I'm posting this birth announcement exactly 18 years later...
On Saturday, September 5, 1992 at 5:54 PM. and 5:55 PM. The Lord answered our prayers and brought us two very healthy identical twin girls. Two years earlier, our Sunday school class did a series on Parenting Perfect Children. That's a pretty presumptuous tittle but the presenters of this class were half a dozen older couples who had already been through the trials of parenting and whose children were a testimony to their accomplishments.
Each Sunday, one couple shared from their perspective the things that had contributed to the well being of their family. One couple who spoke shared how they began to pray for their children before they were born. Not only that, they continued to pray regularly for their children's friends, and even their spouses to be - unknown at the time.
This lesson hit home. I have seen the power of prayer work miracles in my own life and in the lives of others who call upon the Lord. Kathy and I decided that we would begin to pray for a child even though we knew that the time would be far off. During these times in prayer together, we found that we both had a desire to have twins - something that we had each desired since our early days and yet never discussed between us. The Bible says “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." PSALM 37:4. Believing this desire to be sincere, we decided to express these desires in our time of prayer.
Keep in mind that there are no twins in either of our families for at least 4-5 generations that we know of. The instances of “twinning” in normal conception are very low. They are hereditary or can be the result of advanced aged (38+) or fertility drugs taken at the time of conception. Neither of these were the case for us.
By the time of our second pre-natal visit to the doctor, Kathy's womb had already grown quite large. We shared with our doctor that we had been praying for twins and that we suspected that Kathy had twins. Our doctor suspected that we had miscalculated the date of conception. An ultrasound examination quickly resolved the issue - identical twins! Identical twins are NOT hereditary but are the result of one fertilized egg that splits during the early weeks. Our babies shared the same sac and a common placenta - which is extremely rare (1 in 30,000 births) and often very dangerous.
By Kathy's 5th month of pregnancy, she was approaching the size of a full term single birth! Our doctors became very concerned about the health of the twins. We began a routine of examinations which would bring us to the hospital once a week and 3 times a week in the last stages of pregnancy. Although the babies were expected to arrive a month short of their calculated due date of Labor Day (no pun intended), the babies held out until Saturday, September 5th.
Meanwhile Kathy kept growing and growing and growing ... Fortunately, the babies remained in good health and both remained in the head down position thus allowing us to plan for a normal childbirth.
Early Saturday morning, I took Kathy to the hospital. She immediately went into active labor. They brought in all of the equipment and staff and everything stopped. After several procedures and another 10 hours of difficult labor, the decision was made to perform an unscheduled C-section.
Twin births are already classified as high risk pregnancies. With a C-section now things really got hopping. The staff at St. Joseph's Medical Center were terrific. Within minutes, a medical team of 9 people were assembled and ready. Moments later, our two daughters, Baby A :7 lbs. 4 oz. and Baby B: 7 lbs. 2 oz. were born. Our prayers for healthy twins had been answered!
Their names are: BABY A: Wendy Anne Mack BABY B: Amy Elizabeth Mack Born Saturday, September 5th at 5:54 & 5:55 PM.
Kathy is greatly relieved to no longer be carrying such large babies. The hospital staff was also quite amazed at their healthy size - apparently uncommon in identical twins. Identical they are. I can't yet tell them apart. If I don't return one baby to the same crib from which I took her - forget it, I'm lost! Kathy and the girls will remain at the hospital for the next few days. Then the real excitement begins.
Kathy and I want to thank you for your friendship, your encouragement, and your support.
Eighteen years ago this very day, two precious jewels were added to my life. The twins were born! After 14 hours of labor, and finally deciding you were just too tangled up to come out on your own (trying to get out first, Wendy?), a C-section was performed, and two beautiful little ladies came into the world.
Amy and Wendy, I'll never forget the moment you made me a mom - a role I have and always will cherish. I don't deserve to have such wonderful daughters like you two, but I'm thrilled that I do! I've loved every moment of it - pushing you around downtown Burbank in your twin stroller, sitting on the couch at the condo reading to you, and all of the "bonding" moments in Pine Mountain. You have become incredible godly women, and I am proud of both of you! Happy Birthday my precious ones!
For a scholarship, I wrote an essay about the effects of the current recession on the family. I really enjoyed writing it and thought I'd share it.
While initially, one would expect the current recession to have an adverse effect on the average family, I have found that my family has grown more creative, closer in our relationships, and wiser in our decisions as a result.
I've heard of studies that claim that television and video games “reduce” creativity and I believe that there may be some truth to that. Several years ago, in order to better manage what we consumed, my parents made the decision to get rid of our cable television. We still had videos to watch, but the television was on far less frequently than when we had cable. Suddenly, my sisters and I found ourselves with abundant time on our hands. We all read more and began to discover interests or talents that we otherwise might not have known we possessed. Although I did not enjoy the home economics course I took in high school, I realized that once I had the freedom to experiment, I loved cooking and baking. I also learned how to knit and have enjoyed making sweaters and scarves for family and friends. We encouraged friends to get rid of their cable subscription and they, too, have found themselves being more creative. Continue Reading "Recession: A Blessing in Disguise?" »
These last few weeks have been rather busy for us. Amy and I are hoping to audition for our church's orchestra and have spent many hours practicing. We are also starting a bell choir at the Pine Mountain Club church, and have been going through materials in preparation for that. Amy also designed another fantastic clay box which I will be sharing soon.
Both Emily and Kelly received some fashion kits and dress models for their birthdays and they have been going to town creating new fashion designs. Emily had so much fun wrapping the fabric around the small doll and twisting it to make new fashions that she decided to pull out a sheet and wrap the fabric around Kelly to create life sized fashions.
In honor of our countries birth, I designed a new Fourth of July card - Uncle Sam's Hat.
This was my first time using the cylinder technique. While it was easy to assemble, it took me a while to develop a template with the right proportions. As you can see, in my first attempt, the top of the hat didn't quite pop up all the way.
Later, I tried adding a support brace inside the card to push the top of the hat up - and met with success!
The hardest part about creating a pop-up card is visualizing - not what it will look like when it is open - but how it will fold. It's hard to tell in the picture but the hat is perfectly round when the card is laid flat, however, it needed to lay flat when I folded it. I thought I'd post a picture of the hat as I folded it to show how the hat flattens itself. The top of the cylinder folds inside the hat, the support pushes down, and the base of the hat lays flat.
I'm excited to have learned this new technique and have already come up with several ideas to incorporate it into new designs. Perhaps a candle on a birthday cake? Or maybe a Fourth of July Firecracker? If I can figure out how to put a cone on top I might even be able to make a spaceship or rocket! I'll keep you posted on my designs!
I have never liked writing a paper for school and never doing anything else with what I've written. I thought I'd post the argumentative essay I just finished.
Many of our schools are dangerous and inefficient. Often in the news there are reports about shootings and drug abuse in schools. Children as young as elementary school are familiar with several curse words and are hearing about subjects not appropriate for their age. Students are being taught that there is no God who created the universe, and that they are a result of random chance which diminishes the value of their life. It has become popular throughout our society to refer to education as boring or torturous, and students have little incentive to read or experiment outside of school. Students are graduating with few writing or math skills and without the knowledge of how to discover answers for themselves. Yet despite this grim situation, a movement has been growing to repel it. More and more parents have decided to pull their children out of public schools and to educate them at home. Critics of this movement claim that homeschooling children are ill equipped to handle situations in the “real world”, socially deprived, or that parents are unable to meet the special needs of a child – yet with homeschooling it is quite the opposite.
A while ago, my parents watched a movie called, "The Fourth Wise man". It was based on a story by Henry Van Dyke called The Other Wise Man. They were so impressed with the story, that they wanted my sisters and me to watch it as well. Here is the summary:
A magi named Artaban leaves his home and sells everything he has to go look for the Messiah. All the other magi taunted him for his decision. A reluctant servant accompanied Artaban only for a reward of his (the servant's) freedom. Artaban brings three gifts for Jesus; a ruby, a sapphire, and a pearl. Along the way, he stops and helps needy people and gives the gifts away to provide for them. He got sidetracked, and for 33 years, Artaban lived with a colony of outcasts and lepers using his medical skills and farming abilities to help them. Artaban learned that Jesus was in Jerusalem and set out to meet him. Many troubles prevented him from seeing Jesus before the crucifixion. Before Artaban’s death, Jesus rewarded his faithful servant, Artaban, with his heart’s desire.
My dad gave my sisters and me a challenge of how many verses from the Bible we could find to support this movie. He said if we found enough verses, we could earn the new Nancy Drew computer game for the four of us to play together. My dad also said that if we write a blog post about it, we could earn another game. These are the verses and the reasons why that we found:
John 3:16- For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth on Him will never perish but have eternal life. –Answers why Jesus came.
Isaiah 9:6- For unto us a child is born. Unto us a Son is given and the government will be upon His shoulders and His name will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. –The prophecy that Jesus was Born.
Matthew 11:5- The Blind receive sight, the Lame walk, those who have leprosy are healed, the deaf her, the dead are raised and the good news is preached to the poor. –Blind man received his sight
A few years ago I was talking to my mom about opportunities for learning engineering techniques and she suggested that I learn how to make pop-up cards. Her reasoning was that pop-ups are very complex how they fold and that the practical application of the geometry I was learning would reinforce it in my mind. At the time, I was thinking only about robotics and didn't really consider what she was suggesting. However, the thought stayed in the back of my mind.
A year later it was Emily's birthday, and as our whole family has a tradition that we give hand-made cards, I had to come up with an idea. For some reason, all I could remember was that conversation and decided to search the web for instructions on making pop-up cards. I discovered Robert Sabuda's site and made the birthday cake pop-up card. I was instantly hooked!
Add together almost 16,000 cookies, 1500 children, 500 workers, and five parables - and what do you have? Vacation Bible School at Grace Baptist Church!
The girls and I were extraordinarily blessed this past week to attend Vacation Bible School (VBS) at Grace Baptist Church in Santa Clarita. I certainly had a life-changing week.
Wendy and I shared a sixth grade classroom of 19 girls - in which Kelly was a student. Emily led a table of first graders, and Amy sang and played the keyboard for Outdoor Music.
When the children arrived each morning, we attended a 35 minute assembly of music, drama, and information on the missionary that we were supporting. The contest between the boys and girls was held each day to see who could donate the most money to our missionary, Ashley Ruffner, who works at a school in Ecuador. The over $19,000 the students brought in will go to supply sports equipment, VBS materials, Bibles, and some new sound equipment to the school. The donation also paid for a plane ticket home, so Ashley could see her father who had become ill and needed surgery. Ashley was able to join us at the assemblies on Thursday and Friday.
After the assembly, our group went to our classroom (which our family had a blast decorating with rain forest themed decorations!) for craft time, then outside for some wet recreation time. After a quick snack (some of those 16,000 cookies), we headed in for a message from one of our pastors or a drama group. After that, we headed back to our room for our table time.
For the past few weeks I have been hearing noises behind the walls and in our ceilings. Then, a few days ago, I caught sight of the intruder.
"Chip" seems to have been living behind the wall in my office and using a route over my dad's office ceiling to get to our front room which currently serves as a greenhouse. One of the hazards of living in the forest is that "critters" love to move in with you. Late last year we had a family of raccoons move in under our deck and now it appears that some chipmunks have decided to follow suit.
I was able to catch several great pictures of him before he dove back to his home, and it wasn't until the camera made a noise that he ran. Oh well, we'll see how long this guest decides to stay at the Mack Family Bed and Board.
I recently finished another robotics book entitled Build Your Own All-Terrain Robot. It was written by Brad Graham and Kathy McGowan and takes people with all levels of experience through the process of creating their own all-terrain robot with as little expense as possible. This book provides great resources and is packed full of good advice and ideas. Beginning by helping the reader understand exactly what he wants his robot to do, Graham and McGowan take the reader through the process of building two robots, and leaves him with a reminder of the endless possibilities of all-terrain robots.
Monday, May 24, marked the completion of 12 years of hard work and service for Amy and Wendy. That day they were each presented with the Awana Citation Award. For young people involved in Awana, earning the Citation Award is the ultimate achievement. The Citation is their reward for thousands of hours attending group meetings, working with children, getting involved in their communities, completing 10 years of biblically grounded curriculum and learning more than 700 Bible verses.
The awards ceremony was held at Grace Baptist Church in Santa Clarita. Wendy was the first of three students to speak. She shared what the various stages of Awana meant to her spiritual growth and development. Amy delighted all by playing the piano before and during the ceremony, including two of her own compositions.
This Father's Day, I wanted to share how much my dad means to me.
For as long as I can remember, my dad has made it clear that the family is important to him. Dad chose to work at home so that he can spend more time with the family. He welcomes us at all times of the day to show him a craft or a test grade and he works hard to make sure that we don't feel like a nuisance but that we understand that he values our attention.
God has given my dad a passion for teaching. Everything is a lesson, and it is rare that I walk away from a conversation without learning something. A couple of days ago, while setting up a pantograph for my mom, he was excitedly explaining to Kelly and me the device's historical use by President Thomas Jefferson. Family dinners are so much fun - especially now as Amy and I are approaching voting age. We are often discussing or debating something, whether it be our stand on a political issue, or a historical fact, or how our government works. Dad encourages us to pay attention in school by eagerly listening to anything we share - especially about history or physics. It is not uncommon that we find ourselves the teachers and our parents the students! Earlier as he was helping me with some technical aspects of a blog post - he took some time to teach me how to understand some of the code that he was entering. Dad also practices what he preaches. He not only tells us how important education is but he proved it to us by going back to get both a Bachelor's and a Master's degree!
In a society where so many are unreliable, lazy, or proud, my mom is the opposite. She possesses the rare gift of a servant’s heart.
Mom’s days are spent serving others, with little time reserved for herself. It is very rare that one can wake up before her as she is up preparing food for the day or working on accounting. I have often woken up to the aromas of fresh muffins, bacon, and eggs with the realization that she woke up early just to make a “family breakfast”. This morning, she woke up at 6:30 to do the laundry so that we had clean clothes to wear - all after going to bed at 1:00!
I thought I'd share a paper that I wrote for my English class. The requirement was to use at least two methods (I decided to use reasons and comparison and contrast) to develop the paper. The assignment was to write a paper about why I prefer a vacation at the mountains rather than a a vacation at the sea shore. I do want to clarify that, while I still would prefer a visit to the mountains, I do enjoy visiting and learning about the seashore. (And I love to visit aquariums!). Just thought I'd mention that. Here's my paper:
For a vacation, I prefer a visit to the forest rather than a visit to the seashore. The variety in color, sounds, and sights in the mountains are much more appealing to me than the variety at the seashore.
The color scheme of the forest is extremely varied: green trees burst into a brilliant gold, orange, or red in the autumn and scatter their leaves; the brown forest floor teems with insects and animals in a splattering of blues, grays, blacks, pinks, browns, reds, and many other colors; flowers poke their heads out to dazzle the world with their delicate colors and beauty; and berries pop out in delicious arrays of reds, greens, and blues. While the seashore has a beauty of its own, there is very little color variety to keep me interested. All is a blur of blue water, blue sky, white sands, white rocks, and white seagulls. Most of the different colors in the seashore comes from the shells which have strips of pale pink or pale blue, and from the dirty brownish-green seaweed that washes up on the shore, and perhaps an occasional starfish that is washed into tiny pools. There is an assortment of color, but not as striking as the collection of color found in the woods.
A few years ago, I went through the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT: The Mayan Adventure. I wrote the following review of the book and of my experience, but was unable to post it at the time for lack of blog. When we finally finished setting up the Mack Academy blog, I decided that even though several years have passed, the book was so good that I had to post this review. I decided to post it as is and not change anything in it, so please bear with me on the grammar.
When I first started reading the Mayan Adventure book and noticed that the user level was for beginners, I assumed that this was just an easy workbook. (I soon changed my mind when I saw project two)
The way the book is written, you follow Evan, a kid summer vacationing with his archeologist uncle, through his adventures and challenges as he and the team try to reach the tomb of an ancient Mayan king. Several traps were set up in the tomb so that only someone with a trained monkey could reach the burial chamber. Evan uses his new NXT robotics kit to build innovative and creative robots to disarm the traps and get them into the chamber.
Tonight, my three sisters and I sang at our local church for their annual Candlelight Christmas Eve Service. The song we chose to sing was "A Carol for Today". The song recounts the story of Christmas and asks us this challenging question: "Can we like the shepherds and angels say... Glory to God on high"? Christmas is not about Santa, presents, decorations, or even about visiting one's family. It's about God's incredible love for us. Love so strong that He was willing to come to earth as a baby to pay for our sins through his death and resurrection. So we on this night - as we should every night - praise God and say "Glory to God on High!"
National Instruments just announced that they have released the LabVIEW Education Edition software, which is focused on helping students learn how to program robots with software used in today's engineering industries.
For the past few months, I've had the privilege of beta testing this software as I learned more about LabVIEW. Having come from FIRST FLL, I had experience with both MINDSTORMS NXT-G and ROBOLAB, but LabVIEW was completely new to me. It's been really exciting to work on learning a new programming language. I feel that National Instruments and Tufts University did an outstanding job making the integration between FLL programming and FIRST programming easy.
This has been a really exciting experience for me and I definitely plan to continue learning LabVIEW.
Today, my sister and I rang in The Master's College 11th annual Bellfest, led by Artist in Residence Christine Anderson. (We're in the back row, at 1:19 on the video).
My sister and I had the double treat of ringing not only with our own church handbell choir, the Master's Hands, but also with Jubilation, one of the handbell choirs at The Master's College.
This is the last song that we rang. It was written by John F. Wade, arranged by Cynthia Dobrinski, and conducted by Christine Anderson.
I have only a few weeks left before my LabVIEW trial license expires, so I don't know if I will have time to create another video before it does. In any case, I really enjoyed working with LabVIEW and I met many friends along the way as I learned and shared what I was learning. I also had fun learning how to use Camtasia Studio to create the video tutorial as well.
(Disclaimer: I have permission to share this video, however, please note that the software I am using is still in beta and may look or work differently when it is released on November 9.)
Click on the link below to watch the tutorial video. (It's 11 minutes long.)
As a thank you gift for working at the GTD summit, my father bought me a GTD NoteTaker Wallet. For years I have always been jealous of the fact that whenever my father wanted to capture an idea or record information, he would simply open his wallet and write it down. In order to accomplish the same task, I used to carry a small pad of paper in my purse but soon abandoned the idea for its bother. It seemed easier to try to remember something or have my father write it down than to lug a notepad around in my purse and deal with bent up, loose, or torn papers.
Tonight, after the NASA KM conference, many of us went to dinner at Burger Continental, a local hangout for CalTech folks. Wendy joined me, Jeanne Holm, David Pender, and others for dinner.
Later in the evening, Paul Caraccioli, Program manager of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center Propulsion System Department (PSD)* KM System came over and sat down and started to share with Wendy some of the problems his group is facing getting the engines for the Lunar lander to work. Wendy listened attentively, as she's very interested in engineering and space exploration. What a treat, thank you, Paul, for making engineering real and for inspiring a future engineer.
On Saturday, September 5, 1992 at 5:54 PM. and 5:55 PM. The Lord answered our prayers and brought us two very healthy identical twin girls. 
This lesson hit home. I have seen the power of prayer work miracles in my own life and in the lives of others who call upon the Lord. Kathy and I decided that we would begin to pray for a child even though we knew that the time would be far off. During these times in prayer together, we found that we both had a desire to have twins - something that we had each desired since our early days and yet never discussed between us. The Bible says “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." PSALM 37:4. Believing this desire to be sincere, we decided to express these desires in our time of prayer. 
Keep in mind that there are no twins in either of our families for at least 4-5 generations that we know of. The instances of “twinning” in normal conception are very low. They are hereditary or can be the result of advanced aged (38+) or fertility drugs taken at the time of conception. Neither of these were the case for us. 
By the time of our second pre-natal visit to the doctor, Kathy's womb had already grown quite large. We shared with our doctor that we had been praying for twins and that we suspected that Kathy had twins. Our doctor suspected that we had miscalculated the date of conception. An ultrasound examination quickly resolved the issue - identical twins! Identical twins are NOT hereditary but are the result of one fertilized egg that splits during the early weeks. Our babies shared the same sac and a common placenta - which is extremely rare (1 in 30,000 births) and often very dangerous. 
By Kathy's 5th month of pregnancy, she was approaching the size of a full term single birth! Our doctors became very concerned about the health of the twins. We began a routine of examinations which would bring us to the hospital once a week and 3 times a week in the last stages of pregnancy. Although the babies were expected to arrive a month short of their calculated due date of Labor Day (no pun intended), the babies held out until Saturday, September 5th. 
Early Saturday morning, I took Kathy to the hospital. She immediately went into active labor. They brought in all of the equipment and staff and everything stopped. After several procedures and another 10 hours of difficult labor, the decision was made to perform an unscheduled C-section. 
Their names are: 
Eighteen years ago this very day, two precious jewels were added to my life. The twins were born! After 14 hours of labor, and finally deciding you were just too tangled up to come out on your own (trying to get out first, Wendy?), a C-section was performed, and two beautiful little ladies came into the world. .jpg/$file/20070216_GTDBreakfastClub (small).jpg)
For a scholarship, I wrote an essay about the effects of the current recession on the family. I really enjoyed writing it and thought I'd share it. 
A while ago, my parents watched a movie called, "The Fourth Wise man". It was based on a story by Henry Van Dyke called The Other Wise Man. They were so impressed with the story, that they wanted my sisters and me to watch it as well. Here is the summary: 
Add together almost 16,000 cookies, 1500 children, 500 workers, and five parables - and what do you have? Vacation Bible School at Grace Baptist Church! 
In a society where so many are unreliable, lazy, or proud, my mom is the opposite. She possesses the rare gift of a servant’s heart. 
National Instruments 
For the past few months, I've had the privilege of beta testing this software as I learned more about LabVIEW. Having come from 
As a thank you gift for working at the 
