{kim carnes - bette davis eyes}

Love, love, love this song!

{blondie - call me}

If this doesn't make you want to dance - nothing will!

{lethbridge coulees, part two}

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Next we climbed up this hill to that little cazebo there.

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The university of Lethbridge is on the top left corner. It kind of "hugs" the coulees slopes.

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That's where we just came from. The bridge really is amazing. A train went over it when we were underneath and it was wild.

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Jay set up the camera to get a group photo of us.

We have been friends with Dan & Connie since about 1993. We got to know each other in Edmonton while Dan was going to school here. Then Jay and I moved to Fort Chipewyan, Dan & Connie lived a while in Arizona. They moved to Lethbridge, we moved to Lethbridge. We moved to Edmonton, they moved to Edmonton. They moved to Raymond. Traitors!! :D

Dan is a police officer. He went to Japan on his mission so he speaks Japanese.

Connie used to work as a dental assistant. Now she is a busy mom who makes the BEST puffed wheat squares.

We love these guys!

Friends are forever too! Y

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Madison (Maddie) & Emmalie (Emma) & Sienna.
Sienna had so much fun playing with the kids again. Dan & Connie have a huge house. Dan's parents live in the same house "on the other side". The door is usually open for the kids to freely go back and forth. And they do. It's the perfect set up when your parents get too old to be on their own but still want their privacy too. It's fun for them to be able to be part of the kids' lives so much.
Every time we go to D&C's it makes me a bit sad that Sienna is the only child. It would be nice to have someone there to play with her all the time. Maybe some miracle will happen yet.
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Ben climbed way up high. Sienna sure likes Ben too. She gets this cute smile on her face when she talks about him.
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Then I found these three more pictures online to show the coulees & the prairie better.
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Someone altered the colors in this picture. It's lot more pretty in reality. Not so red. Sienna said "Haybales!" at least 100 times on our way there and back. :D Me too, I guess. I love the haybale fields. And the mountains on the background reminded me how I miss them. Wish we'd make it to them more often. Dan & Connie are lucky. Beautiful Waterton is only about an hour from them. We have to drive three hours to get to Jasper.
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{lethbridge}

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Some more pictures from our trip. I took tons of pictures when we went for a nature walk in the coulees in Lethbridge with our friends. Jay and I lived in Lethbridge for few years so it feels like home when we're there. The coulees are one of my favorite things about Lethbridge. Southern Alberta is mainly flat, flat, flat. Prairie land. But the coulees bring nice variety to the flatness. You can find cacti on the hills! I actually didn't realize how much I had missed the prairie too. Flat grain fields with hardly any trees at all as far as eye can see. Big sky. Mountains way on the background. Lots of beauty in Alberta. Variety.

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Once again - my camera settings were off and I didn't realize that until we got home. Not the best quality pictures. My pictures never do justice anyways for beautiful nature.

I actually totally loved it being fall. The colors were awesomely muted and earthy. The smell and the tree silhouettes were heavenly.
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I think this is the longest train bridge in Canada (or something like that if I remember right). It would be nerve wrecking to be way up there in a train.
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Sienna kept collecting sticks. She wouldn't look at the camera so I asked her to show her sticks. Whatever works, right. :)
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More pictures later. As I said - I took lots. Aren't you guys lucky. :)
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ps. I found some info on the bridge:
This bridge is still the longest and highest of its kind in the world reaching 5,327.625 feet long (1.6km) and 314 feet high (96 meters). In its time it has been described by some as one of the wonders of the world!
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{the purpose of life}

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I haven’t forgotten about continuing to explain the “Plan of Happiness”. I have been putting it off as the #3 in the chart is such a vast topic and to be honest, I’m not sure how to tackle this one. How do you explain shortly the purpose of life and why we’re here? Exactly. That’s been my dilemma. Two blogs I read have mentioned the topic of death and it gave me the push to keep going.

The part one was posted on September 28th if you missed it. Wow, time flies.

So, the purpose of life. Why are we here? Wish me luck.
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One reason why we needed to come to earth is to get a body. Our Father in Heaven has a glorified, immortal body. Not a mortal one like we do. But gaining a mortal body prepares us to receive an immortal one. We get experience in what it’s like to have a body. I won’t go into more details about that. Just so you know getting our bodies is part of the whole mortal experience and very important to us.
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Because of the mortal bodies we have, we can experience additional things to that experienced in pre-mortal life. We can experience both good and bad with our bodies. Because our bodies here are mortal (we all get sick, we all die), we will be able to appreciate the immortal bodies afterwards (no more sickness, no more death). Think about it, how else could you appreciate that amazing gift (immortality) if you first didn’t experience the opposite. There is no other way. We must have opposition in this life (health/sickness, death/life, success/failure…). All the misery in this life has a purpose. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to appreciate the good things to come in the next state of our existence. Our trials and tribulations here guarantee our happiness in the next state. It’s mind blowing when you finally figure that out. Ponder about it and it’ll start to make more and more sense.
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Experience. That is another reason why we’re here. We needed to come here to be on our own, without Heavenly Father’s presence. To try our own wings, so to speak. To live by faith, not by sight. Then we could really be free and to be able to choose what we wanted. Free agency is so important as I mentioned earlier. God will never force anyone to Heaven. He will let us choose what we want. This life is a school as well as a test. Once again, having good & bad here is essential. How else could we choose? So many people blame God when bad things happen in life. They say God doesn’t care what happens to people. Otherwise He would interfere. Well, He won’t because “all these things will be for our good and for our learning”. He does guide certain things in this life but mostly He is just allowing all of us to have this mortal experience “as is”. Bad people get to be bad in this life. Bad and good people get their “rewards” (“test results & grades”) in the next state (see Malachi 3: 13-18). Here’s an awesome quote by President Spencer W. Kimball: “If pain and sorrow and total punishment immediately followed the doing of evil, no soul would repeat a misdeed. If joy and peace and rewards were instantaneously given the doer of good, there could be no evil – all would do good and not because of the rightness of doing good. There would be no test of strength, no development of character, no growth of powers, no free agency…” I could go on and on about this topic. It’s one of my favorite topics actually. I finally know why we go through so many heartaches and trials in this life. But suffice it say that in this life there will always be both good and bad. The test is which one will we choose.
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I know there are other things to talk about too in this category but this posting would be miles long if I explained it all. Let’s just mention one more thing though. If there is to be a punishment for evil deeds and rewards for doing good, there has to be a law. God’s laws are eternal, they don’t change. All of us have been given the light of Christ (most people call it the conscience) that will lead people to do good and warns them when they are about to do what is bad. You can “kill your conscience”. The more you choose to go against it, the more you silence it and eventually “kill it”. If you follow your conscience, you are led towards more and more goodness and “light”.

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I think I’m going to have to do a part “B” for this posting still. I do need to explain few more things before I move on to what happens after we die. So more to come. Stay tuned. Or not. :) Your choice.

Once again, feel free to comment or ask questions. Feel free to add your own thoughts on the topic (why we’re here). These of course are my own views and if I have explained them properly, then they'd be the views of the church I belong to as well.

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I get sort of homesick sometimes

For the home I had before my birth

For my other Father and Mother

That I left to come to earth.

I miss all the heavenly peace

Of that place where no pain can be found.

Where there is no hurt and there is no hate

But only love around.

'Till it's time to go back home

There's one thing to do it's clear:

I'll try with my hands,

I'll try with my heart

To make a Heaven here.

(lyrics of a song I love)

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{you're beautiful}

I'm sure you've all heard this song many times but once more won't hurt. :)

James Blunt - "You're Beautiful".

{what i've done}

Bold = I've done it, regular = haven't done it

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars (every night, can’t get above them :))
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain (part of it anyways, the top part)
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo (don’t even ask, one of my most embarrassing moments)
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you're not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping (everyone does this after sauna in Finland, not a big deal)
27. Run a Marathon (I wish!)
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice (seen gondolas in Las Vegas :))
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise (Helsinki – Stockholm counts, right…)
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors (only if being in the same city counts)
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language (volunteered to learn Italian on my own, not in school)
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied (sure, why not)
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelos David (seen the Pieta though, it was amazing!)
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight (if a lake beach counts)
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted (just a funny caricature in Italy)
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain (?? doesn't rain much in Alberta :))
53. Played in the mud (or maybe I should say with mud)
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie (Jay has)
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia (nope, only Tallinn Estonia)
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy (sigh)
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London (only in Stockholm)
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car (leased one)
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper (twice)
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating (Does fish count? Then yes.)
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone's life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee (a DEAD one!)
100. Read an entire book in one day

Your turn!