Snakes and Tails and New Year's Eve

So New Year's Eve my buddy Peet needed a ride back from the airport after his Christmas vacation in Costa Rica.  As a reward he told me we could stop by his work, 'Snakes and Tails', to check out the snakes, lizards, and turtles.  Lisa came along as well and it was a ton of fun.  Even though Lisa viewed the whole thing with a bit of trepidation at first, by the end of the night she was hefting giant snakes alongside me!

Christmas in California!

It was a great Christmas this year.  Estelle and I drove down two days before Christmas and soon enough the Harward Clan began to arrive.  We soon got into the Christmas spirit with Elsa singing for us all her Christmas songs that she had learned at school.

Elsa and Aries soon carried on a Harward family tradition.  The old olives on the hands!

It was great to be home again!  I had not been back to California for a year, since Estelle got home from her mission.  I was so grateful to be back and surrounded by family.

It was really good to see Brenna and her family as I had not seen them since last Christmas as well, whereas I was able to visit most of the rest of my family a few times in the intervening year.

We had a bunch of monkeys soon occupying the trees in the backyard!

It was great to see both my brothers.  It was fun to have Apache, and later Rosco, come as well.  Having dogs around is still a novelty as we grew up without any real pets.  Apache was always anxious when people were coming and leaving.  It was really funny that once Rosco showed up that he asserted his dominance over Apache, the larger dog!
 

Matt was recovering from his knee replacement surgery.  It was one heck of an operation as is plain from this picture!

It was great to see Matt and hear about his job and work on new paintings of temples.

I got put on potato patrol for Christmas dinner.

One of the best parts of the trip was gathering around the piano and singing all the Christmas songs from the hymn book.  Brenna is still our piano officinato! 

Another Harward family tradition was also carried out while I was there: pile up on Uncle Grant!  Aries was intent on sitting on my head and was soon joined by most of the other nieces and nephews.  I always get pretty banged up, but the kids love it!

Matt's kids are a great lot!  It was great to see them playing with all the other nieces and nephews.  It was fun to see how quickly all the nieces and nephews who don't see each other that often got do to playing and being friends so quickly.

My 'little' nephews are starting to grow up into young men.  It is so crazy how time flies and people grow!

 We had a couple real foggy nights out in the field at the end of the cul-de-sac which was great.  The kids loved going out, playing in the fog, and taking cool pictures.  I took them out 3 or 4 times over a couple days. 

It was still so much warmer than in Utah, but for the kids they bundled up and tried to summon fog spirits!

Deanne's kids arrived and brought with them their amazingly engrossing ipad with all its games.  I was introduced to the game 'Plants versus Zombies' a strange game, but one that little Calvin was already a pro at and one to amaze his cousins.

I love little Parker!  That kid reminds me so much of me when I was little, except much more mischievous.  

I got Estelle, Kassie, Robert, Alanna, and Kellen to go to the movies after Christmas to see 'Warhorse'.  It was a great movie, but a real heartwrencher, Robert told me he wanted to punch me for having us go see such a sad movie the day after Christmas! :)

Outside Mom's window a hummingbird had built a nest and was raising two little baby hummingbirds.  It was a beautiful thing to see, especially in the middle of winter.

We all went to the beach and had a great time in the great weather of Southern California.
 

Parker has the sharpest nails I have even felt!  His little hands feel like claws and he quickly made a game out of scraping up my legs!  It was hilarious, yet often painful.

It was fun to see crazy Matt.  He was in good spirits for the holiday, even with the pain from his surgery. 

It was great to have most of the siblings all together, along with our families, I had such a great time and a great Christmas! 

The Divine Gift of Repentence

Well, I am continuing to read through all the conference talks and I came across another passage in the talk by D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles that I thought was very interesting.  I think that one of the main themes of this conference, and any conference, is that of repentance. 

Prophets have been sent on earth to cry repentance to mankind from the dawn of time.  The Atonement of the Savior makes this divine gift available to us and it is up to the prophets to stir our hearts to remembrance and exhort us to repent and for what things we have need to repent.  Most members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can tell you by heart the 'steps of repentance': first recognized the sin, second feel remorse, third confess the sin, and lastly to make restitution.  It is something I have been taught since a young child and have used in practice, but Elder Christofferson reminds us that:

"...repentance requires a seriousness of purpose and a willingness to persevere, even through pain.  Attempts to create a list of specific steps of repentance may be helpful to some, but it may also lead to a mechanical, check-off-the boxes approach with no real feeling or change. True repentance is not superficial.  The Lord gives two overarching requirements: 'By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins-behold, he will confess them and forsake them' (D&C 58:43)."

I was impressed by this teaching from a modern day Apostle of Jesus Christ.  We may know the 'steps', but until we actually walk that path of repentance we will not be cleansed by the blood of our Lord and Redeemer.  True discipleship is not superficial as well.  As 'Saints' in the Church of Jesus Christ we have covenanted at baptism to be disciples of Christ and act as he would act (Mosiah 18:8-13).  We need to become like Christ in thought, word, and deed.  It is not a superficial change, or and easy one, or a rapid one, but we need it to be real and work it out with the help of the Holy Ghost and the Grace of God.  This all centers around repentance and our decision to change, truly, and leave the natural man and become a fellow citizen of Christ's Church.

Thanksgiving in Zion

Happy Post-Thanksgiving!  I am sure that my now most of us have recovered from stuffing ourselves in gratefulness for all the blessings in our life.  I had a great Thanksgiving in one of the most beautiful places in the world.  Zion Nation Park in Southern Utah.  I drove down with my little sister and met up my mom and my big sister and her family.  It was great!

Although Elsa might look all bundled up, it was actually perfect weather in Zion.  It was cool, clear skies, lots of sun, if a little windy.  Elsa has grown up a lot.  She can even put her shoes on by herself!

It was great to see my niece Alanna again so soon after her band competition in St. George, but even better to be able to spend a lot more time with her than we did a couple weeks ago. 

Robert found a great spot in the western park of the part that we had never been before that had some cool hikes.  We kind of bushwacked in the morning to look at some 'hoodoos' and then stopped for lunch.  After lunch we hiked again out to a pair of giant hills.

There was some snow on the ground that Elsa was VERY excited about.  She even almost walked off on her own trail for a bit!  Also, Mom, Kassie, Elsa, and I fell behind Robert, Estelle, Kellen, and Alanna and almost hiked the wrong way as all three of us adults misread the sign!  Luckily we quickly realized that we had taken the wrong path and got back on the right on.

I decided that the end of the hike deserved to get a nice G.Q. picture of myself for my facebook profile! :)

There were TONS of deer all around the park and we saw quite a few bucks as well that would have been to run into while in season and able to hunt.  We actually had some just a few yards back behind our motel one night in the farmers yard!  I almost hit one going through the park too!

As you can see after the exertions of the day we were all EXHAUSTED!  But the smell of food quickly revived us!  I devoured a huge plate stacked high with Turkey, Stuffing, Potatoes, Green Bean Casserole and all topped off with a few slices of pie!  YUM!  It was nice to have the Thanksgiving dinner in the Zion lodge with no prep work or clean up.  Thanks Robert and Kassie for paying!
 

After a good nights sleep we went back into Zion.  We spent the morning helping the kids get their Junior Ranger stuff done and then turned to look at the imposing shape of 'Angel's Landing' rising up over the valley floor.  I was a little intimidated, but quickly decided that this was a perfect time to do it!  So off we went (minus Kassie, Mom, and Elsa) to 'conquer' the climb!

We actually really booked it up the first 2 miles of the 2.5 mile hike.  There was a lot of elevation, but not too bad.  I was actually surprised how good of shape I was in.  I am REALLY grateful for the hikes we did the day before because I think they really loosened me up and got me ready for this more intense hike.  We quickly warmed up and soon shed our jackets and hoods.  Crazily, I ran into one of my  good buddies, Chris Woodhouse, from my mission coming down the trail!  We jabbered away in Romanian for a bit, I introduced everyone, and the 'Mormon world' seemed so small!

After an hour we got up to 'Scout's Lookout'.  Only .5 miles from the top of 'Angel's Landing', but that last half mile is one narrow and treacherous track with many delays waiting for people coming the other way to pass by.  We ate a great lunch before heading up, and my, was there some strange 'wildlife' in the area! :)

Seriously though, a couple of California Condors were flying around the canyon, which was really cool.  At first they flew above us, but soon, we were looking down on them!

This is what the comprised the last .5 mile to the top of Angel's Landing! Slightly terrifying!  A posted sign said that 6 people have died from falling off since 2005!  I couldn't believe the age of some of the children that people were taking up to the top of this.  It was nerve racking at points!

Kellen did an awesome job on the climb!  He also rode with use a lot which was SUPER fun.  He was a regular chatter-box and I learned a lot about a bunch of cool video games that he plays that I wish I did too!  He told me all about school and is a really smart kid!

Well, after an hour and a half of slightly stressful climbing we made it to the top!  It was a magnificent view, even if it sometimes made me slightly nauseated to be up there!

It was coming back down that I was the most freaked out on the climb.  Going up to Angel's Landing you can just look down right in front of you and ignore the heights just a little bit further out.  Coming down you couldn't ignore it and while the view was great, I had my stomach in my throat for much of the climb back!

We all go back down safe and sound! 

We all had a great trip and I am really grateful for Kassie and Robert getting the rooms and making all the reservations.  We got fancy, hipster pizza in town that night, partied one more night, and then Estelle and I took off in the morning.  It was an AWESOME thanksgiving in Zion!

BYU Basketball!

Well, it is that time of year again!  BYU Basketball starts a new season and I went to the first home game.  I met up with Estelle and some other friends.  I had to buy a regular ticket, but I easily passed the game 'security' and got down into the student section.  Estelle, on the other hand, an actual student with student ID card and all-sports pass in hand, was stopped!  We agreed that Estelle just had one of those faces that makes people suspicious of her!

One plus of getting to the game early and into the student section was getting the free T-shirt and pom-poms.  

I  love basketball games and I get into the chanting.  I usually try to wear down my voice as much as possible.  It was awesome to see the new team dynamics.  The team looks pretty good, but it will probably be a rough and tumble season.  A lot of development needed, but my favorite player, Charles Abouo, number 1, looked really good.  I have been cheering that guy since I worked the cameras after my mission.  It was a lot of fun!