Our Mission Call Arrives! - Aug. 5 - Opened Aug. 12

We waited months and months to submit our mission papers because of the problems Ned had after his lasik eye surgery. Once the papers went in, we expected our call to arrive in two weeks like the young missionaries. But alas, seniors slow down and so do their calls . . . most arriving in 4-5 weeks after submission (according to two local stake presidents). So our timing to open our call together got really messed up. Ned left on Tuesday, August 4 for a long-planned backpack trip into the high Uinta's with Jennica, Daxen (two oldest grandchildren) and his brothers and their wives. The following day I flew to Virginia to help Katie with her new baby daughter, Natalie Kate. Our mission call arrived the morning I was leaving for Virginia for two weeks and one day after Ned left on the backpack trip (it arrived August 5 -- exactly 4 weeks after submission). So I packed the big white envelope into my luggage and transported it to Virginia and it stayed unopened and didn't leave my suitcase for eight days. After the backpack trip, Ned already had a ticket to fly to Virginia for the last week of my stay to see the new baby. When he joined me there, we finally opened our call together in Virginia on August 12 with Kara and Dave and Katie and Mike's families. Mike arranged for our other scattered children and my mom to join us online or in a conference call so that all could be a part of the excitement. It was a momentous night for us filled with surprise (what is a records preservation mission?), glee (we get to go to Scotland!), commotion (eight of our sixteen grandchildren joining in the excitement), and plenty of phone calls and emails to family and friends.

We requested nothing on our mission papers and indicated we would go anywhere and do anything the Lord asked us to do. We will now prepare to do that with enthusiasm and gusto!

And I thought I was SO smart!

I just discovered that my skating videos below became just pictures on the blog. And I thought I was so smart and had figured out ON MY OWN how to get a video clip onto our blog. But not to be and the videos were so good. One of my techy family members is going to have to teach me that trick and I'll do what I do for every computer process . . . write every step down in detail and save the instructions in my computer how-to file so that I can do it again when I need to. I don't ever really learn anything on the computer (which is why I can't bail myself out of the messes I get myself into), I just follow the steps someone teaches me and push buttons. And as much as I love what a computer can do for me, it's lucky to still be alive because of the number of times I've wanted to beat it with a ball bat when I couldn't get it to do what I wanted it to!

Ice Skating in the heat of the summer!

One last memory to record of our August trip to Virginia was an afternoon of ice skating with the four older grandchildren. Pregnant Kara, Grandpa and Grandma, along with Brooke, Megan, Nate and Jessica all did well hiding from the DC heat in the cool of the ice rink. The three oldest were amazingly independent on the ice and Jessica made rapid progress while we were there. That meant that Grandma and Grandpa just had to keep themselves standing upright and help with Jessica a bit.



Somehow Grandpa didn't get a video of Nate on the ice and this picture is terrible but Nate would never forgive us if we didn't put it in so that everyone can see the jumps he could make on his skates.
Below are three short videos of the girls skating. None of the kids have spent much time on the ice so we thought they did super!

Puzzles, Trains and Legos - the Best Toys

One morning we did twenty puzzles with Jessica and then pretended we were visiting a puzzle museum. Could there be anything better than spending a morning doing puzzles with a six-year-old granddaughter?

And when we got back to Katie's, Grandpa did puzzles, trains and legos with 3-year-old Evan.

Nate (nearly nine) is into legos in a BIG way and can create the most amazing things. His passion at the moment is to make space vehicles and it isn't hard to go back in time and remember his Uncle Paul and Uncle Ben and all of their Lego years. The best toy!

Ford Theatre Tour in DC

Katie says that whenever she and Kara go anywhere together, they are like a tribe now that they both have four children. And people have no idea that Kara is pregnant and soon to contribute another one to their numbers by January. Our trip into the city with just Kara's kids didn't feel like a tribe, but three adults keeping track of four kids was challenging enough for us in the crowds. It was such a fun day and Ford Theatre is a "must-do" in our list of DC favorites. It was so well done and informative and we were glad that their remodelling is done so that we could finally see where Lincoln was shot and killed.


On the street in front of the Old Post Office -- a great place to go up top and see the Mall and other Washington DC sights.

This is Ford Theatre and the guy in the ball cap in front is Ned.



The red brick house in the background is the home that Lincoln was taken to after he was shot and where he died the following morning. The house is just across the street from the theater where John Wilkes Booth shot the President.

Smithsonian National Museum of American History in DC

When Ned and I left Katie and Mike's home to spend a couple of days with Kara and Dave's family, we took the metro into DC and spent an afternoon in the American History Museum. It was especially fun to watch Kara's kids enjoy the hands-on learning area and we barely scratched the surface of all there is to see there in the time we had. What a wonderful national treasure the Smithsonians are!



Nate, Caleb, Seth and Grandpa on the DC Metro.



The kids were really good and thoroughly enjoyed the museum.



Nate got to try windsurfing on dry ground. We all wished we could have seen Uncle Dan do a demo!

Sending balls down the kitchen utensil obstable course. This alone could have entertained all of the kids for hours!

Cousins in Virginia - Aug. 5-18, 2009

Once Katie moved to Virginia in June, she and Kara and their eight kids total (four each with Natalie's birth) have kept the road hot between their two homes, and when Katie and Mike move into the home they just bought, our girls will be even closer (20 minutes apart). Both are looking forward to spending less time in the car between houses after the move over Labor Day weekend! We spent most of our time at Katie's on this visit to help her with her new baby, but went down to Kara's for a few days to enjoy her family too.



These three together can be like dynamite ready to explode! And sometimes it does!
Left to right: Seth (2 yrs.-Kara's), Caleb (4 yrs.-Kara's) and Evan (3 yrs.-Katie's).
Chocolate popsicles required shirt removal for Seth and Evan!!

Aunt Kara has taught all the DC cousins science lessons and experiments throughout the summer (Katie taught them Spanish lessons). While I was there, we made our own auger for petri dishes (smelly), learned about good and bad bacteria and then took cultures from different places to see what they would grow. We had cultures from the kitchen sink, toilet seat, computer keyboard, TV remote, the kids fingernails and feet and the insides of our mouths. The least bacteria grew from the toilet seat (almost none) and the winners for yucky growths after a week were the TV remote, kitchen sink, and feet and fingernails. Pretty disgusting.

Grandpa is great help on the playground for all the kids. Here he helps Caleb cross the bars.

Sunday dinner at Kara and Dave's! They put on quite a spread for us and we all indulged! There is so much yummy fresh produce this time of year. The best time of year for eating!

Welcoming Natalie Kate in Virginia - Aug 6, 2009

Here she is . . . the newest beauty in the family! Natalie was born August 6, 2009 weighing in at 7 pounds 10 ounces and 20 inches long. I flew in at midnight the night before she was born and was invited to witness her birth the next day just after noon. It was an amazing experience! I had six of my own but watching a birth was totally different than giving birth, especially in my day. Katie was made to have babies and her delivery and labor were textbook perfect . . . no stitches, short, and relatively pain-free with the epidural. Oh it's a wonderful medical age we live in! Natalie has light hair and plenty of it. She is going to be as white blond as Brooke, Megan and Evan were and just as pretty. She's a beautiful baby and sleeping in six hour stretches by the third night at home. She was very easy on Grandma and we only had one early morning stretch when she woke all three of the other kids up and we held a "party" in my bedroom trying to keep the baby and other kids quiet so mom could sleep. Grandchild number 16 for us -- eight and eight. Pretty lucky, huh? And she has a new cousin in the Tucson area, Audrey, who is just seven weeks older than her who we hope will be her close friend.



Natalie Kate - one week old in Virginia

Grandma dressing Natalie at Aunt Kara's house in Fairfax, VA.

We finally get two-for-one with both daughters living close to each other in Virginia. Cousins to play together, one visit to see both families, husbands who were former mission companions and good friends, and daughters who have always been close and can help each other. Plus a beautiful, wonderful area to live in near DC. Could it be any better?

Natalie isn't always happy (but isn't she cute even when she cries?), and if she needs attention, she has two big sisters who both want to hold her constantly. Brooke and Megan are a huge help for Katie!

Granddaddy Backpack Trip Aug 2009

[Ned] For four days in early August, Dave and Trudy, Mike, Shauna, and "Sherpa" Megan, and Daxen, Jennica and I backpacked into Granddaddy Lake in the High Uinta Mountains. Everything we wanted for food, shelter and protection from the elements was on our backs. Jennica and Daxen carried a little over thirty pounds each and Grandpa was at forty pounds. Sherpa and the kids did great and were always the first ones up the trail! Oh to be young again!




Stopping for a rest at the pass before dropping into the Granddaddy basin. Looks like we needed that rest, the packs were getting heavier! West Granddaddy in the background.

Dealing with a spot of weather. Actually this is just a break between a rain and a hail storm. We had plenty of rain.

Smiles at a little salamander lake we found on the last day. Jennica and Daxen are truly best friends!

Jenn and I on the trail with Granddaddy in the background. Granddaddy is the largest natural lake in the Uinta's. It was a great trip!

Quick trip to Tucson to see little Audrey

Audrey - 6 weeks old and plenty of smiles!

We took advantage of cheap weekend airfares to Phoenix and made a very quick trip to see Dan and Autumn's new little daughter, Audrey, who was six weeks old before we saw or held her. Painful! She is such a cutie and had just started smiling before we got there and gave great big smiles often by the time we left. She's a good baby and loves to be held and talked to and will listen so intently to everything you say and then reward you with a big smile. She looks the most like Autumn at this age and has her coloring, but there is still some look of Dan in the roundness of her face and something in her expressions. She is definitely a keeper and a pretty baby! Her wardrobe is massive, thanks to so many good friends and family and she will be fashionably dressed for months and months to come. What fun to have a girl and lots of darling clothes to dress her in.

Sorry Autumn. Our only picture of you. What a great mom!

Audrey's trip to the hospital last week for a couple of days to determine the cause of the sudden appearance of blood in her spit-up and stools was a bit scary, but the doctors could find nothing wrong after all their testing, the bleeding has stopped, and Audrey seems perfectly fine. We are all cautiously optimistic that it was some unexplained one-time issue that will never happen again.

I think I've got a great dad too!

Ned and I did nothing but hold the baby and visit with Dan and Autumn the two short days we were there, go to church (Dan happened to be made the new YM's president on Sunday), and appreciate their cool house. It's blistering hot in Sahuarita at this time of year . . . day and night so you don't choose to go out or do much outdoors. They have a nice, big, comfortable home, a good ward, a good job (that Autumn tells us Dan is doing really well at - we would never hear anything like that from Dan himself!), and plenty of good friends there. Life is good for the Iversons in the Tucson area and we were so happy to spend some time with them.

Grandpa and Grandma spent our whole visit holding her.