At school we are having an "End of the Semester" party. No religious affiliations this season.

How long will it be before somebody seriously asks all of the people named Christie, Christian, Chris, Christine (or any other variation) to change their name to something a little less offensive!!!

While we are on the topic of not offending anyone this _____ season I'd like to add a few terms to the list that should probably be changed:

1-"Black Friday"

2-The song "I'm Dreaming of a WHITE Christmas"

I mean seriously, can't we all just have an integrated holiday season?

3-"HO-HO-HO" should be replaced with "NO-NO-NO-you ARE NOT allowed to sit on my lap anymore!"

You know the funny thing about Christmas...Our two friends--Bob, who is Buddhist, and Abdul, who is Muslim (neither believe in Christ) told Abby and me that they always celebrated Christmas when they were growing up. Keep in mind that Bob grew up in China and Abdul grew up in Ghana, Africa!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Who said bigger isn't better?

We wanted to occasionally post a few pictures on here to give you a glimpse into Buffalo life. We were driving around town with Amanda, Abby's sister, trying to give her a taste of the gem that is Buffalo and we stumbled upon this beast while stopped at a traffic light. We only wish that we could have seen them get this thing on the roof!

Common Misconceptions

I recently made a friend out here who just moved to America from China about three months ago to go to school. We were talking about our different cultures and things like that, and I told him that I was from Salt Lake City, Utah, and that I go to the "Mormon Church" (He didn't know LDS, etc.) When I told him this he immediately said, "Oh, I know! You have many wives!" Despite all of my attempts, I could not convince him that I only had ONE wife! For some reason he knew more about my marriage(s) than I did! So I decided to play a little joke on him. Abby was having a playgroup at our house with five moms and seven kids...you can probably see where this is going! I brought him over to the house and when we walked in you should have seen the look on his face! Talk about priceless!!! I am happy to report that once he realized how absolutely insane it would be to have five wives and seven kids in a tiny two bedroom cracker box apartment he realized that he had been wrong. Funny how he had to see how irrational the idea was before he would believe me, isn't it. Typical graduate student!
-Jeff

Palmyra

We live about an hour and a half away from Palmyra, NY. We were able to go right when all of the leaves were changing colors and it was absolutely beautiful! I can't think of a better time to visit the Sacred grove than in the Fall!
The B/W picture is Max in the Sacred Grove, the middle picture is the Palmyra Temple, and the third picture is the Smith Farm. When you come to visit us, we will take you there!

Niagra Falls

We visited Niagra Falls with Steve, Laura and Tessa Brown. Max loves "The BIG wata fall."

We Made It!

Hello everyone! I like to consider myself pretty up-to-date on things like this, but for some reason this blog project has been giving me huge problems! Hopefully we will be up and running now, and more able to communicate with all of you blog-savvy friends.
-Jeff