Happy New Year

According to all the comics and editorials, most people are relieved to see 2008 end. It has been a scary, disappointing, sad year for the world as well as for us personally. Last night Russ and I took a trip down to Cincinnati planning to go to a popular light exhibition at the Cincinnati zoo. Angela's family drove down to meet us there along with Victoria and the kids. As we got within several blocks of the zoo, we began to notice the stream of people parking cars and lining the sidewalks, all headed in the direction of the zoo. When we finally got to where the signs for the zoo were, the crowd was rather daunting. We were arriving about 6:30. It opens at 5 and closes about 9. Looking at the line just to enter the zoo, we figured that by the time we found a place to park, got all the kids out and managed to get into the zoo to see the lights, it would be time to turn around and go home. At the risk of having some very upset kids, we made the decision to give up the idea of seeing the lights. We immediately began brainstorming other ideas of how to spend the evening without spending a lot of money. Ironically, out of the two cars with kids, the only one really upset was the one that was too young to even know about the plan in the first place! Little Brooklyn (15 months old) had fallen asleep on the way to the zoo and had awakened when we stopped to discuss the issue. She was ready to get out and didn't like it when we started the engine and kept driving! We decided to crash a party we knew was going on. John terHorst (our "unofficially adopted son") and his family were having an early New Year's Eve party since he had the all-too-rare opportunity to be home. Being so loving, generous, and hospitable, they let us all in the door. You can see by the pictures that everybody was happy just to be together, even without going to the zoo.

They had quite a feast laid out and were willing to share, even though the group we brought outnumbered the family members they had planned on. We publicly promise that we will have them over for dinner or take them out to dinner or something sometime in the future!

Our New Year's emotions are a bit more subdued than usual. We sincerely hope for 2009 to be a "good" year. Miracles do still happen, as long as there are people with faith. Anyway, we'll just keep plodding along and see what happens. You can't count on the economy. You can't count on politicians. You can't count on the weather. But we are so grateful for the greatest joy in life, something we can count on: the love of family and friends. Happy 2009!

Christmas Eve feast and presents in the morning

We have been wondering how we would all feel spending this first Christmas without Ammon. We wanted it to be memorable and fun but not complicated. Our Christmas eve dinner, for which I have usually planned for months ahead and sometimes made elaborate meals, was planned specifically to be fun for the kids. We had a picnic of finger foods up on the third floor while we watched an animated movie. The kids actually managed to eat, with only a few reminders, while watching a movie. After dinner, Victoria had the kids get into the cute pajamas she had made them. She has been making this an annual tradition. She gets better at it every year!

It seems to be an unwanted "tradition" in our family that when we try to get together for Christmas, somebody, or several somebodies, get sick. Brooklyn was up several times in the night with vomiting and diarrhea. Hence, the adults were up, too- especially Victoria. Taking pity on her, Russ and I tried to keep the kids entertained Christmas morning without having them open any of the presents, while Victoria got another little portion of shut-eye.

This was the first Christmas that Brooklyn was aware enough to participate. It took some prodding, but she finally got the hang of ripping open wrapping paper. Victoria has become quite a frugal mom and was able to provide a lovely Christmas for the kids. We were all relieved that it was a pleasant experience. We had a few sad moments, like when I opened Victoria's gift to us. She had spent quite a bit of time putting together a DVD of photos from Ammon's life with music accompaniment. She gave a copy to all of our family. We watched it over at Angela's later in the day then passed the box of tissues around. But we're okay. We have passed another milestone.

Holiday preparations

We didn't have any fancy meals or ceremonies but we did do some decorating and baking for Christmas. Christmas eve day I baked some "rolls" in fanciful shapes to be fun for the kids. A couple of days before that, we spent time at Angela's house baking cookies. Even a neighbor boy (the one right in the middle of the picture) got into the act.

I always hope the kids will get involved. I guess they do, but they get tired of it long before the work is all done, leaving it for the more determined grown-ups to finish. Oh well, it is our idea. The kids are really only interested in eating the cookies.

Seems out of place

Sitting in our driveway, next to our rusty $1000 truck is a car that costs more than the house- or, at least it will have cost that much once it's paid for. Even in this sad economy people are still willing to spend outrageous amounts of money to pay someone else to drive them in a fancy car to a birthday celebration, prom, or just out to clubs or gambling casinos for fun! You too can have a chauffeured ride for $85 an hour (5 hour minimum). This is where the "lowly" but very polite chauffeur and assistant sit. It's comfortable enough. Most Lincolns are made that way.

When you enter the rear door (about 13 feet back), you see the only "normal" looking car seat in the back part of the car.

It's hard to get a real image of what this is like. It has tv (for movies)with 3 separate screens, radio and stereo, ice bins, strobe lights inside the car, and umpteen holders for glasses, champagne and regular tumblers. The red on the right is a poinsettia which I don't think is going to endure the cold so it will have to be replaced before the next trip. The cost of doing business?

Images of the season

Due to a number of things, we are not spending much time shopping, making, or wrapping gifts. This is not a bad thing. Celebrating the birth of the Savior of the world is really not appropriately done by indulging in material greed. We have been composing and addressing our annual newsletter to send to loved ones. We have been practicing Christmas music for church (to sing if Russ can stop coughing!). We have been going to holiday concerts, all free ones- Air Force Band and school concerts. We spent an evening at our church filling holiday baskets for members that our branch president had felt could benefit from the gift. Then we divided up the baskets and went out to deliver them. The group you see in this picture is pretty average for a Tuesday night young men/young women activity. There were two young men, four young women (3 arrived late), and the rest were leaders or children of leaders. Then we made yet another trip down to Cincinnati to attend a concert put on by Kadon's preschool class. It was held in a mall, which is actually over the border in Kentucky, before most of the shops opened. There weren't any shoppers there so the audience was mostly families of the singers. There were 2, 3, and 4-year olds in varying degrees of exuberance performing, or just staring. They went through quite a few songs, more than we expected. They had cleverly printed designs on sweatshirts to wear for the occasion so they looked like a group.

There wasn't a stage or raised platform so there was considerable jockeying for position from which to utilize cameras by all of the parents and grandparents. The weather was appropriate for the season but not pleasant for traveling. We managed to make it home through the snow. As we ponder the meanings and feelings of the season, despite all the bad news around us, we can be grateful for many things. We have relatively good health, a loving family, wonderful supportive friends, and the promises in the sweet faces of children. Children truly are the best part of holiday celebrations. We are grateful to be near enough to most of our grandchildren to see them so often and be a part of their lives.

Last night Russ and I went to a concert of the Air Force Band of Flight. It was wonderful! The quality of entertainment was vastly superior to the "civilian" form of in-your-face entertainment along the lines of American Idol or other money-making productions involving people who take a God-given gift and glitz it up with bright lights, immodest costumes, and loud electric amplification. I had to wonder if any of the musicians, including the wonderful singer, will ever attempt to enter the flashy world of Hollywood or Las Vegas. I imagine they might make more money- maybe. Who knows what the fickle approval of fans might support? I felt very grateful for people who take their God-given gifts and try to increase their talent aside from the pushiness of an agent or the screams of the crowd. It made me miss the talent available in Utah. I so drank up the abounding sharing of talent available there! From the Cache County Fair to the Tabernacle Choir performances, there were people who were not desperately selling themselves for gain; people who offered what they had succeeded in developing their own abilities. I realize that there was some of the "wanting to make money" attitude there. But, in general, it was secondary to just working to improve and wanting to share. I am not a great pianist and my voice is far gone from what it was 30 years ago, but I try to improve what I have now and am willing to play, even the organ, for church meetings. I enjoy the accomplishments of others. I enjoyed attending the 7th and 8th grades string orchestra concert for one of the terHorst girls on Thursday night. (The 7th grade violas were somewhat out of tune.) The kids were all sincerely making an effort to work together to produce music. It really is our motivation that counts.

Friends

I have finally figured out how to crop scanned photos. Sorry about the previous pictures that I didn't get right. While scanning pictures from Ammon's birth, I came across other loved ones who have left the earth. This first picture is my Grandma Bowker (in the front center) with her siblings. This was taken at the funeral for my grandfather. These are all good, loving people. This was a man who had been given too much oxygen in an incubator at birth with blindness resulting. Steve Chaney became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Ithaca, NY and a good friend. His blindness didn't prevent him from trying things. He accepted a calling to work with the Boy Scouts, went skating, threw basketballs better than I can, and studied at the Cornell University Industrial Labor Relations school. He also ran a magazine stand in the post office to support himself. He was good at chess.

The woman in this picture was my resource for scriptural information. She was a patient mother, a loving wife and a wonderful friend. Vickie Randall's oldest son was killed not too long after she died. I think they're both doing awesome work for Heavenly Father these days.

Sam Weber came into our lives for all too short a time. He had a degenerative lung disease and lived for awhile after a transplant but wasn't particularly comfortable. He enriched the lives of Russ, me and our children. He was cheerful, encouraging, artistic, and a valuable friend.

This sweet woman became one of my loved friends despite the difference in our ages. She was just enough older than I am that her children became babysitters for my children. She was a cook that made anyone feel like they were "home" just eating whatever she made. She gave such loving hugs and listened sympathetically to others even when she had her own problems to deal with.

Russ and I truly love so many friends and have felt so blessed to have them in our life. There are people we knew in NY, people in UT, and those who have known us as we have travelled around. These are a few of the people that we can't visit for now but look forward to a very happy reunion some day- after we have hugged Ammon, of course.

Opposition

Okay- I'm going to get philosophical again. I guess as a grandmother of 15 I can be entitled to think I'm learning a little wisdom. Despite the fear of running out of fossil fuel and the volatile prices of gas, Russ and I have been doing a lot of driving lately. He has started a business with a friend, chauffeuring. It's mostly runs to and from the airports in the area. That, along with the many trips to Cincinnati, and occasionally up to Huber Heights, requires a constant refilling of our gas tanks. As I got a little excited recently by being able to fill our tank for under $20, I thought about how much more grateful I am for $1.44 a gallon now than I might have been a couple of years ago. Why? Because, knowing how bad it feels to pay nearly $4 a gallon, the $1.44 feels pretty good! I thought about how my children, and now my grandchildren, have not always appreciated the meals I have tried to make taking into consideration their likes and dislikes, what money we had, what time I had for preparation, and what nutritional value they needed. They have not always appreciated the time spent gathering, sorting, loading into the washing machine, then either hanging out or loading into the dryer, their clothes so I could fold them and deliver them to their rooms so they could have clean, attractive clothes to wear. Why? Because they didn't experience the opposite. In the Carole King song, she repeats the old saying, "You don't know what you've got till it's gone". It's actually good for parents to NOT do everything nice for their kids. It's good for the kids to experience what is involved in getting a house clean, a meal prepared, planning a family home evening lesson or other activity involving several people. How can they really appreciate the sun coming up in the morning if they never experience a totally cloudy day? What is there that I don't appreciate because I take it for granted? I know I am really grateful for friends that love and support me because I can't always be with them so I miss them when the years go by without the opportunity to be in their company. I'm grateful for loved ones who speak encouraging words and praise me because I have felt the sting of criticism (expecially from teenagers who seem to always know more than anyone else) and the discouragement of feeling alone in my labors. I sometimes wish I could help loved ones out of all of their difficulties. But then I realize that if they never go through hard times, they will never realize how wonderful it is when someone DOES help. They would be like the people who are 3rd or 4th generation welfare recipients and feel they're "entitled". I remember reading things about being grateful for trials and not being able to comprehend it. Now I can. I know that wisdom truly does come AFTER the experience of opposition in all things- good and bad, easy and difficult, pain and happiness, love and hate. I feel I can make a better choice now. This is why I have lived here on earth.

Celebrating Ammon's birthday

For several months we have been discussing the impending date of Ammon's birthday. We felt we wanted to acknowledge it but were trying to decide exactly how. I didn't want it to be a sad occasion. I want his children to be reminded of him but not in a way that would cause them to dread the "ceremony". I suggested going to the cemetery and releasing balloons. Victoria elaborated on it and had the children draw pictures and dictate messages for her to write to place in the balloons. Unfortunately, the weight of the paper caused a couple of the balloons to sink and pop. But most of them got caught by the wind and carried up into the overcast sky. I thought of the scripture in the New Testament describing Christ ascending into the clouds- "And in like manner will he return".

It wasn't exactly a wildly happy birthday celebration, but the kids caught the symbol of it and Jeremy later prayed that his daddy would get the messages we sent. Russ and I have never grieved for a child before. We are forging our own path through the stages of his absence. We miss him but try not to be just permanently sad. We wish he hadn't left but just as fighting physical pain makes it hurt more, fighting the reality of a loved one's death only makes it more frustrating. We will go on. And we will see him again some day and smile and feel greatly relieved.

December 3, 1979-We loved him then......

and we love him still. We celebrate the birth of Ammon David Fellows to our family and look forward to being reunited for eternity.