I recently finished the book Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell. My son, who also read the book, thought that I wouldn’t care for the first half because it detailed the training that Marcus went through to become a Navy SEAL. Au contraire! I was thoroughly intrigued about the grueling things they had to learn/do/endure. Almost motivated me to do something to get in better physical shape. Almost. (We met a SEAL while we were in Costa Rica. I was really impressed with him — especially his humility about his straining and skills!)

I did come to understand one thing. Something that wasn’t explicitly mentioned but was an ‘aha’ moment for me. I have seen (mostly through movies) how drill sergeants are in your face, yelling obscenities, and dishing out not very nice treatment to those under him. I came to understand that that type of treatment is meant to toughen up the soldiers. In the event of being captured by the enemy, the soldiers will be able to withstand (especially mentally) the cruelties that their captors might inflict upon them.

I do not necessarily condone the practice. I just understand it now.

In the second half of the book, Luttrell explains how, in June 2005, he led a four-man team of Navy SEALs into the mountains of Afghanistan on a mission to kill a Taliban leader thought to be allied with Osama bin Laden. He didn’t have a good feeling about the mission but went ahead with it anyway.

Not too long into their mission, they came across 2 men and a teen-aged boy. His team had a heated discussion about whether or not to kill them. They did not like the idea of killing innocent, unarmed people. But they also knew that if they didn’t kill the three people, those people would tell the Taliban and then the SEAL’s would have the Taliban after them. The decision was left up to Marcus. He chose to let them live.

Part of his decision was based on his Christian beliefs. But part was also because he knew how critical the media would be if those three civilians were killed. His insight and explanation about how manipulative the media is was excellent! (I agree with his assessment! Hate the media that manipulates events to sway people’s opinions.)

Because of his decision to let them live, those three people did indeed go to the Taliban. The Taliban did indeed come after the SEALs.

The second half of the book details the heroism of the team — how a 4-man team fought against a 150 man Taliban force wiping out at least half of them but at the expense of 3 Navy SEAL’s lives.

It also details Afghani humanity. Luttrell, wounded and severely dehydrated, was found by an Afghani village doctor. The doctor took him in, tended to his medical needs, and committed himself and his entire village to protect Luttrell against the Taliban. Amazing!!

This is a griping tale. If you’re reading habits lean toward Pollyanna tales, don’t read this. If you want a spellbinding, inspiring, heartbreaking story of courage, patriotism, and sacrifice, then this book is for you. I highly recommend it!

Always reading,
Digi-Gram

Summer is just around the corner and before you know it, school will be out. (I say that will great optimism even though it is snowing outside at the moment!) Summer vacation will probably mean that after the first week of ‘freedom,’ your grandchildren could be wandering around their home saying they are bored and have nothing to do. Here are three ideas that can provide for your grandchildren that is fun to do – that can also strengthen your relationship with them.

I’m Bored Jar
The first idea is to create an “I’m Bored” jar. Get a large jar — a quart sized canning jar with a wide-mouth works well. Decorate the jar by painting designs on it with acrylic paint or applying colorful fabric with Mod Podge. Be creative. I know you can do it!

Then, cut out lots of strips of paper. With colorful marking pens, write activities on separate papers. (Or, you can type up the activities on your computer and print them out if you want.) Here is a start of a list of ideas that you could write down:
1. Go outside and turn cartwheels. (Or try standing on your hands.)
2. Create a comic strip of something that has happened recently to you, your family, or a friend.
3. Dress up your dog in a costume and take him for a walk.
4. Jump on the trampoline.
5. Read a book for 30 minutes.
6. Paint a picture.
7. Draw a picture on your sidewalk with sidewalk chalk.
8. Play Uno with your brothers and sisters.
9. Have a bubble gum blowing contest.
10. Paint your fingernails and toenails.
11. Have a water fight.
12. Build a tent by draping blankets over the back of a sofa and some kitchen chairs.
13. Get a block of ice from a grocery store and sit on it and slide down a grassy hill at a neighborhood park.
14. Write and put on a skit with your friends.
15. Make chocolate chip cookies.
16. Braid your sister’s hair and put lots of ribbons in her braids.
17. Make a fruit smoothie.
18. Make popsicles out of Kool-Aid and eat them after they are frozen.
19. Play 4 Square
20. Make a picnic lunch and eat it outside in the shade.

The rule of the jar is that your grandchild HAS to do the activity printed on the slip of paper. No wishy washy I-don’t-feel-like-doing-that attitude. If your grandchild is bored enough to pull a slip out of the jar, he is obligated to do the activity. All of the activities should be fun to do — not chores or work. Of course, you have to personalize what you write down. If you say to walk the dog and they don’t have a dog, well, that would be rather difficult. And, obviously, you can’t have them jump on the trampoline if they don’t have a trampoline!

After you have finished writing on the slips of paper, fold them in half and put them in the jar. Make sure that you have enough slips of paper to fill up the jar.

Give the jar to your grandchild. Then, when your grandchild is feeling bored, he pulls out one slip of paper and does the activity written on the paper. You might want to occasionally ask your grandchild about how his ‘I’m Bored’ jar activities are going. It would be fun to hear which ones he has done and how things went.

Summer Journal
The second idea is to create a summer journal. Go to a bookstore and buy a large sized journal. (Or, you can just use a notebook or a binder of blank sheets of paper.) At the top of the each page, write down one fun category. Give the summer journal to your grandchild along with a set of colorful marking pens. Then, throughout the summer when your grandchild is looking for something to do, she can fill out a page in her diary. You can create and fill out a diary for yourself, too.

At the end of the summer, you can invite your grandchild over and have her share her journal with you. And, you can share your journal with her.

If your grandchild lives far away, this can be one way for your grandchild to share with you what she did during the summer – and for you share your life with her.

Here are some suggested headings for the summer journal:
1. Favorite books read
2. Postcards of places visited (or drawings of places visited)
3. Funny family stories
4. Garden report (types of veggies/flowers planted and harvest or results)
5. Hand print, footprint, fingerprints
6. Jokes and riddles
7. Leaf rubbings
8. Movie reviews
9. Photos of family/friends/self
10. Sports scores (if the grandchild plays summer sports)
11. Family trips taken
12. Sleep over dates and with whom
13. Favorite water park rides
14. Songs learned to play on the piano
15. New recipes tried

I recommend that if you like this idea that you start shopping for (or making) the journal now. This will give you plenty of time to find/make just the right journal and to decide on the headings. It will also give you plenty of time to get it in the mail if your grandchildren live far away.

Just imagine, won’t it be a great surprise for your grandchildren to get a package from grandma when they least expect it?

Photo Journal
The third idea is a spin-off from the summer journal. Instead of a journal where your grandchildren write or draw things, have them create a photo journal.

This photo journal ideas assumes that your grandchildren have access to a digital camera and a color printer. The printer doesn’t have to be a special photo printer with special photo paper. The pictures could be printed just on regular paper.

Again, purchase or make a journal. This time, the headings on the pages should be fun pictures that your grandchildren could take. You could have headings that chronicle their summer by just writing dates on top of the page. Then your grandchildren could take pictures of what they did on that day.

Or, you could write different scenes that your grandchildren need to take. Possible scenes could include:
• a family picnic
• holding the family pet
• photos of friends wearing silly hats
• sitting on the patio
• sitting on a slide at the park
• photos in dress up clothes
• a dance pose
• a tug of war
• a human pyramid
• a watermelon seed spitting contest
• playing leap frog

You could also label some pages ‘Your Choice” and let your grandchildren come up with their own idea of pictures they would like to take.

Won’t your grandchildren enjoy doing these activities? And, won’t their mother appreciate it that you have helped to keep her children happily busy during the summer?

Here’s to summer fun!
Digi-Gram

Isn’t it a proverbial quality of grandparents — grandmothers in particular — to pull out photos at a moment’s notice and show picture after picture of their adorable grandchildren? I’ve got pictures of our darling grandson but they are digital. I guess I need to print three or four hundred of them up . . . .

I happen to listen to a variety of podcasts — financial, various speeches, technolog, Wall Street Journal. The kind that every normal woman/grandmother who is my age listens to, ya know? (My college age son was surprised when he once saw me on campus and at that moment I was listening to music! The first time in months that it was music . . . . what a waste of a Nano to listen to just podcasts, huh?)

I was listening to one podcast about digital photography. This guy is a professional. Me, well, novice is almost too high of a description. However, he mentioned something that resonated with me because of some recent experiences I’ve had.

He shared an idea of how to keep your compact camera (either digital or film) dry when you are shooting in rainy weather. On our trip to Costa Rica, we were just finishing up our visit to the La Paz waterfalls when it started to rain. This was in a tropical rain forest so of course it was a tropical rainstorm. Read that to mean lots more rain than what we see in Utah during our rainstorms.

In October 2007, I was at a conference in Seattle. My husband went with me and we had a couple of days before the conference so we went to the Olympic National Forest (and down to Forks which is the setting for the Twilight book series!). Again such rain that this little Utah person usually doesn’t experience!

On a dryer note, we were in Moab, Utah, driving in our Jeep on some of the fun 4-wheeling roads. One day it was exceedingly windy. (Wind I definitely know about!!!) Moab has red sandstone. As the forces of nature (wind) break down that sandstone, you get red sand. In the strong wind that we had that day, it felt as if we were getting sand blasted. Of course I was taking pictures. Of course that blowing sand got into the housing of the camera. Of course the sand wrecked the camera’s ability for the lens to come out so I couldn’t take pictures. Of course we had to take it to get fixed. And, of course, even though it was fixed, it really never quite worked the same like it did before the sand got in it.

Back to Costa Rica. I have a new digital camera. My husband has a new digital camera. (It was his camera that was ruined in Moab. . . .) And, when the lovely tropical rain started, we were naturally concerned about keeping our cameras dry. We tucked our cameras snugly into their cases for the evening.  I was glad that we were at the end of the day and the end of our picture taking for the moment.

But, when we were in Washington, the rain kept raining while we wanted to be taking pictures. And this is where the info from the podcast comes in.

Derrick Story has a website and podcast called The Digital Story. (What a fun play on his last name!!) I think that this information just might come in handy for some grandmothers — or anybody else who finds themselves is weather challenging conditions when they want to take pictures.

He suggested getting a shower cap (the kind that you wear to keep your hair dry while you’re in a shower). Cut a hole about the size of a quarter. Slip the cap over your camera. When you turn your camera on, the lens will zoom out through the hole that you have cut so that you can quickly take a picture. Because of the elastic around the cap, your hand can be inside the shower cap firmly holding your camera.

He also explains how Ziplock bags can also be useful. Let’s say that you are playing out in the snow with your grandchildren. They’ve built an igloo, or a snow fort or snow hut, or are playing fox and geese, or are making snow angels. You dash in to your house, grab your camera, and go outside to snap away. Everybody is having such great fun that your camera is outside in the cold for quite some time. Because you’ve read this post (or listened to his podcast) you have also grabbed a Ziplock bag before you dashed out to take pictures. When you are ready to come back in, slip the camera in the bag and zip the bag shut. Then, when you come in, as the camera warms up, the condensation will be on the outside of the Ziplock bag and not on your camera. Wait until the camera is fully warmed up before removing it from the Ziplock bag.

I’m thinking this can work in reverse for when we go to tropical climes. If my camera is in an airtight Ziplock bag while we are in the air conditioned hotel, when we go outside to the hot, humid weather (and wait until it has fully been acclimatized), then the lens won’t fog up when I want to take a picture.

Storing a camera in a Ziplock bag during a dust storm can also keep that pesky dust out of the delicate mechanism of your camera.

Now. If you are a true new millennial grandmother like I have written about earlier, you might be off to exotic places to go scuba diving. Or, maybe you are just playing with your grandchildren at a swimming pool. Derrick Story also gives hints on what you can do to weatherproof your camera so that you can take pictures when you are doing water activities and still protect your camera. (Wish I had known this while we were white water river running in Costa Rica!) The solution will cost you between $150 - $200 but if you have a pool at your home or if you are doing lots of water activities with your grandchildren, you might want to follow his suggestions!

I highly recommend you listen to his podcast. It lasts about 30 minutes and can give you some great ideas on how to protect your camera during less than perfect weather for your Kodak picture moments.

Ms. Not-At-All-Ansel Adams!
Digi-Gram

Last night, our youngest son, Tyler, stopped by for the proverbial college visit (do laundry and eat supper!). He told us about something that he and his girlfriend, Lisa, did that sounded like great fun. I think it would be a splendid activity that you can easily do with grandchildren — building cardboard boats and having a contest to see which one would float.

Tyler and Lisa got some flat pieces of cardboard. They developed their own boat design and cut out the cardboard. Next, they used a hot glue gun to glue the pieces together. They painted their boats using acrylic paint. They added sails and then attached a string so that they could easily pull their boat back to shore. When they were finished, they took their boats to a local pond for the floating contest.

They had three impartial judges . . . well sorta impartial. They were Lisa’s nieces and nephew. The judges voted first on the best design/paint job. To Tyler’s joy, they voted that his boat looked the ‘coolest.’ (His is the blue ‘thunder and lightening’ boat.) However, to Tyler’s dismay and Lisa’s joy, when the boats were placed on the water, Lisa’s came out the winner. Girls rule!

Here are some pictures of their adventure.

Spring weather is almost here. This would be a perfect time to have an outside activity with grandchildren. Fresh air and warm sunshine will lighten the winter weary soul.

So, if you have some spare cardboard hanging around your house, some acrylic paint, and a nearby body of water, gather up your grandchildren. Then, design, create, and sail cardboard boats.

You could give prizes for the most unique boat design, the boat that stayed afloat the longest, the best sail, the best paint job, the funniest paint job, the most unique paint job. You get the idea. Maybe have small prizes for the awards. After sailing the boats, have a picnic lunch with your grandchildren in a nearby park.

This activity will definitely keep grandchildren happy (and occupied) for several hours.

Heave Ho!
Cap’n Digi-Gram