You Kids Stop Teasing Her!

The bittersweet quality of funerals is the chance to see relatives again -- some that we haven't seen in years and years. So at my mom's funeral this month, after shedding tears, it was wonderful to reunite with my family. I couldn't possibly show all the far-flung relatives in a blog post, so I chose just a few shots, and wanted to share one story with you.

Here's me with my sisters:Yes, I'm TOTALLY taller than them. I remind them of that fact regularly!

And then one of those rare shots of the first cousins (our kids) together. Missing in this photo is Cameron, who didn't make the trip, --- and Brandon, who is on his mission in Jamaica (of course!)

(Don't you just love how all the cousins are either adults, or at least age 14 & up -- except Emma -- the toddler who is technically part of this generation!!)

And before I show you the Final Four..... a quick story for you.

I am the youngest of my siblings, and they have often teased me that I don't really look like them. This teasing was at its worst when I was little, and shall we say .... gullible. After all it was much more fun to tease me when I actually believed what they told me. They would tell me that I was too skinny, and didn't have the round face that was typical of our family. This was true enough. And then, they would tell me that I had been adopted.

Much upset about this, I would run to my mom, crying, "Mom! Mom! They said I was adopted!!"

As my sister Cheryl likes to say, Mother was not interested in Justice. Mother was interested in Silence. And so, in answer to this, my dear mother would turn to my siblings and say.....

"You kids stop teasing her!"

Never a word to me about adoption or the falsehood thereof. It left me with a question in my young mind about my ancestry. Later, I had my parentage confirmed in my mind, as I looked through our family history records & found my name there with the others.

So take a look at me with my siblings..... and what do you think? Do I look like them, or not?

One of the things that I love the most about my family, is that not only do we love each other, we also LIKE each other. Months of separation melt away when we are together again, and we can pick right back up where we left off the last time. We can banter and joke together like we had only seen each other yesterday. I'm truly thankful for a family like mine.

(This is us with our spouses too)

I hope that with the coming years, we can remain close to one another, and continually work to strengthen our family's bonds. I love you guys!!

In Memory

It's never easy to lose someone who is close to you. Despite all I know, and all I believe and the comfort that gives me, when it comes down to it..... I miss my mom.

Earlier this month, on September 5th, my mom passed away quietly in Pocatello. She was nearly 82 years old. Her health had been declining for some time now, but still she held on. When I spoke to my sister a few days before, and she described Mom's condition, I felt that I needed to be there.

Bless Todd for making that possible. He set everything aside for us to make the long drive to Pocatello, leaving almost immediately. And it was fortunate, because I was able to be there with both my sisters, when Mom slipped away. I am forever grateful that I was there with her, even though she did not know me or any of us. She could not respond to us, but we could talk to her and tell her how much we loved her. It was enough.

My mind does not bring back images of her in the last months, or even the last couple of years. I see her as she was when I was a child, and she was younger, and vibrant, and anxiously engaged in so many good works.

I see her sitting in her chair with her needlework, or working in the church kitchen for ward dinners, or in any of the countless tasks she performed. I see her leading music, baking bread, hanging laundry on the lines, or working in the church library. I see her canning peaches, playing the piano, preparing a lesson, or ironing pillowcases. (Yes, my mother ironed pillowcases!)

In my mind, she is driving. Not because she enjoyed it (which she didn't!), but because it needed to be done. She is driving a carload of kids to Tuesday afternoon Primary, a handful to early morning Seminary, on a temple trip, or home from the grocery store.

She is lotioning her hands. Not because she was vain about her looks, but because she had spent so much time scrubbing, that her hands would be painfully dry and cracked without lotion.

She is making a banana milkshake for my dad on a sunny afternoon, after school and work is over. She does this little act of love and service for him, as he studies in a 3" thick binder so he can learn to operate the new machinery at work (he was a printer), and therefore keep his job.

She is reading. For hours and hours, she would read. Her love of books was passed on to her children.

She is curling my hair. It's Saturday night, so my hair needed to have curls for Sunday. No electric curling irons for us -- this was with old-fashioned rollers. Later, she'll wash and set her own hair with bobby pins into pincurls. Mom never changed her hairstyle in all of her adult life. Ever.

She is sewing. There's no money for a new Easter dress, so she'll make one for me herself. It is some pastel-colored creation that I will wear with white patent leather shoes on Easter morning.
I wish I had known her when she was quite young. I love photos of her from that era. This was her engagement picture, in 1947:

This is how I see her:

I thanked my mom many times for all that she had done for me. She would shrug it off, uneasy at accepting praise. She reveled in her posterity, though, and always wanted to know what the grandkids were doing and how things were going. She measured success not by her own accomplishments, but by the accomplishments of her descendants.

She held fast to her beliefs and her testimony at all times. She was never demonstrative about it, but we kids were never in doubt about how she felt. She taught us well. In any situation, I could know how my mom would feel about it. There was never any question in her mind, or ours.

I wonder about my own role as a mother. Am I teaching my kids what my mom taught me? Will they value the things which are most important in life? Am I conveying to them my own beliefs, as surely as I knew my mom's? Will they continually strive for improvement because they know their mom is hoping and praying for them?

I hope so.

Rest in peace, Mom. You can finally rest.

with much love,

School Days

I do not have the typical parent's attitude about school. Most parents cannot wait for school to start each fall, are really excited for school to resume after the Christmas break, and are not-so-thrilled when school is out for the summer. Not me.

I LOVE when school lets out for summer. I'm probably more excited than the kids are. We always celebrate with a trip to the ice cream parlour. I love the random vacation days that my kids get, even though it is worlds different than when *I* went to school. And I am always bummed when September rolls back around and we get back into the schedule of life.

School started a few days later than usual, but the girls were excited to get back and see their friends again. Alys starts at the high school, and Darcie is in her second year at the Junior High. Here's the girls in their school outfits ... we had to take the photos on the front porch, because it was actually raining that morning, and neither wanted their hair wet:

Darcie has a big smile, and didn't want to be tooooo dressed up on Day One:

Alyssa was in a bit of a hurry to get out the door.... having the Driver's Permit is huge for her:

And Cameron? Well he's been working until closing time at Wendy's, and with such late hours, he has to sleep in. So while the girls were at school, this was Cameron:

(One slit of an eyeball is checking me out with the camera!)

Anyway! Since Alys is a sophomore -- the first year at the high school, the first day was more of a party than real classes. At one point, there was a bit of a competition similar to what they used to do on "Let's Make a Deal". They would ask for random items, and the first person who could produce the item at the front would win a prize. Prizes were school spirit items like foam fingers, t-shirts, towels, etc.

So Alyssa had her cell phone out to check the time, and that was the next item they asked for. She dashed up to the front and won a t-shirt:

She's so lucky. I never win anything, so I'm glad that every once in a while, my kids can win stuff! Here's to a great school year, filled with fun, a lot of learning, sports, bands, and anything else we can squish in there!

A Lifetime of Education....

As I work my way through cleaning out the Old Spare Bedroom (old craft room), in trying to get my things moved into the new craft room (old playroom).... I uncover all sorts of things. The other day, Emma began investigating, and she came up with this: It's Cameron's mortarboard from last May's graduation. I love this photo of her though, because she has it tilted at a jaunty angle, which TOTALLY reminds me of how my dad used to put on an old-timey straw hat, and sing. I think my dad had a performer's heart, and loved to be on a stage. Any kind of stage. He would have made a great actor!

So she struggled a little, taking it off and putting it back on again.....

But she had this huge grin for the camera!!! (And I couldn't get her to stay standing up for me to snap the photo. But she's adorable! (There's the doting mother in me, coming out!) It's a good thing to want to wear a hat like this. It might mean a lot of years of school, but we still hope that all our kids will go on and wear the college version of the mortarboard!

Hot August Nights

Some August nights aren't so hot. Some are pretty cool. At least, this year they were. Todd and I usually haven't attended our community's annual Hot August Nights concerts. They feature bands (or what's left of them) from the '80's or older. They hold it in the park, and it has kind of a "fair" atmosphere, except add beer.

Not being beer drinkers ourselves, we've just usually stayed away. Until this year. When STYX came to town. Well -- Dennis DeYoung of STYX fame. We got tickets, and Todd even sprung for a parking pass which allowed us to park IN the park (actually, behind the bandshell, in the "Band" section. Woot!!).

So we sat on the opposite side as the beer garden, had some great BBQ for dinner, and sat thru the opening acts before the main show. This is us.... lounging in the lawn chairs:

We brought Alyssa & Darcie, who had no idea what to expect at a concert like this. They look so excited, don't they!! We wished that Cameron could have come as well, but he was working that night. Brandon is pretty bummed that he missed it too, but a mission in Jamaica is not too shabby, either!

Well, it got better, because Todd has an "in" with the concert organizers, and right before Dennis DeYoung/Styx took the stage, she offered to Alyssa & Darcie if they wanted to come up front by the stage. There was a temporary fence there to keep the mob back, with a space between the fence and the stage. Alys & Darce got to go right up IN FRONT of the fence, right by the stage. Darcie took some photos and video with her phone, but I'm trying to figure out how to get the files into a format I can read and use. So in the mean time,........

That's Dennis DeYoung, singing, "Babe"

And this is "Mr. Roboto". The guy on the left does the Tommy Shaw part, and he did a VERY good job. We were impressed at how authentic he sounded.
"Come Sail Away".......

We may never go to another Hot August Nights concert..... but this one was pretty darn cool!