Jere's Passing

December 13, 2007 Dearly loved friends, We are sad to announce that our beloved husband and father, Jere McKinney, passed away in his home last night at 10:30 pm. We are so very grateful to all of you for your heartfelt prayers, and loving support during the past few months. They were so strongly felt and carried us all through this difficult period in the last stages of Jere's illness. He left this world and was literally greeted with embraces from those awaiting him in the next. I had the privilege of witnessing this profound passing of a truly remarkable, unique and well-loved person. His funeral will be held this afternoon at our home with close friends and family and his burial will take place in the late afternoon in the Villa Colon cemetery. We plan to hold a memorial for him at a later date. Thank you again for all of your loving support and prayers. With deep gratitude and love Julie, Colin, Jaleh, Ali, Lisa, David and Aria

2nd Snowfall, 1st Snowday

The boys have had several short weeks. Thanksgiving week was short. The next week after that they had curriculum day on Friday, classes cancelled. Then this Monday we got our second good snow storm this season with ice and freezing rain… no school this past Monday… Tis the season I guess for shorter school weeks.

Another one of these days (and thank you yes don’t ask!) (oh wait I remember it was Tuesday) the boys and I went sledding behind their school. A fun little jaunt that ended with me really hurting my knee. It was so depressing (not to mention cold) being out there hobbling up and down the hill with the boys in pain thinking “Oh no! this is it. Here it is … I am getting old, my body is deteriorating, falling to pieces. I will never recover fully from this one. How stupid can you get? It’s not like you got tossed off of some epic 20 foot wave or slid off a cliff on your mt bike. You fell on a little rinkiy dink hill doing a little nothing and now your knee is messed up.” And on and on went the conversation in my head and I was truly depressed. I went to the emergency room the next morning and the xrays confirmed… no biggie.. no tears, no breaks just a little strain I will be over in a few weeks…. I was being silly. Funny how the brain can do tricks like that on us and we make mountains out of mole hills…

The boys are really growing up. There latest game is checkers which they have been playing a lot.. On the snow day, Mason and Aman never really got out of their PJs and played for hours with some game they came up with. All three boys are sooooo good with Anika. They talk to her in a little baby voice while picking her up or trying to make her chase them.

Anyway, we stayed up late last night watching Reign Over Me… (Don Cheadles and Adam Sandler) what a fantastic movie!!… but I am tired now and want to be fresh for a last day of work before the weekend. So I am going to go up, brush my teeth and climb into bed with Les Miserables... all the characters are at the barricade now and the situation is tense... what will Jean Valjean do?....

That Insanely Cool Brandon Family

The Brandons came over on Saturday. It was frigid but we decided to scale Mt Sugarloaf. No sugar located but it was freezing. It is a short very steep hike and we ran as much as possible to keep warm, climbed to the top of the tower but couldn’t stay long because of the wind.

Aman had a bit of a melt down in the beginning and later we found out that I had accidentally fed him large quantities of preservatives in the morning’s bacon which is a substance along with dyes that we think he might be allergic to at least enough so to make him uncomfortable and hyper.

Other than that episode, the Brandon visit was a total success as usual… any of you who have ever had dealings with the Brandons will be nodding your heads in approval when I say that this is a special family that gives out really good energy. Thanks guys for making the trip.

Read-a-thon

One of these days, and my 41 year old brain can’t remember which, we did some ice skating. Aman did incredibly well and we were exhausted after the jaunt. Isaiah is becoming a natural on the ice and it was fun to zoom around the rink with them. One night (another brain burp is asking you not to ask which) the boys were excited to have a readathon. This involved building a fire, getting sleeping bags and all lay around reading together! Wow!

Dia del Pavo 2007

Also known as Turkey Day, Thanksgiving and other names my synonym generator doesn’t know… I definitely have to start out this entry by saying that we definitely missed Alfie, Ericka, Mason, Anika (went to Ericka’s family in PA) and Grandma, Doug, Shamsi (who had the meal with friends in NY) and Jamal and Heidi (who probably tucked in to the meal in CT somewhere) and Uncle Puge (who had a gig in Utah) and Lise and Anne (who had the meal in Colorado)… Please, let’s try and all have a small sit down next year! That said we had Elena, Jaleh, Dad, Janet, Anna, Olivia, Claude, Zoe, Irene, Rachael, Aman, Isaiah, Britt and Colin here for a loud, rambunctious, festive thanksgiving (day of the turkey).

So much good food y buena vibra. A lot of singing, dancing, playing games, and laughter… silly as usual. We were so happy to see the boys going from person to person, snuggling, talking, and interacting and such a nice way. Lots of tickles with the grandpa Chris and TT (tia Jaleh) and aunt Elena.

Most of us went for a superb hike the next day to the tower on top of Mt Lincoln. It was cold but we warmed up quick with the little river we followed up the mountain chortling away… Grandpa Chris, the boys and I scoured the forest for dead trees to push over with thundering crashes and we introduced the boys to birch swinging where you climb to the top of a black birch and jump out holding on to the top branch which lets you down gently. Anyway… very enjoyable and now we are doing laundry, cleaning up and getting ready for the start of another week. Testing 1,2,3...

Morals, Ethics, Values, Traits, Virtues, Qualities

Here are some first definitions of words that I hear all the time but haven’t know exactly what they meant. It is still not crystalline but it is a start. These are words tossed around in conversations, some of them used interchangeably.

1- Morals: of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong

2- Ethics: a system of moral principles or the study of morality. (Morality is beliefs regarding appropriate behavior, while ethics is the formal study of morality)

3- Values: a concept that describes the beliefs of an individual or culture.

4- Traits: A trait may be any single feature or quantifiable measurement of an organism

4- Virtues: Traits valued as being good.

5- Quality: a personality or character trait.

Baha'i School plus

So here’s a random shock on a Sunday morning. The boys and I went to the skatepark before children’s class and had a blast. We get to class and I say hi to everyone in the main hall where we all sing songs and say prayers before going off to our respective classes. Everything is normal so far… I climb the stairs to my classroom and walk in and one of the mothers (no names here) is already there with her child and she says nonchalantly, “So I think my husband's Mom breastfed you when you were little.”

Hmmm Ok… so... I said hi (again), put the guitar down and asked her to clarify. Apparently her husband has a brother who is my age and their Mom is friends with mine and they were at a Baha’i conference together and they would watch each other’s kids while taking turns going to sessions. I got hungry and well…

So no other surprises today and we did have a great class today. I include pics from class last week which was great! I also include a couple of Isaiah’s last day of outdoor futbol for the year. Aman and I were having a serious grass fight while trying to watch Isaiah. Isaiah scored an awesome goal from the left side!

The Uncle List

Ok. Certain recent events have made this issue critically serious and I need some help. We started a tradition with one of the famous uncles and his delight in eating crunchy salad and now we have to finish it... close out this piece of business. Below is a list of uncles and their akas. I need some comments, votes and/or suggestions or else... they will now and forever be referred to in the aka form...

Virtues Poster

I created this poster of sorts to hang on the wall of the boy’s room. Every night after highs-and-lows and before prayers we read and talk about one of these virtues. It has worked out well and the kids really get into it. Britt and I are happy that we have that moment to talk about this kind of stuff with them. It is difficult sometimes to get anything out of these guys at this time of night. I don’t know what it is (universal probably and I probably did it as a yittle guy) but a switch gets flipped and they start giggling uncontrollably so much so that they accept punishments sometimes just to be able to giggle a little more!!! And the parents are of course annoyed that they aren’t going to sleep or doing anything remotely close to what we ask them to do!! Anybody else have that? Anyway I just wanted to share the poster that has worked out really well so far.

Life of Baha'u'llah in Pictures

Hey, just in case you haven't seen this yet... The Baha'i International Community has created an amazing site with a history of Baha'u'llah's life with tons of never-seen-before images... www.bahaullah.org.

Halloween, pre and post

A few quick glimpses of pre and post Halloween stuff. Pumpkins before we chopped them up. They later turned out pretty cool. Isaiah did most of his own cutting this time (the elongated one). Then there is the candy fest. Alfie is right (oooh I bet he’d like to hear me say that more often….)! Halloween is an odd tradition. You put on a costume, walk to someone’s door, knock and they give you candy. No work involved just plain walking and receiving… kind of odd… regardless we did a good portion of Lincoln ave and part of the next street over before pooping out and being rescued by Oma in her car. Aman and I had a chance to hang one afternoon so we raked leaves and played. The cold has dropped in like a bomb this week. Winter is basically here. We did have some nice fall days with leave and warmth but those are gone. Most trees have lost their leaves and are hunkering down for winter. The boys and I have been frequenting the skate park a bunch. Here is a vid of Isaiah’s first day going down one of the big ramps and then Aman following. skatepark Anyway, it is now sleepy bedtime for me… and I still have to go upstairs and check in with Britt before climbing in bed to find out how Marius extricates himself and saves Jean Valjean from the clutches of the evil Thernadiers (Les Miserables).