Wanted: Vacation planner

I had an incredible amount of fun planning this vacation. I even got a little giddy over the packet I put together which included maps of all our destinations, maps of the theme parks, coupons, hotel confirmations. Vacationing is fun. I even started thinking about where we should go next.

Remember when I wrote this a month ago? I'm back at it again. When I started thinking about where to go next, I never imagined it would be Seoul, Korea OR that we'd be going in a short six weeks. Tyler doubted my ability to pull it off in such a short amount of time. He's been wanting to go back ever since he came home from his mission. The night he proposed marriage he took me out to a Korean restaurant. And shortly after we were married he tried to convince me that we could live there and teach English. I'm still here and very excited to VISIT.

Airline tickets? yep

Hotel reservations? yep

Passports? yep

Itinerary? yep.

(Over the years, many of our major lists have been compiled over dinner with a napkin as our tablet.)

We've been pouring over subway maps to better acquaint ourselves with the area especially since we'll be staying in an area unfamiliar to Tyler. Seoul is only about 15 square miles but can take 10 to 60 minutes to get to where you're going. Tyler's anxious to see his first area as a missionary, a place he stayed for 5 months. I'm eager to see what he has to show me, a place that is a big part of his past, a place he likes to talk about often. The kids and I have even become big fans of bulgogi (a Korean barbecue lettuce wrap) and japchae (a vegetable noodle dish).

We are both very excited and grateful for such an opportunity. I never envisioned ever going back there, and I don't think Tyler ever did either.

Family History Fun

5, 6, maybe 7 years ago I compiled all the family history info I had which included documents and photos and put them online. I've been overwhelmingly surprised by the response. It hasn't been a lot but I've received several emails from people who happened upon my site and were pleased to see stuff they hadn't seen before. I haven't done much in over a year. I'm starting to feel the bug again.

Dear Ms Leary I was fascinated to find your website dealing with family history (which I was kindly given a link to by Geoff Wright). I too am descended from Francis de la Mare and Jeanne Esther Ahier, through Philip's younger sister Sophia.

Hello, I ran across your web page while trying to locate information on an ancestor's family. You have a history of Joseph Croft Knowles, who married Clara Tacey Conrad in Logan.

Melissa, Or, should I say Half-2nd Cousin once removed? My great-grandfather was Joseph Croft Knowles.My grand-father was his eldest son, Joseph Henry Knowles, and I'm the son of his youngest daughter, Joyce Allen Knowles.I stumbled upon your web page when searching to see if there were any photos of Joseph Croft Knowles on the Internet.

Hi Melissa I was going through old photos today and found a photo set of a my great grandparents, Glen and Vera Vining. It included their wedding photo and a photo a number of years later, in a brown cardboard holder. My husband David did an Internet search for Vera Vining and found your site.You do have both of those photos and a number of family photos.

Hi, I just found your DeLaMare pictures when I googled Agnes McKendrick.

It's all about perspective

Nate had a date with his dad to a Jazz game. They had a conversation about the location of the ocean which Nate thought was somewhere below us. On the train ride home he said, "Isn't it weird that there is land above us and all we can see is air?" All I have to say is as a kid we went "up" to see Grandma who lived in Logan and "down" to Lake Powell to go fishing. The kid's just going by what the map tells him (which he eats off of just about every day in the form of a place mat).

 Ash asked her dad at dinner how much our house cost. And he told her. And she asked, "Did it come in a sack?" Maybe a Monopoly house. We couldn't resist the urge to tease her a bit. Yes, Virginia, we went to the store and picked out our house and put it in the shopping cart. And then we took it to the check out line and bought it and put it on top of our car and drove to where we were going to live. Then we put in on the ground and got out a pump and blew it up. Not literally. She bought all of it, but we let her down gently and told her we were just kidding. About everything except the Monopoly house. It really could fit in a sack.

Remember Lot's Wife

Just some favorite passages from a talk given by Jeffery R. Holland on January 13, 2009.

I just loved what he had to say about faith. I've learned a lot about faith in the past couple of years. It is sincerely having a hope in the future and trusting that God knows me and will take care of me. It's knowing he hasn't left me alone.

1. The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead, we remember that faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives. So a more theological way to talk about Lot’s wife is to say that she did not have faith. She doubted the Lord’s ability to give her something better than she already had. Apparently she thought—fatally, as it turned out—that nothing that lay ahead could possibly be as good as those moments she was leaving behind.
   
   
2. To all such of every generation, I call out, “Remember Lot’s wife.” Faith is for the future. Faith builds on the past but never longs to stay there. Faith trusts that God has great things in store for each of us and that Christ truly is the “high priest of good things to come.”

The Autobiography of Santa Claus

This book was much easier to finish when I was surrounded by colder temperatures and snow.

It really is more of a history book than a novel with a plot. I love history and I loved this little refresher course. Did you know the word Christmas came from the special mass that was held on December 25 each year in England -- Christ's Mass. Santa Claus is derived from the Dutch word Sinterklauss. The Dutch who were living in New York (or previously New Amsterdam) at the time of the American Revolution were required to learn English. So when telling their English neighbors about their Christmas traditions, the Dutch couldn't say Saint Nicholas very clearly. What the English heard was "Sintnicklus" and they walked away thinking this great gift-giver was Sinta Klauss. Christkind or Christkindel is the German name for Saint Nicholas which eventually became Kris Kringle.

This was just a fun book to read about the origin of Christmas and all the traditions that go along with it. I may start a few months before Christmas this year and read it to my kids.

We believe in being honest . . .

1. the quality or fact of being honest; uprightness and fairness

2. truthfulness, sincerity, or frankness

3. freedom from deceit or fraud

Kiersten took 2nd place in her book battle last week and for winning received a certificate and a box of Sweethearts. They were casually placed on her dresser as she went to school the following Monday. This particular day preschool was at our house and at the conclusion everyone left but Ash and Casey. I found the two of them in Ashlyn's and Kiersten's room with the door locked. Only later when Kiersten arrived home from school did Ash freely confess they had been eating Kiersten's Sweethearts.

The next day Kiersten hid her box of Sweethearts. Ashlyn's immediate response to this when Kiersten came home was "I didn't eat any of your Sweethearts because I couldn't find them." It was also a little ironic that Ash would choose to read A Children's Book about Snooping for our family read-a-thon. Ash, it's not a how-to book, but a don't-do book. I hope Kiersten hid those Sweethearts well.