Nate's Adventure

Nate was up at 5:00 a.m and on the ice all day. He returned home (with dinner) 13 hours later...Yes, I was counting. Nate informed us the day was warmer than expected and the ice was cracking "only a little bit." The look of worry on my face prompted him to add, that the ice was only cracking around one of the other boys, not him . I felt sooooooooooo much better!

Catch of the day.

Now for the dirty work. He was hard at work for 2 hours. I think this is the first time he cleaned fish by himself, and only made one phone call to Tim. He actually found fish eggs inside one of the fish. If the camera is the lens to the outside world through the eyes of the photographer, the difference between my pictures and Jeran's pictures would speak volumes about what each of us appreciated about this experience. We're enforcing censorship for the first time in our familiy blog history, particularly for the sake of those who prefer not to view fish guts. Seems Megan and Joie fit in that category because they willingly vacated the kitchen for about 2 hours during the cleaning and prep of the fish. Nate took advantage of having the kitchen (and kitchen TV) to himself and watched his favorite show, Survivorman, on Discovery channel while cleaning fish. (Note to those who prefer a more intense look at cleaning a fish: You may contact Jeran for a look at this process through his eyes. Trust me, you'll get details.)

Final product. It took long enough to clean them that we couldn't have them for dinner that night. He froze them for later, but cooked one for breakfast the next morning.

Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?

We admit that tonight for the first time in homework history we had to phone a friend for help. Megan and Jeran have an extra credit math problem of the week that usually requires a lot of thinking (i.e. not your typical 5th grade math problem). We help them solve it when they need help. The truth is they usually don't need help. Jeran is our resident math whiz. When that doesn't work out Tim and I are back up. So far, so good. We haven't caused them to fail any assignments and like to pat ourselves on the back that we've been able to help our kiddos with homework without getting stumped. I looked at Megan's problem tonight and said the first answer out of my mouth, which was 10. Megan said, "And the answer can't be 10." If I don't get a problem within a few minutes of looking at it and reading it, I have to walk away and come back to it later. I did walk away, and said, "Who can we call who is smart in math?" Megan said, "One of your sisters." So I called Esther, who of course solved the problem for us using algebra. When I told the kids Esther was a middle school math teacher they were completely impressed. I predict one of two things will happen. Either 1) Our children will be calling Esther a lot, even before bothering to ask us, or 2) I'll give up a lot sooner on some of those really tuff math problems and call Esther. Megan said she thinks Esther should be on Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader because she "knows a lot about e=mc2 stuff." (I think she means algebra.) Thanks Es! You're smarter than a fifth grader!

How DJ became Joie

I said months ago I'd explain how DJ became Joie, but haven't yet. Two extended family members have asked me about it lately. Let's face it...it isn't every day an 8/9 year old girl changes her name.

DJ/Joie's given name is Diana Jo. She is named after her Grandma Campbell (Diana) and her Uncle Joe. Since only a few months after DJ/Joie was with our family, she began to make comments about her name being her initials. We told her we could call her Diana, to which she protested. After all, Diana is a "grandma" name. (Sidenote here--Diana is my mom, and I think Diana is a beautiful name.) Months of convincing could not change her mind. I remember Beth, Trevor and Adrienne trying to convince DJ when they were here in November, both when they watched our kids, then again at Thanksgiving. Several other aunts and cousins jumped on the bandwagon, and even when we explained to her it was a princess name, she remained unconvinced. We tried to pursuade her that "Jo" might be cute. I had remembered Ruth saying if she got tired of DJ, they'd just call her "Jo." However, Uncle Joe is a big tuff army medic in Iraq...beats marines in push-up competitions. She did not want to be called "Joe."

A few times it seemed like the quest was going away, but it would only resurface again a few months later. She went through phases...horse names (Ella, Misty, Saphira...), then Japanese names (don't know where that one came from, but possibly from a unit they did in school). At one point she wanted to join the ranks of "the Hannahs." She has two friends in our neighborhood named Hannah, and apparently 2 just wasn't enough. She also LOVED Hannah Montana at the time, so, "Please, please please can I change my name to Hannah?" Finally after we could see this was more than a phase, we had a chat. I explained to her that her parents had given her the name of Diana Jo, and told her if she was changing her name, it needed to be a version of her given name. I got her started on searching the internet, and she spent hours on a few name websites looking up nicknames for Diana and Jo and checking the meanings. Meanings became important to her also because all of our children are named for the meaning of their name. At one point she chose "Jojo" which didn't last long...something about a clown on Disney Playhouse. At one point she looked up Joey, which came up as a variation of Joe in meaning. We had been emailing family, and someone suggested "Joie." (Joey spelled with an "ie") She wanted to look it up and I told her it probably was the same thing--a variation of "Joe/Joseph. She looked it up anyway. Apparently it is French for "joy." Shows you how much I know. She was bouncing up and down at the computer when she found it...I still kept throwing in variations of Diana, but Joie it was. It stuck, and kids at school now call her Joie...exept the ones from her class last year who still call her DJ. She answers to either. We call her Joie and DJ. She answers to both. The other day I tested the waters again. "So are you going by Joie your whole life?" "No, I might change it when I get older," she says. "To what?" I ask. "By then I'd probably just be Diana," she said. ...Still couldn't convince her she should just make the switch now and save herself another name change when she gets older. For those who've been around this girl, you know that once she makes up her mind, there's no changing it. ....Campbell genes I guess. Frequently I wonder what Ruth would do (short of raising up out of her grave to choke me or laughing at me from atop her cloud perch in heaven). Honestly, I don't know. The part of me that lets this be her choice is the part of me that knows this little girl had all her choices taken from her the day her family died, and this is one I can give her--the freebie. For now this is as good as it gets. Joie it is...or DJ if you happen to call her that. She answers to both.

Go Utes!!!

This was posted by Mary before the game. Now it's 11:00 p.m. and Megan had the best quote of the day. "The only people asleep right now are people who don't like football." ...'Nuff said.

Welcoming 2009!

Shout to the world!

2009 is here!

I'm shouting on the inside...

Happy New Year!

And don't forget the big New Year's kiss

We welcomed 2009 with a trip to the late showing of "Bedtime Stories." We returned home to count down to the New Year. The kids all begged to "stay up all night" but by about 12:30 they had all gone to bed. Happy New Year to all our friends and family!