This is the year I turn 50.  So I made some goals revolving around the number 50 to accomplish this year.  One of those goals is to read 50 books.  I'm off to a pretty good start.  So far, I've read 5 books.  The biggest challenge is to find good books that are worth reading. Here are a few books I've read this month: Better:  A Surgeon's Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande I learned about this author through my husband. The book is generally about how the practice of medicine can become better in a lot of different areas.  I particularly enjoyed listening to the chapter on how medicine can become more transparent in outcomes so that people can make more informed choices on who they go to. I also enjoyed the chapter on tackling the eradication of polio in India, one of the few countries that still has outbreaks. I didn't enjoy the chapter on doctors who assist with death penalty legal injection cases, but in the end he had a reason to address it which I a

One of my big projects this fall was making Bergeson ancestor photo books.  I got the idea from a young man who returned from a mission this summer.  He had served in Taiwan and the mission president had the families of the missionaries make little books for each missionary that showed a picture of their ancestors with their name, their vital statistics, and a brief story about each one.  I decided that I wanted to make one for our missionary son for Christmas. I had lots of information for my side of the family.  My biggest challenge was finding pictures and stories about my husband's ancestors.  We had NO pictures for any of his grandparents or great-grandparents.  So we asked his parents and they shared what they had. I made the softcover, small book for my son and mailed it off, then I put together a more permanent photo book. The front and back covers of the book have pictures of distant ancestors on them. The last page has our family tree.  I also labeled the

More about our trip to Louisiana: Saturday and Sunday were our last two days there before we headed back home.  We were able to help David out with a home improvement project.  He has finished most of this backyard project but we helped him with gluing on the capstones.  It needed to be dry so we were racing some very ominous rain clouds.  And David kept having to go back to the store to get more glue.  But it all came together and we finished.  During this project, we also enjoyed walking around the neighborhood since the weather was reasonably warm and briefly sunny. We used the blow dryer to dry off spots that had gotten wet. That night, David and Scott, Talmage and Susanna finished making the aluminum foundry.  What is an aluminum foundry, you ask?  It's a place where you melt aluminum and then pour it into molds. OK. Scott writing here. A few years ago, Talmage ran across a youtube video posted by the "king of random" showing how to make

More about our trip to Louisiana: The day after Christmas, we went to the state capitol building in Baton Rouge, about 30 minutes away.  It's the tallest state capitol in the U.S. so we went to the top and enjoyed the view of the Mississippi.  Then we went down to the main level and saw where Huey Long got shot (very notorious politician in Louisiana).  Afterwards we went to see "Coco" which is a great movie. The bullet hole. An artist's rendition--apparently he got shot from a stray bullet when his bodyguards were trying to pump someone else full of bullets. On Wednesday, we babysat Katie and Felix while David and Stephanie enjoyed an overnight trip to New Orleans by themselves.  Scott took the older kids to do baptisms at the Baton Rouge Temple in the afternoon and then we went together that night to do a session.  Sadly, the temple has some mold problems they can't seem to fix so they're closing the temple for 14 months at the end o