Magnificent Seven

Claire is 7 and says some far-out stuff.

Studying me intensely: "Dad, you have Luke Skywalker eyes."

To Carter: "I feel like playing by myself. Do you want to play with me?"

"We’re up all night for good fun, we’re up all Mexican lucky."

Randomly rolls down the window and yells into heavy traffic: "This is not an urban community!!!"

Independence Day

When I tell other Mormons I'm from Missouri I inevitably get asked if I've been to Independence. All these years I've answered no ... until now. While I was in Kansas City last week, my brother James took me to finally visit nearby Independence, Mo.

Independence is important to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because it is foretold as the future site of the temple where Christ will return at his second coming. After this prophecy was received in the 1830s, early Saints made great efforts to purchase land and gather in Missouri.


In 1831 Bishop Edward Partridge purchased for $130 the 63 acres which Joseph Smith, Jr. identified and dedicated earlier in the year as the temple site. Religious persecution from their neighbors, the imprisonment of Joseph and other early church leaders at Liberty, Mo., and the infamous Extermination Order from the state's governor forced the Saints' exodus from Missouri in 1838. They moved across the state line to found the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, where they eventually encountered further persecution and left the United States to found Salt Lake City.

What's in Independence now?

Standing on the temple lot is a white building that is the headquarters for the Church of Christ (Temple Lot). This is a spinoff group formed in 1852 that denies changes to LDS church doctrine or organization after 1830. In 1877 they purchased the temple lot and have been there since. You can go inside and pick up some of their photocopied tracts and see the original stone markers for the temple lot excavated in 1929.

We think the nice old gentleman we met there authored many of the pamphlets and is one of the COCTL apostles. One interesting fact we learned: there were Civil War battles fought in 1864 on the temple property.

Across the street from the temple lot is the 1926 auditorium of the Community of Christ, formerly called the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, another splinter group from 1860.

Across the street in the other direction is the 1992 Community of Christ temple. It's patterned after a seashell, but people also call it the ice cream cone. We went inside to find a beautiful chapel, a museum and gift shop.


Kitty-corner from the temple site there's the LDS Independence Visitors' Center with sister and couple missionaries that tell the history of the lives and persecution of the Saints in the 1830s, along with the message of Christ's gospel and church today.

Kansas City Temple

This is the gorgeous new temple in Kansas City. I am here tonight and tomorrow for my niece Amber's wedding.

This is one of the most beautiful temples I've been to, the details inside and outside are incredible. There is stained glass everywhere, most notably when you walk in, where there's a large stained glass "tree of life" backdrop behind the front desk. There are fountains shooting upward at the east entrance, and the woodworking and granite baseboards are so lovely.

"... The high standards of temple building employed by this Church are a type and even a symbol of how we should be living our own lives.

... We are each made of the finest materials, and we are the miraculous result of divine craftsmanship."

— Scott D. Whiting

In October 2012 church president Thomas S. Monson told a story about the Kansas City Temple. Prior to the dedication of the temple there was a cultural celebration put on by 3,000 youth from the surrounding states. There was a problem with the Jumbotron in the civic center where they were performing, which was crucial to the success of the night. My nieces and nephews were among the 3,000 that knelt in the civic center to pray for it to get fixed. It is a beautiful story, and if you don't know the ending, here's how it turns out.

There's not a lot built yet around the temple to block its view from the Interstate, so lit up at night it's like a giant billboard for the Mormons.

Extinction Through Achievement

Every day that I take Carter & Claire to school, they get a note in the bag with their snack.

The night before her spelling test, Claire was getting frustrated with three words: "achievement," "extinction," and "through." She didn't want to, but we practiced again the next morning after breakfast. She eventually got them figured out, and I was super-proud of her.

This was the snack note she got that day. Usually the note is a secret, but I showed this one to her in advance as motivation to get the words right on her test.

After school she beamed showing me the 105% on her spelling test.

Oh How Lovely Was the Morning

Saturday started out foggy and gorgeous, perfect for a birthday road trip to Palmyra, NY.

Knowing I'd be away on Saturday, Malcolm, Carter and Claire gave me presents on Friday. They know exactly how to shop for me: York Peppermint Patties, gum, pretzel M&Ms and Post-It Notes. Anything from the candy or office supplies aisles and I'm a satisfied customer.

Here's the part that made my week, I'm still laughing about it. Claire asked me how old I would be on my birthday. I told her, then she looked at me for a few seconds and said, "You look good."

Aunt Denise

My mother is an identical twin. Today her sister Denise passed away. Earlier this week as we were anticipating losing her I realized my mom has known her sister longer than anybody in this world, even her own mother.

When Dawn and Denise got together they were hard to tell apart. Once when I was 11 or 12 we were visiting my aunt's home I went to my mom upset and crying. I was aghast to realize I was breaking down in front of my aunt. You had to really pay attention. We got a great double-take out of the mailman one day when my mom met him at the mailbox and said hello, and then my aunt beckoned and waved from the porch. The stories of them trading classes (and dates) in high school are famous.

In personality they were also very much alike, even if they were separated for months or years. When my mom really got into health food, we would visit my aunt in Wisconsin and she'd be into the same stuff. My cousins and I would compare notes and just shake our heads at the similarities.

My aunt was always so loving and encouraging to me. I spent a couple summers with Denise & Denny and their three boys during my middle school years. She taught me how to ride a horse and care for it, helped me get rid of poison ivy after picking raspberries, took us swimming at the quarry, tolerated our hay bale forts in the barn, enrolled me in a youth astronomy course at University of Wisconsin, took me to a Billy Graham revival at the old Milwaukee County Stadium. Those were defining summers. The original Jeff Grandon Fan Club was invented in her home.

In the last few years I've been able to visit Denise in Florida a couple times for dinner at her winter home as I was down for business trips. I loved these times reconnecting with my family. Once as I left she filled my suitcase full of grapefruit from the backyard tree, it was the best gift ever.

Today's news hits close to home. It's hard to ignore that my mom is genetically identical to her sister; maybe her body will turn against her as sister's did. One of Denise's defining characteristics is that she was a solid Christian. She spoke of her faith confidently in regular conversation. What a great example of being a Believer.

Mothers are the most special people. I realize now what a unique situation it's been for me to have a duplicate of that person in my life. It goes beyond how identical they appeared to be on the outside — I've always felt the same care, love, concern, and pride in me from my aunt as I do from my mother. If I had been raised by my aunt instead, I would have turned out just the same. In some ways they are interchangeable. So for now, my Aunt Denise is not far away.

Pathway Home

Heading out of the Sacred Grove at Palmyra. New York is finally starting to thaw.

Faulty Towers

Oops.

Goldilocks on Porridge: "Just Right"

Today Claire proclaimed oatmeal as her favorite food. Which is quite a marketing accomplishment considering the rest of my kids' disdain for the stuff.

February's proclamation (by partisan charcutier Jimmy Dean) as National Hot Breakfast Month played a contributing role, but my reverse psychology and feigned hardship were probably the biggest factors.

• "You wouldn't like it."
• "Only grown-ups eat this."
• "It takes too long ..." [WHINGING] "... Oh, OK, I'll make it."

Claire asks for oatmeal every morning, but I usually only have time on the weekends, which makes it feel special. The big blob of honey mixed in, along with raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg, bananas, strawberries, and blueberries don't hurt either.

Sleetstorm

Pearls of ice glistening in the sun after last night's sleetstorm. Deicing the car this morning I took a corner too quickly and went down fast.

I[ntrovert] Before E[xtrovert], Except After C[ostumes]

A few weeks ago we had parent conferences with the elementary kids’ teachers. Claire’s second grade teacher said she wished Claire would speak up more in class, she was so quiet and introverted. Complete shock: are we talking about the same kid?


At home Claire is constantly talking, asking questions, singing, or making random noise — just for the sake of making noise. Late at night as I check her in bed before I go to sleep, she often starts talking in jumbled sentences. She laughs when I recount her conversation from the previous night. When she’s not talking nonstop, she’s tackling Carter, thumping around making even more racket. I don't see how this could be the same kid.


This weekend I ran a dress-up costume photo booth for kids and families at our church carnival, and Claire's true personality went public. I have the photo set on Flickr to prove it.


This reminds me of my old work friend, Carol. She used to be pretty reserved. That is, until the time we dressed her in an Easter Bunny costume at a meeting of 100 business and community leaders from our city. With her identity concealed she started skipping around, handing out candy, shaking everybody's hands ... along with her cotton tail. Something about a costume inspires transformation.

Short Days, Long Shadows

I took off early from work yesterday to take the kids to the doctor. It was weird driving away from work in broad daylight, having to wear sunglasses.

Getting past the winter solstice is always encouraging. I love the feeling of gaining a couple minutes of daylight every day. It's like a gift.

The Morning Breaks

Here is this morning's lovely eastern sky with its waning crescent moon and brilliant Venus. Most of the heat from my place escaped outdoors as I opened the sliding glass door to the 8°F weather for a clear long exposure.

Since November I've been getting up a half hour earlier and it's been a good thing for me. I don't rush around so much in the morning, it's quality time to get my day started on the right foot. And knees.

On a few clear mornings looking out the window in December I watched Mercury rise quickly in the sky before the sunrise. I've studied the planets since I was very young, but have never actually seen Mercury until I started getting up early last year. It was exciting to confirm I finally spotted it.

A few years ago we learned Jupiter is a giant comet magnet that makes an extinction-free Earth life possible. What is Mercury's purpose?

All things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.

—Alma 30:44

I'm beginning to realize there's a lot in motion out there, a larger plan at work, marching on whether we see or understand it. That's definitely worth a couple hours of sleep here and there.

Rainy Day Plan B

My apartment is too small for a real hide and seek game, but Carter & Claire came up with a just-as-fun alternative — hide two stuffed bears while the other person counts. The bears are big enough to make it challenging, but there are still many places a bear can hide where a kid won’t fit inside … like the oven, the microwave, and the refrigerator. I helped them get creative towards the end.

The Santa Test

How do you prove Santa Claus is real? Carter and Claire came up with the solution:

Give Santa a written test with challenging questions only he can answer. Add in some math problems to challenge his skills on his busiest night.

I don't know why Santa and I bothered with the hundreds of dollars of presents. When C+C were finally allowed to come into the living room for Christmas morning, their foremost interest was in Santa's responses on The Test, and the cookie and carrot crumbs on the porch from the snack we left.

They must have spent 10 minutes carefully analyzing every response on their test papers. Then they traded papers to read more. Claire was tickled Santa used the "math help box" to show his work on the addition problem.

Their smiles about this magical part of Christmas were fantastic. I'm so glad for the believers in my family.

Gingerbread Factory 2013

The scene around my kitchen table last night, fueled by eggnog and Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack. I use a recipe from Martha Stewart called Patti Paige's Gingerbread Cookies ... without the cloves.

When I get tired of rolling dough, the last of the edge trimmings get squished into their own special reject cookie. It's the prize of the batch. Can you spot it?

That glue bottle is actually full of icing, it lets you control where it goes. Any icing mess-ups go into the reject pile ... in my stomach.

All gingerbread is now bundled and ready for giving. You so wish I was your home teacher.

Photo Booth Setup: Seeing Stars

I love the problem-solving aspect of photography. When everything comes together you can knock the ball out of the park.

Earlier this month for our church Christmas party I set up a photo booth. I wanted something foolproof so I could enjoy the party ... of course it ended up being one of my most elaborate setups. But it was a hit and the photos were amazing!

Here's how I did it.

I knew I wanted a fancy background for Christmas. I used a large craft paper punch in black card stock (courtesy photo buddy Sharon) to create a star-shaped stencil to tape over my camera lens as the aperture. For the background I covered a rolling chalkboard with black fabric and Christmas lights. If I blurred out the lights in the background they would become a field of stars.


The challenge: The lights needed to be in the distance so they’d be out of focus. The people in the foreground needed to be in the right spot — in three dimensions — or else they wouldn’t be in the photo. I didn’t realize this until I was setting everything up the night before. I needed an imaginary rectangle in space to keep everyone in my viewfinder, but had no idea how to do it. Time to think on my feet.


The solution: I suspended a discarded picture frame with two screws and old speaker wire from a bungeed rigging. All parts on hand, total cost = $0. After I figured out the proper distances and lined up the foreground, background and camera tripod, I taped guide marks on the floor in case anything got bumped out of kilter. Which it did.


Lighting came from an optically slaved Nikon SB-800 inside a shoot-through umbrella. During the shoot the side of the umbrella was just about touching the side of the lens to keep the light near center to avoid shadows from the frame.

On the other side of the camera I connected a big LCD monitor from the church library to my camera’s video output. People could get instant visual feedback after each snap to see how they needed to arrange themselves inside the frame.

I also had a wireless remote shutter release set up so people could take their own photos from inside the set, but I abandoned this. Once I saw how good the photos were turning out, I ended up directing people so we could get the best shots. We definitely got some keepers.

We had some families show up with 3, 4, and 5 kids, and I wondered how we would ever cram everybody into that small frame. We had them stand on chairs and doing some funny balancing, like a game of Twister. Perhaps watching them work together as a team to get everybody in the shot was the most fun. At top is one of the pictures I’m most proud of, it took a couple tries to get this. I love the layered feature of the set, how you can see what’s going out outside the frame.

The entire set is on Flickr. If you’d like full resolution files for your family let me know.

Gaffer

Many portrait photographers exclusively use available light. That's great, but too limiting for me.

1. Sometimes the perfect location is a dense forest or sunken waterfall where there is no light to be had.
2. What if I need to do a studio shot without a north-facing window or on a rainy day?
3. How do I shoot 70 families over three months and make them all look the same?

I make my own luck — I pack flashes. (Look, they're available right there in my bag.)

I love having the control of bringing my own light. Give me any old clunky camera: as long as I control the lights, I can make you look exquisite.

Even better: put a strobe on a pole, hand it to a friend, and now I've got a voice-activated lightstand. Time for the word of the day.

gaf·fer
n.

1. Chiefly British An old man.
2. Chiefly British A boss or foreman.
3. An electrician in charge of lighting on a movie or television set.

Adirondacks Road Trip

Madeleine had a long weekend off school from Clarkson University, way up in Potsdam, NY near the Quebec border.

The most direct path is through the Adirondack Park in New York's North Country, full of beautiful mountains and glacial lakes. It's fall up there earlier than in Albany. We couldn't have picked a more beautiful day for a road trip. With snacks.

Here's the full set of photos on Facebook.

Brown Bag

I am the king of packing lunch. I remember to add spoons for chocolate pudding cups. Cheese sticks get double bagged with ice cubes. And the kids get a note from me every time.

Carter shrugs about the notes; Claire collects them in the front pocket of her backpack like they're a limited edition. Every morning when I'm packing food she wanders into the kitchen to ask: "Did you put a note in?" I say it's a surprise — you'll have to wait and find out at school.

Just so we're clear, Claire would rather be late to school than have me forget the note.