Strictly Business

Stan needed to visit several clients in the Utah area, so Megan and I decided to go along. It was a trip we had planned to do later, but quickly rescheduled when Megan got a job with the fair.



While Stan worked, Megan and I worked hard at shopping for college. Do you know how hard it is to find non-destroyed jeans acceptable for BYU-I in Megan's size and taste? Pretty much can't be done.


I wanted to immortalize this last time "shopping for college" bonding moment.
Megan was in no mood for picture taking. She's never go to make it as a famous person--she was down right rude to her personal paparazzi. Every time I pulled out my camera, Megan took off running.
Over the years, I've done a lot of back-to-school shopping trips with my daughters. Truthfully, I'm going to miss them. Our bank account is not.

In addition to shopping, we enjoyed the beautiful scenery of Utah.

We visited temple square.

Did you know they now let you walk right up to those iconic temple doors and take pictures without being dressed like a bride? There are even lots of helpful, name-tagged people who will snap the shot and chat with you. Just think, Megan, in ten years you can come back in your wedding dress and take some better pictures.

We drove by the duplex Stan and I lived in while residing in Provo.

We lived in the right side from 1977-1980.

Megan and I drove down to Payson and visited the cemetery where Mom and Dad are buried. This is the first time I've seen the complete headstone.

Here is the back. I haven't been in Utah since Mom's funeral.

It's odd to be here and not see Mom.

Grandma Kenison's headstone, just to the right of Mom's.

As we left the cemetery and started back to town, we passed Peteetneet school, which has been turned into a museum. I thought it would be fun to stick my head in and take a peek at Mom's old classroom.

Other than the oak moldings, doors, and windows, it didn't resemble Mom's old room, although I can still picture the classroom the way it had been, with desks, bulletin boards, books, and various things Mom had done to make it into the perfect classroom for first graders.

The people running the museum remember Mom, and were excited to give us "a little tour". Ten hours later, Megan and I had been shown every square inch of the building, including some I'd never known existed. (Did you know Peteetneet has a basement?) Poor Megan gamely endured the tour, but I'm pretty sure she would rather have been out somewhere eating dirt. I'm sorry Megan, I owe you. I just couldn't think of a polite way to say "Um, could we have the Reader's Digest version of this tour?"

This is the stairway outside of Mom's room, where Judy and I went to find paper and supplies to do Mom's bulletin boards and make copies of worksheets for Mom, using those old machines with purple ink.

We even toured the lunchroom/gym, home of all the pictures of Payson's beauty queens for the last 60 years.

It's good to know Judy lives on in Mom's old school, there on the right.

We drove by our 515 South 300 East house in Payson, quite changed from the old days. The peace roses are gone. The beautifully cared-for landscaping is buried under years of untrimmed bushes and trees and a summer's worth of weeks--I think Oma would cry to see it.

Instead of that beautiful Linden tree in the front, there's a large truck. I hope they are re roofing, and not using the front lawn I mowed so often for a parking lot. Those sidewalks and landscape timbers weren't doing much for me.

I'd love to look through the house to see how it's been changed inside.

One thing I must say about Utah--they have A LOT of frozen yogurt and ice cream places. Even so, Megan and I were puzzled to see this revolving black double-dip cone atop of Jimmy John's.

David and Bonnie were so nice to take us in with very short notice. They are the perfect hosts. That explains why I was forced to politely eat ice cream with them. Ignore that happy look on my face--that's just more me being polite as I pick a flavor (or two or three or four) of ice cream to sample.

 Just between you and me, David seems a bit obsessed with ice cream. Thank goodness it's not a family trait--I, for one, seldom eat ice cream.

 Yes, I "borrowed" this picture. Dave, just be happy I didn't ask Judy to provide me with one.

 After Stan finished his business in Utah, we headed up to visit Krew. Isn't he a cute little guy? He makes us laugh, with all of his funny OCD quirks and "Sorry Mommy" "Sorry Daddy" when he misbehaves. 

I'm more than a little concerned to have these two girls in the same state. They seem to bring out the naughty in each other. Megan, Jessica, it's not too late for me to put you in a timeout...

Jones Christmas Traditions

Over the years, Stan has insisted on putting up outside lights.  Three or four years ago Stan was seriously injured when he fell out of the tree while putting up lights and I insisted that particular tradition had run its course.  I even had the tree cut down to remove temptation.  However, "Get in Spirit of Christmas Megan" insisted that we owed her outdoor decorations this year since she will be moving on to bigger and better things next year.  She even got Stan to agree.

The two of them spent an evening stringing lights.

Now we can arrive home in the evenings and feel the ungrinchy glow.

Another of our Christmas traditions involves ridiculous amounts of holiday baking.

I remember Oma and Mom baking massive amounts of Christmas cookies.  My favorites of Oma's were a hard anise-flavored cookie which were rolled and cut into stars, and a meringue cookie .

I also remember "helping" Grandma Kenison make pies--I remember she made apple, cherry, and pumpkin or sweet potato pie for the holidays.

It's fun to have a new generation of offspring to help me in the kitchen.

We invited Megan to join us, but she's too worn out from her life skills class.  When she signed up for life skills, I thought she'd be learning to balance a check book, cook a quick and cheap supper, and sew on buttons.  Silly me.  Life skills explores every legal recreational activity know to man. Megan has been rock climbing, learning to play ping pong, hiking, playing basketball, volleyball, raquet ball, and a zillion other activities. Today Megan had to get on a bus at 6:30 am and go to Red Lodge to snowboard all day.  Poor thing.  She even had to miss a whole day at school. You can tell by her face what a hard day she's had.  I understand she has to go a second time, too.

An important part of our traditions involves Christmas Eve and Christmas stockings. 

But not these stockings hang by our chimney with care. 

These are the totally impractical stockings made of felt and sequins I made after the birth of each child.  They are so old, Shelly's stocking says "Michelle".  I think we called her that for the first 37 1/2 days after she was born.

These stockings aren't good for holding anything but air.  I made different stockings for the good stuff. 
I'll write that post later.

Mom gave me this magnetic Santa years and years ago. It's been one of my little children's favorite Christmas things over the years. 

This year it's holding Megan's temple recommend to the fridge.

We've been using an artificial tree for years.  Seven or eight years ago, these skinny trees were really popular.  I was the first person in line at the after Christmas sales to buy one.  Unlike our old tree, it fits into a corner of our living room without having to move furniture out.  I love that.


When Stan and I were first married, we started a tradition of buying an ornament each year to symbolize the past year.  This house is from our first Christmas in 1977 to represent our establishing a household together.

This Santa is this year's ornament, purchased in Nassau, Bahamas.

In between we've had ornaments like this mouse holding a thermometer from 1985 which was the year we had flu, strep, croup, flu, pneumonia, numerous ear infections, flu, pink eye, and Scott had chicken pox, followed 2 weeks later by Shelly, and two weeks after that by baby Amy. 
Then we all got the flu.

We've collected ornaments from our various vacations like this slightly tacky-looking 1995 Mount Rushmore creation.

Lately we've been forced to buy two or more to mark major events like Jessica and Jorden's 2006 wedding and Caden's birth.

When Scott and Shelly were little, I bought this nativity set because it was cheap inexpensive and unbreakable, and I wanted one my children could handle.  Now it's thirty years later and this set has been handled by many children and still survives.

The Baby Jesus for this set is tiny--about 1 inch long, 3/8 inch around-just right to fit into Mary's arms.  We've managed to keep him safe for all these years.  I decided to put him away one night when a certain someone kept carrying him off.

Guess who forgot where she put Baby Jesus? 

Old, forgetful people shouldn't be allowed to touch the family heirlooms.

One of the traditions I personally had growing up was to carefully unwrap presents before Christmas to see what I got, then carefully re-wrap them.  Sometimes it was a real strain to pretend surprised delight on Christmas morning over a present I'd opened three times weeks before.

photo by Hailey

In an effort to spare my own children this hardship, over the years I never put Christmas presents under the tree pre-Christmas.  Besides that, presents for a family of eight pretty much filled the living room, even during our lean years when everyone just got socks and underwear.  These days I just wrap things as I buy them and put them under the tree.  Even with Makayla and Hailey's gifts, it's pretty sparse compared to bygone years.

Now I'm having to keep a close eye on a certain sneak.

Don't you hate it when your bad habits appear in younger generations?

And Now We Know The Rest Of The Story

Over the years, our children have created lots of memories. 

Those memories are the gifts that keep on giving.

"The family" August 1996

Today I pulled out some Thanksgiving decorations.  I set my cornucopia atop the armoire in its usual place.  I've had it for years-look at that bedraggled ribbon.

Wait-I don't remember that ribbon on that cornucopia!

It really doesn't seem to match the colors of the rest of the arrangement.
 ARGH! 
Suddenly I realize what I am looking at!

Years ago, Ashley's friends got together and bought her a corn snake for her 16th birthday. The snake started out the size of a pencil and eventually grew to 3' in length The year Ashley was a Freshman in college, she came home to visit and in the ensuing chaos the snake, "Favio", escaped.  Ashley went back to college, Favio remained missing for 5 months.  Eventually we found him, burned, dehydrated and nearly dead in the storage room. (He died shortly after.) The storage room WHERE I KEEP THE THANKSGIVING CORNUCOPIA!!  YUCK!

Ashley and baby Favio, early fall 2006

 Apparently, Favio was touring the holiday decorations during his missing months.  Apparently, Favio shed during that time.  Did I say "YUCK"?

Thanks, Megan, for removing the snakeskin from my fake fruit. 

And thanks, Ashley, for making life interesting.  I will call you tonight at 2 am

when I awaken from my nightmare.