Mother’s Day 2009

We had a nice Mother’s Day today and took the chance to take some family pictures as well.

Easter 2009 Pictures

Well, we grabbed some pictures off our camera today and saw that we still had pictures from Easter on them. We thought we had posted them, but apparently not, so here they are a little late.

We sure had fun hunting for Easter eggs with the cousins.

Easter Fun 2009

The weather has finally warmed up a little bit, and we’re enjoying some sunshine this Easter Weekend. The girls were really excited to hunt for Easter eggs and find their Easter baskets.

We colored eggs, and even ate a few!

We had some special visitors show up in one of the Easter baskets:

The Church posted to YouTube a video of Elder Holland, of the Twelve Apostles, talk about the Savior.

The Church’s YoutTube Channel posts new videos on a weekly basis.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

We had a fun family party for St. Patrick’s Day.

The kids went on a treasure hunt to see what Lucky the Lepracan left.

They found the pot o’ gold!

About St. Patrick from Wikipedia:

Saint Patrick (estimated AD 387 – AD 461)(Latin: Patricius, Irish: Naomh Pádraig), said to have been born Maewyn Succat (Latin: Magonus Succetus), was a Roman Britain-born Christian missionary and is the patron saint of Ireland along with Brigid of Kildare and Columba. He was educated at a monastery and school of divinity founded by Saint Illtud (now Llantwit Major), often called “the oldest university in the world”. It was distinguished for also educating Taliesin, Saint Gildas, Saint Samson, Saint Paul Aurelian and possibly Saint David, Patron Saint of Wales.

When he was about sixteen he was captured by Irish raiders and taken from his native Wales as a slave to Ireland, where he lived for six years before escaping and returning to his family. After entering the church, he later returned to Ireland as a missionary in the north and west of the island, but little is known about the places where he worked and no link can be made between Patrick and any church. By the eighth century he had become the patron saint of Ireland. The Irish monastery system evolved after the time of Patrick and the Irish church did not develop the diocesan model that Patrick and the other early missionaries had tried to establish.

Saint Patrick. (2009, March 17). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 15:35, March 17, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Saint_Patrick&oldid=277869207

Happy 200th Birthday Abraham Lincoln

Two-hundred years ago on February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born.  Happy Birthday, Honest Abe! From Wikipedia:

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, two uneducated farmers, in a one-room log cabin on the 348-acre (1.4 km2) Sinking Spring Farm, in southeast Hardin County, Kentucky (now part of LaRue County), making him the first president born outside the original thirteen colonies. Lincoln’s ancestor Samuel Lincoln had arrived in Hingham, Massachusetts from England in the 17th century, but his descendants had gradually moved west, from Pennsylvania to Virginia and then westward to the frontier.

For some time, Thomas Lincoln, Abraham’s father, had been a respected citizen of the Kentucky backcountry. He had purchased the Sinking Spring Farm in December 1808 for $200 cash ($2,689.00 today) and assumption of a debt. The family belonged to a Hardshell Baptist church, although Abraham himself never joined their church, or any other church for that matter.

In 1816 the Lincoln family became impoverished, losing their land through court action, and was forced to make a new start in Perry County, Indiana. Lincoln later noted that this move was “partly on account of slavery,” and partly because of difficulties with land deeds in Kentucky.

When Lincoln was nine, his mother, then 34 years old, died of milk sickness. Soon afterwards, his father remarried to Sarah Bush Johnston. Lincoln and his stepmother were close; he called her “Mother” for the rest of his life, but he was increasingly distant from his father.

In 1830, after more economic and land-title difficulties in Indiana, the family settled on public land in Macon County, Illinois. The following winter was desolate and especially brutal, and the family considered moving back to Indiana. The following year, when his father relocated the family to a new homestead in Coles County, Illinois, 22-year-old Lincoln struck out on his own, canoeing down the Sangamon River to the village of New Salem in Sangamon County. Later that year, hired by New Salem businessman Denton Offutt and accompanied by friends, he took goods from New Salem to New Orleans via flatboat on the Sangamon, Illinois and Mississippi rivers.

Lincoln’s formal education consisted of about 18 months of schooling, but he was largely self-educated and an avid reader. He was also a talented local wrestler and skilled with an axe. Lincoln avoided hunting and fishing because he did not like killing animals, even for food. At 6 foot 4 inches (1.93 m), he was unusually tall, as well as strong….

Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858

The 1858 campaign featured the Lincoln-Douglas debates, a famous contest on slavery. Lincoln warned that “The Slave Power” was threatening the values of republicanism, while Douglas emphasized the supremacy of democracy, as set forth in his Freeport Doctrine, which said that local settlers should be free to choose whether to allow slavery or not. Though the Republican legislative candidates won more popular votes, the Democrats won more seats, and the legislature reelected Douglas to the Senate. Nevertheless, Lincoln’s speeches on the issue transformed him into a national political star. New York party leaders invited him to give a speech at Cooper Union in February 1860 to an elite audience that was startled by the poorly dressed, ugly man from the West. He stunned the audience with the most brilliant political speech they had ever heard. Lincoln was emerging as the intellectual leader of the Republican party, and its best speaker.

Abraham Lincoln. (2009, February 13). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 06:52, February 13, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Abraham_Lincoln&oldid=270387285

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2009 – Lesser-known Facts

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is an important day in the United States.  However, there are a number of things about Martin Luther that many of us probably do not know (or at least have forgotten since our U.S. History class in High School).

Much of what we are familiar with about Martin Luther from Wikipedia:

King’s efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. There, he raised public consciousness of the civil rights movement and established himself as one of the greatest orators in U.S. history.

In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other non-violent means. By the time of his death in 1968, he had refocused his efforts on ending poverty and opposing the Vietnam War, both from a religious perspective.

King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and Congressional Gold Medal in 2004; Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. national holiday in 1986.

There are many things that are less commonly known about Martin Luther King, Jr.  Answers from Wikipedia.

Why was he named after Martin Luther?

Martin Luther King, Jr., was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. He was the son of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta Williams King. King’s father was born “Michael King”, and Martin Luther King, Jr., was originally named “Michael King, Jr.”, until the family traveled to Europe in 1934 and visited Germany. His father soon changed both of their names to Martin in honor of the German Protestant Martin Luther. He had an older sister, Willie Christine King, and a younger brother Alfred Daniel Williams King. King sang with his church choir at the 1939 Atlanta premiere of the movie Gone with the Wind.

Did Martin Luther King, Jr. graduate from High School?

Growing up in Atlanta, King attended Booker T. Washington High School. He skipped ninth and twelfth grade, and entered Morehouse College at age fifteen without formally graduating from high school. In 1948, he graduated from Morehouse with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology, and enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1951. King then began doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University and received his Doctor of Philosophy on June 5, 1955.

Where did Martin Luther King, Jr. receive influence about non-violent activism?

Inspired by Gandhi’s success with non-violent activism, King visited the Gandhi family in India in 1959, with assistance from the Quaker group the American Friends Service Committee.  The trip to India affected King in a profound way, deepening his understanding of non-violent resistance and his commitment to America’s struggle for civil rights. In a radio address made during his final evening in India, King reflected, “Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. In a real sense, Mahatma Gandhi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation.”

When was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day made a Holiday?

At the White House Rose Garden on November 2, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a federal holiday to honor King. Observed for the first time on January 20, 1986, it is called Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Following President George H. W. Bush’s 1992 proclamation, the holiday is observed on the third Monday of January each year, near the time of King’s birthday.[182] On January 17, 2000, for the first time, Martin Luther King Day was officially observed in all fifty U.S. states.

Martin Luther King, Jr.. (2009, January 16). In  Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 05:51, January 19, 2009, from  http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.&oldid=264482181