Happy Birthday Mom!

We spent last weekend in Bancroft with my mom, who celebrated her 71st birthday last week. We stayed the night on Saturday and went to church with her on Sunday. It was fun to sit with her in church and look around at all of the people who have influenced my life in so many ways. I felt lucky to have been raised in such a caring community, with such a loving person to call my mom. I made the best, and only, carrot cake I have ever made in my life on Sunday. Then we sang Happy Birthday with some of my family who still live nearby. Hannah, gave her some beautiful bird art made out of puff balls and pipe cleaners, and Johnny made a baking soda and vinegar bomb for her. It was so funny to see him hand over a plastic bag full of white powder, with two stick figures on the front (Johnny and Grandma) and the words "Happy Birthday" printed in big, black, permanent marker letters on the front. He had her come out to the front porch and watch as he filled the bag with some vinegar, sealed it, and placed it far away so that she could watch it explode. He was so proud of his very exciting gift.
We sure love you mom, thanks for everything!

It's done, it's done, yay it's done.

We have a patio now. Thanks John for doing such a great job, and for Alex, Billy and Melissa who came to help. It has a beautiful rustic look and we will enjoy it for many years to come. Now we will focus on staining our porches so that we can actually get to the patio.

Sisters and cousins

Hands down, my favorite week this summer was when my sister Kathleen came to visit. I love having her around. We had a few adventures with her and her boys. We were able to go to the Oquirrh mountain temple open house (which I didn't bring my camera) to Tree house museum in Ogden, to see the Clydesdale horses at the fair, and swimming. Here are a few pictures of our time together: In front of the Clydesdale horse. By pure luck we discovered that these horses were on display at the fairgrounds. While we were at the tree house museum we ran into one of my old roommates and she told us about them. The kids were very hot and miserable at this time, but the horses were pretty amazing.
Vander using his super brain power to play chess with another willing and able little boy.


This is Maddie's dream come true--to be a princess.

Watching a finger puppet show.

If you have been watching Craig Fergusen lately (a guilty pleasure of ours) you will recognize this puppet. They have about five of them at the museum with their farm display.

What a handsome kid!

And my little Maddie, (please forgive the red-eye here)

Another handsome nephew.

And Johnny, my cute little clown.

We had a bystander take our picture for us here, it is a little blurry, but it is the only picture we have of all of us here.

Island Park with the Ackerman clan

Here are a few of my favorite pictures of our Ackerman Family reunion in July. We had such a fun time, and I feel so lucky to be able to call the Ackermans my family. John, Hannah and Johnny peering into Big Springs. It was very clear, beautiful water.
On our way to see Mesa Falls. Here is John, Maddie and Lucy with a few of my nephews and my sister Amy. Kathleen and Marilyn are in the distance.


Maddie sitting on the porch of the cabin that our family rented.


The ingenuity here makes me laugh.

Big Springs

Lucy enjoying her cone (with no ice cream) at the local ice cream shop.

My mom and niece, Naomi, working on a puzzle.

Maddie, and her cousin, Scott, working on a puzzle. Nothing brings people together like a good puzzle.

Or a good game of checkers.

We had so many fun experiences, John played a game of golf for the first time ever and we were able to see a melodrama together. We had lots of GREAT food and fun visits. We headed home a little early when Johnny and Hannah became sick and sadly missed out on floating down the river, something they were both very unhappy about. Maybe next time.

A few funerals

Last night my mom and brother, James, came to visit. They were on their way home from Panguitch where they attended our Lefevre Family Reunion and my Aunt Grace's funeral. July has been a very difficult and emotionally draining month for my mom. Both of her living sisters died within about 2 weeks of each other. My Aunt Betty died of complications due to age, she is in the blue dress second to the left. And my Aunt Grace died of cancer, she is in the black dress next to Aunt Betty. They have both been sick for quite a while. I have so many fond memories of visiting these Aunts, and it is hard to comprehend the world without having them around. It must be even harder for my mom. This picture of my mom's mom and siblings with their spouses was taken about 30 years ago at my dad's funeral. As I look at this picture now, only four of them are still alive, including my mom. I am so looking forward to the day when I can visit with these wonderful people again.

Loveless Family Party

The end of July has been a whirlwind of activity. We enjoyed some time with the Loveless family on the 11th at our family reunion. We met at Matt and Lori's home here in Kaysville . It was so fun to visit. I feel lucky to have married into such an awesome family.

Here is Lucy enjoying a siesta on Grandma MaryAnn's lap.

Our niece Heidi...the little ones enjoyed hiding in the entry table cabinet.

Lucy, awake, playing with her cousin Valerie.

Just visiting.

Our dam lesson

Yesterday, Vera came over to visit. Our kids were so excited, they love when Aunt Vera comes over because she always brings fun activities with her. Well she didn't let them down this time. She brought a little canal which she made out of styrofoam and some colored water. She showed the kids how the water stops progressing when there is something in the way like a dam. She made some little dams out of styrofoam and each of the kids were able to take a dam out so that the water could continue on down the canal. You can tell that she has had many years of experience in being a primary teacher because our kids listened amazingly well. She told them of how we can remove the dams in our lives by repenting and being good. Then she showed them how we can progress to be a celestial person and family when all of the dams are gone. Thanks for the fun activity and bonus lesson Vera! Our kids always listen better when it comes out of your mouth.

Thanks Vera...

For the craft you brought over Sunday night, it made such a fun activity for tonight! Our kids are so lucky to have an aunt like you!

"Life is what happens in-between the pictures"

I heard this quote about six years ago while watching a movie. I don't remember the name of the movie, but I do remember that I thought the quote was quite profound. The reason I bring this up is because we didn't get any Easter pictures this year. We spent Easter at my mom's house in Bancroft, Idaho, and we forgot to bring extra batteries for the camera. If we did take pictures, this is what they would have been:

Picture #1--Making Jello eggs with my mom. This is a tradition that we had while growing up. We have been lucky enough to be with my mom for the past 3 years, so I am not sure if my children remember an Easter without Jello Eggs. She is a die-hard Jello egg maker, no plastic egg molds for her. She uses real egg shells which she painstakingly removes the contents through a little hole cracked out of the top.

Picture #2--Coloring eggs around the kitchen table. Maddie colored half of them because she was so speedy. She also doesn't know what it means to lower an egg gently into the dye, as a result half of them were cracked by the time we were finished.

Picture #3--Cramming all six of us onto her little living room floor and couches to sleep. 5 of us in our sleeping bags and Lucy in her portacrib.

Picture #4--After thinking everybody was sound asleep; sneaking the Easter baskets through the living room across a squeaky floor into a back room to be filled, only to be surprised by Hannah's eyes popping open just at the right second. I froze like a deer in the headlights, and the only thing I could think to say was "I'm just going to move these for a minute, I'll put them right back."

Picture #5--Johnny waking up on Easter morning and spotting the first plastic filled Easter egg. The first words out of his mouth were "I think I'm seeing things." He got a head start in finding them because Hannah took a while to wake up (this is the girl who is convinced she never sleeps, she only rests her eyes.) They had so much fun searching for eggs, my mom had a lot of interesting places to hide them after years and years of acquiring little nick-knacks.

Picture #6--Hannah, Johnny and Madeline with their Easter umbrellas, we did umbrellas this year instead of Sunday clothes because they have been wanting umbrellas forever and they have plenty of Sunday clothes. They have come in very handy so far.

Picture #7--Going to stake conference with my mom and sitting on a dark stage in fold-up chairs. After 5 trips out with wiggly Lucy who was determined to crawl off the stage, three trips to the potty, and a full container of cheerios flung on the people behind us, Hannah decided that Stake Conference was probably about 9 hours long.

This was an Easter to remember, and once the exhaustion wore off, I realized that these are memories I will cherish forever. Thanks mom, for taking us in for the weekend and making it that much sweeter.

Wow, an H-bomb!

Last month my brother, Russell, gave me a copy of my dad's personal history. It is so interesting to read. As I was reading it last night, I was struck by some of his experiences while he was in the Navy. I just have to share this part of his history because I am pretty sure none of us has ever witnessed an H-bomb. This is what it is like:

(in my dad's words)

"I went on board ship in December 1951. As soon as the ship got out of dry dock we started getting ready to go to Marshall Islands. No one knew exactly what for, but rumor was we were going to a big test of some sort. We were there for 3 months. The ship took 2 weeks to get there and 2 weeks to return. We had 3 destroyers and one anti submarine screen escorting us. We had about 20 or 30 technicians and a half dozen scientists on board who were involved in that test. When we got there we discovered they were going to test the first H-bomb on one of the islands. When they had the test I was one of those that got to see it. It was the most awe-inspiring and terrifying spectacle I have ever witnessed. We were more than 25 miles away from it and it still looked like we were too close for comfort. Since I didn't have special glasses that I could wear to watch the blast (only VIP's and officers got those) all [of us] enlisted men stood with our backs towards the blast and buried our faces in our arms. Still the flash was so intense--so bright--that everything went white. With the flash from an H-bomb you don't need to be looking at the flash, just having your eyes open is enough. After the flash we were told to turn around and we could see the fire ball and mushroom from it as it went up. We could see palm trees, water and dirt from the island falling out of the mushroom. I'd have been scared if I'd had time to think about it. Several minutes after the blast itself, while the mushroom was going up, we heard the sound--a loud rumble and a strong rush of air like a sudden breeze...."

These are the two tests that he witnessed:

Operation Ivy in 1952

And Operation Castle in 1954

I am so amazed that he lived for another 26 years after witnessing these tests, what a blessing that is.

Out on the town

I didn't have a chance to post our girls (and children's) night on the town, when my mom and sister came to visit. We had such a wonderful time together. We decided to spend our Friday at the Gateway mall. Of course the first place we had to go was the fountain, where our kids proceeded to run around and get wet.




After they were sufficiently soaked, we noticed a bunch of tables set up for kids to paint and decorate their own pumpkins. When we went over to check it out, the man in charge asked us if we wanted to sign up for the Foster Child program here in Utah. I told him that I seriously don't think I could handle one more child, but could we decorate pumpkins anyway? The kids had a blast decorating their pumpkins and they turned out super cute. The only problem was that we still had a full day at the mall ahead of us and only a stroller to transport 30 pounds of pumpkin (why do I never think of things like this ahead of time?) We decided to ditch them by the elevator temporarily while we went to the Planitarium and ate dinner. Luckily, nobody was interested in taking them--I can't imagine why.



We had each of the kids transport their own pumpkins home. In the end we were all very tired, but we sure had fun.

Happy 70th Mom

My mom celebrated her 70th birthday last week!




I remember her telling me once that she is not ashamed of her age, her gray hairs or her wrinkles--she earned every single one of them. I am starting to understand what she means by that (thanks mom!)




She came to visit this weekend with my sister and her children, so we made her trademark gumdrop rose cake, though my roses didn't look nearly as beautiful as the roses that she would put on our birthday cakes. She is the expert. Doesn't she look cute in the birthday hat my niece made for her.





I think that my mom looks great for surviving 11 very active children, 8 of them still living at home when our dad died of cancer. I don't know how you did it mom.





We sure love you!

(B.T.W. see the littlest one with the teddy bear, that's me. I can't believe how much of a resemblance there is between Maddie and I.)