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Friday, January 3, 2025

Grateful Friday

 This post will be easy to write because I have a lot to be grateful for today.

I am grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I was talking to Olivia yesterday (the sister one) and we were talking about all the twists and turns life takes and the future twists and turns it will take as we move along this mortal journey and it is a comfort to know that I will always have the Atonement of Jesus Christ to strengthen me.  It's the most durable and secure safety net I know.

I am grateful for the Come Follow Me program.  I have studied the scriptures more meaningfully in the past four years than before that time and I look forward to a new year.

I am grateful for family.  

I have loved researching my family over the past few days.  I get kind of obsessed.  I am grateful for people that took records and wrote stories and made these people seem real.  I'm grateful for the sacrifices they made to place me where I am. 

I have loved being here with family.  Spending time with everyone fills me up.  I have loved taking walks, playing games and visiting.

We're going back to Pleasant Grove today and I'm grateful we've been able to spend a little time here.  I feel a little melancholy about the Christmas break ending, but I'm grateful that I really do like my life when it's not a break too.  I am looking forward to seeing my students little faces again.

I'm grateful for Adam.  We spent a little time here doing the homework our financial planner gave us (we finally decided we should be grown ups and figure out what we're doing).  We have talked about when we want to retire (we have no idea) and what we want to do and where we want to live (some idea, but not concrete ideas).  What I know though is that if I'm with him, it will be a good time.

I talked to Braeden on the phone yesterday and I told him that our future is in hands because I don't ever want to live too far away from QE if I can help it.

Thursday, January 2, 2025

Resolutions (just...small...ones)

 Last night I told my uncle Brad and aunt Olivia that I need to learn Danish and Swedish by June.  No big deal....

I spent time yesterday afternoon online researching the geography of our family histories in Denmark and Sweden.  Adam and I are planning a trip there this summer.

Adam's grandma came to America at age 5 from Denmark.  His faithful great grandparents joined the church and went to Utah.  Someone took this picture of them in New York and it was apparently in U.S. history textbooks across the United States for a time.

Adam's grandma is the one looking to the side.  The littlest boy was named Fred Hulse after the missionary who taught them.

I am looking into where they are from in Denmark and I want to go see it.  I am looking at records and signs and addresses in Danish and the more I look, the less Danish I know.

I love looking at pictures of them.  I especially feel an affinity with Adam's great grandma Karoline Lang Simonsen.  I don't know why.  Every picture of her that I see, I just want to be friends with her.

I found this picture and I love it.  Adam's aunt Jeri was very close to her grandma Simonsen and told me once that her grandparents' house and their faithfulness was a refuge for her.  This is a picture of Karoline and Jeri and I just love how playful it is.


Karoline looks like someone you wouldn't want to mess with.

She is also on the verge of a big smile in every picture I have seen of her.


I found this on Family Search.  "Far" is Simon Simonsen, who is pictured above.


I wonder if it should say christened rather than confirmed because it is a Lutheran church?  Then I found this with a google search:


I want to comb the surrounding cemetery and find the graves.

So far I have looked into one of my Swedish ancestors, Ellen Jorgensen Dahl.  I found the church on google maps in the town where she was christened according to Family Search.



I looked at the records of that specific church which go to 1846 (and are not indexed into English).  She was christened in 1842 and it took me awhile, because I had to learn the Swedish word for birth.

But I found it!  It is for Elna (Ellen)!


It is March 13 and if you squint you can see her parents: Soren Joransonn on the first line and Karna Nilsdotter on the second line.

This kind of stuff is very exciting to me!

So, you know, two smallish New Years resolutions:  learn two new languages.

We started the new year right with the ladies holiday brunch at Olivia's.  It is a highlight of my life.  We laughed and cried and ate delicious food.  Clarissa said it is like girls camp.  Yes, except the food is better and we don't have to sleep outside.

And we have indoor plumbing.

I love those women!  We played after the manner of the adverb as is our custom and it is always so much fun.  Niece Olivia tried to convince her mom (who is her high school English teacher) that they should play after the manner of the adverb for their English final.

Our kids went home and last night we went to Marianne's for more games and snacks.  We are having a lovely time.


Wednesday, January 1, 2025

Happy New Year

 I am sitting next to the dancing flames of the stove.  Snow is blowing lightly outside.  I want to light a candle, but I'm all tucked in with my blanket so it will have to wait until I get up again.

Is this my favorite time of day here?  It might be or maybe it is when the sun is going down and the warm wood on the floor and walls and ceiling glows like we are in a box of sunshine.  

Yesterday Adam and I saw the most enormous cat I've ever seen, down by the barn.  Come up here Kitty!  Come and hunt all the mice!

(I'm still fixated on mice....)

We haven't seen any and I am not sad about it.

Yesterday was a good day.  Our kids came around lunchtime and I love gathering around the cozy round table that has lived here for possibly a century.  (It depends on which aunt you believe.)

Emma and I went over to my parents' house and Adam and Mark...went to town.

When we are here in the summer, Adam is mowing.  When we are here in the winter, he is going to town.  He and Mark were working on a project and I think they enjoyed their time together as much as Emma and I did.  She brought her book and mostly read it because she wanted to finish 45 books by the new year.

The Knudsens stopped by to visit my parents and it was fun to catch up with them.  They and my parents grew up together and you can't put a price on lifelong friends or ever run out of things to talk about.

Tabor and Katie and girls arrived and it was fun to see them.  (Ammon's family ended up sick so didn't come.)

We came home and got our things (and selves) ready for the party.  It was a good time!  There was a ton of food and even after everyone had filled their plates, it didn't seem like they had (except the deviled eggs were pretty much gone).  We visited and played games orchestrated by our very own party planner in chief.  Marianne had us play the game where you write a sentence, pass it on and the next person draws a picture, then you fold over the sentence and the next person writes another sentence based on the picture and you go on and on.  Some people are good artists and some people are good sentence writers and all of it is funny.

We played the bowl game which is also good for a lot of laughter and fun.  I was starting to get droopy so as soon as it was over, I was ready to go.

People said, like I don't leave early every year, "It's only an hour until the new year!"

I said it was already the new year in Pleasant Grove and I was ready for bed.

Olivia wanted to pick me up before we left. (It goes back to something we used to do when we were teenagers and I was a lot lighter.)  I thought she would drop me and in turn break me so I wouldn't let her.

Try telling Olivia no.

I was trying my best to be dead weight so she couldn't pick me up.  We were on the floor and laughing like crazy people and it was a scene.  Carolina said, "What are you two doing?!?"

I was laughing too hard to explain and even now I don't think I could explain it.  Mark finally stood behind me, with his hands under my arms and said, "OK, we're standing up."  He lifted me to a standing position and said, "If you're going to act like a little kid, I'm going to treat you like one."

It just made me laugh more.

I think I needed to go to bed.

This morning we are going to the ladies holiday brunch at Olivia's which is a highlight of my year.  I love gathering with some of my favorite women in the world.  The conversation usually gets really real.  Adam asked me last night.  "How are you going to not cry?"  He's worried about my eye.  I will need to steel myself.

Maybe I'll think about Enoch's gold Nikes.  

Before my grandma's funeral, I told Emma I was worried I was going to cry too much while we were singing the song she wanted my sisters and me to sing (we recruited Emma and Clarissa to join us).  Emma said, "Just think about Enoch's gold Nikes."

Enoch does indeed have gold Nikes and I did indeed think of them.  It was just random enough to work.

I guess follow Emma for more life hacks.

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