Twelve Parks of Christmas

Christmas 2011

This one isn't awkward, it's perfect!  Perfect attendance at Christmas this year.  Finishing out 2011 with the 11 people I love most in the world.  Today we put five of those people on airplanes and I miss them, and the boy who will be leaving shortly on a mission for 2 years I will miss, and the couple who will be moving to Colorado next month will also be missed, as is the one who lives in Utah all the time.  Thanks everyone for coming home and filling it up with joy and laughter and love.

Eleven Eleven Eleven (Pipers Piping)

A very snowy outdoor live nativity 2008

So sad that baby Cora and her weary parents did not make it here tonight, but glad we will see them tomorrow and hope they can get some sleep tonight.  I was looking forward to holding the baby while they got to sleep a little longer than they've been able to lately.  In the other room, kids are playing card games while that little girl sings the song from Polar Express about Christmas coming to town.  There's a pack 'n play set up in Emily's room, all ready to go.

Ten of Twelve

Santa 1984 - 1st Christmas,
 Motola home, Murray, Utah

It's hard for me to separate Dad and Santa in my memory, Santa has always been my Dad.  Or in this case, Veronica's grandpa.

Nine Great Days

Great!

I don't think I ever got to meet any of my great grandparents, so this photo with Great Grandma Nelson isn't really awkward, it's just great.

Eight Days of Christmas Photos

The year of braces and those ornaments with paint swirled inside

I also like that you can see the Santa Hat that Janna made hanging on the wall.

Swans a swimming

Atari.  And, the kitchen sink.  1986

Sixth day

P is for Park and waPello Christmas Program night '95

On the 5th day of Christmas

who is taller?
 2006

I missed a couple of days, I should never try to do a post-a-day thing.  

4 Calling Birds

Awkward Aunt Ronna

The Christmas of '79.  Before I was an awkward mother, I was an awkward aunt.
I brought BYU shirts home for my 4 nieces and nephews and yet none of them ever attended BYU.  Awkward!  For extra fun, this is a polaroid picture, and someone must have been telling us all to say something, but Sarah ever the model just smiled sweetly and did not take the "cheese" bait.  Good job Sarah!

Three French Hens

the Star

As promised, a photo with Emily too.  She joined right into the awkwardness with sandals, socks and short pants.

the 2nd day of Christmas

2 matching ruffle neck cousin shirts

12 Days of (slightly awkward) Family Christmas Photos

The Five New Ski Hats of Christmas 1994

This Christmas...

This Christmas is going to be groovy!

Baby Mine

12 hours old Veronica

2 days old Cora

4 weeks ago when I held my granddaughter Cora for the first time, she looked very familiar to me, like I had seen that sweet little baby face somewhere before.  I was excited to find Veronica's baby book tonight, so I could see what my heart was trying to remember these past few weeks.

Little Bitty

That's what her nurse was calling her last night when she gave her the first bath and hair washing.  It was pretty sweet.

Powder Blue With Feathers

35 years ago I wore

a dress that was powder blue

with feathers

when Lynne got married in October

in Salt Lake City.

I was 16.

That dress is old and has lost a few feathers hanging in the closet at Kidd Island Bay

Janna found it for me.

Emily wore it for me.

And now I'm ready to be a grandma.

In 16 more years maybe my granddaughter can wear this dress

for Halloween.

The grass was so green...

I don't remember if Adam was safe or if he was out.

Weird

I'm at a weird age. The age of Weird Al Yankovic. We'll be the same age as of my birthday this week, for about a month. This was my birthday present, a fun concert with close seats in a small venue. I laughed quite a lot.  And bonus...it was the same night as the BYU/Utah game, which I was initially sad to make Kerry miss watching but in the end, I probably saved him from a stroke.

Hello, Handsome. Goodbye, San Diego

This is the elevator to the parking garage - Steven was standing in front of this poster advertising Hyatt's $35 haircuts.

Its been a fun, luxurious 6 nights in this hotel, but I guess it's time to go home now.  School, marching band, work - life awaits.  We spent our last night going to the San Diego Temple and the Cheesecake Factory.  It's been fun spending time with Marisa and Doug in their beautiful part of the world.  They have been excellent tour guides & hosts.  The last time I was in San Diego was probably the Holiday Bowl in 1979.

Sandy Eggo

Vacation time for Steven, Emily and I - business trip time for Kerry.   So far we have driven across the hot desert, had lunch in the McDonald's in Barstow that is a train car, strolled around Seaport Village, sung along with Marisa playing the organ in Church on Sunday (her debut), and gone swimming with the Haycock's.  Oh and this lovely free hotel room with a view of ...the other side of the hotel, but a little bit of the ocean too.

March 1, 1993

(One time for FHE we all wrote in our family journal.  Kerry just found that journal in a box.)

Veronica Anne, 3rd grade
Today we didn't have any school because the teachers had inservice or something.  We got to go rollerskating, too.  They guy who owned the rollerskating rink somehow knew there was no school today.  So that's mostly what we did today
In three days is my birthday.  Today is Aunt Peggy's birthday.
Steven's being pretty funny right now.  A minute ago, he was crawling along, and then he just fell flat on his face.  We all started laughing.  He saw that we were laughing, so he started to just crawl along, and fall on his face on purpose.  It was funny!  Then, mom gave him a marker to draw on a piece of paper.  But he tried to eat it.
Jennifer Strobel just called to ask if I could come home from school tomorrow.  Mom said yes, and I told her I would need a note to give to the bus driver.  Then she said, "Well, I guess we shouldn't write "Hail to the Bus Driver" on it.  (over) ------------>
Veronica Anne, 3rd grade, (continued)
I guess that's all for now.  Oh, wait.  Me and Marisa are going to trade bedrooms with the boys.  But dad said we had to clean out our rooms first.
Okay.  Now I'm definately finished.
Well that's what happened today.  THE END

(Thomas 1st grade)
Today I haited it I almost got blined playing blined mans bluff.  Poor Tom Tom got the cold got a stay home from school got Goosey Coff.  Thomas
You guys can you brake all of my bones I anet like school?  I love this ya guys  This is fun ha ha.  I was just playing peekaboo With Steve.

(Adam 6th grade)
Today we didn't have to go to school for a teacher inservice day.  We went skating at 1:00.  I'm lots better than the first time I skated, a few years ago.  Now I can even skate better than Kevin Cook.
A few weeks ago I got some new Bladerunner in-line skates.  It took a couple days before I got to use them.  While skating, Kevin and his friend Travis Kay told me that I wasn't supposed to use a black brake.  Later, I looked around and found a power ratchet and some tool and used them at the same time to get the back wheel off the right skate.  After I got that off, the brake and the contraption it slides into came out of the skate.  Today I used them and since they're so light, I can go faster and even jump and do "360's!"
Yesterday, while eating some really badly burnt microwave popcorn, one of my teeth fell out.  I thought it was a "granny" or unpopped kernel and about swallowed it.  Then I felt my soft gums where it came out and screamed my head off!  Mom asked me if I ate a "hideous little creature" in my popcorn.  I showed her my tooth, (which had a filling in it) and then she said "was it already loose?"
Right now, Dad's having a myocardial infarction with the Phantom of the Opera cd.  He's standing by it bobbing his head and dancing.  Now hes's filling the atmosphere with his rendition of "Music of the Night."  Can you say air pollution?
Steven's been acting silly lately.  Earlier tonight, he was crawling and slipped and we all laughed.  Ever since, that's all he's been doing.
Baseball starts pretty soon.  Today, me and Justin went to All-American Sports after his paper route because we saw huge banners that said "SALE"  I checked out some mitts and noticed the interesting bat configuration on the ground.  They were in swirls, one next to the other.  They came up a few feet off the ground.
Basketball just officially iended for me.  Our record was 5-3, but if you take away the points other teams got off of bad calls, we were 7-1.
I think I might get my first A-.  In health, I missed a test thanks to Mrs. Parker, who just HAD to take us on a stupid, boring field trip to the hospital.  I never have got a chance to make up the test.  I probably will tomorrow, after school, if I can.
That's all I can think of right now.  AP

Little Red Book

Notice that it's not April Fool's day or anything, this is really what I do now in the church gym with a bunch of Relief Society sisters who are all older than me. We are getting pretty good at some of the line dances by now, so that someone jokingly said we should perform somewhere, and the Bishop's wife said she thought we should do a flash mob at the next enrichment meeting. We're learning the dances from a senior sister who goes to Arizona each year, where apparently the senior citizen snowbirds all spend the winter line dancing. I've learned like 12 different dances by now, and if you look them up by name on youtube, they are the exact same as what I've learned. Here's what we rocked today:

Praise to the Man

As Primary chorister, I have been trying to teach the kids "Praise to the Man" since May. Well, it was the song for May, but I was gone for 2 of the weeks in May, and we also had Stake Conference, so for it being the longest, hardest song of the year, it just didn't get the attention it needed. We've been learning the 4th Article of Faith song in June, and that's pretty easy, since it is just the words to the actual 4th Article of Faith. So today, we are going to work on Praise to the Man again, this time with bagpipes! The traditional Scottish tune is Scotland the Brave, which I downloaded and burned to a cd I'll play for the kids today. There is a really nice slideshow about Joseph Smith with this tune that I found too, thanks to other Primary choristers who have impressive blogs.

It's hard to teach sunbeams words like "dispensation" "martyr" and "extol", but I can do hard things.

Motherhood

May Photo Album

It's a good thing the month of May has 31 days, and lucky for me that school got out on Friday and my job is over until August. I need a few really long naps.

May began in Spokane, where I ran (walked) a 12K race with my sisters Janna & Kerri - their first race ever. There were 8 of us in the race counting 3 nieces, 1 nephew, and Emily. So fun, so hot, so nice to see the river front area of Spokane for the first time in years, so proud of my athlete sisters! 12K is a long race for beginners, they endured it well. Emily ran super fast, her longest distance ever, kind of all by herself in a crowd of 50,000 people. I'm proud of her. We all got interviewed on Kerri's radio show in Coeur d'Alene the next day, and met Tom Luna, State Superintendent. Eventful! Controversial!

May also brought the trip to the Temple with Steven prior to his mission. Marisa was in town, so she was able to join us there along with Thomas & Caley.  It was a session coincidentally full of people from Blackfoot, and a very nice night.

Emily turned 15 in May. Everyone came home in May. (We were just missing Doug, but I appreciate his part in getting Marisa here and back to her new job which started the day after Steven's farewell talk which also happened in May.) Our version of a Quinceañera for Emily was a wiffleball game in the backyard.

Steven left on his mission in May. We experienced our first curb-side rainy day MTC drop-off, not long after we dropped off Veronica & Kyle at the airport. It was a day of goodbyes.


Right after he got set apart on Tuesday night outside the Stake Center

But it was a good day, driving along in a rented Tahoe so all 8 of us could enjoy each other's company for those last few hours. We hurried home to a band concert, and found a little note and bag of Pay Day candy bars on our door. It really is a "pay day" for a parent to send their child on a mission, fulfilling that destiny that we have been thinking about and planning for since the day he was born. We have received one letter so far, and I'm a little sad that his missionary email doesn't seem to be working out for him, and tomorrow being Memorial day, there will be no postal service. His first letter was really good though, and I will just have to read that one again while I wait for letter number 2.
I got an award in May, "Inviting Employee of the Year" for the school district. There is one Teacher of the Year, and one non-teacher (me) who gets honored. I think I get a prize, I have to go to the August school board meeting to collect. I think I have to speak at the back to school meeting for district employees too. The extra special honor for me was that the person I will share the stage with is Mr. Hansen, who taught at least 5 of my children at the middle school, coached them in track, and took them on the 8th grade trip. He also holds a special place in my heart for getting Thomas something cool to drink when he was having chemotherapy on the one day that nobody from the family accompanied him there.
At school, I made a slideshow set to the music of Justin Bieber with 350 photos I had taken all throughout the year to show at the final Hall of Fame assembly, and burned 100 copies of the DVD for parents who asked for a copy. Baby, baby, baby, oh.

May also has brought some flooding to the area, I guess this means the drought is over. Kerry got called to fill sandbags Friday night out in Snake River. Our bike riding trail is now underwater at mile 4. And I think that's about all.
We said goodbye to a lot of family members, just temporarily of course, but the van was a permanent goodbye. We've had that van almost as long as we've had Marisa. It hasn't done much for the last decade except show up on our street-view on Google Earth. Not anymore.