Wisdom, Humor, and Inspiration in April 2026

This was cool! I'm glad that space travel is having a resurgence.

Very cu-hoot! I love this.

I'm glad Pam Bondi was fired. I don't think she did a good job of being direct and honest. The Epstein Files release was a fiasco.

This is from a biography of Henry B. Eyring. This is really neat, but he also makes a good point about the pros and cons of physical evidence and how it can't be the basis of faith (or lack thereof).

✔✔✔

I like this fun depiction of the plan of salvation.

Ryan Gosling actually was brought up in the church as a child. He was baptized and went to Primary, and has positive things to say about it. 😄

Moses parting the Red Sea for the Israelites to escape from the Egyptians is my favorite miracle in the scriptures (well, after Christ's resurrection, that is). Sam and I think that Christopher Nolan's next movie should be a re-make of The Ten Commandements and that it should be titled Exodus.  

It was stupid of Trump to post this or even think this. No one can replace the Savior, and no one should joke about it like this. But the meme with Ben Affleck's picture is funny, symbolizing Trump supporters like me who keep defending him and then get faced with buffoonery like this. 🙄😅

Also related, from an Instagrammer I follow...

This is one of the reasons I read physical books rather than listen to them. 

I like this painting of Christ.

✔

I love taking the sacrament on Sundays.

100% relevant, timely, and timeless from President Oaks. 

Kind of related to the above...

In and Around the Apartment in April

 The apartment gets a post today, too!

Cozy!

There was some snowfall one morning at the beginning of the month:

And then it stopped, and the sun came out:

And then by lunchtime, it was all gone. The vagaries of spring!

I like doing this during the week leading up to Easter, commemorating each day of the Savior's life.

Pretty!

I'd rather be in the townhouse and I still miss it, but apartment living isn't so bad.

Sam in April 2026

 It's the boys' lucky day; they each get their own post on the blog today!
(Not to toot my own horn, because I really am bewildered by it, but the blog has been averaging between 6000-7000 hits a day recently!).

Sam at a priests' quorum breakfast

He likes math, and he's good at it.

He got his braces off in April, and his teeth look great! Now he just has to wear his clear retainers to keep everything in place until the next phase of work gets done.

Before removal:

After removal!

His girlfriend got him this dinosaur Lego set, which he promptly put together like the good boyfriend that he is. 😄

John's Mission Pics from April 2026

 John comes home from his mission TOMORROW!! 😀 I'm so excited to see him again!
In the meantime, I'll post these few pictures he sent from the April/spring timeframe. 

This guy was so much fun. I talked with him on FaceTime a few times, and I really liked his personality and his interesting background. (He grew up in a sheltered polygamous community in Utah, his father died, he met the missionaries, joined the Church, left the community, and is now out on his own, making his way in the world. Amazing!).

A big herd of elk(?).

This guy requested that John be his companion when he found out that John has done American Ninja Warrior competitions in the past, which he thought was so cool—apparently, he's a big fan of the show! 

April Vacation 2026: Cape Cod

 For Sam's April vacation this year, we went to our tried-and-true favorite, our loyal standby: Cape Cod. We had planned to go on an amusement park road trip to Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, but Sam hadn't been feeling well, so we canceled that trip and went to the Cape instead.

We had dinner at The Knack, which has fantastic hamburgers, onion rings, and milkshakes. And lemonade. 😋

An ode to freshly made onion rings galore...

Sam and I went out to breakfast together one morning. I had blueberry French Toast. 

Don't let his expression fool you; his breakfast was good, too. 😆

We went to the mall, where I bought him some new kicks. (Is it cool or dorky that I called them "kicks"? 😄)

My planner, my son, my bed, my room

LOL

We played a chilly, slightly damp game of mini-golf, which David won and Sam lost.

David and Mom

Sam was being "special." Look at his face in these pictures. 😂

Then he had a more normal expression, but David wasn't smiling as much. Argh!

We had brunch at a longtime favorite, The Keltic Kitchen. My omelet was delicious!

The four of us (David, me, Mom, and Sam) did a big spring yard clean-up that week. Look at all the brush we collected!

And look at how nice and clean the yard looked:

We went for a walk at Sea Gull Beach. Sam did his special face again on the lifeguard stand.

He took some nice pictures of David and me at the end of the rock jetty.

These guys were boating a dock in to shore. I'd never seen that done before.

We had a delicious dinner at one of our most favorite restaurants of all, Brazilian Grill.

I did some shopping at Lemon Tree Village Shops in Brewster, where I spotted some cu-hoot owl things.

I love this—owls and meditation go together well!

I ended up buying this beautiful handmade leather journal.

It was a nice five days at the Cape; I'm thankful that we always have it as an option!