Our summer has been very full and very busy. It seems like it's been taken over by trying to sell the blasted house mostly. It was something of a shock when we dropped the kids off at the bus stop this morning and realized that it's over. I'm glad we got some pictures of things other than cleaning and remodeling and worrying to prove that we had some fun!  Brother Grove's birthday Exploring the "castle park" with Kim and her kids.  More trips to Loy Blake, the new fave. Grilling in the rain. Nate is so dedicated.  Scrambling to grab candy at the parade. I think we got more candy than we did on Halloween! Leah's ducks in a row at bath time. Addison, inspired by an old Friend magazine, made this for his lunch one day. A little friend. Lots and lots of reading. This was the summer that Addison and Bryn really became readers. Also, I've paid so many overdue fines I think I should be part-owne...

  After a very long time, a whole lot of effort, and a gracious mentor, I am proud to announce that our very own Nate is published! Buttons are bursting left and right! Everyone run out and buy the book today! It's on Amazon ( http://www.amazon.com/Zion-Canyon-Reader-Nathan-Waite/dp/1607813475 ) and has been sighted at Deseret Book, and it will be at the gift shops at Utah's national parks. Hopefully Barnes and Noble and other bookstores in the area will pick it up too. A blurb (copied and pasted from Amazon, let's be serious) on his book, A Zion Canyon Reader,  which was published by the University of Utah Press: Zion National Park is one of the country’s most-visited and best-loved national parks. For the first time, lovers of the park have in one volume the best that has been written about the canyon. A Zion Canyon Reader is a collection of historical and literary accounts that presents diverse perspectives on Zion Canyon—and the surrounding southern Utah region...

A few weeks ago (March 12), the commuter train I was on hit a truck. I was on the train a half hour later than the one I usually catch, but I was running late. Five minutes into the trip (between North Temple and Woods Cross) there was a jerk of the brakes (nothing crazy, definitely not the hardest I've felt the brakes on the train) and a distant thump, then we came to a stop and the brakes started stinking. The guy across from me said he saw the remains of a truck as we went by. Long story short, the guy who was driving the truck got stuck on the tracks or something and he ended up with minor injuries. Nobody on the train was injured. Instead of getting home at 5:55 I got home at 9:00, making a commute of 4 hours 15 minutes. I thought the workers on the train did a fine job, and the EMTs who checked on everyone were great. But whoever at UTA is in charge of figuring out what to do in an emergency is completely inept. At first they said they’d bring buses. We sat for over two...

This year we've made it a goal to do a family adventure once a month. For January we needed something indoors and free, so we boldly traveled to a branch of the library we've never been to before! It was really fun. There was a little art gallery and cafe area and lots of fun things for the kids to play with (although they need about ten more tables and signs that tell parents to supervise their children). We did puzzles, read books, and Nate and I even took turns with the kids so we both got to find a book to check out! We were not super impressed with the layout or the kids book selection, but it was fun to explore a new place.  We were itching to find out what was at the top of this staircase, but alas, a chain, security camera, and the eyes and innocence of our children all prevented it. The book return area was the coolest thing ever. You just stick your book in the slot and it slurps it up onto a conveyor belt. I, for one, would've been happy doing only that ...

I'm reading a fascinating book called How We Decide , by Johah Lehrer (his blog about neuroscience is here ). More than anything, it's been about why we consistently make bad decisions, and he offers example after example of experiments that demonstrate how we're wired and what that makes us do. I just finished the chapter about making moral decisions. Though he explains it all from the perspective of synapses firing and chemical compounds, he describes what motivates us to act in what I would call a Christlike manner: in the results of a survey, scientists found that "people who showed more brain activity in their sympathetic regions were also much more likely to exhibit altruistic behavior. Because they intensely imagined the feelings of other people, they wanted to make other people feel better, even it came at personal expense" (183). That's why it feels good to help other people. Call it a chemical reaction, call it the Holy Ghost, call it whatever, we ar...

We have a tendency to throw around the term “Once in a lifetime opportunity” rather freely. Everything from amusement park visits to furniture sales are touted as ONCE IN A LIFETIME EVENTS YOU CAN’T MISS!!! Well, on Thursday night, Michelle and I had an honest-to-goodness once-in-a-lifetime experience. We met Wendell Berry at a book signing and heard him read his work. Wendell Berry is one of my heroes. I’d put him the list of five most important living writers. He wrote about the health of the land and environmental sustainability long before it was in vogue to do so. The man has got it figured out. Reading him makes me want to plant a garden, make my community a better place, spend more quality time with my family, and SAVE THE WORLD! Somehow, this crotchety old 75-year-old Kentucky-farmer-turned-Stanford-trained-scholar-turned-Kentucky-farmer-again manages to fire me up about doing right and doing good by the environment and each other. And not just me - the crowd at the reading was...

I’m about to commit what I’m sure is a blogging faux pas - I’m putting up three posts in a row. Sorry. If you’ve ever spent any time at the Mingledorff house, you start to realize that a prime pastime is telling (and retelling and retelling) family stories. More often than not, the climax of the story is that the storyteller wet his or her pants, but there is enough variety that even when you hear the same story, it’s good for side-splitting laughter. So last year, Michelle had the idea to immortalize these stories and have them printed up as a Christmas present for Mom and Dad Mingledorff. She spent February to October pestering us all to write down our memories, and everybody really came through. Somebody transcribed stories told by Ryan and Kaylyn, and even Russell contributed from the mission field. We ended up with over 60 stories. Then Michelle and I found a short-run printer online, and we edited and typeset all the stories, and we published Around the Kitchen Table: Mingledorff...

Yes, I know this makes two posts for the day, but I'm making up for lost time, I guess. I just wanted to share with the world a couple of my very favorite things, so here they are, in no particular order. Drumroll please... 1. Nate! I guess that's kind of obvious. But in particular, I like going to the library with him. He loves to read. He'll go with a list of a few books to get and come out with at least ten that were not on his list every time. To his credit, he reads at least a paragraph of each one. 2. Addison's startle reflex. It's hilarious. Whenever he gets scared or surprised, he flings his arms straight out to his sides. It's very dramatic. 3. Our handy new baby carrier, compliments of Grandma W. Addison loves it! We go on walks with it, take trips to the laundry room, and now he even gets to help out in the kitchen. 4. Addison's toes. Need I say more?

So, since all we do around our house is read , I thought I might experiment with short book reviews. First up? I just finished Lewis Thomas's The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974). My ah-ha! moment came when I made a link between what he was saying and the Mormon belief in eternal progression . Speaking of the brain, Thomas writes: It is hard to see how we could be in possession of an organ so complex and intricate and, as it occasionally reveals itself, so powerful, and be using it on such a scale, just for the production of a kind of background noise. Somewhere, obscured by the snatches of conversation, pages of old letters, bits of book and magazines, memories of old movies, and the disorder of radio and television, there ought to be more intelligible signals. . . . The mechanism is there, and there is no doubt that it is already capable of functioning, even though the total yield thus far seems to consist largely of bits. After all, it has to be said that we...