Of Nude Anabaptists, Ting Ting Sealing and Blessing, and Mother Nature as The Wise Guy in Seventh Period Gym

Hey folks. I was just researching this day in history, trying to come up with one of my classic opening "Happy Such-and-Such Day!" lines, and here is what I found on historyorb.com for February 10, 1535: "12 nude Anabaptists run through Amsterdam streets." And I could only shake my head in wry amusement and think to myself, "To think there was ever a time when people running around naked through the streets of Amsterdam was considered newsworthy." Nowadays people wouldn't even think twice about it. They would just go, "Shoo, naked guy! You're blocking my view of the lovely windmills!" Ah, Europeans. Gotta love `em. 

Anyway, it's been about two months now since we picked up Ting-Ting, and things are going great. We were sealed to her on January 26 and had the blessing immediately afterwards, at the church. That day was about the foggiest I've seen in Salt Lake. And this wasn't, like, the good healthy fog from inspirational Ensign stories that forms off of the coast of California that grizzled ship's captains are always having to navigate through while relying solely on the Spirit because the lighthouse is broken. This was, like, cyanide in cloud form. But once we actually got to the temple, things were grand. Except for when my mom (who is now known by her Chinese name, Nai-Nai) failed to heed the lessons of the ancient sage Benametrius and tried to take off Ting-Ting's shoes. Ouch! She was pretty crabby after that, although there was a moment of utmost darness in the sealing room when she got to choose which adult in the room to go to, and she decided on my dad (Ye-Ye), who was seated all the way across the room. I think he was pretty tickled by that.

Ting-Ting's progress had been good. She picks things up super-fast--she can already choose and put on her own clothes and shoes, go down stairs frontways (which always freaks us out in grand measure but so far she's only fallen once), and climb into her high chair, and I'm pretty sure within the next month or so she'll be opening doors. Yeah. Scary. She has also picked up a lot of words, like "hi," "bye-bye," "bananas," "baby," "socks," "shoes," "coat," "go," etc. Still not potty-trained, but we're working on that little by little. 

So this has been without a doubt the worst winter, weatherwise, that I've ever seen, and I've lived in both Idaho and Logan. It's like Mother Nature is the obnoxious guy in middle school gym class who's always messing with you: "All right, all right, you win, no more snow. Oh, wait, just kidding, here comes some more! OKAY, that's it now, I promise. No more until next Decem--FOOLED YOU, HERE COMES MORE! Haw haw haw! Oh, man, you should see your face, it's priceless!" (Wipes away tears of laughter.) "Okay, seriously now. I'll tell you what. If it snows again you get to hit me in the arm." (Runs to the opposite side of the room.) "HAW HAW HAW! You loser, I can't believe you fell for it again!" Somebody here needs to give Mother Nature a wedgie.