I have been greatly aware lately of world struggles, natural disasters and the economy. I have felt a great need to concentrate on following the Prophet's counsel about getting our lives in order and preparing ourselves financially and with food and water storage! If you'd like to read what our First Presidency has currently put out regarding these matters visit:
http://www.providentliving.org/
Family Home Storage:
"Our Heavenly Father created this beautiful earth, with all its abundance, for our benefit and use. His purpose is to provide for our needs as we walk in faith and obedience. He has lovingly commanded us to “prepare every needful thing” (see D&C 109:8) so that, should adversity come, we can care for ourselves and our neighbors and support bishops as they care for others.
"We encourage members world-wide to prepare for adversity in life by having a basic supply of food and water and some money in savings.
"We ask that you be wise as you store food and water and build your savings. Do not go to extremes; it is not prudent, for example, to go into debt to establish your food storage all at once. With careful planning, you can, over time, establish a home storage supply and a financial reserve."—The First Presidency,
All Is Safely Gathered In: Family Home Storage, Feb. 2007, 1
These principles have been called out to us as members of the church for YEARS!!! and now the First Presidency has stated that they will no longer be focusing on these matters. The time for WARNING has passed and there are STILL so many of us UNPREPARED!!!
I hope that we can all begin (if we haven't already) to heed this VITAL counsel. Here's a news article about the flooding in the midwest that is affecting our nation's food supply. If you are of the mindset that you're not worried about natural disaster or other difficulties striking your area- please inform yourself that we ARE ALREADY IN THE STORM!!! There will be many more things to come!
The article:
"Record corn prices mean more expensive meat, dairy"
Jun 22, 4:05 PM (ET)By STEVENSON JACOBS
NEW YORK (AP) - Raging Midwest floodwaters that swallowed crops and sent corn and soybean prices soaring are about to give consumers more grief at the grocery store.
In the latest bout of food inflation, beef, pork, poultry and even eggs, cheese and milk are expected to get more expensive as livestock owners go out of business or are forced to slaughter more cattle, hogs, turkeys and chickens to cope with rocketing costs for corn-based animal feed.
The floods engulfed an estimated 2 million or more acres of corn and soybean fields in Iowa, Indiana, Illinois and other key growing states, sending world grain prices skyward on fears of a substantially smaller corn crop. The government will give a partial idea of how many corn acres were lost before the end of the month, but experts say the trickle-down effect could be more dramatic later this year, affecting everything from Thanksgiving turkeys to Christmas hams.
To read the rest of this article visit:
http://apnews.myway.com//article/20080622/D91FB2PG0.htmlIf anyone would like help getting started (72 hour kit) then 3 month supply please email me with questions! I've been doing A LOT of research as I've been working on this and have found some great sites and have some good information regarding how to get started and what kinds of things to store!
This year we thought we'd try something new and went to a local seaport town called Bath to watch their parade. It was on the lame side-Idaho sure knows how to celebrate the 4th better than Maine! But Brady had fun picking up candy and waving his little flag. We were also nicely co-ordinated; chris wore blue, Brady wore white and "olivia" and I wore a red and white top. But of course none of our pictures of us came out good (you know, double-chins, blinking etc.) so you'll have to take my word for it that we were looking mighty fine!!! 
This guy's name is "Oakie" and he's the mascott for a local milk company here in Maine called Oakhurst Dairy. He's cute, right?!
The Boat "parade" This here is one of the small tug boats.
The Boston Red Sox boat!
After the parade we walked around for a little bit, ate some fried dough and then headed home for a few hours. Later in the evening we headed into Freeport, the nearest town to where we live, also home to L.L. Bean and enjoyed a concert in the park followed by fireworks.
The concert was by Toby Lightman, an up and coming pop rock singer who is much like Colbie Caillat. We really liked her mellow music and she has a great voice! These pictures are from the web as are the fireworks because ours definately weren't THIS cool!!! Hope you all had a great 4th of July celebrating our countries freedoms!
