50 Years

50 years ago my parents got married.  June 18, 1964.  They had a double wedding with my Aunt Carol.  When I was a kid there was a cute white book with all these wedding pictures inside and I loved looking at their wedding day.  I love how young and happy they are.  I love my tall, skinny dad with his full head of hair and glasses.  I love everything about this special day.  My parent's are an amazing example of love and family and what is most important in life.  Even 50 years later these two have so much fun together and work side by side and love the same stuff and are still visibly in love.  I am so grateful to be their daughter and I am so grateful to live so close to them so I can learn from their example on how to be a good wife and parent.  These two really do know what's up.  Today when Sophie saw the picture she couldn't get over how young my mom was and she said "she is so beautiful"  then followed it up with "I hope you and daddy are married for 50 years someday".  I hope so too bug .... 50 years and many more after that.  

 My mom, Aunt Carol and Aunt Danna with Julie as the flower girl

My dad and his brother Ron with Rick (the youngest)

Uncle Ron and Dad

My 2 beautiful aunts - Carol and Danna

Mom and cousin Julie

Mom and  cousin Rick

Mom and her maid of honor and best friend Linda

Beautiful Mom

They could be twins

Grandpa Giboney with his girls

Grandma and Grandpa Schultz with my parents

Grandma and Granpa Giboney with their girls
(I love that Carol and grandma have the same look on their faces)

Father's Day

Today I am grateful to celebrate what an amazing father I have and what an amazing father my kids have.  My kids are so lucky to have Todd as their dad.  He loves them so much.  Todd is willing to do anything for our family and is the rock that hold us together.  When things get crazy he is steady.  He is so much fun and loves to play with the kids.  He loves the garden and anytime I can't find him he's out doing work to make the garden even better.  He is always willing to go along with any crazy thing I come up with.  We throw parties and play just dance - and he is right in the middle of it all never complaining.

I am also so very grateful for the dad I grew up with.  Today in church they had us go around the room and say one thing about our fathers.  It was so hard for me to pick one thing for my dad. I ended up chosing his unconditional love.  He is the perfect example of loving people more than anything else.  He loves his family and puts family before everything else.  Things never matter as much as people to him.  He loves without judging and has taught me so much about love.  I am so grateful for his example and that I get to be his daughter.

Indexing

Last month in Ward Conference our Stake President challenged each family to learn to do indexing and to do 100 names a month.  So for FHE last night my dad came over and got our computers all set up and taught us what indexing is and how to do it.  Tayson, Luke and Claire each got a chance to do a few names.  We have now officially done 14 names....only 86 to go!

Father's Day

My kids are pretty darn lucky to have Todd as their dad.  He is amazing and takes very good care of us.  This year he had to fly out to Jackson early in the morning (he left the house around 5:00 am) so we didn't really get to celebrate the day with him.  But really maybe it's more relaxing to be hanging out at the airport and hotel anyway - just kidding.   

This is one of my favorite pictures of the early days of fatherhood. We got baptism by fire with Tayson so patience and hard work being part of parenting came on fast.  Rather than give up computer time Todd just learned how to play while bouncing on the exercise ball with Tayson in his arms. 

And I am pretty dang lucky that I have an amazing dad.  This is my all-time favorite picture of me and my dad.  I posted this on Instagram saying "Happy Father's Day to my dad!  He's the reason I hate fish.  Love you dad!"  And it's all true I really do hate fish and swimming in open water for the fear of fish. 

Since Todd wasn't home to help the boys with their ties my dad helped them when we got to church.  I had to snap a pic because I thought it was very cute.  I love living so close to my parents.

I got to make and host Father's day dinner too - so I made 5 pans of enchiladas.  4 different kids:  red, white, green and roasted veggie.  They were SOOOO GOOD!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Guess who turned 71?  Yep this fun old man.  Oh how I love my daddy!  

Grandpa Pearson's Temple Work

We had the opportunity to do Grandpa Pearson's temple work this month. Todd did the baptism &  confirmation one day.  Then he and I went to the Provo Temple to do the initiatory and endowment.  Then when we were all in California we went to the Newport Temple for his sealings.  He was sealed to his parents, then to Grandma then Jan was sealed to both of them.  It was such an amazing experience to be a part of.  The spirit was so strong.  I am so grateful for my testimony of eternal families.

Goodbye to Grandpa

Todd's grandpa passed away on 10/10/10 and this past weekend Todd and I were able to drive up to Idaho for his funeral. I have only known grandpa for 11 years but I will miss him terribly. I am so grateful that we have been able to spend so much time with him. My kids adore him and he always made a big effort to come down to see them and was so generous with them. They never went a birthday or Christmas without being spoiled by grandpa. And he made a special trip to come to each of their baby blessings. I will miss grandpa's laugh the most - oh how I love his loud HA! My first Olympic Triathlon happened to be in Burley Idaho and Todd and I had only been married a year and grandpa was there cheering me on at the end. For the last 11 years we have been up to the "birthdays" almost every year - our kids love going to see grandpa in Idaho because they get to play croquet. Now that he is gone I am even more grateful for all the years we made the trip with little crying kids. It was worth it.

Jan, Todd, Sophie and Grandpa
August 2008

Grandpa with all 8 great-grandkids
July 2010

Grandpa w/Claire
June 2006

I have more pictures I want to add....but they aren't on this computer.

Great-Grandpa Pearson

Great-Grandpa with his 8 great-grand kids

Emma, Wyatt, Carson, Owen, Grandpa Pearson, Tayson, Luke, Claire & Sophie

Grandpa with his kids

Mark, Milo, Mel, Jan and Grandpa

Grandpa with his sister and brother

Milo (grandpa), Dorlene & Lyle

I sure do love this man. I've only been a part of his family for 10 years and I absolutely love him. My kids absolutely adore him and we have been so lucky to spend lots of time with him over the years. He really is a "great" grandpa!

We love you grandpa!!!

The Music Box

A long time ago (1984 to be exact) I got one of my favorite Christmas presents ever. My Grandpa Giboney made all 4 girls music boxes. Mine plays Edelweiss - I love that song so much. When I was getting ready Tayson asked me if he could see my music box. I keep it up on the shelf in my room. I pulled it down and told the kids how special it is to me and that they had to be VERY careful with it. A minute later I looked over and saw all 4 of them listening to it. It made me so happy! I think Grandpa would be happy seeing the next generation appreciating something he made with his own hands.

Flashback Friday

Let's go back to 1979

Our house

I had to put this picture in the flashback...I do NOT remember the house ever looking like this without all the huge trees in the front.
A few comments about the picture:
I love Grandpa's motor home in the shot and if you look behind it to the right you'll see a big red barrel. I have no idea where these came from but we used to play on them all the time. We would do balancing acts like log rolling around the backyard.

The Kids in front of the motor home

Sherry, David, Me, Danny, Heidi, Steve and George

Family Picture Time

Mom, George, Steve, Dad, Sherry
Me, Danny, Heidi and David

Funny comments about this picture:
Heidi's underwear is falling down and you can see it below her dress.
I love the macrame owl on the side of the house - that was there for years and years. I'm not sure if Mom made that one or George - he was quite the expert at macrame :)

Flashback Friday - Thanksgiving

I don't have a lot of childhood memories of Thanksgiving. We never really went anywhere because we lived too far away to go anywhere for a weekend. I spent almost every Thanksgiving when I was at BYU in Provo or at my roomies houses. But then when my parents moved out to Utah everything changed with the holiday. It is now my favorite of all the holidays.

What's not to like? 2 days off work, family, lots of food, and no presents to be bought. I LOVE it. The best part of the holiday for me is that it's one of the few times my entire family gets together.

For several years we went up to Spokane to my grandpa's house. The funniest part is that we would NEVER leave the house and all the girls go stir crazy. The boys would all bring their computers and set them up in grandpa's basement and play games all night long.

Some of our family traditions are: all night game nights (as many as the boys can get away with), family volleyball, shopping or a movie for Emily's b-day, and now the turkey trot (hopefully we can make this one a tradition - last year was soooo much fun!)

Thanksgiving 2002

Grandma Giboney, My Mom, Tayson and I

Grandpa Schultz, My dad, Tayson and I (and Daisy)

Emma and Tayson
On Grandpa's sweet couch/Mark's bed

Tayson and Adam

asleep in their car seats at the airport waiting for our flight to Spokane


Thanksgiving 2003

We had to eat at the "kids" table.

Todd, Chris, Heidi, Lexie, Tayson and I

Tayson and Daisy

Daisy was Grandpa's dog and she was the ugliest dog ever! Her eyes bulged, she could only walk forward so she would get stuck in corners, she was losing her teeth, once she pooped in the hall and I stepped in at 2:00 AM (not funny), but I miss Daisy because she reminds me of Grandpa and I REALLY miss him!

My cousin Theresa and I

We were in charge of making the gravy every year.