17 Years and Counting...

Hello!

Well, Frank's parents have been visiting for a few days. They'll be here all this week, then Saturday we all drive south for a Whitesell family reunion.

Yesterday Frank and I celebrated 17 years of being married! We went to the temple, just like we did in 1992.

(Washington D.C. Temple), (Boston Temple)

Then dinner and a movie, and Teresa made a great treat cake for us and left it out for when we got home. We saved it until today because who can eat a big dessert at 11:30 at night?

Happy Week!

New Word for the Week

Hello!

Let's see, the word for the week is RAIN, RAIN, RAIN!

No WONDER this place is so GREEN! Ha.

(The humidity makes your hair absolutely beautiful, too, as I'm sure you can imagine...)

Last week we visited the Hangens, just about 20 minutes from here. Frank attended high school with Tona, and their family lives in Stow. They raise turkeys every summer, get them nice and fat and then they become 24 families' Thanksgiving dinners come November.

Believe it or not, you can order baby turkeys, and they send them via the U.S. Postal Service. I'm not kidding! They put them in a little box all together to keep each other warm, and they arrive at the post office, a box of 24 turkey "poults." Did you know that word? I just looked it up. A baby turkey is called a "poult."

Tona said they are SOOOooooooo cute when they arrive, but they grow pretty fast, so the cutest time is in the first week or two. So, I asked Tona to tell us when the turkey poults arrived. The post office called them and said, "Come get your birds!" Because all those turkey poults are kind of loud and irritating to the post office staff. (And you know how you do NOT want to irritate a postal worker...could get messy.)

We went to see them when they were about 5 days old. Very cute! Here are the girls setting up an obstacle course for them.

And here is Frank holding a tiny one, and the box where they all stay together for the first couple of weeks:

Awwwww...aren't they adorable?

Have a great week!

Vacation time in Arizona

Well, I was visiting Mom in AZ last week--what a very fun time.

We started with a trip to Arizona for just Frank and I...my sister Kim got married in the Snowflake Arizona Temple last Saturday, and that was a happy day.

Then, Frank returned to brave the Real World as both mom and dad in our family for the week, while I stayed to play with my mom.

One night was a comedy show at a local theater, it was pretty funny. It was called "Harlie's Angels," a spoof of Charlie's Angels, you remember with Farah Fawcett and the others in the 70's. Every time one of them would say "We're Harlie's Angels," they would strike the pose of the silouhette, you know how one stands sideways with her hands posed to karate-chop someone, the right one has a gun pointing...

Another night was horseback riding, I'll have to get the photos out of Mom's camera. A far cry from my friend Marilee's horse experiences in

Canada right now, but it was beautiful scenery riding up the canyon, and cool temps with a breeze. (Notice the color-coordinated shirts...we didn't want to get lost, of course. kidding :) )

Can't say I could sleep in, since they don't do Daylight Savings Time in AZ...the sun gets up before 5 a.m.! But I took early cool walks in the sunshine, and temps later in the day were perfect: 85 degrees.

The electricity went out one evening so we took the golf cart around the neighborhood and golf courses. I counted rabbits. 93 of them-- also a deer.

Now I'm back, and I'm supposed to hit the ground running. Wow, at 6 a.m. my body still thinks it's 3 a.m. Why are my eyes not opening, again?

(It is SOOOOOOOOOOO hard to get back to work after a vacation...)

I appreciate sunshine, warm temps, and states that actually have summer. Plus Mom's house is so neat and tidy. An elusive goal I've always had.

Well, time to grocery shop, get gas, try to find the floor and countertops in my not-so-tidy place! Have a great week!

More School and a Hiking Day

Hola!

Here's a quick update before Kathi & her family come to the house this evening! They flew from Albuquerque Wednesday, and drove to Maine to see the lighthouses. She said today is Plymouth and the Mayflower, then they'll come here, until next Wednesday.

Such fun to have visitors! How is it that we are still in school and they are not??!?

It's called "living in New England." Start school after Labor Day, get 2 full weeks off in December, and 2 full weeks off in the spring. Throw in a couple of snow days, and you go to school ALMOST TO THE END OF JUNE. Wow. New concept.

Oh, but here's another new concept I learned about today, after 2 friends talked about their "last day is next Friday" or they're "done except for finals." I know they attend private schools. But how does that work, given they have the same length of winter & spring breaks as we do in public schools?

"Private schools do not have to attend school 180 days." Wow. Really? So, ALL I HAVE TO DO is put my kids in private school for $25K a year each (this would be my 3rd grader, 6th grader and 8th grader)--for $75,000 a year, we too, can be finished with school the first week of June.

(Um, yeah...I'll have to look into that...)

But UNTIL then, we'll just have to suck it up and endure, while our cousins from the WEST rub in the fact that they are out of school for the summer.

Happy Memorial Day last Monday! We enjoyed a family favorite...hiking, this time we drove 45 minutes away to "Purgatory Chasm." It does sound daunting, doesn't it? It was a beautiful day, couldn't have asked for better weather. Cool and sunny. Just glorious. Frank's cousin Amelia met us there. Frank and the kids found holes in the rocks to wriggle into...they were pretty excited about that!

My greatest adventures come above the ground or under water (scuba diving), thank you very much. None of this I-can't-see-what's-in-there-and-the-opening-is-too-small-for-me-but-I'll-wriggle-in-and-get-myself-stuck-anyway business. I get claustrophobic just watching them twist and squirm their way in.

Well, off to the grocery store!

Have a great weekend! Kari

David in D.C.

Hello!

Awhile back I talked about David earning and saving money for his 8th grade Washington D.C. trip. He painted our doors as one of his jobs.

He went during the 3rd week in April, I believe, and they really packed in the activities. They went to the Arlington Cemetery, Iwo Jima Memorial, WWII Memorial, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, the Holocaust Museum, the Capitol building, Supreme Court, Smithsonian...the list goes on!

They had weeks and months during the school year to study the meaning of JUSTICE in the United States. (Note: you can click on any of these photos to enlarge.)

One cool and unique thing he got to do was participate in laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Just 4 students participated in this ceremony. David put on his Scout Uniform for it, and 2 uniformed guards walked through it with them.

Here is a page I made for David's book: blue paper by Trish Yochum http://store.scrapgirls.com/product/10449/Campfire-Collection folded frame2 by Gunhild Storeide http://www.storeide.se/gunhild/index.htm

David was one of many "Trip Photographers." He took lots of photos, for himself and for the school slide show, but of course he was not IN any of those pictures.

One major assignment after the trip was to write about it, gather photos, and make a portfolio of the D.C. Trip. Last week was "D.C. Night," with student speakers, portfolio viewing and a slide show put to music. The slide show photos were available online, so I went to the site and downloaded the ones with David in them. Now we have proof that he went!

Overall, I think it was a really good experience--there were powerful moments for everyone who went.

I hope it made them just a little thankful for the people who have sacrificed to preserve our country and allow us the privileges we enjoy here.

Have a great week!

Happy Mother's Day to You

Hello and Happy Mother's Day!

I walked downstairs this morning to a homemade poster, beautifully designed by my baby Kara (she's 9...although I still tell everyone she's 6, don't ask me why...)

My glorious morning included a special-request breakfast of Eggs Benedict, one of my very favorites. I forgot to get a picture of it before it disappeared, so here's an Internet photo (it looked JUST like this):

We never have done the "breakfast in bed" thing...I'm afraid once I'm up, I'm up, and I'm a little too antsy to STAY in bed! So, we all ate my breakfast request...at the table.

I received fun cards from the kids, and got a yummy pastry at the end of church. Teresa and Kara picked some flowers from the yard for our table decoration.

Right now I'm typing after Frank shooed me out of the kitchen...he's making (gasp) BANANA CREAM PIE before he starts dinner! (Who needs Marie Calendar when we have Frank?)

The someone-else-makes-the-food part of the day is really my highlight.

Happy Mom's Day to my awesome mom, and my exceptional Grandma! (If I live to be 98, I want to be JUST LIKE YOU, and I'm not even kidding. I think I will be a taller 98-year-old, though. That part's out of my control. :) )

Have a great day and week!

Daily STUFF

Hello!

Well, it has certainly been a week! Nothing spectacular, just a lot of STUFF...

David had his first track meet--he ran the 1600 meter and jumped the long jump. Yeah, David! (OK, so this is an old photo, from last fall X-country...pretend he's running on a track instead: it looks very similar...)

I attended the Middle School parent meeting to be informed of the class choices for Teresa next year in 7th grade. Latin seems to be her language of choice for next year. (She'd be too bored in Spanish I...) Also, now that she's been taking flute lessons for this school year, she can be in Band next year.

I am still attempting to organize the garage, but I am finding it to be a torturous, miserable, losing battle...any ideas of how YOU fit too much stuff into limited space, will be greatly appreciated! I am SOOO listening.

The Boston Celtics won last night's NBA playoff game--game 7 against the Chicago Bulls...WOW! What a series!!!!! So many overtimes and having to play 7 games. We did not attend any games, of course, but if you're going to pay a bazillion dollars for playoff tickets, THAT is the kind of game you want to attend! Nail-biting action to the very end.

And brace appointments...David has a curve in his spine--scoliosis, I may have mentioned that before. 2 years ago, they took xrays and said we should "watch it," to see if it stayed the same or got worse as he grew. These most recent xrays showed that it has, indeed, gotten worse.

So now he wears a brace every day, about 3/4 of the time. He takes it off for sports. With regular clothes on, you can't tell he's wearing it. Of course there are no guarantees with a brace. But the idea is to "force" a correction while he's wearing it, and as he grows his back will grow less curved, not more curved.

It was kind of an amazing process to make the brace--like out of Star Trek or something! They hooked him up to a computer monitor, and then "scanned" his torso, with a scanner, like they were painting his body. Each swipe of the scanner put one more 3D vertical "stripe" on the computer screen, of that part of his body. This brace is exactly fitted to only him. Here's an online picture of one, it's pretty accurate.

Well, I can't believe the weekend is over-- They seem to fly by. Have a great week! Love, Kari