showing a sense of humor and also their faith in God’s will for our stake by having us sing, “I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go.” When the hymn was announced, there was a nervous rumble of laughter throughout the congregation as we all sat in anticipation of what was to follow. It was a great meeting with our stake leaders who were inspired in their decisions. They explained the process, and it is pretty complex, involving matching up the numbers of women, men, youth, children, and infants so that every ward is about equal. That is followed by paperwork and various approvals etc., so it was not an easy process for anyone. On the ride home we went through the names of friends in each of our kids’ primary classes. A large majority of them are in another ward now. Since we don’t live near family members, the church ward becomes like surrogate family, filling in the gaps that are left open between visits to and from family. So we are all sad to know that we won’t get to spend as much time with most of this “family,” but we’re trying to be optimistic about the new friends we will make and how our circle of life experiences will continue to grow.

It seems that no matter how hard we try to get our family in a stable situation, change always catches up with us.  For us it seems to come in two year waves. To brainstorm our history I wrote up a timeline:

1996- Married – Moved into our first apartment in Provo

1998- Moved to a fourplex in Provo – Hunter was born

2000- Moved to a house in Provo – Emma was born

2002- Rob accepted to Law School – Moved to North Carolina

2004- Hannah was born – Accepted a job and moved to Los Angeles

2006- Sabrina was born – Moved 6 houses down the street

2008- Accepted a new job and moved to Orange County – Hunter & Emma started at a new elementary school

Now- Just when we were starting to feel permanent someplace, our ward boundaries were changed, we don’t know our new leaders yet, and we feel like we’re starting over again in many ways. (I’m not complaining, but still am mourning the “loss.”)

If this is what happens on our down year, I’m pretty nervous about what might be coming for 2010…

Colonial Corn Cakes

Last week for Activity Days Emma’s group talked about President George Washington.  They made “hoe cakes” to get a taste of breakfast from colonial times.  Apparently Mr. Washington’s favorite breakfast was these hoe cakes with honey and butter on them.  Emma made them for us on Saturday, and woke up early today so she would have time to help making them again. A big hit at our house, they’re sort of like corn based crepes. I’m planning to keep this recipe handy because it’s a good one for using with ingredients I have in my food storage too.

Hoe Cakes

1 Cup cornmeal

1 Cup flour

1/2 tsp. salt

2 cups hot milk

4 Tbsp. honey

2 beaten eggs

Mix together the cornmeal, flour, and salt. Heat the milk until it just begins to boil (steam appears). Pour it in the dry misture. Add the honey and eggs. Stir just until the ingredients are wet. Spoon batter onto a hot, oiled griddle. Turn to brown both sides. We topped ours with butter, honey or maple syrup. So yummy!

Yo-Ho Yo-Ho

Nana and Papa gave Hannah this cute pirate dress up and she was so excited to wear it to Disneyland.  It was the coolest thing ever to go on Pirates of the Caribbean dressed as a pirate!

This is from a trip we took in January, but I just had to share this cute photo.

Disney Sunday Movies

Remember the 80’s Disney live action classics? My siblings and I loved the Sunday night movies (Like The BRAT Patrol). We would tape them from TV onto a VHS tape and watch them over and over. I still remember that we would all yell, “pause!” when the commercials came on, and “play!” when the movie was back. If we pushed the buttons on the VCR at just the right time we could get the tape with no commercials and not miss any dialogue when the movie started up again.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3jp93TNCyg

Mr. Boogedy was one of our favorites:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV9vvekSbr4