Happy Birthday Brookie Sugar Cookie!

Happy Birthday Brookie!

You are the best.

You came into this world smiling

and you haven't stopped for a rest.

You're a great friend and sister

a great daughter too

I am still wondering

what I did to deserve you.

You're smart and your sassy,

(in only the right way),

You're pretty and classy.

But I have more to say.

You're fashion sense

leaves us all asking your advise

I just can't figure out

how someone can be so nice.

In short, dear sugar

I love you a lot

And wish you Happy Birthday

from the bottom of my heart.

Happy Birthday Sugar Cookie!

Happy Birthday Mom, Nana and Candy!

Happy Birthday Mom, Nana and Candy,
We think you are great,
We think you are dandy.

So, Happy birthday to you,
Btw. How old are you?
Still holding at 32?
Nobody would guess 62.

I always love to hear your laughter
So many talents,
Let’s name a few:
A great cook, a fantastic baker,
A fashion Diva, an artist, and even a Cavette / Ballroom dancer,

I’m glad we could spend this
Thanksgiving time with you.
We hope we all learn a thing or two
By watching you in all you do

The best Nana and Mother
You do it with ease.
Will you, won’t you have a great birthday,
Please!?

We love you!

Todd, Jane, Ally

Lessons from Brigham

Brigham is teaching me skateboarding lessons so I am ready when we take the Dad's skateboard class in a few weeks.

We were out on the driveway today practicing a few turns, how to "manual" which is a wheelie stop. Then Brigham decided I was ready for the next level. So we started making turns on the ramp. All was good, until Brigham started jumping off the side of the ramp (only curb height). Then I made a mistake. The underlying mistake was thinking, "hey, this kid is only 7, if he can do it, I can do it. Heck, I've been riding skateboards since they were invented. I had one with steel wheels." I approached the ramp, made my turn, pulled a little wheelie, went off the jump, all was good until I landed. The skateboard quickly shot out from under me and I landed on my wallet, hard. I let out a grunt as I lost my wind slightly. This scared Brigham and Sophie. I'm still quite sore as I sit here on my wallet.

The worst part is that my confidence has been dinged. Am I really that old? Am I losing my inner ear? (no comments on these last points of self-reflection, please.)

Polpol Vuh.....

Jane and I recently visited The Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. Since everyone goes to Cancun and slobs it on the beach, I'm deciding to tell everyone that we went to the Yucatan (sound much more eco-vacation, jungle trekk -ish).

We visited one of the Mayan ruins (Tulum). The tour guide reminded me of a book I read in college for a Spanish class called the PolPol Vuh. It is a Mayan book, written in Mayan (no I didn't read it in Mayan or "reformed Egyptian"). It describes the Mayan version of the creation, gives some of their culture and beliefs, etc. It also touches on the coming of Christ and their thoughts on the second coming. Many dismiss these parallels as the book was written after the conquest of the Spaniards and after they had been forcibly indoctrinated with Christian beliefs. For each to decide on his own.

My takeaway.....silly Lamanites.

Technology....star trek style

Check out the YouTube video of Cisco's new Holographic capability being considered for their Telepresence systems. Are you kidding me? Beam me up, Scottie!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rcfNC_x0VvE

Unreal, hey? That's why Kip loves technology.

I love technology.....

....and what the church is doing to help us with family history work. I mentioned a while ago that I am turning into the old lady in your ward that is the family history specialist. My brother, Shea, works with the family history department sometimes and provides them computer hardware and storage that they are using for the digitizing of the microfiche records. He's known about some of these tools for years, but for us newbies, here's a few cool tools to check out if you haven't already.

• Indexing work. Digitizing scanned microfiche records. You can help. Here's the link. Get signed up doing some indexing today. http://www.familysearchindexing.org/en/index.jsp
• New PAF. User friendly. You should start gathering info from your aging relatives and consolidating them into a master PAF file for each of your family lines that you can share with your family so you are all working together and not duplicating. Here's where to download it. (down on the right side of the page. ) http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/default.asp
• PAF Insight. Ohana software http://www.ohanasoftware.com/ came out a few years ago with a software program that compares your own family history records (in PAF) with the temple records that list the ordinances that have been completed in the temple. It loads directly into your PAF program under the "tools" menu. It shows your personal PAF records on the left side of the screen and displays the closest matching temple records on the right along with the % probablity that they are the same person. (over 90% is surely a match down to under 60% is probably not a match, but could be....get it?) Then you go through, updating your file with the information from the temple records thus avoiding duplicating the temple work for these family members. It's also valuable to see what other information those that have worked on that have have found, so you can add it to your file. I downloaded it a few weeks ago and have checked 1000 names so far on the Taylor/ Mayberry side of my family and was only able to find a handful of individuals who lacked ordinance work.
• New Temple Ready program at the family history libraries. The church is also using a duplication check process in it's temple ready program (the program you use when you go to have the temple cards made from your PAF record) that will not allow a card to be issued for someone who has already received the work. So using PAF Insight upfront, will save some embarrassment when you go to the family history center to have cards printed.

It's amazing what we can do these days with search technology and how effective and easy it is. A very little computer literacy and web familiarity goes a long, long way. It seems we are just at the beginning of what will be some pretty exciting advances.

Jane is how old?

Only 36! Still a fine young philly. Here are a few "glamour shots by Todd".

Happy Birthday to you!