Sprechen Sie... uh..... American?

A tale of intrigue, suspense, betrayal, revenge, family, and chocolate. Okay, Maybe not so much about the other stuff--just family and chocolate. So for the first two weeks in March I was in Germany. It was all thanks to a sister who used her hubby's frequent flyer miles and some mula to get me there. This is just a little summary of my adventure.

I have decided that the best reason for living in Germany of Europe in general is the food. Yes, this is a chocolate bar, but what isn't shown is the fresh pastries and bread from the bakery, the CHEESE and a bunch of other stuff. I gained about 2 pounds in two weeks (or maybe I was this fat before I left for Germany, who knows) due to the food. Mostly the chocolate. And in particular, the Belgian chocolate. We drove to Belgium so I could see it and get chocolate. Not even kidding. Oh, and we did see the memorial rock, which made it SO worth it. Ask my sister or brother in law, I ate me some chocolate! It was worth the extra weight even if it means less dates up in Idaho. Worth it.The kids (my nephews and nieces) were in school while I was there so after the kids went off to school, Joy and I plus a 4 year old Noah jumped in the car and drove to awesome sights. Now I had this idea in my head of what the autobon would look like- Ferraris and Lamborghinis zooming past at incredible speed while everyone was going 150+ mph. Actually, the autobon is like America's interstate system, only with better paving and stretches of road that had no speed limit. The suggested speed for these areas is 130 kph (80mph) but you seriously can go as fast as you want. We usually cruised around 95 or so for the most part. Oh, this is Joy driving the minivan.

One one of our trips we went to St. Avold, France to see the Lorraine cemetery. Some 15,000 service men and women are laid to rest in this beautiful cemetery. It was a very solemn place, and it humbled me to think of the sacrifice that was made just to preserve freedom. Not many things are worth dying for, but freedom is one of them.I really liked the inscription on this monument, and reminded me of the obligation and responsibility that is mine to uphold the cause that was purchased with blood and tears.
On another day we went to Trier, Germany and walked around the town to check out the historic sites. The top of the city had a amphitheater that was used for a bunch of stuff including gladiator battles. Beneath the floor are rooms and passages where the animals and people were kept.

This is the downtown area of Trier, very quaint and picturesque. Of course the most exciting part to Noah would be the pigeons that he would occasionally get to pursue. It was here that I learned an important lesson: happy children make for a happy parent. Yes, I know all my siblings are saying "DUH" right now but I never claimed that I wasn't a slow learner :POn Saturday we went to a nature park that was up the hill from where Joy and Ben lived. We probably spent most of the time in the playground and goat pen but the kids enjoyed it and it was fun to watch them run around in the human hamster wheel. No way something this fun and dangerous would EVER be in a park in the U.S.
Whoever devised the system of having the park guests purchase food and feed the animals was a business genius. The kids loved it even if some of them got a little worried when the bigger goats came for their share of the snacks.
And this horse nearly ran into us through the fence. He was a little overly-eager and did a spectacular skid-stop in the muddy ground before careening into us. Oh, and in case you were wondering, every horse in the world is a Noah-horse.After we made the rounds at the park and fed most of the animals we hit up the playground again (naturally) and the kids got pretty good at the hamster
And of course they have a trampoline at a nature park...? Oh well, the kids loved it!

So Germany has a million castles. Seriously. This one is near Joy's house and we decided to go there one afternoon to look around. It was pretty cool to see some of the original structures and I was in awe of their engineering capabilities.Some of the rooms and structures were someone odd so far as I could tell, but I'm sure they served a purpose back in the day. I think these were canon-ports.
On our second weekend we went to Rhottenburg, Germany. What did I go to see in Rhottenburg, you ask? Why an Aston Martin Vanquish. Okay, okay, I didn't really go for the cars, but this beauty was just parked by the side of the road. Maybe it was James Bond...

We spent the night in Rhottenburg, and it was awesome. I went for a night stroll by myself to see the town while the kids were in bed. The next day we walked around the city and saw the city.
This is a view from the perimeter wall that encompassed the city. The houses are very German with the steep roofs with tiles covering them.
This is the walkway along the inside of the perimeter wall. It was an artsy picture mostly for myself, but there you go. I found that Pictures take a backseat when you are trying to herd children or prevent little ones from getting too close to edges and whatnot.
I loved the narrow alleyways that connected everything.
At the torture museum in Rhottenburg the kids showed me the child-catcher. Seriously. Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang wasn't even lying!
One of the 15 some-odd cathedrals and churches in the small city of Rhottenburg. It was pretty sweet. And so ended our weekend trip.
On Monday we headed back to Luxembourg to go to the WWII cemetery there. While walking on the path I came across this marker and was touched.
General Patton had requested that he be buried with his men, and his wish was granted. While the man was not without his faults, just like the rest of us, I earned even more respect for him when he forewent a monument or a tomb so he could be buried in the same manner as the men that he lead.

And so ended my adventure. It was a very wonderful experience and turned into a more introspective experience than I had anticipated. The church services there were held with the airmen and their families that were stationed in Germany as well. I kept kicking myself for not packing my own scriptures because I had many wonderful and sweet insights that have had and will have a tremendous effect on my life. I love life :)

Pictures of Randomness

Adam has a pretty cool blog of some of his pictures and I thought that I would copy him by putting up some of my pictures that I like. Some of these are ancient and some are not so ancient. These don't include any people, just landscapes and such.

What 24 looks like

I'm 24. Like the popular tv show, but with less terrorists. This weekend the parents and I went camping at pinnacles to celebrate. After some time we realized that we hadn't been camping in SIX years. While sitting around the campfire we got to reminisce a little about past trips. Sky camp with sheldon and jason coming up and then playing mission in the tall grass, lost coast with adam blazing the trail to prove his manliness, I thought of coast camp with our offpath adventure that resulted in poison oak fun, Camping with the Baley's and I carried my own backpack (with just my coat, mind you) until someone carried me on their shoulders the rest of the way, buetano with the slugs, manresa beach with bikes, chain lakes with mosquitoes and so on and so on. I guess being very old makes you reminisce about the good ol' days and such.

On Friday night it was perfectly quiet in our campground

and we were in an open field. It was perfectly still, and it seemed as though the world had stopped. A nice feeling when my week consists of work and then nearly immediately to an activity or choir practice every night except friday. It felt GOOD. We also used the campfire to respectfully dispose of an American flag, as well as garments. I remember two times before where I was one of the color-guards retiring the colors, back in scouts, and it moved me to think about what that flag stood for, and how much has been sacrificed for it. Pretty cool experience, and it was one of the opportunities to realize how much has been given and sacrificed just so I can live a life of my choosing. It crazy to see the unrest in the middle east and currently in Egypt but usually when I hear a report about the unrest or the violence, I don't really allow myself to grasp the import of the situation and think about all the individual lives that are being affected by that crisis. Sorry, I'm not trying to make this a political blog, but sometimes I get carried away in my rambling, as I'm sure all of you know very well. haha

The weather was very warm when we got there but that quickly changed as the sun went down. The fire proved invaluable even for a springtime in California. Now this next part is somewhatshameful for me, but here you have it: it was a COLD night. Due to the frost and

ice on the tents and the campsite, we estimate it was around 28 or so to give it that good of a frosting. I, going to school in Idaho, thought that I was impervious to cold and that anything above 15 is nothing. Well, its only nothing when you're wearing the right clothes and your sleeping bag is decent. All of us woke up several times due to the cold and the less than ideal sleeping conditions, but it was still a lot of fun and proved to be yet another experience that helped me be more grateful for what I have.

Change is Good

I've had an opportunity to reflect on some things recently, and one of those things that I have been thinking about lately is change. Change is usually a scary word that invites feelings of fear of the unknown, uncertainty about the future, and so forth. This last week and these past weeks have been a lesson to me that change is not bad, and is often a very good thing. While this list of recent changes seems to be very simple and almost unimportant, I view this events in a different perspective that goes much deeper.

Weather

This picture is not a mistake. This is what the sky looks like this morning, and my purpose in sharing this is not to rub it in. For about the past three weeks or so, nearly every morning the valley has been covered in fog. Not the nice little fog that burns off by 10 but the kind that sticks around all day and never lets the sun out. It was kinda depressing but maybe thats just because I'm a spoiled california boy that likes his sun in the winter. Recently the fog has been gone and we have been having some sunshine around here, which makes a world of difference. So thats a good change.

Apple Tree

This is sadly what is left of the Granny Smith apple tree in the backyard. Dad, Eric McCray, and myself spent saturday morning and part of the afternoon cutting it down, and then removing the stump. While it is very sad to not have this delicious tree anymore, it was very clear that the entire tree was diseased and would not be the productive tree that it has been in the past.

Another thought came from the roots, themselves. While the actual task of digging a trench and cutting the roots was no easy task, I was rather surprised that it wasn't harder to rip the tree out of the ground. We left the trunk and a limb on the tree so we had some leverage, and the tree came out much easier than I thought it would or should. There was no taproot. No singular, strong root that was at the core of the supporting root system. Again, this observation goes deeper than taking down a tree.

Temple

I guess I'll end my unnecessarily long post on this item. Yesterday the three YSA branches went to the Sacramento temple. The Oakland temple is undergoing renovations and cleanings and such so our normal temple wasn't available for our monthly temple trip. Thankfully the Turlock branch arranged for us to go to Sacramento to do baptisms. This was my first time doing baptisms there, and it was a very enjoyable experience. It was a new temple, and a different experience than what I was used to. Afterwards I was able to snap a couple of pictures, including this one. Not a great shot, but still helps me remember the feelings of that evening.

So change isn't a bad thing, and is often a necessary and a great thing. Its a wonderful thing to know that our lives are being led by a benevolent Father that wants us to become like Him, and has provided a mortal existence for us to start that journey. I've had some recent insights on being led, and they are a continuing reminder that I am just a mere child and have yet to understand a great many things. I'm not worried, and I look forward to the future and the wonderful ( and not so wonderful) changes that await me.

There and Back Again

(this is what rexburg area looks like right now)

SO I am not the best blogger. Big shocker. BUT I plan on being a little bit more consistent than once every 4 months, as is the current pace. So a little update on my life. I survived another semester at school, and learned how to safely navigate all sorts of fun driving conditions. My favorite is snow on polished ice. Oh, and I am of the opin

ion that the majority of drivers in Rexburg (aside from me, of course) should not be allowed to drive when its not dry pavement. Looking back on the semester, I haven't gone on as many excursions as I did the previous semester. That is in large measure because once winter sets in, you aren't going very far off of the main roads. However, Nae came up before the snow hit so we did a circuit of Yellowstone and then went south to Teton national park. It was sweet.

We spent a good deal of time talking about getting the "mennin"(meningitis) from the geyser vapor or having a bad case of the rubies.(this has no correlation to anything) We also sang country songs, ate sugar peas, many rolls, and talked of getting a good cantalope (antelope). We found some buffalo in Teton that were in a "fenced" enclosure but the fence was super small and was open in a lot of spots.

I got as close as my stupidity would let me, and I snapped these. Those suckers are big. Just saying. But fortunately I didn't die, and neither Nae or I got the Mennin so it was a fun trip where nobody suffered severe injury. Score. So there you have it. My life in a small nutshell. Now im back at home working at the lab again, and saving up for the future. Its a new year, which brings change and different challenges and adventures. Im ready. Its crazy to think how life changes from year to year, but exciting too.

Embrace This Day

Life is good. I am genuinely happy. Don't worry, I could still complain about sleep deprivation, the dating scene, or homework, but I don't notice any of those things right now. In fact, I am going to try to never let them be a focus ever again. Even though things have been a little hectic this week, I feel very content with everything in my life. It started with getting a blessing on Sunday from my Elder's Quorum President (he's my roommate). Things changed for me. I changed. Then a phenomenal lesson in my religion class opened up Alma 36 in ways that I never could have imagined. I changed some more. I have a hope for the future that is burning in me that cannot be quenched by the economy or whatever the world may throw at me. I am going to make a difference in the world. My children will make a difference. And this is not because of any special ability that I have, but rather that I am going to try to live my life a little more like a byu devotional given back in 1996. My friend David sent it to me on facebook, for which I am very grateful. I don't feel fear or regret about opportunities that I chose not to pursue, or even apprehension about what comes next. It will be alright in the end. I'm just waiting for the next big trial in my life, but when it comes I will face it as a new man. I don't deserve any of the countless blessings that I have been given, but I am very grateful for them. Life is good. Even when its hard, life is amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAjZ8mfoYw

Musings of a tired boy

While taking pictures of stars (moonrise) out in the desert, with my brother, I came to the realization that there is so much light. No matter how "dark" it is at night, there is always light. It can be hard to see it at time, but its always there.