SMUG has been observing our Christmas recess (although newer SMUGgles are certainly welcome to explore some of the existing curriculum) as the Chancellor’s family has been celebrating our Savior’s birth. The regular curriculum development will resume Monday.
We’re about to begin Day 3 of our Christmas gatherings, with Lisa’s side of the family joining us here at Old Main. Last night we were at my parents’ place with the Aase clan, and on Christmas night we had our six kids, our “adopted” son Jeff, and our granddaughter, Evelyn here to open presents. Here’s a picture of Evie and her Grandma Aase:
Evie’s Dad, my son-in-law Kyle, deserves a special mention, for many reasons. We’re glad he’s been brought into Rachel’s life (and therefore ours), and that he will be starting seminary classes next month. For SMUGgles, this relationship between Kyle and Rachel is an illustration of the power of social media, as they met through Facebook. So in some sense, Evelyn is here today because Mark Zuckerberg decided to start a social networking platform.
Kyle inadvertently demonstrated the power of another tool in social media, the Flip video camera, on Christmas night as Rachel unwrapped a gift — a Little Mermaid songbook — from her sister, Rebekah:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqO2rBlCepM]
As I’ve said previously, one of the main benefits of the Flip is that you can always have it with you, and so therefore you are much less likely to miss capturing that priceless memory.
This is Exhibit A!
This video may yet make its way to Facebook, where Kyle can be tagged so that all of his 926 friends can see his musical expression. Somehow, I think Kyle’s brothers and sisters-in-law will take care of that. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve uploaded some video highlights of their youth directly to Facebook so their friends can see them. And because Facebook now defaults to sharing video with everyone (although it lets you limit who sees them), I think you SMUGgles can see them too (and I’d be interested in having you confirm in the comments below.)
Here’s one of my son, Jake, in which he shows immense bravery (at least for a few seconds) after suffering a foot injury, and another in which he displays an interest in botany.
Here’s Ruthie giving her newborn brother Joe “a swoppy kiss.”
And here are Ruthie and Bekah (but mostly Bekah) singing one Sunday morning before church.
It’s time now to go make and capture some more memories, as the Wacholz clan is about to arrive.
Merry Christmas to all of you from all of us!