Visit to Cali

So Abby and I (Jen) left on Tuesday for southern California to visit USC to do research for my final paper and to visit the Garrett's (and Urry's!). It was a very productive and exhausting time of observing lectures and rehearsals and conducting interviews. USC has an amazing long history of excellence in the School of Music and everyone I met was extremely friendly and open.
I was able to interview excellent faculty. I was especially excited to interview an amazing composer Morten Lauridsen. I conducted one of his song cycles with the ASU Chamber Singers and it was an honor to sit down and ask him questions.
While I was busy during the day, Abby had the most wonderful time with everyone! Grandma Barbara and Great Grandma Ruth really enjoyed their time with Abby and constantly laugh at the many funny things she says and does.
Grandpa Roger also spent fun time with Abby and also drove me everyday back and forth to USC! Thanks Grandpa!
Abby and I were hoping to see a new cousin! Aunt Heather was due last Tuesday, but unfortunately we are all still waiting! We cannot wait until we see a new little baby boy. In the meantime Heather was painting the side door of the garage! What a woman!
Abby climbs on everything and this shows her trying her best to get over the baby gate! She was trying to get into "Grandma's special room" and there are a lot of things to break in that room!
One more thing! Abby loves animals and this shows her feeding Duke, the Garrett's dog!

October fun

Abby really enjoys playing with Natalie Taysom! The Taysom's have a turkey and Natalie took pictures of Abby trying to play with the unpredictable turkey!
I (Jen) had an opportunity to once again work with choral director and teacher, Weston Noble. He is an amazing man who is considered by all to be a choral icon. I feel blessed to be able to work with and meet amazing people. Dr. Noble quoted Robert Shaw and said, "Music is the voice of the Spirit." Oh, how I know this to be true!
Abby's playgroup usually meets on Thursdays, but this week we were able to get into the Phoenix Zoo for free on Wednesday! Here is a picture of Abby and a baby mandril and one of the playgroup!
Abby's hair is getting longer (we haven't been with Aunt Tiff in a while) and I was able to bribe her with dumping out all of the colored rubber bands on the floor so that I could quickly braid part of her hair! She's so darn cute!
It is finally getting cooler here in Arizona and so we went with a few friends to Mitchell Park very close to our house. Matt and Abby experimented with the slide and Jen and Abby just love to be together!
I look forward to General Conference throughout the entire year and so I was so happy to watch this morning! The best part was having 7 of my seminary kids join us for breakfast and watching the first session. Matt cooked all of the food and cleaned up--what a man!
Abby is experiencing all kinds of new things! She now can sing part of "Twinkle,Twinkle" and "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbean" (I still have to catch it on video), knows some of her body parts, can say many animal sounds and has played with playdough! She is so smart! Here are some of her body parts and a few animals while she plays with playdough for the first time!

More fun & hard work too!

I realized after I posted yesterday that I did not post anything about Matt. So I thought you should know that he has been working night and day on his dissertation and has finished two chapters. I am sure he thinks they need a lot of revision, but I thought you should see the proof of his diligence!
Besides the hard work, Matt of course plays with Abby all of the time! Sometimes he says to Abby, "how can I get anything done when you're being so cute?!" One of her new favorite games is bouncing on the exercise ball with Daddy's help! I think she even bites her tongue and just keeps laughing! Take a look!


One more video. Abby LOVES to dance and I caught her on video this morning while we were listening to a CD. Anytime music comes on she begins to dance. You can also see our kitchen chair turned on its side. That is because she climbs right up on the chair and on to any table or cupboard she can get to. She can accomplish this in a matter of seconds! She is quite the little monkey!

More Abby!

Okay, so I can't help myself. I see an adorable picture of the cutest girl in the world and I want to share it with everyone! So here is a picture of Abby at playgroup. She actually went under the water this time, although I don't think it was planned. She spent most of her time on the step and making me chase her around and around the pool!
One of Abby's favorite things to do is to climb. She can get up on just about anything. I don't have a good picture of it, but she also likes to turn anything into a chair for herself--a box, a toy, anything! So her car seat often serves as her personal chair.

This picture is just plain cute!
Here is a picture of part of my seminary class after an awesome Friday review game.
We have so much fun. They are the best!
My ASU Women's Chorus performed for the ASU High School Leadership Conference on September 19. There were over 330 high school students and teachers and they were a fabulous audience. We performed 2 pieces of music and one was called, "Heaven Bound Train" by Stephen Hatfield. They've only had 5 rehearsals and they already sound pretty darn good. I cannot wait to hear what they sound like for our October concert!

September Adventures

Teaching seminary is a blast! It is a little bit difficult to prepare a lesson each day, but the kids are the best. One day, while studying the book of 1st Nephi a few of the kids put their interpretation on the board as we read chapter 8. One of the girls, Veronica had a very creative interpretation and I wanted to post it on the blog. I learn more about the students each day and I quickly found out she loves to draw.
I (Jen) performed last night and will perform again tonight with the ASU Choir and the Phoenix Symphony. We are performing a piece by John Adams in honor of the people that died on September 11th. It has been a very long week with multiple practices, but a really unique and awesome experience. Here are pictures of the choir and our view of Symphony Hall.
Abby doesn't really hold still, so I haven't made any efforts to paint her toe nails. The other day she kept looking at my toes, so I grabbed her and tried to paint her toe nails really quickly! It certainly isn't a masterpiece, but a fun start!
We've also enjoyed some fabulous BYU football games the last 2 Saturdays! The BYU vs. Oklahoma game was truly amazing and we had friends over that were standing up and screaming multiples times last week! Abby would just stare at us and then start to smile and clap! Here is a picture of us today (I realize the hair is a bit much for a football game--it's for the concert tonight!). Our friends, Jeremy, Roshelle and Kylee joined us today for the game. Kylee was singing the BYU fight song when I took the picture!

Catching Up

First things first--I (Jen) PASSED! I PASSED MY COMPREHENSIVE EXAMS! Woo hoo! I studied all summer long (plus all of the years prior) and took my written August 10-13 and the oral on September 1st. When they say "comprehensive" they are not kidding. I answered 12 questions in the written and then each question was revisited during the orals. Then they added any other question they thought I should know. It was a bit frightening because the five professors on my committee are like walking encyclopedias--so it was difficult to know what they would ask and I hoped that they would be pleased with my answers. I could not answer every question, but I felt good about the things I said and the professors seemed pleased. All in all, there was a lot of laughter and when they asked me to step out at the end I could still hear them laughing. After a few minutes they opened the door and Dr. Gentry (they head of my committee) shook my hand and said "congratulations." I was extremely relieved and very excited! So now I need to do the research and write my final paper. I do want to add one more thing about this subject--Matt is the best husband in the world! He gave me time each day to study and the week before if I came out of our bedroom he would say, "what are you doing--get back in there and study!" I appreciate all of his help, I could not have done this without him. He's my inspiration.

On to other things, we obviously started another semester. Matt is teaching two classes--one on-line class and one normal class. He is excited about having great discussions with his classes. He is trying to write his dissertation, applying for post doctorate opportunities and the few jobs that are available. We are not sure when he will graduate, so we are attempting to plan for every possibility!

I am directing the ASU Women's Chorus which now has almost 90 members! A few years ago they had a total of 30, so we are really excited about the numbers and more importantly, about the sound and positive energy! I'm honored to conduct them! I also conduct the Arizona Deseret Choir, teach private lessons and play for some vocalists. What is missing? Classes--no classes for me! I just love spending all the time I can with my Abby! She is the sweetest little girl with endless and I mean endless energy! She now climbs on everything. Yesterday I came into her room and she was standing on her changing table dancing. She saw me and squealed with excitement. I find her on the table and anything else and she has bruises from falling off of things! She is saying many more words and we are currently working on "football" and "BYU" as we are currently watching the first BYU football game! We are having a football party as we speak--blue and white balloons and all!

So it has been a while since we've posted pictures, so here are a few pictures from the past. It took a while partly because we were busy and because my computer crashed after the second day of my comprehensive exams. I lost every file, video, picture, etc. I just wanted to cry. Here is one from July--Abby now likes to put on my shoes, especially if they have high heels! Take a look closely at her feet!

Here is just a cute one--Abby actually sleeping! She doesn't do this for very long, so I had to get a picture.
This is just a good picture of Matt and Abby and a picture of Abby and I (we match!).


The morning after I took my written exams, Abby and I boarded a plane for Utah to see Brent (my brother) graduate from BYU. So here are a number of fun pictures from Utah!

Abby and Grandpa Mark:

Proud siblings! Jen, Tiff, Brent & Kevin

Christie and Abby
Abby actually eating--watermelon, yum!

A trip to Park City with Christie, Kylee, Kennedy, Tiff, Abby, Jen
The girls at dinner
We were also happy to see Amanda (Abby's birth Mom) and her new husband Richard.

Abby has no fear! She went right up to Aunt Cindy's big dogs and didn't think twice.
Jen and 3 of the students from Wasatch High--Brandon, Brian, Austin! What a reunion!
Kylee, Brynley, Jen, Kennedy at the Salt Lake Temple.


Abby sees the Salt Lake Temple!

To finish things off, here is a funny video of our darling Abby. She LOVES to dance and try to jump so she will turn on her little farm toy and it plays music. She will push the button and then dance all over the house!

Okay, last thing! Abby climbs on everything now and she often climbs up on the piano bench and plays. Watch and see!

Birth-mother Meeting

Last night we attended a birth-mother meeting at the local LDS Social Services office. We agreed to go speak with them all to share the adoptive parent side of things. Our caseworker said we would be good to illustrate to the mothers that there are good adoptive parents out there. I thought that was a strange twist--would-be adoptive parents always want to know there really are birth mothers out there.

I would not be honest if I did not admit were were a bit disappointed that every single woman there had either just given up a child or had already selected the adoptive parents--not a potential prospect in the bunch--but it was still really nice to just chat with them and get to better see their side of things. We have a really good relationship with Amanda--Abby's birth-mother--but this was another opportunity to see the other side of the coin.

We really do believe that birth-mothers are amazing women.

Food Storage

A week ago we got to feeling very guilty about our lack of food storage. For those of you who are not Mormon, a three month food storage is a basic instruction given by the church which haunts the many of us who dont quite follow like we should. We finally decided to do something about it. The photo above is a little odd because its actually 3 shots I merged together to give you the feeling of our laundry room that is now our very crowded food storage room. On the top right I put in a new shelf above the doorway which holds a dozen boxes of cereal. I added shelving to the broom closet (the right side) and bought some can rotation systems that will help us eat the oldest stuff first. We also added the shelves on the left which sit above the not-so-visible laundry machines. The cabinets at the top are stuffed with fancy dishes and other odds, but they may have to be sacrificed (or at least moved elsewhere) to make space for more food. We just need to keep buying a few more items and then we'll feel like we're finally following the too-long ignored direction.

Cost of Health Care

Yesterday my dad said that Obama's health care plan would cost over a trillion dollars a year (and would bankrupt America). So, I did some investigating. The short of it is that Obama's health care will cost less than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here are the details (and I did this quickly so please tell me if you see a mistake):

Multiple sources say that Obama says it will cost about $60 billion/year.

A CATO institute (a conservative think tank stuffed full of republicans who hate Obama) article said:

• "neutral sources" say the cost will be $110 billion/year

• also cited a Health Systems Innovations estimate of $600 billion

The Heritage Foundation (another conservative think tank) had an online article that said:

• Lewin Group estimated the cost at $571 billion over 9 years [so $63 billion/year]. They also said the total cost of all health care would jump to $1.17 trillion over 9 years [so $130 billion/year].

• HSI estimates the Obama plan would cost $452 billion per year. The Heritage Foundation says they have a higher estimate because they are assuming mandatory coverage of children

• TPC projects the Obama plan would cost $1.6 trillion over 10 years [so $160 billion/year]. However, Heritage Foundation says the TPC model did not account for any of the savings measures in the plan. (For a review of the savings built into the plan, see the Wall Street Journal article comments below)
  

A Wall Street Journal had an article that said:
Obama's plan is predicated on a philosophy that "If the highest spending areas could be sanded down to the lowest spending areas, about 30% in "waste," or $700 billion each year, would be saved. More than enough to pay for ObamaCare." However, the author seemed skeptical.

So, for those watching Fox news let me break the news to you--Obama care will not cost over a trillion dollars a year. Not even the conservative pro-republican think tanks are estimating it to cost that much. The real cost is somewhere between $60 - $110 billion/year.

Part of the confusion, I should add, is that Obama-haters do two things to misrepresent the facts: (1) they throw in the pre-existing costs of medicare and medicare that cost over $500 billion to inflate the cost of Obama's plan, or (2) they toss out a 9-10 year figure in a conversation about the annual (1-year) budget. In reality, Obama is cutting those costs and then adding on some new things for a total increase of $60-$110 billion.

So what do all these numbers mean? To give you some perspective on all this, the US spends over $600 billion/year on the military. The next biggest spender after the US is China at $65 billion/year. We spend ten times as much as the next biggest spender (and more than the rest of the world combined)--that is crazy! The 2008 fiscal budget (it was all I could find in my quick review) shows that Iraq ($149.2 billion/year) and Afganistan ($32.8 billion/year) cost a total of $180 billion/year.

So, Obama's health plan (costing between $60-$110 billion/year) will cost 1/6 what the total military expenses cost and about half what the war in Iraq and Afghanistan costs.

Now, I'm not saying we need to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan--maybe we do, maybe we dont. What I'm saying is, Obama's proposed health care plan costs less than the current wars so IF we have to make cuts (and I think we do--we spend way too much money) we need to look at the whole picture and consider which is more important--a $60-$110 billion/year health program or a $180 billion/year war in the Middle East. I think they are both very important, but if I had to chose I'd choose health care for Americans over bullets for foreigners. Ultimately, I think we probably need to do something extreme to cut medicare/medicaid, military spending, and social security in order to balance the budget. What angers me is that democrats blindingly say "you must cut the military budget" and republicans say "you must cut health care and social security." Hello? Isn't it obvious we need to cut it all?

So, if we need to cut the budget, is this the time to spend $60-$110/billion on a new health care program? Well, I'd say yes (go ahead, call me a hypocrite), only because we really need this health plan and I hope (maybe ignorantly) that if we do it we will be forced to make cuts elsewhere to compensate--if not now then soon. Health care is long overdue, and I dont want to lose this short window of support (Clinton's efforts to do this failed).

Regardless, as we continue spending we're likely to see a conservative backlash with a Republican Congress (and maybe even a president) who begin to cut things for us (thank goodness!). I'd be happy about that, as long as we get the health care program in there first. They will be able to trim it later, along with everything else, but the essential program will survive and 50 million Americans need doctors a heck of a lot more than foreign wars.

White Teeth

So, I hate my teeth. They once were white, but over time got a little more yellow, and then more yellow. I blame my junior high and high school diet of cookies for lunch and ding dongs for dinner. Over the years I've tried many different whitening products--mouthwash, toothpaste, strips, paint-on-whiteners, etc. Last week I tried something new that was awesome, and it was SUPER cheap. I recommend it to everyone.

(Note: these are not my teeth--I wish they were)

Denta White sells a product that they will let you try for almost free (I think it was like $2 shipping). It is a home kit that comes with a tray that you mold to your teeth and then (after it dries and sets) you squirt in the whitening solution and and wear them for an hour each day. After six days (there are six days worth in the trial) my teeth were three shades whiter.

The catch:
When you go to their web page and sign up for the free sample they will (without asking you) sign you up for the monthly service that is way expensive. So, just take the free sample and after a couple days go back to the web page and cancel the service for which they've signed you up. Their web page is below. A word of warning--I hate thier web page. It is very easy to navigate, but designed so that you cannot get out of it (if you try your back button it will not work; if you type another address it hangs; I dont know how they do it but it is obnoxious).

http://www.dentawhiteteeth.com

So, give it a try and see if your teeth get whiter as well (this is not a paid advertisement; I get nothing from you signing up).

Health Care

It looks like the tide is turning against Obama and his health care plan. Could it be that the bill is too ambitions at 1200 pages. Does something that long invite criticism? Well I certainly do not know all the details about his health care plan, but I do have some thoughts, generally.

--48 million Americans do not have health insurance. In a nation this wealthy that just seems wrong. We'll pay for every child to have access to a teacher but not a doctor?

--1 in 25 dollars spent on health services goes to prevention. Why? There are a couple reason. One is that it is simply more expensive to offer chemo therapy than to run a biopsy on a questionable colored mole. Another is that people without insurance have no choice but to wait until it is an emergency before they an get any help. It is more cost effective to prevent illness, but that is not how our current system works. So if you are poor (and like 1/6 of Americans cannot afford insurance) and have a dark mole that is changing colors, it may be cancerous but you can't have it looked until its too late and you need chemotherapy. Clearly our system is in need of reform.

--Currently doctors get paid for conducting tests and providing services--not getting results. The same criticism republicans have for public education (teachers get paid regardless of how good or bad they are) is equally fitting for the health care industry. A good friend of mine had to have a hearth-catheter (they stick a mini-camera up an artery and into your heart to take measurements). The hospital billed her for two within two days because the doctor forgot to get a couple measurements and had to do it again. Shouldn't the second one come out of his salary? Then, of course, insurance companies can make even more money by denying claims for people who get too expensive (and I've also seen this first hand so I know it happens). Keep in mind the health care system was built by health care companies, and like any business thier goal was and is to make money. Providing a service to make money is not bad, but we need to always remember that they only provide as much service as we demand, and if we don't threaten regulation (or use it) they'll never self-regulate--that would just be bad business.

--Those "socialist" nations in Europe and to our north have great service. All this bad-talking social health care is a smoke screen--ask anybody who has ever lived there and they'll tell you they get service equal to a typical insured American. It takes a couple months to get into a specialist, just like it does here in the states (and if you have an emergency they get you in faster, just like here in the states). And in Canada, at least, if you need some incredibly unusual treatment or specialist that they cannot provide in the window of need, they'll pay for you to go to the States (where the massive population can support a greater number of specialists offering that treatment). People foolishly think Canadians come to the states to access our "better" health care system; the fact is that they prefer their health care and the only ones who come down are either (1) wealthy people trying to skip ahead of some organ transplant waiting list (should your cash allow you to skip ahead of somebody else?), or (2) people who need a service that Canada cannot offer in time because they lack the population to support the unusual treatment. They do not come to the states because our system is better; quite the opposite, they come because (1) our system is screwed up and we privileged the wealthy at the expense of the poor (no amount of $$$ should allow somebody to skip ahead of other human beings waiting for a transplant) and (2) because we have a larger population to support more diverse treatments.

So I don't know all about the Obama health care plan, but I do know that our system needs dramatic reform. When you toss in the fact that premiums are constantly doubling and American families will soon be unable to afford any coverage it becomes clear that we need a public option. In capitalism there are always winners and loosers; haves and have-nots. When it comes to health care, we should all have some, regardless of our income level. Instead, we see the progressive restriction of who can afford insurance that will just continue to grow the ranks of have-nots. That is unacceptable.

Oh, and one more thing about "a public option." I'm sick of republicans (like my dad) insisting that "the government will take over the industry, subsidize itself, and run out all of the competition." When has the government ever done that? It is a scare tactic. The government never has been in the business of taking over an industry and chasing out all of the private enterprise. Look at the postal system--we have lots of options (US postal, Fed Ex, UPS, DHL)--and it could be the same in health care. We do need a public option to (1) provide for those who cannot afford the ever-rising premiums, and (2) to keep the current health care providers honest. My own best solution would be for each state to have its own public option, and be permitted to use the facilities of neighboring states to compete across state lines with those neighbors (to ensure that the various state-run public options have competition as well)--competition keeps everybody honest--the government and private enterprise.