Snow Diving 1980

 On our snowshoeing trip with our BYU Family Home Evening group, we came upon this snowbank.  The guys got the bright idea of impressing the girls by diving headfirst into it.  We got the cameras ready and they dived.
L to R: Wayne, Greg Poulsen, Dave Jensen, Andrew____, Jim Wassmer.

 Notice how high Wayne goes (he is on the left), and then how much deeper he goes into the snow than some of the others.

On those old cameras, we had to advance the film before we could take the next picture, so we were yelling at the boys not to move until we could get this photo taken.  They hated that.

Wayne says this is one of the dumbest things he ever did, there could have been a big rock or any number of dangerous things below that snow.

New photos galore.

I hired a high school girl to scan all my photos.  She keeps getting them done one little batch at a time.  So I better start posting them so my loved ones can get an idea of the back story of my life.

 Here I am in 1978 just before I left for BYU-Study Abroad, London for 6 months.  This is my mother and my grandmother, in Mesa, Arizona. 

 Here is Wayne, water skiing about a year before I met him.  I LOVE THIS PICTURE!  Now you know why I fell for him.

In 1980, we were in the same family home evening group at BYU, and our group went to a cabin for a snow shoeing trip.  (That is one of my roommates int the front.)  I hate the outdoors, but since everything was covered with snow I was not scared of snakes and bugs, so Wayne was convinced that I was an outdoorswoman.  (Little did he know how wrong he was.)

Photos from Zac

It was great skyping with Zac on Christmas Eve.  We really enjoyed visiting with his companion, too, who is from Argentina.  Wayne and the companion had a fun time speaking Spanish to each other while Zac tried to understand what they were saying.

Our family Christmas #4- In Pittsburgh

We drove to Pittsburgh to visit Bryce's family.  While we were there, we got to talk to Zac on Skype!  He is on a mission in Brazil, and we got to see his smiling face for an hour while we heard about his life there.  This is our first missionary to Skype with.

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas with Bryce's family.  We went to downtown Pittsburgh to a big Christmas display and a great toy store. Unfortunately I hardly took any photos!  

 

 

Our family Christmas #3- in Virginia

We drove to Virginia to be with Adam's family.  We saw the lights at the Washington D.C. temple,

decorated another gingerbread house,

saw the Great Falls of the Potomac, and also went to the Air and Space museum.  It was great to see their new home.

Our family Christmas #2

I like to buy gingerbread kits after Christmas and save them for the next year, my favorite part is helping the little kids decorate them.

Our family Christmas #1

We got together with Isaac's and Seth's families, and Tara, before Christmas for family time.  I brought costumes for the 6 grandchildren who were there.  Because of Hannah's and Tessa's actions, there were some sarcastic comments about the "good angel" and "bad angel."

About the same time as Hailey ripped off her wise man crown,  Hannah turned into the "fallen angel".  (We also loved the tattooed Mary.)

Elizabeth "Mary" wanted to take this very reverent picture, and she looked lovely with her baby sister.

New granddaughter Caroline

 Here is Isaac and Rachel's fourth child.

She has the funniest cowlick in front.  It is a complete circle.  She is going to hate that when she gets old enough to want to fix her hair.

Quilt: "A House for Daisie"

This isn't the cutest quilt I ever made, but it has a great story.  I had made the quilt for no reason, it was just a center block that I had put big borders around, and I was quilting it to give as a charity quilt to a quilt guild.

As I was finishing it, it occurred to me that the fabric was covered with daisies.  I thought of a relative who was having a terrible legal battle over custody, and the little girl's name was Daisie. Then I saw that there was a house in the middle, and Daisie really needed to be able to come home.  Eureka!  I had made the perfect quilt to give to that family at that very anxious time in their lives.  And it was a complete miracle, because I hadn't even planned it.

Another view of House on Nowata Road

Here, Carla is about 3, so the addition onto the house is also about 3 years old.  You can see the addition right behind me (in yellow dress), my sister Cindy (in orange), Larry, and Carla.  The front porch, living room window, and master bedroom window are all visible here.  Also, see the moose antlers hanging on the garage.  My dad shot that moose, and Larry still has the antlers.

House on Nowata Road

This is the first house I remember, 5 miles outside of Bartlesville, Oklahoma.   When I was tiny, we had 4 children in one bedroom, and my parents in the other bedroom.  There was one bathroom with a bathtub (no shower.)  There was a window air conditioner only in the living room.

  Later, just before my sister Carla was born, my parents added an addition onto the house, connecting it with that garage you see on the far left.  They added a living room, a master bedroom and another bedroom, making 4 bedrooms in all.  Plus one more bathroom and a small sewing/utility room.

I can even remember my telephone number.    
The prefix was "Edison", so the phone number was ED 3- 1187,  or 333-1187.  It is amazing what you can remember when it was the first thing you ever put in your brain.  I will probably remember that number when I have Alzheimer's.

Cool car in 1961

This is a picture of my older sister Cheryl and older brother Larry in 1961.  Look at our family's cool car in the background!  I wish I could see the whole thing.  One of my earliest memories is waking up in the back seat of that car, and seeing mountains all around as we were driving from Oklahoma to Arizona.  It was the first time I had seen mountains.  I also remember being very sweaty and hot, since there was no air conditioning.  Those were the days!

And look at the vast emptiness all around our house, we had zero neighborhood kids to play with.

Anson's eyes

Here I am, about 18 months old.  I definitely see a resemblance between my eyes and my grandson's Anson's eyes.

A quilt for Sally P.

A dear friend, Sally P., has cancer again. I found out that Susan Y. and Amelia B. had made a quilt top for Sally, and I offered to quilt it for them on my long-arm machine. 

First, I had to add strips to the backing because it wasn't big enough. 

Then, since I have very little experience on the long-arm, I had one fiasco after another as I tried to load the quilt top, backing, and batting onto the machine, and again as I tried to figure out how to use the laser and follow a pantograph. 

But miracles do happen, and I got the quilt quilted between 11:00 pm and 1:30 in the morning on Sunday night.  Amelia was able to bind it on Monday, and Susan and Amelia delivered it to Sally on Tuesday, before she went in for surgery on Wednesday.

I think it is beautiful!

 The front, which was pieced by Amelia and Susan.

The back.  I added three of the strips to make it big enough.

Boy Scout camp was at our house

 We hosted Boy Scout camp for our ward and one other ward for 5 days in July.  All the cooking and eating was done around the garage.  It was pouring rain every single day.

 Merit badge classes were held on our front porch and our screened porch and other places.  I couldn't look out any window without seeing bunches of boys and leaders everywhere.

 

 They held flag ceremonies every morning and evening.

The archery merit badge and fishing merit badges were taught in the front pasture and at the pond.

I got no pictures of the horsemanship merit badge, which was taught near our barn and in the adjoining pasture.  Our friends brought 2 horses over for the week.  It was raining so constantly that I never went out there.

All in all, I think it was a good experience for everyone.  The only lasting consequence was that we had a lot of flies in our garage and in our house for a few weeks afterward, but now they are all gone so life is normal again.

Awesome lighted reading glasses!

 What a great idea!  I can read my scriptures, lying in bed in a dark room.

These are LightSpecs, by Foster Grant.

Visit to Pittsburgh

 I went to visit Bryce's family last week.  They took me to this high part of town overlooking the convergence of the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers, where they form the Ohio River.

Here is my sweet little granddaughter, Gabrielle, in their pretty backyard.

Anson likes classic cars too

I found Anson looking at Wayne's magazine. It looks like Anson is going to take after his Pappy.

Climbing trees

Wayne has embarassed me over the years by climbing trees in inappropriate places.  We got in trouble for climbing this tree at Thomas Jefferson's house, Monticello, in Virginia.  You will notice that I refrained from climbing because I knew we would get caught.

This was about 1997.
Then in 2002, we did it again (only Adam was on his mission so he isn't in the picture.)

This was by the water in Bar Harbor, Maine.  And nobody yelled at us that time.

Wayne rock climbing

Here is a picture of Wayne when he first learned to rock climb.  I think it was around 1995.

My baby picture

Tiffany and Adam think their little boy looks just like me in this picture.  I had big blue eyes and so does he.  What do you think?

Dr. Suess wedding guestbook

We went to Britt B.'s wedding reception last week, and were surprised when we went to sign the guestbook.  It was such a cute idea!  We were signing in between the pictures and words of the Dr. Suess children's book, "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" 

That was way better than a stale old guestbook, like the one we had at our wedding.

Zac's first long email from the Brazil missionary training center

 Zac had the craziest first week I have ever heard of!  He was basically forgotten for a few days.  Here is part of his first email home.



"The first day was the longest of my life.  I got no sleep on the plane, and then when I got to the CTM they kept us busy until that night introducing us to everything.  When I got there they had no idea I was coming.  The first they heard of me was when the person picking missionaries up at the airport told them an extra one arrived.  So I have had two other companions all week.  elder. J,, and elder. P.  What I expected was very different from what actually happened. 

To put some perspective on things James G. arrived at the MTC with 800 other elders and sisters, and Quin V. arrived a week later with 1000 other elders and sisters.  I arrived with two other elders and they both became my companions.  We were it the whole day. 

The week before only one elder arrived from New Zealand elder. O., and a week before him one elder arrived from virginia elder. Smith.  This is what makes up my district.  Other than that between 15 and 30 other elders and sisters arrive from Brazil on Thursdays.  On Sunday I counted all the english speaking missionaries here, there were 19. 

After the first day we were basically forgotten about.  We would show up to things on the schedule, but most of the times no one would show up, so we would go somewhere and study.  We never knew what to do until saturday, when we finally got put on the same schedule as the two other elders in our district who knew what they were doing.  I never met any of the other english speaking missionaries until Sunday.  My Portuguese is coming along faster than I ever thought it could."