Dissection Class

I've had the amazing opportunity to take a human dissection class this spring term. "Gross!" you might say. Let me tell you why it is one of the best classes I've ever taken.
I get the chance to learn things about the human body that I would otherwise never be able to see. Whether I am skinning, separating muscles, cleaning up specimens, or doing a tricky eye dissection, I am learning so much. I am continually amazed at the incredible things our bodies can do. They were truly designed by the best creator. It is a spiritual experience every day, and I honestly feel my testimony growing stronger. The human body is one of the best testaments to God's creation that I have ever seen. And I can't help but think that the spirits of the people we are dissecting are often there around us, checking in on their bodies that they will eventually be reunited with, restored in their perfect forms. We can't take pictures for obvious reasons, but I just wanted to tell everyone about this class and why I love it.

Story Time!

So Rico had the great idea to begin a collaborative story here on the blog. I get to start since I'm the youngest so here it goes! Remember you can take it any direction you want to.


"Whoosh!" A silver alarm clock whizzed past Dan, nearly smacking him in the head as he meandered down the street. Dan stopped short and turned around to look for the belligerent thrower. There wasn't a soul in sight. He picked up the offending object to take a closer look. At first it appeared to be pretty ordinary. Then he noticed the ominous ticking emanating from its mechanical depths.

ANOTHER CAPITAL (CITY) WEDDING

Some of the Schneiders - including Benners! took a little road trip down to Regina this weekend to be part of Patti's and Aaron's big day. It was a fabulous wedding - not only tres elegant but tres fun, and with a few surprises too, including Ukrainian dancers. (Gran thought that was pretty cool.)

And keeping with Ukrainian tradition there was of course a dance. That had to be my favorite part of the evening. No photographic evidence to prove it, but I did get to DANCE with OJ, Jordan, John and even Blake - one at a time of course. They all know how to hoof it. Too bad Rico wasn't there to show us some moves as well. (Check out the video and you'll see some other smooth moves though...)

Patti and Aaron looked exceptionally beautiful/handsome and very, very happy!

Memories and Memorials

Here in the United States the last Monday in May is a national holiday known as Memorial Day. It was originally created to remember soldiers lost in the Civil War, then expanded after the First World War to include all soldiers serving anywhere.

A picture of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery I took when I visited Washington, DC in 2009.

On the Ferrero side, we developed somewhat of a tradition of visiting my maternal grandfather's grave on Memorial Day after he passed away. We later expanded this to include my maternal grandmother since she passed and was buried next to him. However, this Memorial Day is a little different.

In addition to Memorial Day, today (Sunday the 29th) is/was my paternal grandmother's birthday. She would have been 93 today if she had not passed away in January. The last time I saw her in this world was when Lindsay and I stopped by her care facility driving the rental truck with our stuff from SLC to LA after the wedding reception. I'm almost positive she was just hanging on to make sure her last grandchild got married and once that happened, she was ready to move on. I'm really glad she got the chance.

So this Memorial Day, amid the TV commercials for sales on cars and mattresses, remember the reason for the holiday. Those who have served their country with pride and honor, and those in the family who are no longer here.

LITTLE BOYS IN LA

There were lots of fun times with the Puente boys in LA the past couple weeks. This was one of the coolest....

It's a BIG event every Wednesday morning, especially for Chrish....

He helps to line up the garbage and recycling bins JUST SO on the curb in front of the house and then he waits.... The SECOND he, or any of the boys hear the sound of a big truck on the road they race outside to line up on the sidewalk and watch the action. Here's what happens - the garbage guys see the spectators waiting for the show and they honk their horn and give a big wave and smile. Then the big cool crane thing dips down and grabs onto one of the bins, hoists it into the air, flips it and dumps it into the dumpster. All with lots of loud, grinding sound effects. The boys almost break into applause. I almost break into applause. Then the bin is plonked down and the garbage guys beep their horn again, smile and wave and drive off. It's all over in less than a minute and then Chrish wants to close all the open lids on the bins. Then he wants to walk down the street and close everyone else's lids.

It's a very cool, very amazing show. And it's free. I don't know what I liked more - watching the trucks or watching the boys watch the trucks :)

Make It All Right

Hi gang,

This past Sunday we had ward conference at the MI ward. We were a little nostalgic since it is probably the last

ward conference we will be able to attend there with our move to Edmonton.

President Johnson, our stake president, spoke on grace. He said it is not emphasized enough in our church. We tend to focus more on works. Two stake officers sang "Amazing Grace" in a truly amazing way. This hymn was in our earliest hymnal selected by Emma Smith, but was removed from the later versions in the 1850's for being too Protestant.

Bishop Tracy spoke on the interconnectedness between physical, emotional, and spiritual health. The Tracys have always been good friends and an inspiration to all of us. Of their six children one passed away and three have been affected by either serious illness or disability.

Bishop Tracy referred to his eldest son's physical ailment and mentioned that even though we cannot always heal those physical ailments, we can always heal and even prevent our spiritual ailments.

He reminded us that spiritual ailments are healed with a daily dose of two incredible tools. Heavenly Father has the power to make everything right. We access that power directly through scripture study and prayer. That's what helps us stay connected to the source of truth. Illnesses, no matter what kind they are, are trials of mortality and if we endure them well, and fulfill our part of the covenants we have made with Heavenly Father, we are promised that no blessings will be withheld from us.

I pray that we can all remember this remarkable promise.

Love,

Gramps

a blog.

Hey guys, I've started a blog...that's open to readers...if there are any.

http://chimney-sweeper.blogspot.com/

This might last a year, this might last a week - who knows, who cares. It's an act of creation and I'm doing it for the good of my soul.

Gnocchi

One of favorite meals growing up is gnocchi. It's a potato-based pasta that takes some time to make, but is absolutely delicious. So for one FHE, we decided to make some!

First, you boil some potatoes, then skin them. You put them through a ricer on top of a "volcano" of flour, eggs and vegetable/canola oil and knead the dough until it's not sticky.

At this point, it's still sticky and needs some more flour.


Lindsay decides to get in on the fun with the dough! Looks like it has enough flour now.

After the dough is mixed, you take a piece and roll it into a snake. Then you cut off small pieces, roll them off a fork and cook the gnocchi like normal pasta, in boiling water.

The finished project. Yum!

A yummy meal, enjoyed by all!

7 Acre Itch...

As Ian mentioned earlier we are in escrow right now to buy a piece of property in the mountains about four hours away from here. When I threw up some photos on my blog I actually got a lot of encouraging comments from people about buying the land. Many people talked about how meaningful it's been for them to have a family vacation property in the mountains. For some reason most of them got deleted when blogger's server went down on Thursday, but it just made me feel more excited. I don't know when we'd be able to build our cabin on there because we still need to, um, buy a real house here in LA. I guess we'll figure that out... (hopefully!)

Mrs....

I've really ben enjoying the times as an assistant teacher at my job at a Private School here. The other day they had me jump in last minute to work with the 5th graders. The teacher in charge that day was another assistant that I have chatted with a few times and seem to know well enough. We know each other by our first names, since mostly we've had conversations in the lunch room- so it was funny to be put in a situation where we were in front of the kids and she needed to introduce me but just knew my first name! The only thing she knew about my last name was that it was like the chocolates... haha... She was brave and just went ahead and introduced me! I didn't fully realize that she would have needed another hint, but it was all good. I laughed afterwards but in front of the class we kept things more professional. Here's what was hilarious - she knew my name was like the chocolates, so she guessed and she got close but not quite on the money. She said, 'Good Morning class, so we have a teacher helping out today since your regular teacher is out. This is Mrs. Rocher.'

:) hahah It was a little surprising to me so I quickly said, 'Ferrero,' and the kids got my name down quickly because I guess we gave them a mnemonic, but she and I were soon laughing about it! We were joking about how nicknames come about and how this is a great one! why not? We also commented about how she had little info to go by, but came close to getting it! Hahahahah...

Dodging the Dodgers

One of the fun things to go do in LA is to catch a Dodger game. Thanks to Matt and Michelle (a couple we knew who also met in the single's ward and got married recently) we were able to get tickets fairly inexpensively, so we made a double date out of it.

Smiling from the cheap seats.

Matt and Michelle.

One of the appeals of a baseball game is that there's time to chat with everybody because there's not always action going on. We had a nice visit catching up and good times were had by all!

Shaver Lake

So the Puentes have been toying with the idea of buying some land up in the mountains for a long while now. We finally made the plunge and you can look at some pictures here.

Its raw land, but its 7 acres and has a little pond on it. We're hoping to make it something special and would love to host folks over the coming years.