2/26/18 Keep On Keepin' On

     Today was another busy day in the Connelly home. TJ is becoming my little jogging buddy. Once he and Joseph were ready for school he asked if we were going to go for our walk. I had started to feel discouraged but felt better knowing that TJ was excited. We jogged down to the park, picked up some trash and threw the Aerobie around for a bit. TJ had to go back for round two at the dentist today. Heidi reports that he was very brave. At this visit, the dentist found another serious cavity so I'm afraid he'll be needing round three as well. Sigh, we are encouraging him to be more diligent about brushing.
     I spent the day back and forth between accounting work and helping out at the Inter-Stake Center. We had a meeting with a guy named Ken Dickensheets from Salt Lake about possible tech upgrades. There was a lot to show and he had some good ideas. Hopefully, the meeting results in some needed upgrades.
     For Family Home Evening we talked about solving problems. Heavenly Father expects us to do more than simply pray and leave the rest to Him. He expects us to do our part, including learning and trying out solutions until we find one that works. I know that if we trust Him, He will help us through our tough times.

2/25/18 Peter and Sarah

This is what Peter looks like much of the time.

This is Peter when he is happy.

This time it was Sarah who cheered Peter up. It was likely also Sarah who took his picture. Frequently Peter is cheered when one of his family members shows him how much we love him.

2/24/18 Tree Service Project

This morning we ate pancakes as a family.

Brother LeSueur noticed that one of our neighbors had three dead trees that pose a fire hazard. He spoke to the homeowner and learned that they did not have the resources to have the trees removed. Brother LeSueur then coordinated a service project with the High Priest's Quorum.

Several people came to help including Brother Carpenter with his handy chainsaw.

Rebecca and David came to help stomp down branches and pine needles.

Eventually, they had to go so I got a turn. It's not as easy as it used to be for me to climb into these things.

Here is the finished product. It looks vastly improved. It felt good to be able to serve.

As a result of the service project, we ended up with some wood that needed to be burned. We had already decided to eat hot dogs so we pivoted and cooked them on the campfire.

Joseph wanted me to take his picture while he stood on the slide.

In the evening we went to a luau at the home of my former stake president's son. It was a reunion of many people who lived in the Kailua wards many years ago. The food was Ono'licious. One of the guests told a hilarious pidgeon English version of Little Red Riding Hood. I sang a song by Rap Replinger. It was a fun event the kids were well behaved (it was someone else's child who spilled their guava cake on the wall). I hope we can do it again next year.

2/23/18 Temple, Book Store, Chess Movie

This morning, Heidi and I did the endowments for a couple of family members. I took Beryl Baker and Heidi took one of his sisters. Beryl was married to my grandmother Velvia Mae James. It felt special to be doing work for people who are so closely related.

This afternoon Rebecca and I got to have some Daddy-Daughter time. She wasn't able to get a gift for her friends ahead of the party. While we were moving Heather found a $15 gift card to Seagull Book. She decided that it was for us. Heidi and I decided that it would be perfect for Rebecca's friends. She found 3 matching necklaces and a compass that she can take to girl's camp with her. She is getting so grown up.

This evening we had a fun family activity after dinner. We watched the movie, Searching for Bobby Fischer. It is the most exciting movie about a 7-year-old chess player that I am aware of. Seriously though it is a great movie. We loved that the main boy stayed kind even when adults around him tried to teach him that he needed to be mean in order to win.

2/22/18 Running Errands

     This morning Heidi opted not to go to Humanitarian. She still stopped by and donated some fabric that she had for them. Instead, we picked oranges from Heather's tree and went grocery shopping. Heidi says that Humanitarian isn't the same now that Sister Keifer isn't there.
    This evening Heidi went to her Unit Commissioner meeting for Cub Scouts. I stayed and helped Rebecca and Sarah study for tests for tomorrow. I also watched the latest Captain America movie. Although I was a little impatient to be able to start my movie I noticed that helping the girl's study brought me more joy than the movie. It felt good just to be a dad and get to know my girls better.

2/21/18 Dentist, Cub Scouts and Friend Party

Yesterday TJ let us know that his teeth were bothering him. She gave him some pain medicine and got him an appointment. The dentist did two baby root canals. TJ has to go back next week to get the permanent crowns and fill two more cavities. Ironically, at school today, the boys both watched videos about how to properly care for your teeth.

After school, TJ rode his bike with me to the Dollar store to get brushes for our Cub Scout activity. It was fun to get some one-on-one time with him.

At Cub Scouts, the boys put some stain on their assembled stools. Heidi also helped them sign a thank you card for Brother Turner.

Peter likes doing what he refers to as washing the dishes. There isn't a whole lot of cleaning happening just yet but I would love for this skill to develop.

Today Rebecca's friends Krissy and Missy had a birthday party. They went to a place where the girls were able to paint clay figures that will later be fired in a kiln. They were in Heaven. 

2/20/18 First Place in the School Science Fair

Today Rebecca Noelani came home with a Gold Medal recognition. She won first place in the 6th grade Science Fair in the category of Behavioral Science. Her project, which shows that only 8% of cars actually stop for the mandated 3 seconds appears to have won the hearts of the judges. She has worked very hard on this project. She is pleased to be honored but not quite sure that she is excited to be giving a repeat performance at the District Science Fair at the start of next month. Way to go, Rebecca, we are proud of you.

2/19/18 The Rest of the Move

This morning early, David and Heidi went and delivered flags and then it was time for move part deux. This time the kids stayed at home. We video chatted during part of the drive so that we could talk about future plans. We are working on a list of "100 Dreams" that we can refer to when we are doing our weekly planning and we find some spare time.

' 

Since the pod is full (and Matt has strep and can't bring his trailer) it was time to rent a Uhaul.

We managed to get everything that we needed to load into it before I had to be at my work meeting. When I got done it was time to load things into a storage unit. This time we had the added help of David as well as Samuel Phelps and Andrew Debelmar.

He is a skilled and strong packer. I was concerned that we would not be able to fit half of what we brought. With Samuel's impressive Tetris skills we were able to fit almost everything. The rest we put in Heather's yard and garage. That's where those things are destined to end up anyway.

Here is a final picture of the hard-working crew and the filled to the brim storage unit.

Heidi and I will return the empty truck in the morning. It was a long day but we got the work done.

2/18/18 Cookies for Self Reliance

     Today was a pretty normal Sunday. We attended our church meetings. After church, we had our weekly family planning meetings. One thing that was fun today was making cookies to bring to our self-reliance class. Rebecca and Sarah did most of the work on this. Heidi helped gather ingredients and provided consulting but most of the work was done by the kiddos. The best part, aside from the learning experience, is that the cookies tasted great!

2/17/18 A Moving Experience

This morning it was time to load Grammie and Grandpa Mangum's belongings up for the move. Rebecca and Bradley helped disassemble some shelves.

Heather arranged for a pod to be delivered for the big things that needed to be moved. Doug, Anthony, Lauren, Matt, Sharon, Lucy, and Alex also came. Lauren was especially helpful with entertaining Peter. 

In the end, we were not able to fit everything. So it looks like we will be back at this Monday morning.

2/16/18 A Whole Session

Today Gram, Papa, Heidi and I did an Endowment session together. The last time Gram remembers doing a session was when Jenny got married in the temple. That means that it has been several years since this special event has happened. We feel honored to have been able to be a small part of it. What a unique blessing it has been to be able to attend the temple, nearly weekly, with my parents.

Also worth a mention is that David went with the troop on a campout. This is his first that it just for fun, meaning that he does not need it to complete a merit badge or other requirement for becoming an Eagle Scout.

2/15/18 Exercise With the Boys

My new watch keeps track of how much exercise I get. It turns out not very much. TJ and Joseph, as well as Peter and Heidi, have been helping me fix that. When the boys get ready on time we've been talking a short walk down to the park. TJ has been getting better at throwing the frisbee. It's fun family time, plus we get some exercise. It seems like a win-win.

2/14/18 Valentine's Day and Cub Carpentry

Heidi credited me with giving her these flowers (although she may have given them to me first). ;)

This afternoon Heidi and I met up with our Cub Scouts and brother Turner's house. He has a nice workshop where he does his woodworking.

He prepared special kits for the boys so that they could hammer and nail together footstools.

The boys were excited and surprisingly focused.

Brother Turner first helped the boys make a sanding block to smooth the rough edges.

We took a little longer than we normally do but all the boys were able to go home with a stool fully assembled. We are so grateful to brother Turner for all his hard work cutting out and measuring these kits. Next week we plan to help the boys paint their creations.

Today Sarah had Activity Days. For her activity, she decorated these beautiful sugar cookies. They were yummy too.

2/13/18 Joseph Turns 6!

This morning Heidi brought some toys to entertain Peter with during our regular weekly meeting with Gram and Papa. It helped him stay cheery while we got some things done.

Later on, Peter asked me to take this picture with his Mom.

The big highlight of the day is that Joseph is now 6 years old. He opened cards from both sets of grandparents and we ate ice cream and pie.

Gram and Papa provided the pie. It needed to be baked. It is the first time I can remember me being in charge of baking a pie. Happily, it turned out.

Happy Birthday, Joseph!

2/12/18 Priorities FHE

This morning Alex came over to play for a little bit. This always makes Peter happy.

This evening we taught the kids about priorities using an object lesson.

When you fill a jar with small things then medium things followed by big things you run out of space fast.

If you start with the big things and then do the small things everything fits. It's an important lesson and one that is not always easy to live in practice. The kids had fun with the hands-on part of the lesson.

Sarah showed her kindness and prepared the brownies that she bought to have for dessert for FHE. They were yummy and we are grateful for her thoughtfulness.

2/11/18 Special Stake Conference

This morning we finished setting up the Special Stake Conference at the Inter-Stake Center. Elder Quintin L. Cook is the visiting authority. We, of course, had last minute tech issues. Above me Darren Eyering is trying to sort out why the projector is flashing off and on.

We've had issues lately with signals not being strong enough to be read clearly by the gear at the far end. We put a device on to boost the signal and the picture became solid. It was a blessing that we had enough of those. I don't think we had many extras.

Aside from that one issue the broadcast felt very blessed today. We worked hard resolving issues yesterday but that hasn't stopped new issues from happening in the past. Today, for the most part, everything worked. I'd give audio an A-. Only a slight hint of feedback but mostly fine. We fixed our past mistakes. No wrong name supers today and we remembered to test sound on the Spanish AND the English headsets. It was the first conference in recent memory that felt clean from a technical perspective.

From a Spiritual perspective it was great as well. Being on the tech crew, it is hard to get the most out of meetings but today I picked up a couple of things. Sister Cook told a hilarious story about a Family Home Evening they had when their kids were little. Sister Cook had this great plan, she dressed the family up. Her 3 year old boy was Moses, Dad (on his knees) was Pharaoh), the daughter (6) was the reader (with Mom's help). The boy would say "let my people go", Pharaoh said "no" and the daughter read the next plague. What could go wrong? After about the fourth plague though the three year old started to tear up when his dad said "No" again and punched him in the nose. Well, that event ended FHE that night. The point was that we all have set backs trying to teach our kids. They still had FHE the next week. We need to expect those kinds of challenges and be ready to try again.

Brother Cook talked about being more loving and understanding with our kids. He told about a time when his daughter missed her curfew. She was usually very punctual. They got concerned to the point that they kneeled and prayed for her safety. Shortly thereafter she arrived. As they heard the car pull in the driveway his concern for her safety dissolved into anger that she had not considered their feelings. In hindsight he wishes that his daughter could have seen more of the concerned dad and less of the grumpy dad. It turned out that she had an innocent reason for being late.

Heidi took this fun picture of Peter and Joseph.

Here is David, helping fix dinner. He is getting to be so grown up.