Palm Trees and Pencils

Hola Familia!

Here's a quick note to summarize the last couple of weeks.

We have Kara back from her volunteer experience in Fiji, so that is a good thing! She took some super long flights to get home, but now one of us has been "over" the North Pole. The last leg of her flight took her from Hong Kong to Boston, OOOOOoover that point on our earth!

David and Teresa are into their home stretch of the semester. A couple of days of class this week, then a reading day and then finals start. Ugh! But then they can breathe, until the next round. David has 1 more semester.

SUMMER JOBS. David has an internship here in Boston this summer, so he will be home. Yay! The company gives up-to-the-minute cost of living details for cities all over the world. Other companies hire THEM when they need to relocate someone, since they can tell them how much is housing, groceries, gas, etc., around the world.

Teresa is 9 here!
That turtle is heavy

Teresa has an internship in the Salt Lake area this summer, so she will NOT be home. Waaaaahhh! She will be studying and collecting data from the birds, small mammals, and other wildlife in a region west of the Great Salt Lake. The land is a big training ground for the Air Force. She won't be working for the Air Force, but all the data this company collects on animals and the environment, is reported to the Air Force.

Kara's job/internship is also with a company here in Boston. (Yay, again!) I can't remember the department she'll be working in, but it's marketing or finance or something.

WARM WATER. But before all that starts, we get a family vacation :) :) David and Teresa will finish their finals in about 10 days, then fly home and the NEXT day we'll fly to Panama. There we will begin our cruise, from Panama to Cartegena Colombia, then to 3 small islands close to Colombia. Curacao, Aruba, and Bonaire. Warm temperatures for me, hanging out with some of my very favorite people. This will be the last few days of April/first week of May. Can't wait!

BOOK RECOMMENDATION. Here is a book I read recently, after listening to Zak Ebrahim's story on a TedTalk. Wow. He is the son of the man who planned the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. His amazing story had me hooked for the 9-minute Ted Talk, and then I looked up his book (the "full" story) in the library and read that.

Truly, if you have 9 minutes, it is a great Ted Talk. Then if you have some 10-minute snippets in your day to spend reading a pretty short 93-page-or-so book, he tells his whole story and it is So. Perspective-Changing. And. Uplifting. The Ted Talk is called "I am the son of a terrorist. Here's how I chose peace."

His book is called "The Terrorist's Son; A Story of Choice." Well worth your time.

HOLY WEEK. Yesterday was Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week and the day of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. I wondered what was the significance, of him entering the city on a donkey?

Triumphal Entry: the people place
palm fronds on the road in honor
of the Savior's arrival

It did fulfill prophecy: that the Savior would come on a donkey. But I looked it up further and the donkey is an eastern symbol of Peace. A King -- a leader of a kingdom -- can ride in on a horse, which is an animal of War. OR the king can ride in on a donkey, which is an animal of Peace. Hence one of the names Jesus is recognized by is the King of Peace, or the Prince of Peace.

Have a beautiful week!
Kari

NYC and Dengue

Hola Familia--
Well I wrote this about a week ago, and never sent it!

VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE. Kara is in Fiji at the moment, teaching English to local kindergarteners. She had a nasty bout with Dengue Fever (DEN-gee, with a hard 'g' like 'get'), brought on by a disgusting mosquito. Can't think of a single good thing about mosquitoes...bat food, I suppose. But bats can eat other things too. Let's say NO to mosquitoes. It was basically 8 days of fever, rash, nausea, vomiting. Feeling like you'd rather die, you may know the feeling from stomach-flu. When you're away from home it's worse, I think!

But she is finished with that, and was able to eat food this week. She and a group of friends went exploring another island (Fiji is a series of beautiful islands with this crystal clear, blue water) this past weekend. Gorgeous, just like a postcard. She'll be there another few days.

9/11 happened at 10:02:14--here's a
clock from one of the rooms

MY BIRTHDAY. I was super-spoiled for my birthday this year. Frank had meetings in New York City this week, and I joined him for a couple of days. It was kind of a 9/11 trip for me, going to a photo journal museum of sorts, getting dozens of stories, photos, and memorabilia about the trajedy and recovery efforts.

Model UN

One of David's favorites
the original is at the MoMA
(Museum of Modern Art)
right now!

David was also in town that week, with his byu "Model U.N." class. The whole class spends the semester preparing for a week of activity with 3000 other college students from around the country. They come prepared to represent specific countries in U.N. discussions and goal-setting, or problem-solving sessions. BYU's countries were Italy and _______, can't remember the other one.

close to the World Trade Center

So, on my birthday we got to meet David for dinner and we all went to My Fair Lady at the Lincoln Center. I love that music! I was humming it all weekend.

TEMPLE VISIT. Saturday morning Frank and I went to a session in the Manhattan Temple. It's amazing to have the normal bustle of people on the sidewalks outside in the big city, and then you step inside and it's so peaceful.

9/11 MEMORIAL. Then we went back to the hotel and changed, and took the subway to the 9/11 memorial. It's a beautiful display at the site where the Twin Towers used to be. They have created beautiful waterfalls in the footprints of the actual buildings, and carved names of those who lost their lives into granite surrounding the waterfalls.

Well my blog time is up. Happy Friday tomorrow! Spring may even come to us in the Arctic North pretty soon :) :) :)

Kari