Church Activities

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has so many inspired activities for the young and old. In this period of my life, I am especially grateful for the many activities available to my children and their friends. Kirsten attends Activity Day (for girls ages 8-11) every other Friday. Her excitement and love for this day has spread to Fiona (her friend across the street). Fiona has attended the last two activities and wants to come regularly now. She's a sweet girl who has an unbelievable desire to learn everything she can.

This past week, Justin has started playing for the Branham Ward basketball team and has taken on the responsibility of being the team captain. The team consists of many of his YM leaders and a few of his friends. He is so excited for their first game next Thursday.

Steven, James, and Justin are also involved in the Stake Youth Choir. They meet for practices each Sunday for an hour and a half. Their music director, Sis. Sundstrom, makes it a lot of fun. The yummy food that she brings each week are an added incentive to show up and sing the uplifting music. Justin and James never wanted to attend until Steven started going. After a couple of weeks of seeing Steven come home with candy and stories of rootbeer floats and cute girls, his brothers quickly jumped on the bandwagon.

Our stake also has a youth choir that you have to try out for (Zion's Choir). They travel around the bay area performing at various concerts. It is Steven's goal to work towards joining Zion's Choir by learning how to read music and understand the different parts. Justin is even toying at the idea to join this elite choir. Both boys have good enough voices to make their desire a reality. I hope they stick with it.

Ski Week

With Dave-o being sick and the weather so yucky, we didn't do a whole lot during "Ski Week". David had taken Thursday and Friday off of work to take the kids snowboarding, but was unable to do so. High winds (45-90 per hour)and heavy snowfall prevented them from their planned excursion. James, Steven, and Kirsten still had a few of their classes at the Grange to attend which kept them busy. Justin and his friend Noah worked together on making a movie.

By Friday, Dave-o was feeling a lot better so David and I decided to take the family bowling. Justin didn't want to go so gave him a choice: He could either come with us and have a LOT of fun; or stay home and watch Dave-o. To our surprise, Justin chose the latter of the two. My plan backfired. I though for sure that he wouldn't want to watch his little brother.

Bowling was...interesting. None of us bowled above 80. It was one gutter ball after the other. Oh well. We at least succeeded in having a good time laughing at each other's miserable performance.

I was given the daunting task of putting together our ward's Relief Society Directory this week. The lady who usually does it gave me her template, which proved to be useless. I, along with David, spent hours trying to "paste" the new info into the program, but Wicrosoft Excel was making our hard work a waste of time. After a few days of insanity, David ingeniously came up with an easier method of transferring the new information. We started from scratch and "pasted" the names and other info. as an image. This way, we didn't have to deal with the tables and grids that were driving us crazy. I am so thankful to be married to a smart guy who knows his way around a computer. I am also thankful that he had two days off to rescue his wife from an assignment that was too big for her. I bet David can't wait to be back at work.

Hanging Out

 Dave-o woke up sick, which explains why he was so grouchy yesterday. It appears to be the same thing that Steven and Justin had last week. At nine this morning his little body and lips began to shiver uncontrollably. From there his temperature kept rising. His thumb looks like a raisin from being in his mouth nonstop. 

(Steven is the goalie and James is wearing light blue and shorts.)

(Kirsten is blowing bubbles with her gum.)

The schools in our area have the week off (Ski Week). Justin played basketball at the park with Kyle and worked out at the gym with Merek. James and Steven gathered a bunch of friends together to play street hockey. And Kirsten played with Fiona all afternoon. I'm glad they all have friends to hang out with especially since a little boy needed my attention for most of the day.

Outdoor Holiday

David actually had President's Day off! Yeah!

In order to celebrate the sunshine and dry weather, we decided that today would be spent playing outside. The seven of us walked over to Branham High School with rackets and balls a plenty to play a few games of tennis. 

After a half an hour, Dave-o was upset about being caged-in. He wanted OUT! Kirsten was done playing tennis and wanted to ride her scooter around the school, so we took Dave-o to the football field.

 He loved the feel of the Astroturf. He rolled and ran around on it till he could go no more. Then we decided to climb the bleachers to get a better view of the snow-capped mountains that surround our beautiful valley.

Isn't it quite the site?

Our rumbly tummies told us it was time to head home. I layed Dave-o down for a nap and the majority of us watched Anastasia. David researched how to get to Mount Umunhum in order for us to get a closer look at the snow. We anxiously awaited for Dave-o to wake up. After a three hour long nap (that's a record), we hopped into the car for our next outing. 

For some strange reason, the kids were in a very contentious mood. 

"You can't look out of MY window!"

"So and so turned off my game!"

"Stop looking out my window!"

"This is so dumb! Why are we doing this?"

"Stop looking out my window!"

Half-way up Hicks Rd. David realized that we didn't have enough gas to get to our destination. So, back down into town we went listening to the same whining (and some).

Fifteen minutes later, we were back on track. We turned onto Mt. Umunhum Rd. and drove till we could go no further. David parked the Durango and we began our hike to find snow. The park ranger, who was standing by the gate, informed us that there was no snow and we only had an hour and a half before they closed the area. The news of no snow didn't bother us in the least. David and I were just happy to be out of the car full of unhappy children.

James, Steven, and Kirsten enjoyed exploring the mountain side. But there were two boys who still weren't thrilled about being here. Justin, was very annoyed that we had dragged him away from playing with his friend and Dave-o didn't like having to wear a jacket. Both of them complained almost the entire time.

 I was able to find peace looking at the beautiful views while on our hike

In this picture you can actually see the SF Bay (in the top left).

There was a steep drop off into the San Andreas fault below. This is very close to the epicenter for the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. It was about here that we noticed families walking down the mountain holding snowballs in their hands.

The ranger had been WRONG!

With the peak of Mt.Umunhum in view, I knew we were near.

 We rounded the corner of the road and to our delight we saw a mountain load of snow. Well...maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration Okay, a lot of an exaggeration; but it WAS enough to have a decent snowball fight.

For this brief moment in time, nobody complained.

Ahhhhhh!

School Projects

Steven built this arch bridge with Josh. 

James and Steven spent a couple of more weeks talking about bridges. Their favorite class was building a self supporting bridge that Leonardo Da Vinci designed for Duke Sforza. Because of it's ability to be quickly assembled, packed up, and transported, this bridge provided armies with one of the most important aspects of warfare: mobility. After building the bridge, the boys' physics teacher challenged them to construct a wheel out the wooden pieces. As you can see in the picture and videos (that Josh S. took), they succeeded.

This last week James (Steven was sick) built, tested, and modified the throwing distance of a trebuchet. James and his friend Josh came up with the winning design: there's flung marshmallows the farthest.

California history has been keeping Kirsten busy. She spent a couple of days building a model of the Carmel Mission out of Rice Crispy squares. 

Valentine's Day at School

Conversation hearts are a fun way to make school fun on Valentine's Day. This was 

Dave-o's first time eating the heart shaped candies and he loved them. I put a few in a cup which he carried around for the entire morning while the kids did school.

James invited his two best friends over to do school with us today. They all had special math problems: finding probabilities using their cup of candy and plotting coordinates to form different festive images. Kirsten designed a beautiful picture using her heart candy.

They played Valentine BINGO, wrote goofy stories using the messages on the heart candy, had a science lesson about the heart, and stacked the conversation hearts (this is their favorite activity). In the end, Josh held the highest record of 16 (in the picture he has 15, but afterward was able to add one more before it collapsed).
For lunch, we made our own personal pizzas and for dessert I had made heart sugar cookies with their names written in frosting (this is a tradition that my mom always did for my siblings and I growing up).

 After Dave-o had a nice long nap, we drove to the church and played tennis in the gym (it was raining outside). Other than Kirsten getting hit in the eye really hard by the tennis ball, they all had a blast.

 David and I bought a couple of family games for the kids' Valentine's present. They were ecstatic over receiving the game, Risk. After family night, they immediately went upstairs to play it (and are currently still at it). Kirsten is watching this first time to learn how it's played. The last time I went upstairs (to take this picture), Steven was doing really well. James and Justin were getting frustrated with his "lucky" rolls. It's been a fun day.

A Kiss for the History Books

(Taken in 1939 when my Grandma and Grandpa Owens were courting.)

Happy Valentine's Day!

A Modern Day Knight

This evening Dad Zinn dubbed Justin, James, Steven, Dave-o, and Kirsten a Knight. (I believe that Kirsten is the first girl to hold this title.)

Historically, the sword represents valor which is to show courage in the face of danger, especially in battle.

In Ephesians 6:17 we read that it is also a "...sword of the Spirit..." which is the word of God.

As I hear and see the evil that is around us, I know that my children will quite literally and figuratively be fighting a battle. The older ones are already engaged in one: a battle for their spirit. Satan is hard at work trying to weaken the very spirit of mankind. He makes bad things appear to be good and good things appear to be bad. There are few in their generation that have integrity. When times get tough, many give in to temptation and compromise their integrity. 

It is my hope that my children will be a listener and a doer of the Word as the scriptures say in Matthew 7:24,25:

"Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: 

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock."

The priceless wisdom that is found in the scriptures will guide them throughout their lifetime and if they "...hearken unto the word of god...and hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction." Nephi 15:24.

I love this scripture. Can't you just picture a valiant disciple of Christ holding a sword in one hand (scriptures) and a shield in the other (faith) to protect themselves from fiery darts (temptations)? 

I am grateful that we have the word of God in our lives. Can you imagine what kind of world we would live in if everyone read and lived what the scriptures teach? But we don't. As a mom, I pray that my children will put on the armor of God each and every day of their lives. That they will show courage and integrity when faced with their own personal battles (however big or small they may be). 

The Pink Box

How does one achieve the sought after status of "The Most Popular Person"? In our family it is quite simple.Walk through the front door carrying a large rectangular PINK box. David's love (or rather obsession) with donuts has spread through our family (with the exception of Steven who can't stomach them in the morning). Most Saturday mornings David will drive to a local bakery and purchase two dozen donuts to be shared amongst his fans (A.K.A. his family). When the kids see him holding the well-known pink box, cheers and dancing fill our house. Even Dave-o screams with delight as he reaches up for his daddy to hold him. 

Yes, David is "The Most Popular Person"...

on Saturday mornings.

Bed Hair

Dave-o finally has enough of a mane to wake up with "bed hair". I LOVE the look!

Bear Record of the Savior

(Taken at Lone Hill Park during Justin's birthday party on Sat.)

Last week's Family Home Evening (FHE) lesson was on "Testimonies". I began by asking the family and our friends that joined us to name some things that bear record of the Savior. Animals, the Sun, flowers, water, and sunsets are a few that were named. Then we read from Moses 6:63: "All things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath." I then explained that out of all of God's creations only we, His children, can give voice to our witness of Him.

I love being in the outdoors and enjoy most of God's creations (I'm not too thrilled about the "creepy crawlies" of the Earth though). But my most favorite time of day is in the evening. And I'm not saying this because it is when the children's bedtime is on my mind. Watching the sun set and seeing the stars shine in the heavens is awe inspiring. It's even more astonishing at the beach. You can see billions and billions of stars with the naked eye and the night sky blends into the water so you feel like you're staring into eternity. All of creation is spread out in front of you. How can anyone looking heavenward not feel the love of God?

 I bear record that there is a God and His Son, Jesus Christ, is our Savior and Redeemer.

My Tree

I have always loved the fresh healing scent of eucalyptus trees. Growing up in California I was blessed with an abundant supply. It was not uncommon for me to roll down the windows of the car while passing a grove of these aromatic trees, such as on my way to our church building off of Skyline Blvd. or driving to Tanforan Mall.

Our decision to move to Houston, TX brought about much change for this California bred girl. The native Texans, the low cost of living, the cowboy hats and boots and the politics made my five-year stay enjoyable. I quickly fell in love with country music, deep fried foods, and the Texan lifestyle. But there was a BIG part of me that longed for my mountains and the Pacific Ocean and the smell of eucalyptus trees. Oh how I missed that smell. On one particular visit to Houston, Mom and Dad Zinn surprised me with a ziplock bag full of eucalyptus leaves that they had gathered from Monterey,CA. This made me even more homesick!

Upon moving back to the bay area, we purchased a house with a silver dollar eucalyptus tree nestled in the corner of our backyard. I was in heaven! Unfortunately this tree has been growing underneath the power lines. PG&E has hacked the top off many times to clear its branches from danger, but the result was an ugly looking tree. David and I knew that the inevitable would have to be done. Today, PG&E arrived at my front door with hard hats on and chain saws in hand to cut down my problem yet loved tree.

All that's left is a pink stump (why they spray painted it pink is a mystery to me) and

 logs that the kids are having fun playing on and around.

I plan on ripping off some of the bark off to keep in our closets. Sigh...

Shoe Obsession

Dave-o LOVES putting on and walking in his siblings' shoes. Kirsten's boots are his favorite to stomp around in. It's hilarious to watch the entire process; from putting them on (which can be a struggle), keeping balance while taking steps, to figuring out how to get them off.
I can remember James doing the same thing at this age. In fact, I have a picture in my scrapbook of him wearing my high heel shoes.

He has some BIG shoes to fill!

Friend Party

Justin celebrated his friend birthday this evening at the park. I had a few games planned, but for the most part, these nine teenagers entertained themselves well. I was a little nervous about this party because you never know how the dynamic personalities are going to mesh together. I was pleasantly surprised that everyone got along great. Thankfully there were a couple of boys who were the "entertainers". You know...the ones who keep the conversation lively and funny and who make child games like Duck Duck Goose fun.

We had planned to play an egg toss game, but the 82 degree weather today caused us to change the game to water balloon toss. Dave-o loved throwing the balloons on the ground and was upset when the balloons were gone.

They had a blast playing the "Dotting the Cream" game. Whichever team tossed the most Cheetos in the shaving cream won.

We barbequed hamburgers and had cake.

The setting of the sun provided even more fun with Duck Duck Goose and Freeze Tag. These were a great bunch of teenagers. I'm glad Justin has some good friends to grow up with.