Nauvoo, Spam, and more Cake!

Nauvoo the Beautiful.  

I love it.  I've had the opportunity to make a "pilgrimage" there every 9-ish years, so it seemed fitting to take my 3rd visit before I turn 28.    

 Last time I was here, it was for the Nauvoo temple open house which was a real testimony building experience for me.  The visit before, I remember walking around the foundations of the original temple.  It makes me so happy it's been rebuilt and is just as beautiful as I remember.  Anthony and I took turns with Ira, so we could do some work inside.

 Ira now has a version of the word "horse," but to see one up close kind of freaked him out. Petting one was the last thing he wanted to do.

 We took a fun little ox ride and I realized I didn't know anything about the animals.  I had no idea they were just trained steers.  

 O.k.  This looks really stupid unless you are an Ellsworth girl.  It's tradition for my sisters and I to pose behind this statue, and also to pose randomly with almost every other statue in this garden.  But I'll spare you. 

 Howdy!  Yes, we dressed him up.  No, we didn't pose him like that.

 The game tent rocked!

Anthony really wants me to watch Herby with him someday.  I've been resisting, but maybe this was a sign. 

 Staying up past bedtime to watch the pageant.

 Ira was incredibly grumpy for the first chunk of the play, but after a diaper change he calmed right down and we were able to enjoy the rest of the play.  It was fabulous.  I have to admit, I think I enjoyed the "Songs by the Mississippi" or whatever it's called, even more.  The cast was so talented I started crying during the America medley!

 Carthage Jail.

 Ira looks appropriately serious, but this is just before he left to frolick in the shady grass.  Which now that I mention it, is what he really wanted to do during the entire trip.  Take about 2 months worth of toddler non-cooperation and squeeze it into the 2 days in Nauvoo, and that gives you a little idea of his pleasantness level.  

 The graves.

 The Mississippi 

 The Mansion House

Nauvoo Intermission:  This is my first fondant cake I made a couple weeks ago.  I made it for John's birthday in honor of his mega biking trip.  What was it called?  The Painjunking Pilgrimage or something?  The boys assisted in the assembling and last minute touches.

O.k., these are so out of order.  We stopped by the Spam museum on the way down to Nauvoo.  It was awesome!  The thought of eating spam kind of makes me sick, but Anthony has fond sentiments for it.

Yes, that is a spam shirt he's wearing.  

Alright, love you guys!  Have a good week!

Ice cream Cake, Giant Cherries, and Swinging sculptures.

Hi Everyone!

   It's been an awesome week full of family.  Mom and Dad came to visit us Minnesotans, so Carolyn and I took turns hosting and met up each day to hang out.  It was rainy almost every day so we spent time playing games, making and eating food, swimming (in doors when it was raining), and visiting a few art exhibits. 

 This is the Summer Vacation Travels cake I made in Mom and Dad's honor.  They are taking a crazy long road trip looping around the country after they fly back to PA.  It was my first ice cream cake.  Mmmm.  I'll do it again when I know that about 15 people can come help eat it.

 Giant glass fish at the Sculpture Garden in Minneapolis.  That's tiny Ira to the right.

 This was an awesome swinging sculpture, that would have been even more awesome if it swung a bit higher. 

The famous cherry scupture!  Actually I'm not sure how famous it really is, but the sculpture garden's website says it is.   

 Mom and Dad on the poetry bridge.

 The majority of the Durant clan. 

 My sculpture nephews. 

I'm glad you could come Mom and Dad!  I already miss you.  

      In other news:  We have a place to live in Michigan!  Woohoo!  I feel pretty good about our choice thanks to an awesome cousin (1st cousin once removed) in the area that was willing to go check out a couple places for us.  I'm excited to be close to family again.

  We are gearing up for the move, which looks like it may be a little more complicated than we hoped.  erg.  Update on that later.   

   We took a great trip to Nauvoo last weekend.  Actually, I'll do an entry about that right.......now.

Electric Vehicle Test Drive

Work had an Electric Vehicle showcase today. We got to test drive a handful of the EV's on the market or almost on the market like:
Nissan Leaf,
Chevy Volt,
Coda(new company that only makes EVs),
Ford, Mitsubishi

Pretty sweet. I was surprised at the pickup some of them had, how they handled, and the range they said they could get. They withstood a full day of test drives around the course they had setup.

There was also a presentation on the business case for EVs that was interesting. There are a lot of unknowns, how high gas prices will get (assuming the will continue to rise), if the power grid will be able to flux to meet the demand, etc . The figure that I hadn't considered before and surprised me the most was the expected resell value of EVs and the expected decrease in maintenance costs, due to fewer moving parts.

 Parking lot of the future?

Assuming EVs catch on it will be interesting to see how markets change and evolve to adapt. It could potentially be a really big shift, I wonder if it's too big to really get EVs off the ground or if there is enough momentum to really make it happen. Thoughts?

The Social Conundrum

This post is dedicated to my friend Gabe, who as Sharon and I say is pseudo-family. He was married recently (meaning in the last year) and disappeared for a while. He resurfaced yesterday and wrote a great blog post about how he’s been feeling lately about life and being social. His thoughts and questions resonated with me and I began to write a comment, which turned into a very long comment. Instead of publishing it in the hardly read comment section, I decided to actually vet my response and edit it a bit and give him a thoughtful blog response (to break up the family log). You may need to read his post to understand some of my comments. Another disclaimer here, you should keep in mind, while I enjoy company, I am an introvert and don’t naturally seek out the company of others.

It seems to me what Gabe experienced was the 'post marriage' void. I’m pretty sure this happens to most newlyweds, unless they are the last of their single friends to get married and they still live near their married friends. I'm not saying it is a bad thing, but after you marry your best friend, there’s not much motivation to regularly reach out to old friends.  I think I really would have dropped off a ton of people’s radar, except that Sharon has this amazing ability to keep in touch with people.  I think it helped that two weeks after being married we shared a house with several other single adults for 4 months in Mozambique, bless their souls. It forced us to quickly get past that awkward “don’t-know-how-to-be-around-single-people” syndrome.  In addition, we learned that single friends can cope with hanging out with newlyweds.  We also had the advantage of living for a year close to friends and family immediately following, but even with that we still went through reclusive moments.

I have always felt as Gabe describes; life is crazy and while I always think to get in touch with people, I never seem to have time, or honestly make the time. When I was at Carnegie Mellon, I had to force myself to be social. I seriously made 'social' goals to motivate myself to stay in touch with people and build meaningful connections with those around me. They were usually simple things like write an email. Recently I've actually had a really nagging feeling I needed to email a bunch of people again.  Gabe was on that list.

Again, it helps that Sharon is such a social person and not only kept in touch with everyone we left in Utah, but also quickly made great friends in Pittsburgh. It’s been interesting with us moving every 6 months the last year or so. We have both found it much more challenging to make meaningful friends and to keep in touch with them, probably because we don’t get to know people as well, and we never really know if we will see anyone again.

I can relate to going long periods of time without speaking to my family. My family will be the first to tell you I’m horrible at keeping in touch.  I hardly ever call them. They usually are the ones that end up calling me. If it weren’t for Sharon’s example and reminders I’m scared to admit how much time would go by before I would think to talk with them. Not that I don’t love them and care about what’s going on, I just don’t think to call and chat.  It doesn’t feel natural. I’ve had a lot of retrospectives on why that is and I can’t really put my finger on it. I think it could have something to do with being the third of six children, my mission, and my introverted personality.

Anyway, to bring this full circle, ‘social media’ in some ways helps to solve these social conundrums. I’ll comment on the technologies he mentions, facebook, google+, and Blogs 

Facebook

I was never 100% onboard with. I’ll admit it; I joined largely under the influence of a girl back in 2006 or 2007. I put it off for a long time, but I was finally convinced. Since then she and I have moved on, but I never really immersed myself in it like others I know. I've actually tried deactivating my account twice in the last year; it's always one thing or the other that makes me 'have' to sign into it again, like organizing my brother’s bachelor party. I think it will actually be awhile before I can part with it for good. It does offer a convenient solution to the long distance social problem; just drop a note on a wall or comment on a recent photo and you keep the connection alive. Sharon chats with her close friends frequently. When I do get on facebook, I’m bad, I will usually go look at friends’ walls and get an idea of what they have been up to and not say anything...the anti-social side I guess.

Google+

I don’t know if it is just my impulse to try new things, but I have actually really enjoyed google+. I feel I have had more meaningful, thoughtful, and informative interactions. The format is more supportive of composing complete thoughts and communicating easily in a diverse range of ways. Because of it, I’ve been in touch with a few friends I have been long overdue in reaching out to again. I also like that I can share thoughts to one group of people or share pictures quickly from a family trip to a different group. I also have this crazy desire to keep all my contacts in one location. I love gmail, my android phone, and G+ because it allows me to manage all my contacts from one place.

   

Blogging

I have heard that many bloggers are switching to google+ from their traditional blogs. My blog was never really very deep intellectually or entertaining (Ira has helped with that though) and my audience is largely family and friends who may or may not have google accounts.  So I probably won’t be moving it any time soon, but I may post a link to any updates on google+.

In conclusion, I really don’t think one way of keeping in touch is better or worse, more modern or out dated than any other, I think it has more to do with personality, what you are comfortable with, and what you audience (people you communicate with or want to communicate with) regularly uses.

Well, I know this is a really long response, but since I don't live close enough to have a good face-to-face discussion and I need the practice articulating my thoughts in writing, this is what Gabe gets. I hope I have been able to add to these intriguing subjects.

For those joining the conversation, please leave a comment here or on Gabe’s original post. 

Quinn Visit!

Hi Everyone.  

    This is a delayed photo update of the Quinn visit.  I don't know what happened, but neither Ant nor I took pictures!  What were we NOT thinking?  These were all taken by Valine and may explain why we're lacking in photos of Grandma and Grandpa Quinn.  It was a blast having them here!

 Grandma gave these animals to Ira.  He lines them up in this exact spot almost daily, before he starts giving them truck rides around the apartment.  

 We took a little trip to the Mall of America, in which I rode a roller coaster for the first time in 10 years.  Woohoo!  It was great.  Mckay was good to put up with my screaming pretty much the entire ride. 

 Ant took some time off of work to spend the day with us at the conservatory and zoo.  

 I don't remember what exactly the point of this poster was.  I guess to make sure we all know that homosapiens (specifically little boys?) should be categorized with primates.  So, in honor of this very intelligent poster, we had a family photo taken.  Ira and the gorilla are ironically the only ones that look good in it. 

 Ira was thrilled with just about everything at the zoo. 

Foreshadowing that Ira, like his Dad, may be a Phish head. 

 The Sunken Garden.  Mckay kept saying something like, "We need a room like this in our house Mom!"  Agreed.  It smelled as good as it looked.

This is a big flower, but nothing compared to...

 this one!  :)

 The Japanese Garden.

 Ira was pretty tuckered out...

 but rewarded almost daily with chocolate cake. I seriously went through chocolate cake withdrawals after they left.  

Thanks for coming Quinns!  

  In other news:  We had a really fun 4th with the Durants and have been spending most spare time apartment hunting.  We have a few applications in, but it seems as though places are going like hot cakes, so hopefully we'll have a place settled in the next couple of days.  

Love you guys!