Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Apple and Banana Salad

Do you like fruit salads? Well, you might like this one that my family always likes to have on special occasions, like birthdays and holidays. I call it Apple & Banana Salad.


I quickly made this salad for Mom's birthday party in January of 2020 and everyone really liked it, just like they've always liked it.

This fruit salad is not like any other fruit salad. It's a very simple and quick recipe and it turns out very delicious that you want to keep eating until it's all gone. So this is how the recipe goes.

All you need is;
One bunch of ripe yellow bananas,
Five apples
Three containers of Cool Whip
Raisins (Optional, since mom likes to add those to hers)
Walnuts (Optional, again, mom had it this way as a child)
Pomegranate Seeds (REALLY Optional, Grandma used to put them in hers)

1.
Chop bananas into round slightly thin and slightly thick circles


2. Chop apples into small cubes (Note: Makes sure you take away the core!). Some of the kids like them peeled, but I think it takes too much time and I don't even notice the peel anyway.


3. Put the chopped apples and bananas into an appropriate size bowl.


4. Pour in the cool whip and stir it all up, until the fruit is all covered (you might not need 3, depending on the sizes of your fruit, but I like lots of Cool Whip on mine.)


5. Enjoy!


Tuesday, November 29, 2022

The Book for Capstone

This story was written in December of 2019. This is the moment you've all been waiting for! I have finally been able to get my story all written and illustrated! This is the first book that I ever wrote to have a professional hard cover. This is a new series book that I came up with. I'm pretty sure you might like to know what the name of this book series is called, or you can probably tell from the picture of the book.


Samy Kind is a character that I came up with when I was a kid, because I thought there weren't many characters that would have "Kind" for a surname or even a character that would show kindness. And now at this moment, I'm planning to write a series about him. This is considered the third volume of the series. And there's a reason why that is.


It was a long progress to write the story and draw the pictures. Then Mom and Drama Queen helped me with some editing because I didn't quite understand why it was a big deal, until they told me that my story had to show evidence about what autism is really like. As an adult now, it's quite hard for me to go back to acting like a kid with a little bit of confusion, curiosity, or even some untreated speech therapy. So after I finished writing the story, and digitally drawing the pictures, I had Drama Queen and Mom check on my story to make sure it was all ready before the Capstone event that happened on the 3rd of December.


 After all the story was finished, Drama Queen and Mom went onto the Shutterfly website to try to make my book look professional like any other book. It was a long and hard progress for them, because the Shutterfly formatting is a bit tricky with Docs formatting. Every page had to go in one at a time. When they finally were able to get it all on Shutterfly, sadly, it wasn't going to come the house until the day after the Capstone event. It got me and Mom worried about that, because I was so excited that when it was ready, and I could show it to the judges.


We ended up hoping and praying that it would come sooner after my mom made desperate contacts with the Shutterfly company to try to send it over to us. They promised to help us, but after all the shipping that went around for the whole week, all we ended up getting were my illustrations laid out on photo sheets. At least it was still better than having nothing at my Capstone display to show the judges.

By the time the event came, I still didn't get the book, so instead I used my laptop to show my book like an ebook. I set up the illustrations all around my table, along with my other things that I planned to use. I took my turn to present my PowerPoint presentation about the process I did throughout the semester. I got a lot of positive reviews from the judges. As a matter of fact, all of them said that they loved the presentation I made and they thought my message was inspirational. And another thing they told me...THEY WANT A COPY OF MY BOOK!


Even though we were a little disappointed that my book didn't make it to the event, everyone did tell me that they really liked the way I set up the booth and that I got to show them all the hard work I put in throughout the semester. Mom and Dad were so proud of me for showing all the hard work I did on the story. On the day after the event, the shipping was showing either still packed or en route. Maybe the production teams was slacking off on trying to get my book shipped to the house.

Finally, my mom got a message that they said it would come by Monday. But coincidentally, Scout, Teach, and Twizlet, told me that it came just today! I came up to open the box from Shutterfly and it turned out to be the book that I wrote. I was quite surprised about the size of it. I thought it would be like the size of any other chapter book that is like vertically 8 1/2 in and horizontally 5 1/2 in. But, I shouldn't complain or even judge, because a book is still a book, no matter what size it is. Besides, this was a fun process.

Since this is the third book of the series, I'll have to start writing the first two books of the series, but for now, I think I'll have to wait until the holidays are over. I'm really looking forward to getting this book published for everyone, along with my other future books.

Monday, November 28, 2022

Adventure Talk

 

This talk was written in 2019 at my parent's ward. I wanted Puppy Lover to present her talk, but she was a bit shy to do so.

I’ve been asked to speak about a talk from last general conference when Elder Uchtdorf told us what it’s like to have an adventure. He explained with an analogy, based on a fantasy novel called The Hobbit. Now I don’t know much about The Hobbit, but in one part it explains that a lot of people are given the opportunity for adventure, but they would usually take it for granted. Many people would rather have a chance to just slothfully relax their lives away by eating so much of the same food they enjoy, sleeping in as much as they want, avoiding hard work (just to avoid the pain that comes with it), and believing they’ve already learned enough and think they don’t need to learn anymore. So a lot of people would think that having an adventure is overrated. But one character was asked to go on an adventure and he takes the chance. He knows that it won’t be an easy adventure and that he would have to face the dangers and challenges that are yet to come when he embarks. But once the adventure is over, he would be able to come back again.
The story of the Hobbit is like all of us who have been sent on this Earth to learn, grow, and gain experience in our surroundings. Heavenly Father has sent us all on an “adventure” just so we can experience good and evil and learn to choose good for ourselves. He knows that we are all going to make mistakes on our mortal adventure as well as have trials to help us gain happiness along the way. Elder Uchtdorf said, “We learned how much God loves us. He gave us life, and He wants us to succeed. Therefore, He prepared a Savior for us. ‘Nevertheless’ our Father in Heaven said ‘thou mayest choose for thyself for it is given unto thee.’”
Whenever we hear that Heavenly Father said “Thou mayest choose for thyself for it is given unto thee,” He means that we want to make good choices and be careful about the choices we make. But, there are a lot of us, who may take that eternal advice for granted. For example, many of us might like to have a life that’s easy, and we might believe that it’s part of Heavenly Father’s Plan of Happiness. On the contrary, all my life, I’ve been told that a simple and easy life is actually not following Heavenly Father’s plan, but it’s following Satan’s plan. Satan wants us to think having an easy life brings pleasure, joy, and happiness when it actually brings remorse, regret, and even arrogance. Living the life of the “natural man” only leads to unhappiness. 
We all don’t want to be like Satan when it comes to realizing that trying to seek for an easier life would usually end up being way harder than it should be. For example, when I was a kid, there were times when my parents assigned me and my siblings chores to do and a lot of us would complain about how hard the chores were. So without the parents noticing, we would usually try to make a very quick straighten up and then we would tell our parents that our chores have been finished up. They would inspect the progress that had been done, but then they would notice that things are stuffed under furniture or even put into the corner of the room. They would tell us that it’s unacceptable to be shortcutting, because that just makes the house a lot messier and it would eventually get harder and more time-consuming to clean up decently. It’s been going on for a very long time, ever since I remember. It’s like shortcutting on housework tasks just became a family tradition!
I had to learn about the importance of hard work in other ways in my life. I’m pretty sure that when we were in Heaven with our Father, He asked us about the challenges we might want to face during our Earthly Adventure. I don’t remember choosing to be Autistic, but I believe it is something our Heavenly Father knew would help me learn and grow in this life. At first the challenges were difficult. Not being able to communicate with my family or understand the things they were trying to tell me was probably the hardest part. But eventually, by the time I was about 9 years old, I stopped quoting movies and I learned to have actual conversations although even now sometimes I share a movie quote or two without noticing. My adventure took an interesting turn when I was introduced to scouting. At first, I was afraid and I didn’t want people to look at me or make a fuss about me. I hid under the table while they presented my awards at pack meeting, but I was always so excited to have them. After a while, I was able to stand near the cubmaster with my back to the crowd of parents and scouting families, but I was learning to deal with my fears and by the time I was old enough to receive merit badges, scouting was my life! I chose the adventure this time even though some people didn’t think I could do it. I wanted to earn ALL of the merit badges! I started working really hard and around all of my other school, sporting, and church activities, I worked on merit badges. I would bring the merit badge books to church and copy passages and draw pictures to help me remember what they meant. I was determined to complete my adventure! When I was finished with all of the traditional badges and my Eagle Scout was complete, many people thought I might abandon my adventure, but I didn’t. I knew that my parents would be disappointed in me if I gave up before I completed my goals. I knew I would be disappointed in myself if I gave up. On that very last day, at my final Court of Honor, when I received my 132nd Merit Badge, I was so proud and happy. My family, my scoutmaster, my friends, and mostly my parents, were all happy too because my scouting adventure was over and I had completed what I had promised to myself and to my parents that I would do. 
Completing a hard goal always helps us feel happy about what we have accomplished; we learn how to be more productive, and we also feel blessed for the things that we do in everyday situations. We have been told, according to Elder Uchtdorf, that “The Savior invites us, each day, to set aside our comforts and securities and join Him on the journey of discipleship.” He means to say that we shouldn’t let laziness and distractions fill our lives, but that we should dwell on spreading the gospel and thinking about the Savior, Jesus Christ, who died for all of us and was resurrected so that we can return to Heavenly Father again. Even when we die, that doesn’t mean we’ll be comfortable and relaxed in Heaven, but that we’ll likely have happiness and joy while we still help spread the gospel in Heaven. Learning and growing never stops, but it continues on, even after death.
After I finished my scouting adventure, I was discouraged and I didn’t know what to do because it felt like my adventure might be over, but my parents reminded me that I just had to find a new adventure that would also require hard work and effort. So I served as a Church Service Missionary and I went to college. I learned to create and follow other new adventures, each of them requiring hard work and effort on my part. I’m still learning how to work hard and be happy and grateful for all the many things I’ve been blessed with. Another adventure would be getting married to my beautiful and amazing wife. She and I have been married for almost two years now. I’m still trying to finish school and the semester is almost over. Finally, after 7 long years, I will earn my Bachelor’s Degree. But like I said before, that adventure might end, but I’m sure a new one will begin. Maybe Allie and I will have a kid or two and (according to my parents) that will be a real adventure for both of us! 

I would like to bear my testimony that having an adventure is part of life and that we should be happy with the blessings and obligations that Heavenly Father has given us. If life were always easy, we would never be truly happy. Joy comes from following Jesus Christ, and when I see Him again and my loving Heavenly Parents in my true final Court of Honor, I want Them to be proud of me, to know that I did my best with all that I have been given. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Sunday, November 27, 2022

Corn Maze and Corn Obstacle 2019

This was in October of 2019: 

My Parents Display

I don't have much to say here, but I would like to present to you the corn maze, as you all know, and a new thing that has been added to the family. As you all know that every Halloween, I've been putting up such a corn maze that everybody in the neighborhood really likes to see and possibly go trick-or-treating at the house. With the pictures being captioned, it will help you understand which house is whose in each of them, in case you want to go see both of them.

My Parents Display

I was a little worried, as usual every year, that all other houses were starting to light up with Halloween spectaculars and I was also worried with school, work, and my marriage with Puppy Lover. I just realized that I had the first Saturday and Sunday of October off, because of General Conference and that led me to the chance with my dad to get the front yard ready for me to put up the corn maze. There were a lot of times I had to take a break from it, but I managed to get it all the way done in one day. My dad was proud of me that I could get it done before dark. And my mom was also proud of me to get it done in one day, so that I won't have to worry about having to do it for days while I still have the last semester to take care of and still bring my marriage in first in my life.

My Parents Display

Speaking of which, I spent most of the Sunday at Puppy Lover's parents house. I like to call it home, but I'm not sure about that, because of the semester, it just feels like every day, for the semester, I'm living in between homes. So that I can keep my marriage and education balanced. And Puppy Lover is still trying to understand that my education will help me and her do better with our marriage.

Puppy Lover's Parents Display

Back in the summertime when I was living in Puppy Lover's parents house, I discussed with them about me setting up a Halloween display for their neighborhood. I wanted to plant a garden for them in their yard, but they told me with living in North Salt Lake, the soil wasn't tenderly good enough to plant corn or any other vegetation. So I ended up buying some extra bundles of corn stalks at a Farmer's Market for $5 a bundle.

Puppy Lover's Parents Display

Puppy Lover's parents were so excited to have a Halloween display on their house, since they haven't intended to put up lights for the holidays in years. Puppy Lover's mom was so glad that she had me for a husband who can make an amazing display. I wanted to make a corn maze out of this one, but with not enough stalks or poles, Puppy Lover gave me the idea with raising a strand of lights off the ground, because she was worried about them being stepped on by the trick-or-treaters, I figured instead of a corn maze, it could be called a corn obstacle, just for this year. I'll make sure by next year, I'll have enough poles and stalks to make it into a maze.

Puppy Lover's Parents Display

Anyway, I got it all set up for Puppy Lover's parents' neighborhood, since they have a bunch of kids out there who love to go trick-or-treating. After watching all of General Conference, Puppy Lover's parents got things ready for a special family gathering on Puppy Lover's side of the family. Her sisters' kids were so excited to see the display when they got to the house. I demonstrated to them that, when the kids in the neighborhood come trick-or-treating at the house, they can either try the obstacle, or just skip it and go to the door to get their treats.

My Parents Display
I'm so glad that I've been able to get the Halloween display at both homes set up for the trick-or-treaters this year. I'm hoping that they'll try a walk-through on these displays. Maybe my side of the family would like to see the display at Puppy Lover's parents' house. Maybe they can try trick-or-treating at this house, if they have the chance sometime on Halloween. It would be fun to see them. Enjoy the rest of these pictures.

My Parents Display

My Parents Display

My Parents Display

Puppy Lover's Parents Display

Puppy Lover's Parents Display

Puppy Lover's Parents Display

Puppy Lover's Parents Display

Saturday, November 26, 2022

3D Art Activity

This story was back in October of 2019: My Mom asked me to blog about this fun activity that I did with Scout, Curly, and Baby Doll on Sunday of this week. Remember the time I talked about the Troom Troom show when I showed you the homemade giant candy bars that I made for birthdays? Well, the show has shown me another fun thing that I could try doing and I also thought it would go perfect for the 3D Art activity that my family does for Reflections: making unique bars of soap.



I was watching some of the demonstrations of how the girls on the show were making bars of soap that were so unique that you can hardly find them at any store, but that you can make something like that at home. My mind went a bit blank, wondering where can you buy a brick of soap base that you can use to make some interesting bars of soap? When I kept thinking of it, I looked up online and saw that soap base can be bought at Hobby Lobby, and you can also buy different silicone molds that can be used for baking or molding projects.


I made a unique bar of soap that was blue colored, with a bit of white and yellow on it. I made it look like a little Book of Mormon and I gave it to Crafty as an early birthday gift. I thought it was the perfect gift that she can use for her mission. She's really excited to go on the mission. When Crafty and I showed it to the family, they were very impressed and wondered if that was the newest hobby/project I thought of making for people's birthdays, instead of making the high-calorie candy bars.


For the past few months, after learning that the Reflections theme this year was "Look Within," I thought it was the perfect choice of something that the kids can make for 3D Art. Baby Doll was excited to try making a bar of soap that has never been seen by anybody before, and Curly and Scout felt the exact same way.


I showed them the different kinds of flavorings and food colorings that they can use in their bars of soap. I even taught them that they need to use rubbing alcohol to spray the molds, just to make it easy to take the soap bars out when they're set, and to spray some on the melted soap base to avoid the air bubbles when stirring the soap, colorings, and flavorings together. I even told them that their own brick of soap base has to be chopped up into tiny squares and microwaved for 20 seconds so that the soap can melt.


It was quite a time-consuming, dirty, but yet fun activity for the kids. They never thought that soap bars can be made and used for an everyday hygiene routine. The kids really enjoyed coming up with different shapes, scents, and colors of soap that can be used. The hardest part that they ever had to face with the activity was to wait for almost an hour for the soap base to set. It was hard to wait for a very long time for one soap bar to set before doing the next step of their project. 


Baby Doll made hers with two flamingos, making a heart shape position, while standing on water that's on top of a white brick that says "Dance" Scout made hers on a giant heart-shape bar of soap with a blue soap volleyball that shows how much she loves volleyball. Curly wanted to make a scientific bar of soap like a geode, but he wasn't pleased with how it turned out, so Mom suggested that maybe it could be an oyster instead. He really liked that idea and after a few changes and another small molded pearl, it turned out great.


I'm so proud of you, Baby Doll, Curly, and Scout for trying out this activity. It sure was fun teaching you guys about this new technique. I hope the judges like your 3D Art projects.

Friday, November 25, 2022

Autistic Picture Books

This story was back in September of 2019: I wasn't quite sure what to talk about until I figured out that I'm working on a little bit of homework and I thought I should tell you about what I'm doing.



It's the last semester before I get to graduate from UVU and I'm working on a Capstone project where I need to interview some people and get some ideas on how I can achieve my project. The project I'm doing is planning to write and illustrate a children's book about a child who has autism. Whenever I went to class, my teacher really likes the idea I came up with, but I'll still need to find some people to interview with who are experts with dealing with a child with autism and when I interviewed some people, like a librarian, a caregiver, and a philosopher, they thought it's a good idea that I write and illustrate a children's book.

Image result for Autism children's picture books
But when I met with a couple of librarians at the local library, they looked up online to see that are a lot of picture books about children being autistic and there are also children's books for autistic children who love to read. I was a bit worried that if there are a lot of other children's picture books about a child with autism being the main character, my teacher would recommend I come up with a different approach for my project. But with a little bit of encouragement and firmness, my mom told me that I can still write and illustrate a children's picture book about not an autistic child in third person, but in first person story form.
I didn't see this book from the librarians, but I saw it myself. It might be a good book to read to children who love elephants.
I already started writing the story, but with a lot of assignments being put online with due dates, it gets me a little worried that I'm not going to be able to get the story done, if I still need to deal with other assignments that have to deal with the project. One of the assignments is to interview people who have empathy towards my project and I need to come up with an annotated bibliography and put them all into a PowerPoint, because I will be presenting my project in front of community judges on the last day of the semester.

Image result for autism symbol
I have lots to do, but I'm still trying to keep my other priorities straight, like my marriage, my family, and my employment. I hope that I'll be able to get all of this done in time. But I'll tell you that by the time I'm done writing that story and I present it on the last day of the semester, I'll get the story published.

My Sister Teach's Baby Shower 2019

This story was written in Septempber of 2019. This may sound a little weird, but Mom asked me to blog for you about Teach's baby shower. It was quite a party. At first, I thought the normal rule of a baby shower is that the only male who would be invited to a baby shower is the husband with his wife who is the pregnant woman. But with a little bit of empathy from mom, she said that for this shower, it's just for everybody in the family, like we all gathered for the birthday parties for the past several months. I decided that maybe for this family, there are exceptions to special occasions, like a baby shower.


Super Polliwog!!

Super Tadpole, Super Little Warrior, and Super Twizlet!! Princess made all the capes, aren't they cute?!

Super Tadpole!! (again... because his mom made all the capes...)
Anyway, the shower was quite a blast for the most part. Puppy Lover wanted to come along to give the baby shower present to Teach. But before Teach would open her presents, we had dinner of Baby Back Ribs, Baked Potatoes, Zucchini, and many other foods. We also had different kinds of cake that Princess and Mom made.

Super Skittles!

Twizlet wanted to open all the presents.

Our amazing party planner!

And thanks to Drama Queen's creativity of party-planning, we played a lot of games that were Superhero-themed. We had a lot of fun playing the games, like word scramble with using the letters in the baby's given name, Pictionary, Word Search, and Wheel of Superhero Fortune.




We had a lot of fun celebrating for Teach's baby. Now, we're not going to reveal the name of the baby until he is born. We'll keep in touch on that eventually.

Baby Doll is super even without the cape...!