The joy of posterity, Christmas style

 


How can my heart not be filled with joy and gratitude? Behold our six treasures: Madison the sheep, Allison the donkey, Katelyn as Mary (great with child), Brandon the shepherd, Daxton the wise man, and Avery the angel. I #GiveThanks for the blessing of these little ones and the joy they bring to our lives as we see them grow and develop.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Seeing from a new perspective

Image
Today I returned to one of my favorite nearby trails for some exercise. I mentioned Dry Canyon in a previous reminisence - it's a trail I've hiked countless times. But I had a sudden idea. Instead of taking the trail up the main canyon, like I normally do, I cut off up a steep hillside on a smaller trail I've noticed before but never taken. It seemed to have had some traffic, and I did see an occasional human footprint; but before long I was just exploring a maze of game trails as the steep climb leveled out on top of a ridge. It was fun to be in a new area, very rarely visited by hikers. In fact, I came across a dozen or more deer who were, I assumed, avoiding the human incursion into the more popular areas (I hope I didn't ruin it for them). My primary motivation was to see Dry Canyon from a new perspective, one I've never seen before. I was high above the canyon on the ridge to the south. It was fascinating to see the trail and the rock formations from there, and...
Read more

Every Day is a Gift

Image
My father's mortal experience ended when I was 7 years old. He didn't get the privilege of seeing his five children mature and marry, and have children of their own, or feel the special joy of being a grandfather. I now have grandchildren the age that I was when he left us - a whole generation of extra time. So I #GiveThanks for the gift of one more day, a priceless ongoing sharing of joy.
Read more

Perspective

Image
  If you glance casually at this first photo, the summit on the left (the closer one) appears higher and larger than the ones on the right. In reality, Big Baldy is only 8750' in elevation, while the Timpanogos ridge behind reaches exactly 3000' higher! An important difference occurs as we step back and are able to see things from a distance. See the second photo, taken from the car driving up University Avenue towards Provo Canyon. It's much easier to see the relative sizes of Baldy on the left, and Timp on the right. And in fact the third photo is taken from the top of Baldy, the peak that looked so large in the first photo. Granted, there are plenty of clues in the first photo about the true relationship between the peaks. The amount of snow behind, for those familiar with how that works, indicates the foreground is a much lower elevation. Anyone who understands perspective in art and reality would never be fooled. Also, anyone who has climbed the mountains would instan...
Read more