GREAT VISITS

Dear Family,

Well the Christmas tree is put away, all the decorations are stored again and we begin a New Year.  We hope fr a year of activity and good health.

We had some visitors who dropped by.  It is always great to have our former missionaries stop by and bring us up to date.  Pete and Courtney Longhurst were visiting in Utah and stopped by for a quick visit.

Pete was one of my great missionaries; he served in the office for a long time as secretary and also served as an AP.  He was a little older in the mission field and the Elders referred to him as "Grandpa".  He was solid and a great example to the other missionaries.  He married Courtney and now they have a little baby, Ezekiel.  We did not get to see little Zeke, but I'll bet he is as good looking as his Dad.  Pete and Courtney live in Minneapolis, headquarters for General Mills where he does Human Resources work.  Good looking couple!

Shalayne Davis was in town visiting family and dropped by.  She was one of my great sister missionaries in Germany.  Shalayne went on to graduate from BYU, also get a masters degree from BYU and has decided to study law.  Shalayne is in Richmond VA in her second year of law school. She will be great!

She loves Virginia and may stay back there.  She is a very talented person and will make a great impression wherever she goes.  The only things is that we will not see her much back there in VA.

Well the biggest thing is the arrival of Scott and Suz and their four children, dog and parakeet.  Scott took a job with a Salt Lake firm.  I believe his expertise is in credit card account management but I am not sure.  At any rate they packed up and are coming to Salt Lake City.  They have the apartment downstairs and it is fun to have family around.

Here are the kids during a quiet moment; Julia (Juju), Alexzandra (Zandy), Matilda, (Tillie), and Timothy, (Timmy}  They are cute and full of energy.  Timmy is always coming up and checking on Opa to make sure he is getting over the flu.

The kids have started school close by and have made a lot of friends already.  Timmy started preschool and I asked him what did the teacher say?  "Don't look at Johnny!"  Timmy is in the same pre- school as Cheryl's boy, Johnny and the two of them are really a pair! They are best friends and play so well together.

It has been great to have the kids here.  Some of them come up and eat with me.  Suz and I have been shopping as well.  So much fun!!!!

Well we go to Spokane tomorrow to see Rob and Jeff and family and get an eye treatment.  I will give Julius his Patriarchal Blessing and he will be ordained a deacon as well.  Then John and Kaley and their two boys move to Salt Lake.  John has accepted a position with a law firm here in SLC and it is so wonderful to have them close by.  Their boys will fit right in with all the cousins.

We feel so continuously blessed.  We wish you Heaven's Blessings as well.

Love,

Mom and Dad

CHRISTMAS EVE SPECIAL

Christmas Eve is our big family gathering lately.  Christmas is celebrated in each home but we like to go all out on Christmas Eve.  We have a dinner and this years we said be here at 5:00PM which in istelf is a miracle for most but we did start early.  We roasted a ten pound Rib roast with the bone in.  One has to cook meat with love and concern and this year it was perfect.  Everyone brought sides and desserts.  Doug, Emily, and Mike and their families were there.  Doug brought Dr. Lee, his Chinese surgical shadow as well.

We all sat around and sung Christmas carols. Then we had the Mapleton  Bells performers from Mike and Emily's families.  They are getting pretty good and it was delightful.

We then read from Luke 2 and the kids performed the nativity.

Here are Mary and Joseph and a charming donkey.  We interspersed the scripture with Christmas carols and all had a jolly good time.

Here are the Three Wise Men; Joseph, Michael and Spencer,  Sometimes I wonder about doing it but the kids learn the story so well and so look forward to playing a part.

Here they all are.  Following the skit, we had Oma's White Elephant Gift exchange.  Everyone bought a gift, slightly daffy but still a good gift.
One of the kids picked out a really nice Pogo stick Mom's was a set of Reindeer Antlers which was popular.  It was fun!

As this was going on, John slipped out and got into his Santa Outfit complete with pillows and beard and came rollicking in with another bag of gifts.





He placed each person on his lap and did the pre Christmas interview...,"Have you been a good boy/girl this year?".  Here is Emily getting the questions by Santa, (her husband).  One of the teenagers asked Santa for a car which brought forth a lot of Ho Ho Ho's from all.

As this Santa was leaving, a second unannounced Santa appeared.  It was wacky Cathy with a huge gift saying, "I heard Opa was good this year!"

Each family gathering seems to get better with so much joy and love around.  What a great time of the year and how special it is to remember the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  We wish you all the best in the new year!

Love, Mom and Dad

AL AND PAUL VISIT FROM MICHIGAN

Al and Paul and baby Charlie came to visit.  The other seven kids stayed home.  Paul has this job with a Salt Lake investment firm and his role allows him to live wherever he wants so it was back to Michigan on a small working farm in Munith, complete with sheep, goats, cows, ducks and chickens.    Paul came out for the business Xmas party and do do some work.  They stayed with us and it was fun.

Here is Al and Mom shredding cabbage for the German  Sauerkraut jug, seen in the background.  We make the best Sauerkraut!  We did about 5 - 6 kg of shredded cabbage and will wait for a month before checking the result.

We went with Al to the new outlets by Cabelas.  There was a La Creuset outlet and I got Mom a large oval pot.  Al had brought a fresh leg of lamb from one of her lambs and she planned a delicious roast.

Mike, Rayanne, Johnny and Jenna, Mom  and I accompanied Al and Paul to the Salt Lake Temple to some work work for Paul's family.  It was special and sweet.  Following this we had the roasted lamb dinner and it was great.  They had to go back the next day,

We had out little missionary groups Xmas party.  The old Swiss Austrian group has been meeting since 1958 several times a year.  We had it at Dave and Ann Wirthlin.  Naturally we had to wear a little of the traditional dress.  We had echt Kaesekuchen as it is made in Switzerland and it was a lovely evening. They give out "white elephant" gifts and I was surprised whn someone got my Sig bottles that Mom secretly wrapped.

Well we are getting ready for Xmas.  We need to get out the cards.  We have been preparing the house for the arrival of Suz and her family who will occupy the basement apartment.  Scott took a job with a Salt Lake Company and he is her now.  Mom has been gutting out.

We may also get a  visit from John and Kaley from Florida.  Suz has to sell her homes in Phoenix but there is a lot of real estate action going on here.

Next event will be the Xmas eve dinner and pagent with several families in attendance.  Lots of fun, lots of joy and there is always rejoicing.

Love, Dad

CHRISTMAS SEASON BEGINS WITH THE NUTCRACKER BALLET

Dear Family,

Cheryl has her daughters in the Ballet West ballet school.  Each year they perform the Nutcracker Ballet with professional  ballet dancers and some of the students qualify for the performances.  Cheryl's kids seem to make it in there each year and this year she had four who made all the performances.  There was Annabelle, Mary Clare, Loren and Olivia.  Olivia was the buffoon that comes out under the skirt.

Cheryl purchased tickets for many members of our family to a Friday night performance.  First of course we met at Sigfried's next to the Capital Theater for a Wurst and Kraut.  John and Kaley came up from Florida for a visit and joined us at the performance. Doug and his wife came with Douglas who brought a date.  Mike and Rayann came with several of their daughters,  Emily and John came  with a few of their daughters.  i did not count them all but there was quite a group who occupied the front section of the left isle.  Paul of course was there with Johnny; Paul has seen this about 40 times. Gemina was in town and joined us in the performance,

Here is a picture of most of us sitting in front.  Little Johnny had the best seat in the house and loved the ballet.

I thoroughly enjoyed the performance.  The music and dancing were perfect.  (It seems like some of the men's tights are getting tighter each year) but pother than that it was great.  These dancers are in top physical condition and the performance is graceful and also athletic.  I enjoy it very much each year especially because four grandaughters are in the cast.

Here is Annabelle in her costume.

Here is Mary Clare who was one of the party girls.  She was on stage for a long time   and I must admit, she was the only dancer I watched during the opening scenes.

Here is Lauren as one of the soldiers and then there was Olivia as one of the buffoons that come out from under the giant dress.  She is really a little ham always emoting and like the others, has great stage presence.  Notice how she points her toe!

At the end, I think Cheryl finds all the driving and practices were worth it.  It was so much fun to see them in a professional performance.

This always ushers in the Christmas season for us and our seats were our Xmas present from Cheryl and Paul and much appreciated.

Well Mom is getting out  million Christmas gifts all wrapped and mailing them to each family.  We will start on the card soon and that has been a huge project.  We have a final picture of the entire family from our summer reunion with the four teenagers who were not there, photshopped into the pictre for completeness sake.

Paul and Alison  are coming for Paul's company Xmas gathering.  Scott is here now and Scott and Suz and all their kids are coming for Xmas and will stay in the downstairs apartment until they buy a house here in Salt Lake.

I should not forget that we celebrated John's birthday while at Sigfrieds  Mom bought him an entire vey rich German chocolate cake.  Here are John and Kaley and expensive chocolate cake.  It was very good and worth it.

We love you all,  Dad and Mom

MOM'S THANKSGIVING PLAY

Dear Family,

I need to write separately about Mom's Thanksgiving play.  Here she is directing the play with David as one of the Pilgrims.

She researched the story of the Pilgrim's in several trips to the library.  She then wrote a play with five scenes, depicting the difficulties the Pilgrims had in England, the crossing on first the Mayflower and Speedwell, the sinking of the Speedwell. the signing of the Mayflower contract aboard the Mayflower, the conflict between Indians and settlers, Squato comes to the rescue of the struggling Pilgrims.  He taught them how to grow corn burying a fish in each hill. He introduced them to Chief Massasoit and the next year they had the Thanksgiving feast.  They invited the Indians who when they arrived, saw that there was not enough food so they went out and bagged a few deer.  I have always wanted to serve venison also at Thanksgiving but could not this year.

There were lines to read.  All donned Mom's costumes, stood on the steps of he sunken living room and read their parts

Here are Mark, Mary Anton, Kate and David suffering on the waters in the Mayflower.

Here are Rayann, Rachel, Camille, Michael; Joesph, Mike and Emma with the Indian headdress

Cathy, Pete and the kids made pretty good looking Pilgrims.  A great time was had by all and this was on fun activity that Mom wrote and organized.  I should also give credit to Mary who reminded all the families to come on time and do their parts and acted as a producer.

Mary and Mark took David, Kate and Anton to Temple Square to see the lights. I wonder what tales Anton has to tell when he gets back to Germany about this really weird family that has so much joy and fun together.

We love you all and wish the best for the coming Xmas season.

Dad

THANKSGIVING 2012

Dear Family,

We had the best Thanksgiving get to gather!  Here is a photo of the adult table with the addition of the married couple Johnny and Jena.  We had all sorts of visitors: Mary and Mark and their two kids plus the dog, Gunner der Jaeger and their German exchange student Anton came from Michigan. Mike and Rayanne and family came up from Mapleton as did Emily and John and complete family.  Cathy and Pete and kids came all the way from Bountiful.  Cheryl, Paul and their kids came as well early on.

e started cooking early and one or two days before to be ready for the feast.  I brined a turkey and then got up in the middle of the night and put it into the smoker so it would be ready.  Made the oyseter dressing the day before and Mom got up early to stuff and roast the turkey.

Becca had stayed with us a couple of days with her family and she was a baking machine.  Here is Opa, Becca and Cathy about to bake a delicious apple pie that the girls made.  All preparations were done in time so we all sat down to eat at 12:30 PM sharp.  Mary had organized and set the tables and made sure everyone had a place setting.



Here are the teenagers in the sunken living room all set up for dining

.And the teeny boppers

And here are the little guys all who did well at the table and had a great feed.

I smoked a turkey, Mom roasted a big turkey with oyster dressing.  (pretty good this year!) Everyone brought sides and rolls, pies, sauces, salads and gravy and it was a grand event.  It was completely organized and went off smoothly and was very good.

We are so grateful for our blessings continuously but at this time of the year we express extra thanks for the blessings of family and friends, health and strength and the blessings of the Gospel in our lives.  It was a wonderful time.  We appreciate all who have helped and wish all the best.

Love, Mom and Dad

NATALIE GETS A MISSION CALL

With the change in the ages of proselyting missionaries, there has been an enormous increase in the applications to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  The Church has been deluged with applications and 40% of the early ones were from the gals.

Natalie was the first one to put in her papers and the processing was quick!  Check out this Y tube of her receiving her mission call .  It is such drama that the entire family was present and she opened the envelope to read the call and the destination.

Local lore says that if the postage  on the envelope is large then it is a foreign mission and hers had a lot of postage.  There was a pool of where everyone thought she would go but no one guessed it.  There was a little pressure for me to find out in advance but I did not do it.

So she is going to the Lisbon, Portugal mission and we are all excited for her. Emily will have two missionaries out..Josh is almost finished with his mission and then Natalie starts as well.  Good going everyone!!!!

Well Madeline H.  just submitted her papers as well as she turns 19 soon.  We are excited for our grandchildren to have this opportunity to serve mission. Others are finishing a segment of college and may also go.  It is wonderful to have this experience as it serves as a foundation for life.

I have not written for a while as I was back in the hospital with a leg infection.. The worst thing was that i missed the deer hunt in Texas with Rob but he was able to schedule it for next year.  Also missed the trip to Virginia with the Manwarrings.

Things are popping around here.  John and Kaley come up this week from Florida for a weekend visit.

Also Scott and Suz are looking to a move from Arizona as Scott has taken a job with a company here in Salt Lake.  He starts thursday and they will occupy[y the basement apartment.    There will be a lot of Mexican cooking!  It will be a treat to have more family here with the grandkids.

We love you all,

Mom and Dad