2 Days in Heaven and 2 Weeks in VA

I saw adorable little Clara Brooklyn on the 18th and 19th of May. She's perfect and beautiful and only cries when she's having her a bath. This is a picture of her when Brad is combing her hair, which mesmerizes her. Brad and Celeste are both very involved, loving parents.

There are frogs croaking and owls hooting and so many trees and beautiful woods!
I am in Lynchburg VA taking a class in Research Design for my PhD. It is the
first class I was supposed to take and they have succeeded in frightening me to
death. I guess less than 50% of people who undertake a Doctorate Degree finish
because they can’t write the 250 page dissertation. In addition to that, I don’t
know how I’m going to pass the comprehensive exam and the advanced statistics
class. I guess it will be like eating an elephant…..one bite at a time.
I rented a navigation system for $10 to get here from Richmond VA where I got a
cheaper plane ticket. It was a 3 hour drive. I have a flawed sense of
direction. When you make a wrong turn the female voice in the box says “make u turn”
or “recalculating” or “impossible to get there from here” I swear I heard her
say one time when I was in the middle of nowhere ”ya’ll are a big ninny”

Jerry Fallwell was the founder of this school and his funeral was yesterday. It’s kind of cool that he had a vision of Christian education from K through Doctorate Degree. I can just imagine the conversation that went on 3 days ago when he died.
Falwell: "Well, God I built your university in Virginia"
God: "Well Jerry,have your ever heard of Provo? Let me introduce you to Brigham Young.
Jerry Fallwell invited Mitt Romney to give the commencement address this year. When people complained Fallwell just said that he thought the University could survive one Mormon speaker.

It’s nice we start with prayer every morning. The professor asks everyone what
their prayer requests are and then one of the 5 ministers in our class says a
prayer. They don’t use thee or thou, I can’t wait til it’s my turn to pray!

I have to develop a proposal for my dissertation for my class. I'm thinking of doing it on "miracles in marriage"
On people who have had rials such as infidelity or sga and who have
been able to overcome,stay married and have the Savior heal them.

Trip to Costa Rica part I

Thursday April 26
Our first stop was to the Mount Arenal volcano. It was really rainy and cloudy and you couldn't see anything. It's the start of the rainy season in 4 days so we prayed for sun.
Friday April 27th
The rain stopped and we rode horses up to a waterfall. Dad hated the trotting and the whole horse thing. i loved galloping in the jungle. Dad's horse was named whisky, because it would have been much better if he were drunk to endure the pain of trotting. The waterfall was amazing. You leave your horse tied up and hike down a canyon for about 30 minutes and at the bottom is a 200 foot waterfall. We hiked up to the Arenal Volcano and watched the semi-cooled lava boulders crashing down the mountain. Then we went to the Tabacon hot Springs and soaked in the lava heated waters until dark, then our guide took us back to the volcano to see the lava boulders at night.


Saturday the 28th we rode a boat across a lake and the boat docked in the mud! When we were packing I said "Costa Rica is kind of a wild place, I think we should backpack" He said, Oh no, I don't want to carry my backpack through all those airports, I want my wheelie suitcase" It was a long ways walk to the vans. The people who had wheelie suitcases had a hard time. Then we drove to Monteverde on really, really bad dirt roads up steep jungle mountains and ate the most amazing meal at the tree house restaurant. It had chicken, shrimp, homemade mayonnaise and curry pineapple and raisins. That night we did a "night walk" in the cloud forest (fancy name for rain forest) which is another name for scare the heck out of you by showing you all the critters that could be landing on you from the trees or crawling up your legs from the ground below. Here are some pictures of what we saw. The guide tore the legs off a cricket and we watched this tarantula gobble it down. The worst were the leafcutter ants. Their guards had giant pincers and I was listening to the guide talk and didn't realize I was standing on their 10 foot tall mound.

Trip to Costa Rica part II

Sunday April 29th Monte Verde.

Today we explored National park by sunlight. This was mostlybutterfly and bird watching. Our guide had a scope. Though we saw 15 different birds in the jungle, our big goal was to spy the infamous Quetzel. The tour was finished and we were sitting disappointed outside the park. We had heard them but not seen them. We were able to convince the guide to go back in for just "one more look" and viola! There it was. This is a px of Mark with a plant called "hot lips"
In the afternoon we went on a sky trek canopy zip line 600 feet above the canyon. There were 11 zip lines and the longest was 1/2 mile long. That was pretty thrilling to be hurtling long and seeing the jungle and canyon WAY WAY below.

Tuesday May 1st Tamarindo Beach, Guanacaste

Mark did scuba and saw pufferfish and skates. He was warned to stay low when the sharks came because the female was pregnant and in a foul mood. But, his weight belt wasn't heavy enough and the dive master had to push him down. Tracy went shopping in the town and fell in love with the jewelry made of jungle woods. Most the places we stayed don't have walls so you get some visitors. I saw a huge green iguana with a striped tail coming down the tree by my computer while I was emailing.

Wednesday May 2 Tamarindo Beach, Guanacaste

I got to snorkel and saw lots of schools of colorful fish. My guide dove down and found me 2 sea turtles and a pufferfish. Mark tried surfing and was able to get up with no help. We found that we were often the only 50 year olds on our adventure tours. Most the other people were in their 20's and on their honeymoon. We loved the fruit, especially the pineapple which was so fresh and strong and the papaya. We tried to eat it every mean instead of the beans and rice they eat with almost every meal. We ended our tour in the busy, busy town of San Jose and hated to leave paradise.

Our Visit to Bryce's new house and Danica's Visit

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

We spent the weekend at Bryce's and had a ball. Don flew in from LA, Danica and Dave drove down from Idaho, Grandma & Grandpa Hogan came down, and even Aunt Leslie dropped by for a few minutes. We all hung around Bryce's new house and really enjoyed the grandkids and the space. Marcinia and Bryce had painted the white walls some beautiful greens and browns and yellows and then Marcinia decoraged. What a great house!

I got to go running with Marine Don by the lake in the morning with all the sparkling snow on Mt Timp and the sounds of birds in trees in the marsh. We went to an Easter Egg hunt with Sam. Of course Mark had to help him out with running around and getting as much chocolate candy as we could. Then we went to Cabelo's. It is a huge gigantic Sporting Goods store. They have this huge walk through fish tank with bass, trout, perch, walleye, well you get the picture. And Dozens of mounted North American and African animals. They even had this lion attacking a gazelle and Sammy went crazy. Lunch at Panda for Dave's benefit. At Bryce's we went to the lake and fed the ducks and the weather was perfect. Big dinner for Easter in the evenin, Grandma and Grandpa Hogan came down from Ogden. It was a full day.

It’s really fun having Danica here. We are hitting the garage sales with baby stuff. Oh joy.! Found girl stuff but don't know the sex of Danica's #2 yet. We went downtown to try to go to see the play wicked today but it wasn't playing so we did lunch bought her new tennis shoes and 2 maternity tops and ordered Empire Builders online. Then she was tired. I wish I could see her once a week. Danica is so logical and so down to earth and Christ-centered. Yesterday Mark was sick with a bad cold/flu so Danica trimmed, Dave mowed and I carried the baby on my neck and fertilized. We were quite the landscape team. I got Jensen up this morning and we played with all the interesting items in my office and had eggs and toast together. Jensen is always moving and exploring but when he does hold still and looks at you with those big blue eyes from that soft face of white, white skin your heart melts. I can always count on him when I lay on the floor put him up on my extended legs like an airplane to drool right down into my face.

A wild, wild night at the Denver temple

Last Thursday I was assigned to do the greeting in the chapel. My buddy told me that the men just get thrown in but the women are all well trained. Ha! We seemed to be shorthanded, because they told me that they would send a sister to help me seat the patrons AND they would come and take the people who were waiting in the chapel to another room because the chapel was to be used for a special chapel service. But, no one came. People were coming in huge waves. There seemed to be a group for a wedding so I put them in one spot. Then there was a group for the 7:00 pm session but, it was only the men because little did I know the wives weren't showing up because they were being directed to one of the rooms which was being used as the waiting area for the session. The brothers kept coming up to me and saying "Where is my wife". It was as if all the wives had been swallowed up. I couldn't leave, I couldn't go ask for help. It was only my third night and it was 100 people in pandemonium. I was smiling sweetly and politely and looking like I knew what I was doing and I hadn't a clue what was going on! Finally someone came and we sent the brothers to meet up with their wives. They hustled me off to a session and needed me to do things I hadn't been trained on and dared not risk without help. So there I was with the sweet smile again, 2 hours overdue for the rest room, trying to look confident! But, I'll get it one of these days. Many of those people have been there since the temple opened 13 years ago. They are all loving and lovely and It's a pleasure and a blessing to serve there.

Developmental Psychopathology

I'm at my 2nd PhD class in Lynnchburg VA. Much of the class was on the chemistry of the brain and how the positive or negative social relatioships of the baby with the mom and dad can"wire" that brain for the rest of life. The core of he social brain is also the hub of our fear circuitry. Successful therapy can actually change the wiring of the brain when there has been neglect or abuse or anything less than optimal parenting. I was thinking there was a correlation to another "healing relationship" we have in the LDS church. Harry Harlow studied the impact of social deprivation on young monkeys. Young orphan monkeys were raised by wire surrogate mothers. These monkeys engaged in autistic, self-abusive, and socially inappropriate behaviors. In another set of experiments newborn monkeys were raised in total isolation for the first 6 months. Then were introduced into a colony of monkeys, having had no physical contact, nurturance, or social skill development. These isolate monkeys spent much of their rime huddled in a corner or rocking in place. Furthermore, they failed to develop appropriate social, sexual, or maternal behaviors; they found stimulation and complexity of the social world just too overwhelming. In a subsequent set of experiments, before releasing his isolate monkeys into the larger group, they were given “therapists” The therapists were monkeys of the same species but only half the age of the isolates: true child therapists! And what good therapists they were! The therapist monkeys initiated contact out of interest, curiosity, and their instinct to connect. Though the isolates would initially freeze or withdraw from fear, the young therapists were persistent, continuing to approach and cling onto their “clients”. Gradually the isolates grew less afraid and began clinging back. Ever so slowly, they began to initiate play and learn positive social behaviors. (Suomi & Harlow 1972) It turned out that these younger monkeys were the perfect therapists. Their stage of development led them to connect with the isolates at a very basic physical visceral, and emotional level. More importatly, they would't take NO for an answer. (Cozolino 2006p 314 best of the 6 books!)
This story reminds me so much of missionaries. Some people in the world are living in a state of spiritual deprivation. They are afraid to trust in God. When the missionaries run into them, the missionaries are like the loving baby monkeys, like little puppies, they are always approaching, initiating contact with te instinct to connect. Though the people initially say no and try to withdraw, the young missionaries persist, continuing to approach and cling to their “clients” Gradually a few of the people thaw and learn to love back. Learning not to fear and learing to love are biologically interwoven with spiriuality. God Bless the missionaries!

Marine Donald Barrand

I just received some px from Don's Bio mom, so I thought I'd post them. As many of you know, Don is in Marine Boot camp. He gets to play with guns and grenade launchers. To Don, it's like a large scout outing. He loves it. During the first part of Boot Camp, he attended church regularly and quit smoking. He came home looking all buff, having lost 16 pounds and bore his testimony in Sacrament meeting. My heart kind of stopped when he stood up and looked so sharp in his marine duds. He and Austin wrestled on his 7 day leave and it was wonderful to see him. Now he won't be home again until April. He is allowed to smoke now but he says he says his bunkmate from Colorado won't let him (hope, hope). And the Bigger hope is that he survives the Iranian or Iraqian or Afganistan food, climate and bullets.

Austin Goes into the MTC

We made it in 7 hours instead of 8 because Austin drove 90mph. About midnight when Mark was asleep and we were alone talking, Aussie and I played a question game, “What was your most embarrassing moment” “What was the funniest situation you’ve ever been in?” “When was your best time skiing?”. He told me how much fun he and Don had in their sports/gym class at Arapahoe, how they were always showing off, there were a lot of attractive funny people in that class and how he felt like Don was his best friend. He said the thing he’s most excited for on his mission was having a companion….a buddy to hang with and work with. (Austin is SO amiable) Then I asked him what was one of his most spiritual moments and he told me that he’d gone to the building for young adult fhe but went in the chapel instead and prayed for about 45 minutes and got a stronger testimony of the Savior and going on his mission. At the MTC, Grandma and Grandpa Hogan drove down from Ogden. Danica and Jensen drove down from BYUI. Danica was giving Austin all kinds of tips about the MTC food. Bryce got off work. Sammy was climbing all over Marcinia. Austin was all smiles. As I looked down our row in that MTC room at my beautiful family, where they have you sing “called to serve” and your eyes mist up and I realized all 5 of my bio kids have gone on a mission, I thought for a moment I was in the Celestial Kingdom. I think a lot of the other moms were crying because they will miss their child. I was crying for joy and for relief. The structure will be so good for Austin, I just have a feeling he’ll go out a little boy and come back an awesome responsible man. (a thing he could only dabble at during his 9 months at college and his 9 long months at home at home because he lacked the frontal cortex development to organize and go and overcome temptations and obstacles and get things done.) When I hugged him that last goodbye before we went out our door and he went out his, I whispered in his ear a thing that was meaningful and special on one of our Sunday walks last summer when I tried to convince him to stop playing WOW. I said, “Austin, I know you can reach your potential.”

Then he was gone. We hung out with Danica, we saw Bryce and Marcinia’s new house. We went to Eric’s 3^rd temple marriage (3^rd time’s the charm) Now I’ve come home to an empty house. It’s so strange. The wrestling, the yelling, the Superbowl parties, the friends cars parked so we couldn't get out, the mess….the love, the disappearing food, the 40 pairs of shoes by the door and the roar from the basement….. The end of an era. That was so much fun!

39.75 hours to the MTC

This px is Austin saying he's going to get fat on his mission.
Oh, Oh it's getting so close! Austin gave his mission farewell talk yesterday. His subject was Christlike service. We had a good discussion about some of his friends who didn't prepare their talks and did poorly, so he decided to let me coach him. He even typed up the transitions between the stories and the scriptures. While typing, he got off track many times and I found if I left the room, he wandered out too. He practiced it one time. Not a good practice. I was nervous. But when he stood up to give it, he spoke with confidence, rarely glancing at his completely typed out talk. He told about missionary work being the best type of service and recounted his days at Arapahoe High where the Mormon kids all hung out together and ate lunch every day under the big tree out front, "the Mormon tree" and how they always invited Kristen along and she wasn't a member but went to Seminary with them and played their dumb "water drinking games" and how that he even made the supreme sacrifice and asked her to homecoming. (but that was OK because she's attractive) and how later, she listened to the missionaries and got baptised. I was breathless, and so proud of him up there in his new suit. I thought, "My goodness, Austin can rise to the occasion and be a "real missionary!". There was a surprising amount of people his age visiting the young adult branch in his honor.....Arapahoe girls who are off track from BYUI, and all the younger priests he's been playing halo with in the basement. Our, very supportive friends the Tureks and the Baileys and our home teacher came to the young adult ward to hear him. There's only 15 people usually in that branch. After the meeting, he said, "Thanks Mom, for keeping me on task and being my ritalin."

2nd try at the Cannibal picture

Everyone was here for New Years except Tiana (on her mission) and Don (still in boot camp) so we dressed up and made another attempt at the the last big family px. It was glorious having Sammy running around the house screaming while Grandpa or Brad or Austin chased him. He never walks anywhere, he only runs. The main level is kind of a circle and Austin would put shoes in Sammy's path near the front door and Sammy would plow into them without looking every time. Jensen is adorable and so fun to hold an kiss. We played lots of the European and American train game, ate way too much fudge, and delicacies from the Lion house Christmas cookbook and generally enjoyed being snowed in for Christmas Holidays. The highlight was on the 29th when we went to the temple and Austin got his endowments out for his mission. We were the only patrons in the temple because of the snow storm and it was really great to have an entire prayer circle with just our family. I wish every mom could be so lucky to feast her eyes on grown children in this way.

The Christmas Px in Progress

As many of you know, it is a Barrand tradition to do a zany Christmas picture in costumes that reflects what we've done in the past year and includes all the fam....even those who can't be there that year. So, we thought....what's been the big deal this year and our easy answer is....two missionaries in the fam! Austin going to Canada and Tiana in WV. What kind of px can you do with 2 missionaries. So we came up with this......Cannibals with the 2 missionaries in the cooking pot. The first attempt of this px was shot with an assortment of ametuer camers and photoshopped by my dear friend Anna Roedel on a mac at CTU. It meant combining 5 different shots and a background. Turned out fuzzy and we can't see Jensen. So, since this might be our last px, we will be trying again.....

The Blizzard of '06

18 inches of snow and snowed in for two days. Talk about a white Christmas! Mark was smart enough to have me get groceries the night before it hit! Oh joy! School was closed, everything was closed. I wrapped presents, I got homework and grades done. When it was finally over at 1:00 today we went out to dig out. Our neighbor across the street has a nice snow blower machine. We've got Austin the hos machine. We were 2/3 of the way dug out of the 3 car driveway when our our neighbor to the right drove up with his big "machine" and finished the rest. (he owns an excavating company)

The Last Mission Call

Austin was playing WOW at 7:30 pm at CTU. I kicked him out and told him to go home. Mark had been phoning and phoning. It's only been 10 days since he submitted his mission papers electronically. We called all the kids and had them all on speaker phones. Austin called girls he knew, neighbors in and opened the envelope......Toronto Canada West. My Dad's name is Keith and we named Austin after him....Austin Keith. And, that's where dad served his mission. Cool huh. While I'm SO excited for him to go after this long 7 months of preparation, I will miss seeing him in the tutoring center at school and having him sit in my chair in my cube. I will miss seeing his awesome artwork in the glass cabinet in the foyer. I will miss seeing him eat 8 pieces of pizza when they bring it in for finals week. I will miss our Sunday walks when Austin hails the strangers in the park "How's your day going?" I will miss the way Austin "helps me" decorate the Christmas mom, oh, I mean tree. I will miss seeing Austin wrestle anyone anywhere he can. I will miss this very fun boy in a big man's body. I hope the Canadians feed Elders lots of food. Austin will be happy then.

I am so blessed. 2 cute grandsons! Sammy was Fran-n-Sam for Halloween so his little friend is Bride Bee of Frank-n-sam. As his mom said, Jensen's only scarey aspect of this lion costume is the drool.