Thursday, June 17, 2010

Our trip to Utah

We went to Utah for my Grandpa Hansen's funeral the weekend before last. The funeral was very nice. I loved hearing stories about Grandpa's life. He lived a fulfilling life. Here is what was said about him in his Obituary (sent to by my Aunt Karen):

Obituary for Omar Milton Hansen

Omar Hansen, devoted husband, father, former Springville High chemistry and physics teacher and principal, B.Y. High teacher, Art Museum board member, Kiwanis Club member and WWII Navy Officer passed away peacefully, June 1, 2010.

Born in Provo in 1922, Omar married his high school sweetheart, LaVon Gurr in the SLC Temple.

Following 3 years of Navy service in the Pacific, he was awarded the Bronze Star for valor as gunnery officer aboard the USS Brown. Omar and LaVon then settled in Springville.

Omar loved his family, his students and nature. Each day was an adventure: camping, scouting, water skiing, hunting, fishing and snow skiing. He shared his appreciation for the beauty around him by capturing the color, texture and feeling of life in art. He produced over 90 paintings of Utah mountains and other scenery, several winning awards at Art shows.

He is survived by his wife, 4 siblings: June Henrichsen, Victor, Roger, Patrick; seven children: Robert, Judy, Craig, Deanna, Marsha, Gilbert, Spencer; 39 grandchildren; 65 great grandchildren.


Here's a picture from his funeral (they are folding the flag)


Cousins:


On Friday after the funeral we went to my brother Derek's house and hung out to play games and watch a movie (National Treasure) with most of my siblings and their families and my mom. It was fun. Derek and Rachel have a lovely new home.

On Saturday we hung out with Stillman and Michelle's family. We ate at Chuck Arama:




We visited the Clark Planetarium. We went by train (Trax).
Here's Katie and Alex hanging out on Mars:


Walking on the moon:


We also visited one of the visitor centers on Temple Square. I thought this was a really neat picture:

And we watched the Joseph Smith movie at the Legacy Theater. Very good. Very touching. Later that night we watched National Treasure 2 and went swimming at the Condo. It was a very memorable and fun weekend. Thanks so much to Stillman and Michelle for letting us carpool with you. It was fun to ride together.

Some of my memories of Grandpa and Grandma Hansen:

Camping; hiking at Bryce and Zion Canyons; swimming in a creek on one of those outings (we had fun pouring Grandpa's hat full of water onto his head - especially Melissa and Derek had fun with this, we also had lots of fun trying to catch pollywogs); visiting a dinosaur museum and an aircraft museum; Grandpa's hotdog mustard joke; Grandpa's magic tricks with his fingers; Grandpa pretending to be a car - a few of us would hop on his back and he would pretend he was a car driving and then get a flat tire and we would have to get off and fix the tire and blow it up and then get back on and drive some more - we thought that was the funnest game ever; hiking Y mountain (driving to Utah we always watched for Y mountain because we knew we were getting close to Grandpa and Grandma's house); playing on the playground at the park that was just behind their house; the cuckoo clock; I remember fresh air coming in through the open windows; sleeping in the camper in the driveway; the mural painting in their driveway of Lake Powell; bear and deer heads in the den; playing computer games in the den; sitting at the barstools in the kitchen to eat or on the little table and chairs on the back patio - I remember begging Grandma for more sugar on our Cheerios; the marble rolling game; building with Legos; the family reunion at Bear Lake; visiting the art museum; Grandpa and one of my uncles took my wedding pictures; Grandpa asked me what I wanted a painting of and I told him a waterfall, he gave me a painting of Bridal Veil Falls; we visited Bridal Veil Falls twice with Grandpa, Grandma and Mom; family reunions.

Thanks for all the love you showed to us grandkids. I love you Grandpa and Grandma Hansen.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Grandpa Hansen - last summer



My Grandpa Hansen just passed away this morning. I'm so glad we were able to see him last year at the Hansen Family Reunion. I love my Grandpa and Grandma Hansen very much and have fond memories of them - especially from the visits we had when I was a kid. I'll share some memories in a future post. We love you Grandpa! Here are some pictures taken last summer at the reunion and at his house.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Mothers Day

I hope everyone had a great mothers day! I had a great one. Most of my surprises came on Saturday. Chris and Katie picked out flowers for me to have planted in the garden (Katie picked up one for herself too) and made me a card. Then Chris and Katie planted the flowers in the front by the rose bushes. Later we went to the book store and I got a new CD by Jessie Clark Funk called "Everything Speaks His Name". I love her! Now I have 2 of her CD's (the other one is called "You Know Better Than I" - I love them both). Then we went out to Wendy's for dinner and Dairy Queen for dessert. I had my new favorite flavor of Blizzard: chocolate covered strawberry - mmmmm - chocolate and strawberries - the best! After that we redboxed "The Princess and the Frog". It was a pretty cute movie. Thanks for the great mothers day Chris and Katelynn! Sorry I didn't get any pictures. But here's a youtube video of one of the songs from my new CD:

Saturday, May 8, 2010

The Girls With Glasses

I Am A Girl - The Girls With Glasses Theme Song from The Girls With Glasses on Vimeo.



This is a cute video. There's a link to this website from her website: realbrookewhite.com

Sunday, April 25, 2010

2 new posts again

Catching up my blogging again. Check out 2 new posts below.

April Showers

April Showers bring May flowers….. right? I sure hope so. April has been a difficult month. To make a long story short: the day after Katie’s party I started feeling sick. By the end of the week I was pretty miserable and went to the doctor Easter morning. We thought it was strep and I started taking antibiotics. Later in the week I started feeling worse so I went back to the doctor and had some more tests done and it was discovered that I got mono. So I stopped the antibiotics and I had to have bed rest for 4 days without watching any kids. I have slowly been recovering and I am feeling a lot better. I am still quite fatigued and have to get naps in whenever I can. I also discovered about 8 canker sores in my mouth just over a week ago (just when I was starting to feel better from the mono symptoms). Thank goodness those are starting to go away now. I can’t wait till I can eat without pain. It takes the bad to appreciate the good. I am so thankful that I am pretty healthy most of the time. I want to thank everyone who helped with watching kids, bringing food and for everyone that called or emailed to see how I was doing. I appreciate and love you all.

To top off April: our oven burned out. But hey – it went out in style and we got a light show. Last night we were cooking a pizza and we noticed the coils in the oven were sparking. So we figured we better clean the oven out next weekend. It sparked the whole time we were cooking the pizza and was sparking in different places and kept moving along the coils, which was making us pretty nervous. When the pizza was done we turned the oven off and it was still sparking and the coils were still red and it was starting to burn the coils right up. Chris poured baking soda on it but it didn’t help. Then he unplugged the oven and it finally went out. Check out the pics:




Katie was so distraught that the oven was broken - she started to cry. We told her not to worry we'd get a new one. We'll be going oven shopping tomorrow.

Katie's Birthday

Katie had a great birthday. The Friday before her birthday we took her to the dollar store to pick out a balloon. Then we took her to Artic Circle for ice cream cones and she also got a pack of Starbursts at Wal-Mart. The next day we went to the church in the morning for an Easter breakfast and egg hunt. Then we spent the afternoon getting ready for Katie’s party. She kept telling me for about a month that she wanted a dinosaur birthday cake. She loves dinosaurs and The Land Before Time movies. So I made her a dinosaur cake and we decorated the kitchen with color sheets of dinosaurs and green streamers. She loved helping to decorate for her party. During the party we had a Land Before Time movie playing for the kids and they got to color Land Before Time color sheets.

Here she is with her balloon:


Family pic:

Blowing out the candles:

Loves those new shades:

And her most favorite present:

After the party we took her for a ride on her new bike. She was loving it (and still partying - you can see the party blower in her mouth)