The Peck's back from Vienna: March 2013

Sunday, March 31, 2013

Easter

Easter was different for us this year. Christopher asked me last night if I wanted to go to a Catholic Easter Mass. Both of us were spiritually hungry to hear about the crucifixion and resurrection. This morning I decided to go. Emily and Jaron went with us too. And so did Lesa and the boys. We went inside and it was a huge chapel. Probably 4 or 5 times the size of ours and the place was pack. Standing room only. It was very symbolic and lots of standing up and sitting down. It reminded me a lot of when I was a Lutheran. There was incense and we were sprinkled with holy water. It was different but I'm glad we went. Afterwards we did an Easter egg hunt. Steve and I hid 87 eggs in the back yard and even the big kids got involved. :)

We had ham and potatoes for dinner. It was a great Easter.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Finally

Yep....it's finally getting to be that time of year. I went to Cook's and bought 8-4 packs of strawberries, 2-6 packs of tomatoes and a 6 pack of green peppers. I have them in my kitchen window til the end of April. I also bought some organic lettuce seeds. I'm hoping to get some topsoil dumped in the driveway next week to fill up the raised beds. It will be a perfect week to do this since Emily will be on spring break. I know there's nothing more that she would want to do than to help her mom to move dirt to the back yard. :)

Monday, March 25, 2013

Love it!!

I want to keep updated on pictures as much as I can. Cute pics!!

I'm doing really crappy at keeping up on the blog. My only excuse is that I'm really busy. I got Emily registered for classes next year since she was at a choir thing. All of it was online so it was a race for the classes she wanted/needed. She got them all.....yeah me. :) Her schedule......

	Term 1	Term 2	Term 3	Term 4
Period 1	GOV & CIT John Kurtz (HGCT0/011) A Bldg: 779 Rm: 204	GOV & CIT John Kurtz (HGCT0/011) A Bldg: 779 Rm: 204	FINANCIAL LT George Durfee (FINLIT/012) A Bldg: 779 Rm: 201	FINANCIAL LT George Durfee (FINLIT/012) A Bldg: 779 Rm: 201
Period 2	FRENCH 2 Arthur Burnah (LFR21/021) A Bldg: 779 Rm: 228	FRENCH 2 Arthur Burnah (LFR21/021) A Bldg: 779 Rm: 228	FRENCH 2 Arthur Burnah (LFR22/022) A Bldg: 779 Rm: 228	FRENCH 2 Arthur Burnah (LFR22/022) A Bldg: 779 Rm: 228
Period 3	INTERIOR DES Linda Nielson (C35010/031) A Bldg: 779 Rm: 134	INTERIOR DES Linda Nielson (C35010/031) A Bldg: 779 Rm: 134	INTERIOR DESGN2 Linda Nielson (C3502/032) A Bldg: 779 Rm: 134	INTERIOR DESGN2 Linda Nielson (C3502/032) A Bldg: 779 Rm: 134
Period 4	PHYSICS Elaine Layosa (S5001/041) A Bldg: 779 Rm: 123	PHYSICS Elaine Layosa (S5001/041) A Bldg: 779 Rm: 123	PHYSICS Elaine Layosa (S5002/042) A Bldg: 779 Rm: 123	PHYSICS Elaine Layosa (S5002/042) A Bldg: 779 Rm: 123
Period 5	SEMINARY Staff 03 Staff (XX601/051) B Bldg: 779 Rm:	SEMINARY Staff 03 Staff (XX601/051) B Bldg: 779 Rm:	SEMINARY Staff 03 Staff (XX602/052) B Bldg: 779 Rm:	SEMINARY Staff 03 Staff (XX602/052) B Bldg: 779 Rm:
Period 6	PRECALCULUS H Amy Smithson (M610H1/061) B Bldg: 779 Rm: 105	PRECALCULUS H Amy Smithson (M610H1/061) B Bldg: 779 Rm: 105	PRECALCULUS H Amy Smithson (M610H2/062) B Bldg: 779 Rm: 105	PRECALCULUS H Amy Smithson (M610H2/062) B Bldg: 779 Rm: 105
Period 7	ENGLISH 11 H Miriam Robertson (EN11H1/071) B Bldg: 779 Rm: 233	ENGLISH 11 H Miriam Robertson (EN11H1/071) B Bldg: 779 Rm: 233	ENGLISH 11 H Miriam Robertson (EN11H2/072) B Bldg: 779 Rm: 233	ENGLISH 11 H Miriam Robertson (EN11H2/072) B Bldg: 779 Rm: 233
Period 8	AP US HIST Ryan Newman (HUS2A1/081) B Bldg: 779 Rm: 208	AP US HIST Ryan Newman (HUS2A1/081) B Bldg: 779 Rm: 208	AP US HIST Ryan Newman (HUS2A2/082) B Bldg: 779 Rm: 208	AP US HIST Ryan Newman (HUS2A2/082) B Bldg: 779 Rm: 208

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Love this kind of mail!

I love getting drawings in the mail from my grandkids! Today I got an Easter drawing from Maddox and Asher. It made my day! :)

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Hope, hope, hope!

April Mormon conference may make history: women will pray

Female Mormons set to pray in April, breaking new ground for church.

By Peggy FleTcher Stack

| The Salt Lake Tribune

First Published Mar 18 2013 08:04 pm • Updated 6 hours ago

For Mormons yearning to see women take on more visible roles in their religion, their prayers have been answered:

The Salt Lake Tribune has learned that LDS women are scheduled, as of now, to offer invocations or benedictions at next month’s General Conference — an apparent first in the faith’s 183-year history.

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Church spokesman Scott Trotter would not confirm or deny the female prayers, saying only that "decisions on speakers and prayers at General Conference were made many weeks ago."

Trotter made a similar statement about the schedule in January after a group of Mormons launched an effort called "Let Women Pray in General Conference." The activists urged the faithful to write letters to six high-ranking LDS leaders, including apostle Jeffrey R. Holland and three women who oversee church auxiliaries.

The drive generated about 1,600 letters from 300 participants, said Analisa Estrada, a Salt Lake City graphic designer and one of the organizers. "The letters were beautiful and heartfelt."

"Let Women Pray" backers personally delivered the letters to the various leaders or their secretaries, Estrada said, but have heard no direct response.

They were naturally pleased by the news.

"I am really excited," Estrada said Monday. "It’s the kind of thing that came out of a lot of personal prayers on part of the organizers and the letter writers."

"My grandmother became the first woman to ever pray in sacrament meeting in our ward," Roberts wrote in an essay posted at Feminist Mormon Housewives. "I don’t think my grandmother’s life changed because she was invited to pray in sacrament meeting. What changed is that, in my life, I’ve never had to wonder why women aren’t allowed to pray in sacrament meeting. … I hope my granddaughters have the same experience with praying in General Conference."

Next month, that hope is to become a reality.

For most of the LDS Church’s history, its General Conferences have "tended to be pretty much male-oriented meetings," said Andrea-Radke Moss, a historian at church-owned Brigham Young University-Idaho, "simply because the [Mormon women’s] Relief Society had carved out its own autonomous space for female discourse, prayer, etc., at their own conferences."

From 1915 to 1970, the Relief Society staged its own two-day conferences, Mormon researcher Ardis Parshall said on the LDS history blog Juvenile Instructor, "with reports from the stakes and instructions from the General Board, with breakout sessions for, say, secretaries or education counselors or musicians or whatever.Lucy Mack Smith, the mother of LDS founder Joseph Smith, spoke at an 1845 General Conference, and other women occasionally followed, Janiece Johnson wrote on the blog. "Relief Society General President Belle Spafford spoke in the priesthood session of General Conference in 1946, teaching and encouraging bishops to work in a partnership with the Relief Society and utilize the expertise of Relief Society presidents."

Nowadays — and during the past two decades — LDS women leaders routinely speak in General Conferences. As far as historians can tell, though, no woman has ever prayed at the general meetings.

"I am unaware of any woman ever praying at General Conference. If it ever happened, it was generations ago," Parshall wrote in an email. "Ever since the ‘Let Women Pray’ movement started, people have been combing the conference reports, but no one has turned up anything yet."

In 1978, then-church President Spencer W. Kimball made an official statement allowing women to pray in Mormon sacrament meetings, saying "there is no scriptural prohibition against sisters offering prayers" and adding that it is "permissible for sisters to offer prayers in any meetings they attend."

The statement did not, however, mention the church’s large semiannual gatherings.

Radke-Moss said seeing women pray from the pulpit at the April meeting will be "marvelous," yet "long overdue."

In LDS culture, "it’s OK for men to speak to both men and women, but it’s usually only OK for women to lead and teach other women or children," the historian wrote in an email. "I love anything that opens the way for women to have spiritual and doctrinal expression in front of mixed-gender audiences."

Alice Fisher Roberts also lauded the move.

"As a Mormon woman, it makes me feel happy," said the Centerville mother of four sons. "It should have happened years ago, because there’s no rule against it."

Roberts remembers sitting in her LDS worship service as a small child and seeing a ward leader come down the aisle to where her grandmother was sitting and quietly asking the elderly woman to offer a prayer.

Monday, March 18, 2013

Monday...part 2

I forgot to put this picture up of Maddox and Asher. They got into Lesa's makeup. This picture makes me laugh!!!

Monday

We got these great paintings in the mail today from Kingston. One for each of us. What a guy!! Thank you Kingston!!

It's been really busy and crazy the last couple of months. Steve has had lots of meetings, Emily had lots of dance performances and I'm just trying to keep up with everyone. Emily's company performances are done and now they are learning dances for the recital in June. She's really excited for those. She's also starting to drive. Hopefully we'll get her permit this week so she can drive legally. Steve still has meetings but a little more space between them. I'm slowly getting the yard and garden ready for spring. Peas are planted but thats it so far. I'm so looking forward to warmer weather. But everyone is doing good. :)

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Ballet

Sorry about the quality not being too good. I recorded it from my phone. Emily is in the middle in the top video. The second video she's on the left and then moves to the right. The company performances were great tonight!

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Garden-just starting.

So far I've made two trips to Lehi Blocks and made 2 raised beds for our vegetable garden. Cinder blocks are heavy. I had to level out the ground first so the block lay straight and together. I got the second bed laid out today. The weather has been gorgeous and it's getting me really excited to get the yard ready to plant. I did plant pea seeds today and in 6 weeks or so I'll plant more seeds so we get peas for a while. I'm so happy spring is on it's way. It felt good to play in the dirt!!

Monday, March 11, 2013

Birthday and lots of pics.

Yesterday we had Christopher's birthday dinner......steak, baked potatoes and broccoli. Then german chocolate cake with chocolate ice cream. It was really good. Steve did an amazing job grilling the steaks!!! Happy Birthday again Christopher!!

Here are some of the pictures Timothy and Jessica sent me of Kingston and Darci

I love how Darci is wearing her dinner. :)

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Orem Lib. Performance

Here are a few pictures from the Orem Library performance. Most of the pics turned out really blurry. It's a no-no to use a flash but here are a few that are half way decent.

Emily was in 4 dances. I love watching her dance!!!

Emily G., Melanie, Renee, Emily, Annika, Georgia

Friday, March 8, 2013

Happy 27 Christopher!

This cute little guy is 27. Not so little anymore. I'm amazed at how fast time goes by and how fast they grow up. This picture was taken at Carborro, NC at our first apartment there.