Rooftop Messages

My entire family (all 22 of us!) was able to get together for the holidays this year and in order to maximize family bonding, we've been getting together practically everyday for some sort of activity. One involved gingerbread houses. All the houses turned out beautifully, but their fatal mistake was letting me decorate one of the rooftops.


There is still a debate within the Kerr household as to whether this message is intended for Santa Claus or extra terrestrials.

I Love Lucy

I’ve been meaning to post something concerning my New Year festivities for a while now. Although it is belated, here it is. On New Year’s eve I went to a single adult dance with Leanna, Ben, and Ryan. Nothing too exciting happened during that, so I’ll move on to the next event. On New Year’s day, I went with Mom, Dad, Kassie, and Garett to the Pacific Science Center to see the Lucy Legacy exhibit.

For all of you non-anthropology buffs (which includes every other sane person on this earth…anthropology people are a little eccentric), Lucy is an early hominid and her remains represent one of the most complete three-million-year-old fossils ever discovered. She is famous in the anthropology/archaeology world, so I was extremely excited when I heard that her fossil would be in Seattle during winter break.

The exhibit was great (and made me feel really smart because I knew a lot of what the exhibit was talking about), but I have to agree with Mom by saying that the two hours we dedicated to visiting the exhibit were not enough. I barely got five minutes to actually look at Lucy’s fossil (ok, that was partially my fault). So, here’s the story behind that; near the end of the exhibit, there’s a hallway with fossil replicas that represent Homo sapiens sapiens relatives and ancestors. Well, at the end of the hall there was a dark room through which you could see an illuminated ‘exit’ sign so I naturally assumed that this hallway was the last room in the exhibit. This kind of bummed me out because I hadn’t yet seen the famous fossil and had assumed that Lucy's remains were going to be there. I had been sitting on a bench discussing this frustration with Kassie when Mom came over and asked me if I had seen Lucy yet. At that point we only had a few minutes until the museum closed, so I had to rush through the last room. O well, it was still awesome. Plus, Mom bought me a human evolution poster that I promptly hung up in my BYU student dorm. It’s a great conversation piece.

That leads to another topic I would like to address. Being an anthropology major at a Christian university, I get a lot of weird looks when I tell people my major. Following the weird look is the inevitable "How does that work with you being Mormon?" question. Well, first of all, to quote a wise man, "Faith did not come to me through science and I will not permit science to destroy it." When it comes to questions such as, "how do neanderthals fit in with the Adam and Eve story," I give the only solution that I have come up with. "My knowledge and understanding of the universe is very limited. I don't know all of the answers right now, but I know that God is real and that's good enough for me." Secondly, in all of my studies of anthropology and evolution, one thing has become clear to me; evolution theories (in their purest sense) do not try to disprove the presence of a supreme creator. If anything, evolution theories such as natural selection, adaptation, mutation (which, despite popular belief, is a good thing in many cases), and so forth prove that there is an all knowing and loving being orchestrating everything because without delicate systems such as the ones previously mentioned, life would not be able to continue (if you are interested in modern day examples, click on the following link: Malaria and the Red Cells). So, here's my question; How, in studying any scientific field, can one not see God's influence?

Christmas with the Kerrs

I feel I should explain why I'm publishing two seperate posts within an hour of each other. These following paragraphs were originally going to be attached to the bottom of the previous post, but I decided that that would make the post too long. Also, I figured the moods of the posts were different enough that they warranted separate postings (goodness, how many times can I use variants of the word "post" in a paragraph?). Either way, I figured I should publish something concerning the events of my Christmas day, so here we go.

I've often heard that "Christmas in the northwest is a gift God wrapped in green." Well, this year He decided to go a little more monochromatic (maybe He was trying to save on wrapping paper, but I don't know). As a result, I officially experienced my first (to my recollection anyways) white Christmas...ever. It only took about nineteen years and probably would have been more awe-inspiring about a decade ago when I wasn't as concerned with the condition of the roads, but I thoroughly enjoyed it none the less.

Christmas Eve night, the four of us (Mom, Dad, Jadon, and myself) did the traditional Christmas Eve program despite our smaller-than-average numbers (with all the siblings, spouses, and grandchildren, we usually have a group of around 22 people, so four is a ridiculously small number in comparison). We told the story of the nativity, sang Christmas hymns, and even did a little pajama hunt. Afterwards, at my dad's request, we watched Mr. Kruger's Christmas starring James Stewart. Despite its great message and happy ending, that movie always makes me sad (why won't anyone wish him a "Merry Christmas" back and why won't the carolers stay and drink hot chocolate with him?!?). Anyways, Jenni, Dane, Nyah, and Aislynne arrived shortly afterwards and spent the night so they were here to celebrate Christmas morning with us. After the traditional Christmas breakfast and opening of presents, we had a great day lounging around the house in our Christmas pajamas. In the afternoon, Dane and I played Guitar Hero (a Christmas gift from my parents to “the family”) and then we all watched Fred Claus (one of my Christmas gifts and an awesome movie by the way. I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it). Throughout the course of the day, I also got to speak to Jeremy, TJ, Katie, Jon, Tara, Adalyn, Kelli, and Kassie, so that just made an already great Christmas even better. It was so nice to be home and to get to spend the holiday with family.

No place like home...

Apparently all the promises of updating my blog on a semi-regular basis were worth "diddly-squat" because this is the second time I that went for a month in between posts. I blame it on my frantic life the last few weeks. O well, better late then never.

Finals ended yesterday, and I could not be more relieved. Honestly, I was ready for the semester to be over half way through September (which is never a good sign). It's hard for me to stay motivated when all of my classes are general requirements, have nothing to go with my major, and aren't extremely fascinating in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I love learning new things (it makes me feel accomplished), but there are days when I'd much rather stay in bed. At the beginning of finals, my roommate and I were discussing how attitudes change as the semester progresses. At the beginning, everyone is gun-ho, has a great attitude, and constantly talks about how this is going to be their best semester yet; they'll work hard and get +100% in all their classes. By the end of the semester, however, you see students, all of whom have dark circles under their eyes, walking across campus with their heads down and arms overflowing with thick textbooks (and I swear I saw one guy actually crying). The motto of choice among students changes from "I'm going to do my absolute best" to "I just want to pass the class and get it over and done with." College just does that to you I guess. Anyways, like I said before, I'm glad that finals are over, but I can't stop worrying about how I did and whether or not I'll get a satisfactory grade. I keep reviewing the week's assignments in my head (two tests and four papers which collectively equaled a total of thirty-five pages) and obsessing over what I could have and should have done differently to improve my scores. It's a good thing that I'm now home and have family to distract me.

The drive home was pretty exciting as well. My sister, Kassie, and her husband are moving to Seattle over the Christmas break, so I drove with her from Utah to Washington. It's been snowing in both states (and pretty much every state in between) the last few days, however, so my mom convinced my dad to fly to Utah and drive with my sister and myself back home (the poor guy ended up driving us the whole way despite our intention to switch off). We left Friday around one in the afternoon and made it home around two in the afternoon on Saturday. Luckily, the roads weren't too bad (despite the snow) and we thoroughly enjoyed our time together. Before we realized Dad would be joining us, Kassie and I had made plans to listen to music and sing along the whole way home. Not willing to part from the original plan, we simply informed Dad that he would have to put up with it. So, while driving through the mountain passes, we listened to the Carpenters, Christmas in the Northwest, and various Muse songs. Dad was such a trooper, and I secretly think he enjoyed it. I even got him to sing along with me and Kassie on a few Elvis songs. When we weren't listening to/singing along with music, Kassie read John Grisham's "The Summons" out loud to Dad and a sometimes conscious Karma (Kassie has a very soothing voice). I recommend it to anyone looking for a good book.

Anyways, I apologize for verbally vomiting all over the page. It really is amazing how therapeutic blogging is. I really should do it more often. Anyways, the long anticipated moral of the story is simply this: "It's good to be home."