James – Page 27 – David & LaReita Berky

James TimeLine Biography for Genealogy MB

I was born on General Conference Easter Sunday, April 4, 1999. My mom remembers President Gordon B. Hinckley making an announcement that the Nauvoo temple was going to be rebuilt. In fact, she didn’t hear this information herself. She had fallen asleep, but when she woke up and asked family members what she missed, they told her about the Nauvoo temple. She didn’t believe them because this had been a long awaited 2nd coming prophecy to be fulfilled. She thought her joking husband (my dad) was pulling her leg. She asked the nurses, and they confirmed it. I was blessed on June 13, 1999.

When I was 2 1/2 years old my parents, little baby brother and I traveled to the east coast for the baptism of my cousin Jessica. We happened to be in New York City on the 6 month anniversary of 9/11. (We were there 3/11/2002.) My mom and dad remembered seeing a giant stream of light shoot up past the hotel windows. Also on that trip we went to Washington DC. A year later (August 2003) we returned for a fun trip to visit my Aunt Jenny and Uncle Dan in New Jersey. My cousins and I also went to Six Flags on that trip.

I was baptized and confirmed into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on May 2007. I also remember walking into the girls bathroom on accident and running out when I realized I was in the wrong place. I remember the water being cold. My mom remembers me telling her, “I feel like a new person.” I would say that over and over again. When I was confirmed I did feel warm and fuzzy inside. All my family and cousin came, including my best friend Carlos and his family.

The start of my Scouting career got a jump start with my Arrow of Light on March 10, 2010. By August 2010 I received my Scouter rank. The next few months was a montage of “Get your Scout stuff done” and Pow Wows and Camps. By December of 2010 I had received my Tenderfoot, 2nd Class, and 1st class. I would have also received my Star rank, but my scout leader didn’t count my 6 months of leadership properly. The neat thing about all these ranks is that they have the 100 year celebration on them. I finally earned my Star rank in March 2011. It’s one year later I’m still a Star. I need to do more work.

The highlight of my life thus far was being ordained to the office of a deacon and gaining the Aaronic Priesthood on April 10, 2011. Shortly thereafter I became the secretary in the deacon’s quorum. (Just like my dad is usually secretary.) I once again felt warm and fuzzy inside. This was the Holy Ghost telling me that this is The Church of Jesus Christ.

I am hungry

Halloween

L-R James is “Seth” from Fablehaven, Anthony is a ninja, Benjamin is an army dude (of course), Samuel ninja, and Jacob is Thomas the Tank Engine (of course!) Jacob was really starting to get the hang of it, though he only lasted for about 1 hour. The others were out for 2 hours!

Oh, the other thing about James that you can’t see is that James wanted his hair to be dirty blonde so he got it highlighted. And since he has natural highlights of RED from his Dad’s side, guess what the highlighting did for his hair! Made it a beautiful light red! (and he was too impatient to let the hair stylist dry the hair and make sure it was the color he wanted.) So we’ll have a red head for a few months!

river rafting part 4

On the final day we hit all the rapids perfectly again. We all got to take turns commanding our big raft and the small rafts (called ‘duckies’). We had steer through a rapid & deliver water. In the big raft was 5 gallon water containers, and we had to serve water to the people in the other rafts.

The 3 Merit Badges we earned were Rowing, White water rafting, and canoeing.

To earn the Rowing we had to row the big boat.
To earn the White Water Rafting we had to steer through rapids, flip the boat, and get back on.
To earn the canoeing we had to flip the duckie and get back on.

Some kids had a hard time doing these things.
But we did it quite well, even better than some of the older troops. (We were a 12 year old scout patrol.)

The river guide, Kim, said I was the best steer-er that she had. Steve, the guy in the water boat, said that I was better than all of the other scouts that he had previously, including the 18 year olds. Dad even verified this with them, and they weren’t just saying that. They really meant it.

So maybe I’ll be a River Guide someday!

river rafting part 3

The next few days seemed to blur together. We had to flip the boat & get back in. We got to play the trust game. Go over rapids, eat dinner tell scary stories, wake up and do it all over again. One day we at lunch we made a slide out of a flipped boat and slid into the river, at lunch we also played the paddle game. We had fights and invaded the other boats

this is a giant pancake called the 'mancake'

Brian wanted to eat this but could not because the other 18 year olds ate it.

River rafting part 2

That day we hit almost all the rapids perfectly. we went strait through this mini whirl pool. and all the other boats with 16-18 year-olds got stuck in it. after we got off the river the boys and i found thins big mud hole and we played in it for hours.

river rafting High Adventure

I went on a river rafting trip in June. we started of with a hike to Delicate Arch. After that we went to sand dune arch and spent a couple of hours there playing in the sand, and climbing up the arch. However my dad didn’t climb and took pictures of the climbers. (he’s afraid of heights) In the sand pit Brian started to do front flips off a rock outcropping. Tanden almost broke his leg on another rock.

After that we went back to camp. Then the next day we packed up and went to the meeting point for our river rafting trip. Then we jumped in the river to get a taste of the water. It was cold. Then we got the boats in and started our first leg of the journey.

Hope of America

Every year around Utah Valley 5th and 6th graders learn songs and participate in a wonderful patriotic program – “Hope of America”. It is part of the Freedom Festival that Provo puts on every year. One of the largest 4th of July celebrations in the country. Basically lasts from April to July. Lately whenever I’m at an event where the National Anthem is sung, I get very teary eyed and choke up. Every year I gain a greater and greater love for our country.

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James has loved being in choir this year for this very thing. In fact, the practice CD that he brought home is one of Anthony’s favorites. One of the songs Anthony piped up, “This is my favorite one!” and he sang right along. When I told my mom about this program she said, “Oh good! I’ll get to go to things like this soon!” We are excited to have her up here soon enjoying her grandkids.

During the program there were also other performers, including a group of grandmas ages 50-94 that got out and danced on the dance floor! It was amazing! I bet if Aunt Dawna wasn’t in a wheel chair with polio, she would have been one of those grandmas out there! Dave said, “They should get a group out there with their Jazzy’s (brand of motorized wheelchairs) and do a choreographed thing!” Also on this performance, Jacob was totally jamming out! It was so fun to see him so excited. He loves anything that is music and moving. But he’s 2 – so that’s to be expected. 🙂

Also was a dedication to our soldiers who fight for our freedoms. At the end of that dedication, Benjamin (7 years old) leans over to dad and says in a very serious tone, “Dad. When I grow up I’m either going to be a miner or an army guy.” I smiled. Well, it would probably be safer to be an army guy! Benjamin being in the military is something that I’ve always known might happen anyhow. One of those things that you can just sense with your child. Maybe he’ll be in army intelligence with his Chinese language abilities! (Though he certainly wouldn’t be able to go on recon missions with his blonde hair!)

I’m looking forward to the next one in 2 years from now when Anthony will be in 5th grade and participate in the choir. And mom will be able to come to it too!

December Updates

December 21st – massive snow storm:

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Anthony braves the storm to survey the damage:

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Building gingerbread houses:

2010-12-24_11-04-gingerbread-houses

2010 School Concert for UVS

The Utah Valley Symphony had their annual School Concert today. LaReita having injured one of her fingers with a knife was unable to play. So instead, she took James and Anthony out of school to attend the concert with her. After years of playing in the concerts she finally go to sit next to her boys during this one. Although cutting her finger so severely that she couldn’t play wasn’t the plan.

Some pictures from the concert: (not only was it for children but there were also children performing!)

School children arriving at the Provo Tabernacle building.

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Halloween 2010

Traditional Halloween didn’t really happen this year for lots of reasons. It was celebrated on Sat the 30th. It started hailing at prime trick-or-treating time, so there weren’t many that came. It was just plain miserable outside. We didn’t even get our traditional fire set up out front. AND we forgot to get a picture in all their costumes. Oh well.

One notable thing was that James bought his costume this year with his own money! It was $21.34 and was a Star Wars character – like Jango Fett, but something else. This year Samuel wore a different costume each day of the week. Ben finally settled on wearing the orange jumpsuit prisioner costume and a blue wizard-looking hat. So he was the “Prisoner from Azkaban”. Yeah. Nobody realized it until we told them, then they smiled. Pretty ingenious for a 6 1/2 year old (who just finished having the book read to him). Anthony was himself, which made costuming easy. And Jacob just stayed inside with mom while she made homemade tomato soup, grilled cheese and fresh apple cider. LaReita’s cousin (well, 1st cousin, once removed) Jonathan Mitchell* was the door handler. Dave drove in the car being the back-up for the boys and friends Carlos and Cesar as they ran through the cold drizzling rain.

*Jonathan works for Dave and LaMont in the Find-A-Code business. He and his wife moved to Washington this summer. He came back here this week to do some conferencing with Dave.

Who's that toddler in the funny blue hat?

Jacob gets some hat-wearing tips from Benjamin