Already Warning You It's Sappy

Well I am just going to get on with it and write this blog. I have to admit it has taken me all day to muster up the courage to write it. However, I think it is important for you all to know how essential ya'll are to my life, seriously.
To begin I have to be a bit preachy but suck it up people! Anyway "Adam fell that men might be, men are that they might have joy". Honestly I never really understood the significance of that verse. Scripture Mastery...seminary in general... was not my strong suit, but when I read this again and read the chapter as a whole it made perfect sense. Our lives are supposed to be joyful. So I began to think what brings me joy? Many things do like: the pets, chocolate, movies, books, games but really the only one that I thought of at the time was my family. In all this world you guys bring me the most joy. So I figure a) you should know this and b) you should know why, thus the following list.

>Ma- You are the strongest woman I know. You don't comprise your morals when at times I'm sure life would be much easier if you did. You love your husband as fiercely as you love us kids. You have a personality, opinion, and intelligence. I have yet to meet a mom like you. And you're my mom and you've been a great one and that in itself comes with a whole list of reasons I love you.

Dad- I have never met someone who hasn't liked you. Every time my friends or others meet you I always have the report back that you are just the nicest guy ever. You have never used foul language, at least in front of me (Shut Up doesn't count). You also have unwavering morals, but you love unconditionally. You have always been there for games, concerts, plays, talks, Mom-Dad-Sheryl dates, and blessings. I can depend on you for all the things in life even the mundane chores like introducing me when I'm too shy.

Amber- I'll always be your monkey girl, even if I don't physically get to hang on you anymore I'd be with you every day if I could. You are such a wise person. You provide emotional support, humor, companionship, and love non stop no matter where you are. You're someone who understands the lure of stories and how they can suck you in for repeatedly three hour discussions. You're a leader through example.

Natalie- I used to brag about you being a model with your dark alluring looks. You were the cool sister who gave me all her old clothes. But you are more than just superficiality. You can pick a goal and achieve it. I refuse to listen to motivational speakers, but I admit I look forward to your daily quotes. They inspire me not only with their ideas, but because I know you use them to achieve your goals and to help others. With your brisk attitude and indomitable spirit you force people to be better, including myself.

Zach- We had the typical brother younger sister relationship when I was little. But now I have found someone that I can talk to about horribly boring topics like history and politics. Not only are you a good conversationalist but you have watched out for me even when I was melodramatic teen. You pulled strings for my first two jobs and have kept tabs on me throughout the years. You are a brave person and you follow your heart where ever it takes you.

Cara- I used to look through your composition notebook where you sketched and wrote lyrics. I was envious of your skills. You draw these amazing pictures and were part of a functioning band. I still wish I could draw but now I sink into your work. That woodburning is absorbing. You are such a strong person. You struck out on your own as a young person and made it. You are independent woman and you've created your life.

Lauren- You took me around with your friends. You're eighth grade horribly dramatic sister was allowed to hang out with the coolest people she knew...high schoolers! You have been like a second mom, making sure I'm taking care of in all areas of my life and only at the cost of sharing a bed after watching "Signs". Middle school was bearable because of you. It sucked when you went to college. But you still continue to care for me even when I was suppose to be helping you with Adam.

Carl- I've built a deck with you and ran nine miles (the last one with a sprained ankle might I add). You let me be whoever I want to be and when I don't have the courage I can look to you. Even if it seems impossible you do it and I get to witness that no matter of hard physically or emotionally a task may be you overcome the obstacles and provide a path I can follow.

Mike C.- I met you one night while I was putting together a Garfield puzzle. It took a looong time to win me over. If I recall it took many years for me to warm up to you. Yet you persisted. You have a personality that is warming to everybody and even I couldn't hold a grudge. Your personable skills amaze me. I don't have the courage to be as open and friendly to everybody. You can make a friend out of anybody.

Holly- You're my sister in every way that counts. You have been someone that I can talk to you about difficult subjects and enjoy the awesome times in life. I haven't forgotten that I got to hear first that Alex was due on my birthday. You have a gently demeanor and I always feel welcome when you're around.

Sean- I'll say it, you intimidated me. You are so smart and sure of everything you say and believe it's hard to be confident of what I'm think especially if I already doubts. However, as scary as it might be I know you can provide and answer or somewhere to look for an answer. The strength of your beliefs have helped mine even from afar.

And Of Course...
Michael- Even though you probably won't read this. Amber says and even has a sign that says she married her best friend. I would read that hanging on her wall and wish the same for myself. I didn't see how it was possible as my best friend and only one I'd ever had was Hayley. Yet I don't think I can say she is my best friend anymore because I met you. In you I have found the strongest connection to a person. Not only are you my best friend,and a good one you aren't a 'sunshine friend' as Ma would say you're an amazing person. I can look to you for strength, laughter, love, hope, confidence, and anything else I need.In addition you accept me as I am but push me to be better just like "Saint" Michael should. You're a great person even if you try to hide behind the mumbles...BPB.

With that I hope you all realize these are just short little blurbs about how I feel about you. It is hard to encompass all I really feel into a blog. I hope though that I show it when I see you. You all are truly the most important source of joy in my life. I love you all and hope you aren't too cheesed out by this.

A Jewel of a Weekend

Every once in a while the cosmos arrange and we get a little magic sprinkled into a weekend. Most of our weekends are crammed jammed with household stuff, work and school and church. However last Friday Carl unexpectedly only had to work for a few hours. Carl took Marshall and I to a little barbeque  place south of here called Aunt B's. I had never been but Carl it the "Don and Bob's of the South".  We had some great pork barbeque and hushpuppies. Marshall enjoyed a soft serve ice cream. Next we headed to a small farmers market and then a neat little craft store in the tiny town of Fancy Gap.

Saturday we took the kids to the library where they were having the annual Radford "Vulture Fest". The kids got to see a real turkey vulture up close plus do some fun activities. Next we had lunch at their favorite restaurant, McDonald's and let them run around on the playland for a while. Finally, we drove into Christiansburg to get the kids some new shoes. Grace got some retro cool sneakers made by the retro toy company "Whamo" (anyone remember them?) and Marshall got some cool starwars light up sneakers. We got nothing done but had a blast doing fun stuff with the kids instead. I don't have any pics as our camera is broken :( but keeping in theme with Grace's Whamo Retro sneakers I do have a pic from the totally mint '80's.

I <3 the '80's!

You need a sense of humor

Karen and I attended a Stake meeting today with one of the General Authorities (Elder Scott) of the Church presiding. During his talk, Elder Scott told us that we all need to keep a sense of humor even if times are bad.

As he talked, I thought back to this past Friday night. Karen was out shopping, and while I waited for her I planned what needed to be done on Saturday. I needed to construct the new bookcase Mom bought, install the home theater components that have been in the basement since before Christmas and do some admin work at the Family History Center.

While waiting on Mom, I decided to enjoy a little snack from the kitchen pantry. Some of you may not know that I built the pantry just after we moved into the house. A few years ago, we installed a fancy door on the pantry, but other than that is was just as I finished it over 20 years ago.

As I reached for a container of nuts, I saw an ominous lurch of the second shelf from the bottom. I watched in slow motion as the corner of the shelf tilted downward and cans and jars began to slip off the shelf. Soon the entire contents of the shelf cascaded toward the floor.

Some of the jars and containers from the second shelf landed on the bottom shelf overloading it and soon the cascade turned into an avalanche as both shelves emptied themselves at my feet. By now, I was performing a juggling act trying to keep the few remain glass jars from crashing on the floor while trying to keep both shelves from slipping off the supports.

In the midst of this disaster, my buddy Arnie strolled over, looked at me, sniffed a few cans and left.
As I managed to get all of the containers to floor, I looked around me and saw my productive weekend evaporate. I knew Saturday would be spent repairing a pantry, not working on the things I'd planned. I was not happy.

However, as I begain to pick up the contents of the pantry, I thought this would have looked really funny if only it had happened to someone else. After I thought about Elder Scott's comments, I have to admit - if was pretty funny.

An Apostle of the Lord

Today we attended a special stake conference at the Palmyra Stake Center and heard Elder Richard C Scott from the council of Twelve Apostles. There were about 1,600 people in attendance. We were packed as tight as airline passengers in coach. The spirit was very strong.

Elder Scott has been one of my favorites for several years. He is a very gentle and warm man who speaks very tenderly and has a gift for addressing heavy topics in a loving attitude and presentation. Today, in close quaters with him, we witnessed his spirit first hand and also discovered more about him. He has a great sense of humor and counseled us to appreciate our sense of humor in the gospel. He is very down to earth and in tune with the congregation. He was born of an inactive mother and non member father. He is a convert. He is also a very humble man who does not seek glory or brag of his accomplishments.

Elder Scott loved his wife dearly and said he still maintains a relationship with her through the veil. And now in his senior years he feels even closer to her and looks forward to being with her again. He told funny stories about their dating years which he said he rarely does. He credits her with bringing the best of himself out. He counseled husbands to tell their wives daily that they love them either in words or notes. It is important that children see their fathers' love for their mothers. He warned that those men who ignore this or take their spouses for granted may be surprised on the other side when the spouse uses agency to walk away. I think this pertains to both spouses. Tell each other we love each other daily. Many prophets have given this counsel also.

Elder Scott bore his testimony, a very powerful witness, that Christ lives. I was strengthened and uplifted by Elder Scott. What a witness of the true church. Neither the prophet nor the apostles nor any officiating priesthood in the church is paid for their service. They do not seek for their callings or vain glory of such callings. They serve only to serve others not themselves.
Elder Scott is an elderly man. He travels all over the world bearing testimony of the Savior. His bank account does not grow because of this. He reminded us that when he does not wear the mantle of an apostle he is just an ordinary man of no special report. How blessed we are to
see what a real apostle of the Lord is like and hear his humble witness. As I listened to him I
remembered a scripture I read this morning and wrote in my journal. "Beware of the leaven
of the Pharisees and the Saducees". Christ explained to the disciples later that he meant to beware of the doctrines of men. "By their fruits ye shall know them". It was very obvious that Elder Scott is not a man who seeks "vain glory for himself" He is a true apostle of and for Christ.

New fitness goal not met but exceeded.

Since the summer I have been hitting the gym pretty hard. I met my weight goal a while back at being 200lbs. Today I exceeded my benchpress goal and pushed up 325lbs fairly easily. My next goals are to weigh 220lbs and push 385. Amber has been very supportive. These are a few of my many goals in life where she has been with me with love and support.

Adam Speaks

Adam likes to speak gibberish, and he's been chatty for a while. Sometimes he says things that sound like words, but when we try to get him to use the words in context, he never does. Occasionally he'll imitate you, but it is pretty unusual. He will often say "hi" when you hold a phone to his ear, but mostly he speaks nonsense.

We've been trying to get him to understand words too. For a little while we thought he knew what yellow meant, because he'd bring a yellow toy, but we tested him and it turned out to be a fluke. Lauren has been teaching him words like nose, ears, hair, tongue, belly button, and toes. He's getting better, but still not all that reliable yet.

Anyhow, we got him to say "ball" fairly reliably. When we asked him to go get his ball, sometimes he'd get it, sometimes he wouldn't, and we weren't sure whether it was finger pointing, our tone, or the closeness of the ball that helped him identify his ball. On Wednesday Lauren was at the grocery store with Adam, and he saw a large metal basket of inflated plastic balls. His eyes lit up and he said "ball!" So we think that's officially his first real word.

He's doing well. He's decided swings aren't fun anymore, but slides are great - which is a switch from before. Here's a recent picture of him on a slide:

Update from Aub and Cara

Hello to all! I'm finally posting to the cain chronicles!

Aurbey and I are hanging on to the tail of winter and trying to ride out all this snow for a green spring. The last few months have proven to be challenging with my fender bender with my former employer's son, and then a few days later Aubrey loosing his much hated job at the bar.

It's not all bad though, Aubrey is ready for a new chapter and is lining up prospects. And I am busy with school and working odd jobs here and there. We just keep on troding along.

Carl, from one artist to another I am impressed with your logo. I'm not sure if you're still taking online classes or not, but it might be worth checking out the academic superstore. I got the CS 4 creative suite, which has photoshop, illustrator, dream weaver and bridge all for like $500 because I was a student, definitely worth checking out.

Miss everyone and hope to get to see all sometime soon.

Enjoy this video of the twins Aubrey took around Christmas! P.S. Turn on your speakers!

Young Mens

All,
I was asked to draw a logo for the Young Mens Young Womens ( YM/YW) youth conference. I started out drawing Moroni but realized that I needed to draw an Old Testament warrior. Although I loved my Moroni pic, I used the same "motion" for Samuel. I later translated the theme "Choose you this day" into Hebrew and put it on the banner. I decided that having the character in motion was important to the theme. I wanted to show action since the theme requires it. Hopefully everyone will approve of it. Making changes will be difficult without photshop. I hate GIMP since no matter how I adjust it, it eats up all the memory on my computer. Anyway, this is my first post so hope it works!

Something I found helpful and more goofy pics

Hey, this is for the grocery shoppers in the family. I found a useful meal planner tool from real simple. What I like about it is that you plan your menu for the week and then use the categories to plan a shopping list for the ingredients that you will need for the week. I break my shopping list into the same categories as well as a few of my own.  And there's an extra bonus for those of you who are building a 3 months supply of food. If you do this weekly you have a written record of a weekly menu and all the ingredients as well. Save the records for a month or so and you have an easy way to know what your family eats regularly and how much you will need for a 3 month supply of food.

Here's the link
http://www.realsimple.com/static/pdfs/dinner-plan.pdf

Save this on you book mark manager and print out weekly when you're doing your grocery list.  Speaking of grocery lists, I've found that if I plan out the meals for the whole week we're much less likely to go out to dinner unless its for a special occasion which is kinder to our wallets and health as well.

Now for the pics

Thankfully Mom remembered the bunny ears! (pic taken in San Diego)

One of my favorite Cain family pics because of  Nat's floating head! Peek-a-boo Dad and Carl!

The January Boys, Mike and Aubrey

One turned 37 on Jan 7 and the other 29 on Jan. 30. One is soft spoken, somewhat allusive, the other is Mr. social party guy. Both have a sincere smile and a willing friendship. They are our January Boys, two sides of the same handsome coin in our Cain Clan family Circle. How blessed we are to have them in our lives.

Happy Birthday Mike Z 24 on Feb 10, 2011

Yes, these are the same man, Mike Zorn. The first is June, 2008 when he and Sheryl announced their engagement. The second is Thanksgiving, 2008. Were'nt we all surprised when Mike showed up without his signature rock star hair?

Remember all the questions? Why did he do it? Remember the answer?

He was preparing to be a husband, to find a good job to support a family.

He needed to be taken seriously. Mike shed his boyish hair to take on the responsibilities of a man. Three years later Mike is working hard to fulfill his goals. We all know much can change in three years. Don't we remember how anxious we were to enter the exclusive and priveledged world of adulthood ? The question, is it all that we thought it would be? What would Mike respond? Note his smile in the second picture. It hints at a classic Mike answer? Happy Birthday Mike. We are happy to have you maturing with us in the Cain Clan family circle.

Winter Storm 2011

Hello family,

As many of you may have heard, the Midwest got blasted with some crazy weather this week. This giant front that spanned an impressive part of the country has been referred to (at least in Indiana) as Winter Storm 2011! The day before the storm I had to run to the grocery store to pick up a prescription. Apparently I had missed the memo that the apocalypse was close at hand. I'd never seen the store so crowded as people scrambled for the last loaves of bread and bottled water. I quickly got my medicine and left the insanity.

Now, we did actually get some pretty bad weather. It was mostly ice. By the time I had left work Tuesday evening all of Bloomington was encased in ice. The trees hung heavy with frozen weight and I almost couldn't get into my ice cube of a car. The town actually did a decent job of pre-treating the roads so it wasn't too bad driving home. However, I did encounter two trees that had fallen across the road. I was able to pass through one tree, which oddly enough had a branchless tunnel that I squeaked through. However, the second tree was impassable so I had to backtrack and cut through a different neighborhood. Later that evening the temperature warmed and most of the ice had melted. So, this wasn't as bad as the legendary Ice Storm of '91, but still kind of cool. Of course, school was cancelled for most of the week here but Sean still had class and I still had work!

Sean and I have decided that we are going to take a kid-free vacation after Sean's graduation. His parents have agreed to stay a few extra days and watch Adam for us. We've decided we are going to San Fransisco! People keep asking us why we aren't going to the beach? Well, we want to go to a cool city where having a kid in tow would be difficult. It will just be Sean and I so we can set our own itinerary and not have to work around nap times and grouchiness. Don't get me wrong, we love Adam, but we can't wait to spend some time alone together! So we are looking forward to that.

Ok that's all I have to say for now. Hope everyone has a great week!

Surviving winter

It's funny how as a kid you LOVE winter. Playing outside in the snow, sledding and building ramps on the back hill was awesome. Having a contest to see who could stay outside the longest even though you couldn't fell your fingers or toes, that was a right of passage. Well as an adult I can so I no longer take part in those contests. I'm just trying to SURVIVE winter

It has been cold since November and that seems like so long ago. Can't wait till spring! Mike and I are plugging along. Mike resigned from Wegmans and is now on the hunt for a job. He has enjoyed being stress free for a while and has been able to focus on reffing, his true passion. I am training for the Flower City half marathon here in Rochester on May 1st. I haven't run since last fall because of my Achilles injury so it's been challenging but I love a good challenge. Any one else want to run it with me? Stay warm everyone.

Feeling like posting goofy family pics that don't include me

Sure, I could have written a cute kid blog about Grace and Marshall but don't you just love goofy pics better?  Here are my witty remarks:

                                               Letchworth and the Cains. Sheryl looks positively giddy 

                                                to have her own can of soda. Zach, not so much.

Not only is Zach striking a "Walk like an Egyptian" pose in Redskins sweats and hi-tops he's doing it right along busy RT 31 where everyone can see his ultra coolness! Does anyone recognize the spot in the pic?

The family that shovels together.... It looks like happy family times but I remember it was short lived. Not too long after I took the picture we all headed into the house and let Dad finish the driveway. Whew, I mean who wanted to shovel all that snow?  PS Can you spot Nat?  She has a red hat and grey scarf. PPS this picture was taken with a Kodak disc camera. Cain's were on the cutting edge of technology. For the youngsters out there you can google disc camera if you need a history lesson.