Skip to main content

Visiting the fam

So far, I have been home for Christmas every year, even though it's almost 2,000 miles away.  One reason this has been pretty easy is that my school gives me about a month off for Christmas break.  Well, this year I decided to take pretty much my whole time off to go and be with family.  I left the day after my last final and didn't come back until the weekend before school started again.  It was a lot of fun.

My biggest mistake was deciding to drive out.  It really wasn't all that bad.  In fact, on the way out there it was good because I got to visit my brother-in-law and a missionary who had served in my ward a couple years ago.  So, I took my time and enjoyed the trip on the way out there.  Coming home was another story. I had a baptism to attend, so I rushed as fast as I could.  I made the 1,800 mile drive in a total of 31.5 hours, including the time I stopped to sleep.  That was probably the most exhausting thing I've done in quite a while.  But at the same time it was kind of exciting, since I made such good time.  I mean, you have to realize I was the only driver.

Anyway, I had a great time at home.  I love being with family.  Living this far from home is difficult because I feel like I'm missing out on the lives of my growing nieces and nephews (I currently have 40, counting both sides of the family).  So, it feels really good to go visit and catch up on everyone and how they're doing.  I got to see all of my siblings, except my oldest brother who lives in Germany with his family, including all of my wife's family.  In fact, since we had the whole family together for the first time in ages, we took family pictures.  Karen's family is rather large, so we had 47 people all together there to take the picture.  I love big families.  I love being part of a big family.

I did also visit several friends while I was out there--old mission buddies, roommates, and other old friends.  It was a wonderful experience.

Comments

  1. Joseph Smidt1/18/11, 1:02 AM

    Keith, you may be a boring person but you sure come up with the most hilarious blog taglines. :) Glad you had fun going home;

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Anyone is allowed to comment on this blog. As you can tell from reading my blog, I am very opinionated and I'm not afraid to share my opinion. You're welcome to disagree with me as mildly or vehemently as you like, but be aware that I will reply with my own opinions, very strongly. If you don't want that kind of open discussion, or you think it will hurt your feelings, then please avoid posting. I do try to be respectful, but my verbology often comes across as brusque.

Popular posts from this blog

Hitchens v god

I'm rather ashamed to admit that I just recently discovered Christopher Hitchens. And, while I normally add my own thoughts and commentary to videos when I post them here, in nearly every Hitchens video that I've encountered, I have not a single word to add. He is so articulate and does such a good job of presenting his case that I couldn't possibly add anything to it.  I would definitely be interested if any of my readers have any comments to make in regards to what Hitches says in this video. Enjoy.  
41 comments
Read more

Do you really believe?

This is Richard Dawkin's talk from yesterday's Reason Rally in Washington DC.  He makes several good points, but the one that stuck out to me the most was when he told people that they should challenge someone when they say they're religious.  The example he gave is when someone says they're Catholic, ask them if they really  believe that when a priest blesses a wafer that it actually turns into the body of Christ, or that the wine actually turns into his blood.  So, this post will be dedicated to me asking any of my reader base who are religious, do you really  believe what your religions teach? For those who are Christian (any denomination thereof), Do you really believe every word of the Bible to be the word of god?  If so, read every word of the Bible and then come back and answer the question again. Do you really believe that a snake tricked Eve into eating fruit that made her suddenly unfit to live in the paradisiacal garden god had just made for her? Do y
30 comments
Read more

Lessmons

I was actually very pleased to watch this video ( link here ) about how people are leaving the LDS church in droves, and not because I take sadistic pleasure in seeing the numbers of LDS church membership decrease.  I think that the LDS church does in many ways serve as a positive force in the lives of some of my family and friends, and so I cannot with good conscience take joy in seeing it suffer. But the reason that I can take pleasure in this news report is that, to me, it says that people are thinking for themselves.  They are learning about their church (as I did) and are questioning whether what the church says is really true.  I would definitely recommend this to anyone at any stage in life.  And it's not something that you just do once and you're done.  It's more of an ongoing thing that you should do at every stage of life.  Think about what you believe, why you believe it, and whether it's a good thing to believe--or whether it's a true thing to believe.
12 comments
Read more