Wordless Wednesday: Face First Snow Angels

Wordless Wednesday: 8 Months Old!

The Greatest Man I Know

I was reading in my journal last night about when Doug and I started dating. We were so in love, and I trusted completely in the fact that he would be able to make me happy for the rest of my life. Although it's funny to look back and realize how little we really knew each other, I was absolutely right about that fact. He has never stopped making me laugh, filling me with joy, or being the man of my dreams.

I thought he would be a wonderful father, but little did I know then how much our children would idolize him and try to spend as much time with him as they possibly could, even as they entered the teenage years. I thought he would be a good example to me and my children, but little did I know how often I would turn to him for guidance and direction with questions and decisions I faced and trust completely that the answers he gave me were right. I thought that he would always love me and help me feel good about myself, but little did I know that after 5 kids, and 17+ years of marriage, he would still make me feel like there was no other woman who could ever hold a candle to me in his eyes. I thought I knew the happiness I would have if I married him, but I never could have imagined the joy it has been to be married to my best friend and the greatest man I know. I trust that in another 17 years I will look back on today and realize that I had no idea how good it could really get.  

My Candy Store

There is something about a library that stirs my soul. I love to wander down the aisles and just soak up the atmosphere, especially when I don't have something specific that I am looking for. I love going to the library. I always have.

In July I got to spend a week in New York with my husband. It was my first time. He was there on business, so each day I would wander the streets of Manhattan reveling in the sights, sounds, and the culture in that vast city. I saw many amazing things, but one of my favorite experiences was the morning I spent browsing the New York Public Library. O.k., so it's not your average public library. It is everything I ever dreamed a library could be. 

It is historic, 

it is beautiful,

it is full of books.

After wandering the building, I sat down in this room with a book, and just relished the moment.   

It was a fabulous morning.

Today I went to the library to pick up H. Man who had been there with a friend. I was in a hurry to get somewhere, but once I walked through the doors, I couldn't help lingering over a few displays of new and seasonal books they had, and then of course I had to take a quick look at what books they had on sale today. As we left and I remembered what a hurry I was in, I had to try to define what exactly this hold is that the library has on me. Then it dawned on me. It's the possibilities. There are thousands of books on the shelves there, just waiting to be read. Waiting to change my life. You never know when you pick up a book, where you will end up when you put it down. The possibilities in a library are endless. It's magical, and it keeps calling me back for more. I wonder where I'll end up next.

"How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book."  ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden 

Back to Nature

We missed out on Nature Study last year because I suffered so much from morning sickness, and generally feeling lousy during my pregnancy. I was determined that we would add it back into our studies this year, but I have yet to do it until today. It was a gorgeous fall day, and I wanted to get out and enjoy it with the kids before all the colors and leaves were gone. We went to my favorite nearby place to do nature study, a local river trail, and it didn't disappoint. There is something about the flow of a river and the vegetation that grows near it, that is soothing to the soul.

When we arrived, we were greeted by this little guy, which caused quite a bit of excitement for the kids. 

We decided to go down by the water to skip rocks 

and enjoy the view.

Little C. had fun collecting rocks and leaves

and posing for pictures.

There was so much beauty to capture.

I just wish my camera battery would have been charged. Instead I had to make do with the camera on my phone. At least I had something.

We stopped to play at a park on the trail,

and then headed home for more fun in the sun on this beautiful Fall day.

Don't you just love Autumn?

Disillusioned

This iPhone app image got me thinking about our recent experience with my husband's campaign. No, we are not heading to Washington D.C.. There never was any thought that we would be. As a "third party" candidate, the cards are too stacked against you to ever make that a possibility in the near future. I debated about wether to post this or not, because I knew it would probably sound like sour grapes, but we really weren't concerned with "winning or loosing" and we gained such interesting insights into "how to play the game" that I just had to share. We have learned so much and have had a lot of positive experiences as we have met other patriotic, and like-minded people who are willing to do the work necessary to restore the freedoms we have lost in our country, but it was also a lot of work, and time, and frustration as we saw so many more people who don't know, and/or don't care about the detour we have taken as a nation. The frustrating thing to me is that so many people seem to think the problems have all been fixed now that the "Grand Ol' Party" has had such sweeping victories. What they fail to realize is that the detour we have taken didn't happen 2 years ago when Barack Obama took office, but over 100 years ago, and has been perpetuated by both parties ever since. 

We have been asked if we will continue down this path and try to run for office again in the future. The answer right now is no. There are too many things about the game of politics that we found distasteful. We saw many of these things before running, but they were brought into the spotlight over the past eight months. For now we are content to leave the campaigning to those who are comfortable with having their name and face displayed everywhere around town, and have no problem wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars of special interest group campaign contributions in order to purchase things like "campaign vehicles", and advertising so that they can essentially buy hundreds of thousands of votes. It has never been as clear to me as it is now, how much our public elections are like the superfluous student body elections of our high school days. It almost always comes down to who has the most money, and the most impressive signs (or commercials), and the greatest number of them, and who is the smoothest and slickest of the bunch. We say we are fed up with career politicians, and yet we continue to elect them and feel good about it, just because they are backed by the "tea party", or are really good at regurgitating the "I believe in the Constitution" rhetoric. 

Case-in-point: Utah's Senatorial Elections. Mike Lee was the poster boy for the tea parties this year. He was the master of Constitutional Rhetoric. He was constantly spouting his desire to help the country "return to the constitution", while in the same statements he would raise the call for amending the constitution to impose term limitations and balancing the budget. Although these are popular ideas right now, they are dangerous ones. The founders considered both of these ideas when they originally framed the constitution and opted not to include them because of the negative ramifications of each. (ex., If we are forced to balance the budget most politicians are more likely to just raise taxes, not cut spending.) These are band-aids, not cures to our current problems, and I find it troubling that someone so highly acclaimed and so supposedly knowledgeable can't see this for himself. These are not the only affronts to the constitution that Mike made while running either. He supports government mandated health care reform, just not "Obama Care", among other things. Mike Lee raised almost 1.5 million dollars for this campaign, and he spent most of it. To put this in perspective, his Democratic opponent raised less than $300,000 dollars, and the only true defender of the constitution running, Scott Bradley, raised much less than that. How can anyone hope to compete with that? 

So what are our options? Education. Education. Education. That was the only goal of my husbands campaign. He knew he couldn't win against an incumbent republican, in the most republican district in the country, with over $500,000 dollars to spend on his campaign. His only goal was to reach as many people as he could with the message of true liberty and the proper role of government. We had many rewarding experiences in cottage meetings and other gatherings around the state as he was able to share this message with others. Many people are searching for this message right now, as evidenced by the growth of the "Tea Party" movement, but unfortunately many are being deceived into thinking that the answers can be found in the current establishment. The answer isn't in our politicians, it is in "We the People". Until we educate ourselves and our neighbors, and read and re-read the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and their supporting documents, and above all, until we return to God and recognize Him as the Author of our liberty, nothing will change.