Our Family Reunion

 Every year we have a family reunion, shifting responsibility for it among our kids.  This year Reed and Dorothy were in charge. Dorothy found a lovely place in Bear Lake.  It was our most expensive place yet, but promised to be very nice.  As it turned out, it was just being built when we reserved it.  It was barely finished when we arrived, so we were just about their first visitors.  The place was pretty luxurious.  But, like any new place, there were things that could be improved upon.  The owners asked for our feedback, so we began listing things as we went through the week.  They were little things really, and didn't put much of a dent on our enjoyment.

One of the things I love about our family is that there is little if any contention between families.  It makes our gatherings safe and enjoyable.  Everyone works to accommodate everyone else.  Bear Lake offers a variety of activities; there is shopping, boating, beaching, various places touring and, of course, raspberry milkshakes.  Bear Lake is known for them.  We made sure to get our fill of them.

Some of the family rented fun stuff to do at the Lake.  Some of us toured a nearby cave, which was really interesting.  There were lots of formations inside, which were accessed by lots of stairs going up and down throughout.  A college student was our tour guide and she knew her stuff.  She made it all fun.  I must say that we got enough exercise climbing up and down to last us for a week!  Here is a shot of the longest set of stairs, which our tour guide ran up; it instilled admiration in us all.

Here we are, just after emerging from the cave.  L to R:  Timothy, Bruce, Reed, Dorothy, Layne, Jessica (#1), Chris.

Not all of the family attended the reunion this year.  Our grandchildren are starting to have families of their own, with increased obligations to inlaws and such.  We have decided that we will continue to have our yearly reunions and not worry about who can come and who cannot.  We plan to just leave it open for whoever is available to come.  This year we were missing some of the older grandkids.  But we had fun with the ones who came.  Isaiah and Avery brought their sweet little Mercedes, which everyone made a fuss over.  They are soon to be moving to New York, to go to school at Cornell.  So this will be the last time we see them for awhile.  Avery brought her tree yoga equipment.  (I don't think it is called tree yoga, but it is done from a tree or pole).  She put up the equipment and taught some of the kids some moves.  It is pretty fascinating to watch.  Here you can see Peyton, inside the fabric that is used for the yoga moves.  It might not show, but she is actually in some sort of stretch in this photo.  

Pretty interesting, yes?  Here are a couple of snapshots of Mercedes; in one of them she is with her grandfather Cliff.  Wow, our son-in-law is a grandfather.   Our Jessica is holding her in the second picture. 

It is wonderful to have babies in the family again.  Grandson Scott and his Jessica also came, with their little son, Thomas.  What a cutie he is.  See what you think.  Here he is with his Mom, Jessica (#3).

We had lots of great time to play games and visit.  Our balcony gave us a lovely view of Bear Lake, and also a great view of a robin's nest.  We watched as mama Robin hunted for food for her three big babies and fed them.  It was a treat.  By week's end the babies had all wandered out of the nest and flew away.  

Perhaps our favorite activity was attending a performance of Beauty and the Beast at the local Pickle Theater.  It was amazingly professional.  We all loved it.  It was fun to learn that the girl who played Belle was engaged to the boy who played the Beast, in real life.  Here they are after the performance, with Olivia and Victoria.

Timothy put in his mission papers shortly after his High School graduation this past May.  While at the reunion, the call came.  We all cheered as he read his call to TEXAS DALLAS!  I think he was excited and felt our love and support.  Here he is, reading the mission news to us.

We ate, played, talked, gamed, and just generally had fun together.  Family.  One of the greatest blessings in life.

Late Spring; I found my blog

 For awhile I could not get into this blog.  Don't know why. But I got in today, so I will attempt to catch up a bit.  We have two more great-grandchildren, which are such a sweet blessing.  They are babies, so each time we see them, they are much changed.  Here is a snapshot of me holding Thomas.  He is full of good spirits and cute dimples when he smiles.

Of course it is several months later now, so he is even cuter.  

Angelica's last school dance was in April.  The boy she quite likes asked her in such a cute way.  He lined our sidewalk with chocolate kisses and put a sign on the porch for her which read, "I kiss the ground you walk on...Prom?"  How could you resist that.  Of course she was so excited.  It was a group date, as usual, and which is such a great thing.  They had a glorious time.  Their friendship has grown a great deal these last few months.  After school was out, he asked her to be his girl.  She was excited to say yes.  Of course that arrangement is only good for a few months, as he will soon leave on his mission.  Here is a picture of Angelica and her Clayton, all set for the Senior Prom.

Our Jessica is now working for Alaska Airlines and she is beginning to really enjoy it.  She is working with the recruitment department, trying to get potential pilots onboard with Alaska.  There is quite a shortage of pilots right now, so there is lots of competition between airlines for recruits.  Her working group had a meeting here in Boise in late April.  We got her for a few days visit and loved it.  She drove my little sports car to her meetings and then we played when she wasn't busy.  Here we are, just before she left for home.

Angelica was involved with a dance team that has traveled to various places throughout the school year for competitions.  Some of the competitions were local.  Here she is with her dance group after one of her performances.  Can you spot her on the right?

Some of her competitions were out of state.  The travel and accommodations were up to us to arrange and pay for.  That bothered me quite a bit.  Her lessons were not cheap yet there were no arrangements for group travel or accommodations.  It seems to me that there should have been.  We made trips to Provo, Utah and to Phoenix, Arizona for competitions.  Groups came from all over the west for these.  I watched tons and tons of dance performances.  I thought I'd be in dance heaven, but dancing has changed a good deal from what I remember.  There were lots of hip hop numbers, which I think are basically guy dances.  The girls dress like guys and move like guys in those routines.  It's fun, but call me old fashioned; I don't like to see lovely girls moving like rough guys.  The girl groups were skilled as a rule, but I didn't always like the routines, even those that weren't hip hop.  But it was a fun experience to travel with Angelica and experience all the dance excitement that goes with big groups of girls competing for awards.  Fun times.  And over for Angelica.  She is a lovely dancer, so hopefully she will find an outlet for it during her college years.  Dancing can be, after all, a euphoric experience!

While we were in Phoenix, our Mongolian daughter, Brynn, and her family drove over from Tucson to meet up with us for dinner.  It was so fun to see them.  Here they are, in our motel room, and on their way back home:  Brynn and Roy Long and their boys.

Angelica and three of her cousins, Alexis, Timothy and Peyton, were all high school graduates this year.  Well, Alexis graduated early, but she is the same age as the grads, so we included her in our group of four.  My Jessica and I thought it would be so fun to plan something special for the four so we picked Memorial Day weekend and invited all four and families to come to our place for a weekend celebration.  My mind filled with ideas for making it special.  As it turned out, all of my children came, with many of the grandchildren.  Even Gerald made it, on the wings of our prayers.  

Angelica and Timothy graduated on that Friday night.  The ceremony was held in a large auditorium at the Ford Center, here in the Valley.  It was held in the evening so by the time it was over, it was dark outside, even in the late light of late spring.  Here is a snapshot of Timothy and Angelica after the ceremony.

One of Angelica's graduation pictures.

By Saturday, everyone arrived.  We spent the day visiting and playing games of all sorts.  There was an especially sweet spirit with us.  I spent lots of time planning for the special tribute for the four, to be presented on Sunday, after Church.  I drew portraits of all of them, plus one of Miles, who came and graduated several years earlier.  I felt badly that I didn't do it for him sooner.  I made a slide show of all four through their years and we talked about each one; their personalities and talents and our love for them.  I gave them the portraits and presented a special message about overcoming obstacles.  The Galbraith motto is "strength through opposition" so I used that as my theme, telling them that obstacles are built into our life on this planet and that is a good thing.  Overcoming them is what provides growth and strength.  Nothing to overcome leaves us unchanged.  I gave each of them a picture of the Galbraith crest, the motto and a medallion with the motto on it.  In my mind it was going to be special for them.  Usually things like this don't come off as I imagined, but this time I felt like it mostly did.  The sweet family spirit continued and enlarged upon us throughout the day.  Dinner and dessert was each grad's favorite.  So we had a good selection!  I felt so happy with this weekend; it was a sweet, bonding time, for all I think.  Here is a selection of pictures of the weekend.

TIMOTHY

                                                                            PEYTON

ALEXIS

ANGELICA

MILES

Our four graduates:  Angelica, peyton, Timothy and Alexis

For the first time in a long time, all of our children were together.  My heart melted to see them all gathered in one place.  Here they are:  Gerald, Jessica, Reed, Audrey and Benjamin.

Here are all our girls:  top-me and my Jessica; bottom-Ben's Jessica, Audrey and Dorothy

Here are all the boys:  top-Layne, Benjamin, Gerald, Reed; bottom-Cliff and Chris

Everyone left Monday morning.  All the bedrooms had to be cleaned, and all the bathrooms.  We did it all that day.  Being busy is my antidote for sadness in seeing them leave.  It was a wonderful time!

Peyton's graduation ceremony was in June.  We drove to Seattle for it.  Peyton got tons of awards!  It was a bit of a surprise as she said nothing much about it.  What a lovely girl she is, as you can see from this picture of her.  She plans to attend the University of Arizona, in Tucson; the same university that her brother Miles attends.  It should be a fun experience for her.  I so hope so!

Peyton with the quilt I made for her graduation.

Me and Gemma, who was visiting for the weekend.

It has been a spring full of family and good times with them.  I'm so grateful to have them in my life.  I can't think of anything that could bring more joy.

It's Supposed to Be Spring!

 Angelica, as I might have mentioned before, loves to dance.  She takes several lessons, all from one studio in Boise.  She's on a dance team now, which involves traveling, sometimes out of state.  The traveling is on our dime and it is our job to get our dancer to wherever she is supposed to be for team competitions.  Our first one was February 18th, in Provo, Utah.  I planned to drive Angelica there and stay with Bob and Maryanne.  But Angelica had the sniffles.  We were uninvited at that point, so I reserved a motel in Provo.  It turned out to be a good thing, as we were close to her performance location, near the center of Provo.  She danced in two routines.  I went to the auditorium Friday morning to see them.  I was amazed at how many dancing groups there were!  I watched tens and tens of them before Angelica's group appeared.  Loving dancing as I do, I was excited to see the routines.  Let me just say that much of dancing is different these days.  There was lots of hip hop routines where the girls dress like guys and move like them too.  The beat is strong and fun to move to but I don't like it.  Hip hop seems to be to be a guy's kind of dance.  Let them do it, I say.  Other routines were more graceful, but often pretty suggestive in movements.  Call me a critic, but I long to see the graceful movements of traditional dance.  Here's Angelica with her team after one of their dances.  She's the one in yellow.

Speaking of Angelica, she invited a friend to a Sweetheart's Ball soon after our return home.  Here she is with the group of girls she and her date hung with.  Following that is Angelica and her date.  These are fun, wholesome times, as this group of kids are inclusive and trade around dates for various dances.  Nothing heavy here; just friendships.  These pictures were taken by a nearby lake and it was COLD!  Hence, the picture taking didn't take long.

Scott and Jessica (#3) moved from California to our area for a new job.  Happily they moved in with Reed and Dorothy for awhile, until they get more settled and ready for a home of their own.  So we get to see plenty of their first baby boy, born just weeks ago; our new little Thomas.  He is full of dimples and very engaging.  Audrey and Jessica visited one weekend shortly after their move.  We got plenty of Thomas time in during their visit! Here are my girls with him.  First Audrey, then Jessica (#1).

My Jessica is working for Alaska Airlines now, so she has stand-by privileges.  When I told her Audrey was coming for the weekend, she caught a flight on stand-by and joined us.  So fun to have my girls.  Here they are with Reed.  

So much of my time has been taken up with a group of neighbors who are trying to keep a developer from inserting higher density housing in our development.  We live in a country development, with acre properties.  It is lovely and rural.  But our area is exploding with growth.  New housing developments are popping up everywhere, filling our country fields with lots and lots of new homes.  "People have to have a place to live," Layne often tells me.  But why not have a plan for growth that offers all sorts of densities in different places.  Surely we can plan for high density places and lower density, without them being on top of each other.  We are so hoping to influence the city of Star's powers that be to direct a match to our current density.  We are caught up in our cause!

Audrey and I planned on a visit to Indiana to see Allegra a couple of weeks ago.  I planned to meet up with her in San Francisco and fly a red-eye to Indiana together.  My arrival day just happened to be on Ben's birthday--March 21--so I arranged to fly to SFO early on that Thursday, to spend the day with him.  But it was not to be.  He had to go to New York to help Jacqueline at NYU, so I missed him completely.  But I spent the day with his Jessica (#2) and the kids.  Jessica was so good to me. She filled the morning with an exercise class at a local park, then followed it up with a body massage.  It was so good!  There was time to visit with the kids too.  It was a lovely day even without Ben.  Here is the morning exercise gang; Jessica and me with two of her very warm and friendly friends (Pave and Abby, I think).

Ben's Jessica was recently interviewed for a friend's blog on her feelings about being the mother of eight.  It was a great interview!  Here is a promotion of it.

Audrey and I caught a late flight out of SFO to Indiana that night as planned, and arrived there at 6 AM or so.  We went right to our motel and slept for awhile, then met up with Allegra.  She is on an archival internship for a company there that makes diesel engines, and loves the job!  Saturday we walked through the charming town of Colombus, where she lives with a roommate, and then took in a movie.  We all feasted on popcorn as we watched.  I paid for that over-indulgence that night, as I had diarrhea for the whole of it and into the next day.  So that was two nights in a row without sleep.  By Sunday I wasn't feeling all that well.  I headed for home on Monday, arriving in the afternoon, so happy to be home.  But I spent the next two weeks feeling a bit less well than normal.  Here is a snapshot of Allegra and Audrey.  Was the trip worth it?  I'm not sure.

We have had a number of foster daughters over the years.  Our first one is very dear to us.  Laura White got a chance to drive here from her home in Rexburg to visit with us.  She is the mother of 6 and grandmother now too.  It was a joy to have her for a few days.  We spent just about the whole of it talking and talking and...talking.  Here she is.

The first weekend of April was General Conference.  That is always a treat.  Grandson Isaiah and his Avery drove here from Rexburg to spend that weekend with us.  Their baby girl, Mercedes, is just a few weeks old.  What a joy it was to spend time with that beautiful little girl!  Avery was so happy to share her.  Oh, and we loved being with Isaiah and Avery too!

We got together with Reed and Dorothy and Scott and his Jessica and baby Thomas too.  It'll be so fun to see these little ones together when they are a bit older and can play together.  Here are both families with their new little babes. Isaiah and Avery with Mercedes are on the left; Scott and his Jessica with Thomas are on the right.  By November we will have two more new babies; Chase and Morgan are having a boy in July and Rayne is due in November.  What an exciting year this is turning out to be.

The local family gathered on General Conference Sunday to watch together.  Here is a snap of them with varying levels of attention given.

We had a lovely weekend with Isaiah and Avery.  They left us on Monday morning.  Isaiah has a scholarship to Cornell University in the Fall.  Soon they will move to CA, so spend the summer with Audrey and Cliff, then off to New York and a whole new adventure.

This coming Sunday is Easter.  I'm in charge of the Sacrament program--music and narration.  How I hope it all turns out as I see it in my mind.  I have been directing a choir for the first time in my life for this program.  I did my best, considering I have no musical training.  The ward members are very supportive, so it makes my efforts worth it. 

One of the local Stakes here organized an amazing presentation on Easter at a local Church building, complete with displays and live scenes from Christ's life.  It was a beautiful celebration of the Savior.  The whole community is invited.  Our local family attended it Sunday night.  Here we are after it was over.   L to R:  Timothy, Reed, Bruce, Scott, Jessica, Angelica and Layne.

 

Spring is supposed to be here.  I have Easter memories from childhood of wearing new spring dresses, shoes and hat to Church on Easter.  It was just about the only time we went to Church, and the denominations varied from year to year.  It was usually warm by then and our dresses spoke to that.  But here in Idaho, this year, it is snowing at present.  What a strange, snowy spring this has turned out to be!  But it IS spring and we plan to celebrate that.  

                                                                    HAPPY EASTER!

   

 

February Fun

Grandson Timothy is very musical.  He seems to have something of a genius for it.  He is involved with several kinds of music at school.  Recently we attended a percussion concert at the High School.  The sound was interesting and different than anything I've heard before.  It wasn't exactly rhymical to my ear, yet the sounds harmonized in a way.  Hum.  I can't quite explain it.  Tim played the marimba and xylophone.  All the players wore black and coordinated their movements in a very effective way.  Here you see Tim in the middle of the picture, getting ready to play the marimba.

Several months ago daughter Jessica mentioned that a Van Gogh exhibit was coming to Seattle.  What fun, we decided, it would be to invite as many of the family as were interested to join up in Seattle to see the exhibit.  So we sent out an invitation to family members to come, if interested, to Seattle for a weekend in February to see the exhibit.  Then we decided it would be fun to make it an art filled weekend.  So we made plans to offer a variety of fun art projects for all of us to enjoy.  There were nine if us that joined together for a exceptional weekend at Chris and Jessica's.  The Van Gogh exhibit was amazing.  It began with the usual display of his artistic works, with snippets about his life.  Here I am in front of one of the exhibits.

                                                                                                                                                                            Once we had seen the main exhibit, we were led into a very large room filled with chairs.  Patrons filled the chairs and floor to experience Van Gogh's creations all around us.  His art filled the walls and moved along through his various creative periods.  We were surrounded by Van Gogh!  It was magical.  Gentle music played as his artistic images seemed to come to life as they moved all around us.  It was easy to become completely lost in it!  And I did.  I've never experienced anything like it.  Here is a sample of it.

We filled the rest of the weekend with artistic projects.  Jessica taught us macrame; Alexis taught us jewelry making, Chris had a photo project for us and we painted to a tutorial.  At first we tried a Van Gogh painting tutorial but it was a failure for all of us.  You might think we were just not made for Van Gogh, but we came to the conclusion that our instructor just wasn't very good.  That gave us the courage to try another tutorial.  This time we picked out a picture of a cat.  Alejandra loves cats, so we did it for her.  These turned out a little better.  Here you can see them.

We also had fun cooking together.  We learned how to fix sushi, spring rolls and pork filled rolls.  So good.  All of it.  So we ate and created together all through the weekend and it was tons of fun.  We decided that we will do it again next February, in Tucson, for the gem show.  Here are my granddaughter's Alexis, Abigail and Peyton, about to enjoy some custom made food.

Here is our weekend gang. L to R:  Jessica (wife of Chris and hostess), Alejandra (wife of grandson James), Peyton, me, Abigail, Jessica (wife of Ben), Alexis and Dorothy.  

Chris hung out with us most of the time too. He was such fun to have around.  Handy too.  While we were making jewelry in the living room the lights suddenly all went out.  Chris went on the job immediately.  But it wasn't the circuit breaker.  He couldn't figure it out.  So we went without the light for the rest of the evening.  By morning Chris had some ideas.  Sure enough he solved the problem.  There was a loose wire in one of the sockets that caused the blackout.  He soon had it fixed and the lights were back on.  It was a blessing actually, as if not found, the loose wire could have started a fire.  Blessings seem to often come in the form of a problem to be solved it seems.  Here is Chris dressed for repairing.

Monday morning Dorothy and I flew home.  The whole trip went so smoothly!  The week soon filled up.  Reed and Dorothy left on Tuesday to drive to California for the birth of their grandson.  Scott and his Jessica (yup, Jessica #3) had their boy the next day.  It was a challenging delivery as labor went on for many hours with little progress.  Jessica wound up with a C Section and a beautiful 9+ pound baby boy.  His name is Joseph Thomas, continuing the Galbraith tradition of using Joseph as a first name, but being called by the second.  So this little boy will be known as Thomas.  Here he is with his Uncle Bruce.

Thomas was blessed to be born on his Uncle Timothy's birthday.  Tim is Reed and Dorothy's son.  He stayed home from the California trip.  So we celebrated his birthday at our house with dinner and one of his favorite desserts, peach pie.  Most of our Galbraiths would call peach pie a favorite.  Here he is blowing out his pie candles.  He just turned 18.

Granddaughter Allegra (daughter of Audrey and Cliff) will soon be leaving for Indiana, where she has an internship for 6-12 months.  I won't get to see her before she leaves this week.  So I'll plan a trip to Indiana a little later, once she is settled and I'm rested up.  That should be a fun adventure; I've never been to Indiana!

This week is full of upcoming activities, all at home, thank goodness.  At least until Thursday, when I will drive Angelica to Utah, for a dance competition.  For this Granny, rest comes in little pieces, in between other more interesting stuff.  It makes for an stimulating time of life!