A weekend getaway to Meridian

After J got home from school on Friday I packed up the van, picked Ken up from work and we got out of town! I quickly learned a very important lesson- NEVER give children their own water bottles while you are on a road trip. There will not be a bathroom available. SO, on our drive up to Idaho we had more than a couple "accidents". Thank goodness for leather seats in the van and washable booster seat covers.

We arrived at the home of John and Tiff Wheeler (one of Ken's older brothers) just in time for dinner on Friday night. The next morning I took a run around Meridian and Ken accompanied one of our Nephews to a local gym and had a nice run on the treadmill. We went to visit our friends Mike and Tierra Berg who recently moved from the San Jose area to Meridian. It was a fabulous visit, we hope to see them much more now that they are a little closer, we seem to make it out to Meridian more than we make it out to San Jose.

 Baby E was born last November, and John and Tiff had a little baby boy 2 weeks later.

 The boys had more fun that they ever could have imagined- other peoples toys are THE BEST!

 On Sunday after church we laid the babies on the floor next to each other, and within seconds they were holding hands. I love their expressions in this picture, but E pulled their hands behind her dress.....

 ......so here's another picture to prove that YES they were holding hands, because they are best friends!

 For our boys- it's not Sunday afternoon if they can't jump on a trampoline. And lucky for them, there is a trampoline at Uncle Johns house. Emily and Tony Bradshaw (one of Ken's little sister) and their children were also there for Sunday dinner.

Baby E has been WANTING to sit up for weeks now, at home she'd only ever been able to sit up for about 20 seconds before she would fall over, but being around her cousin Baby J, who is sitting up like a pro, helped her practice sitting up lots and lots. I liked sitting them like this because they enjoyed playing with each others feet.

 John and Tiff needed to make a trip down to Salt Lake City and so on Monday we were able to caravan together for a while. John drove in our Van with Ken and I drove with Tiff until we got to Twin Falls (which was the perfect stop for the two babies to have their lunch) and then we all got back into our own families cars and continued the journey. Ken got this action shot of John telling me not to worry, that I hadn't offended him when I said that "Baby E isn't afraid of strangers, just strange Uncles."

 We were planning on sticking close together for most of the drive but Ken and I got stuck behind a couple of semi's and while trying to pass them we missed a very crucial exit and took a little 28 mile detour. This put us a little behind schedule but it all worked out well in the end. We stopped for dinner at Applebee's in Bountiful- it was fabulous! (I love Applebee's because they have dinners that fit well with my diet)

 The boys like Applebee's because they have crayons, awesome music and yummy food, it's the Kid Tri-fecta!

 We got home just in time for Ken to see the Elders and find out how things went this weekend while we were away- and what help they needed this week.

We had a fabulous weekend.

This is the end.........

.....of Kindergarten!

He was just born, well I guess it has been 6 years and 2 months, but he is still just my little baby boy.....but now he's a Kindergarten Graduate!

He had an amazing year in Miss Johnson's Class. He's done so well, learned so much, and proved himself to be a good student and a good friend over and over and over again.

Graduation was the day before the last day of school, and on the last day of school J got a little taste of what next year will be like- when he is an "early bird" at school. All year he has taken a bus to school at 8:49- but last Friday he had to be at the bus stop almost an hour and a half earlier than that. He was only at school for 90 minutes and then he rode the bus home for the last time as a Kindergartner. His bus driver gave the kids a treat- well two treats, First he drove the bus route backwards- starting with what is usually his last stop (which just happens to be our stop) and Second- he gave each kid an otter pop as they got off the bus.

Oh, the joy of his very first- LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!

I Believe in Forever

My sweet Grandma, Verna Turner, passed away in March. She was 96 years old. I loved her so much. I still love her, I'll never stop. I have been blessed with the most fabulous family and I have high hopes that we will all be together forever. Because I really do, with all my heart, believe in "forever".

This is a picture of Verna Olsen and Marden A. Turner on their wedding day in 1941. They were married for Time and all Eternity in the Logan Temple.

This is a post about Grandma, but I'm going to talk about my grandfather for a while, because he plays a key roll in why I believe in forever. My grandfather was a Pilot during World War II. I believe that he mostly flew B-24's but there may have been a B-17 thrown in there too. I have no memories of my grandfather because he past away a little less than two years before I was born, but I've always felt like I know him. That feeling may be because I have heard stories about him, but I believe it's because we do know each other and have known each other, as spirits. My father sent a request to a WWII historian, asking for information about what planes his father had flown during the war. When he received the information back there was a little tidbit of unexpected information- and if I remember correctly it was something like this- Marden Turner had, in the historians opinion, crashed the most planes during WWII and survived.

He was really good at crash landing, and in my opinion, that's a pretty awesome skill to have. Unfortunately, the last time he crashed he suffered what would now be called a Traumatic Brain Injury. After a long recovery he eventually returned home to his wife and their young son. My father was their second son, born after he returned home from the war. My grandfathers injury had changed his personality, he was not the same man that my grandmother had married. She told me once (when she was 79 and I was 19) that he was mean and short tempered and that she questioned whether or not it was the best thing for her to stay with him. She sought the advice of her father. Her father told her that it was her choice and that her family would support her in whatever choice she made, but he asked her a question, it turned out to be a very important question.

I mentioned before, that my grandparents were married "for Time and all Eternity" or in other words, forever. We believe that a couple, a family, can be sealed together forever, that death does not break that bond, but that after death our families have the opportunity to continue on together, forever in an eternal perfected state. (What we will be doing forever, I'm not quite sure yet, but my vote is for some AWESOME family vacations! Think about all the galaxies we could visit! but back to the question......that's right, I haven't told you the question.) My grandmother's father asked her if she had truly loved her husband, before his accident, before he changed, had she truly loved the man she had married and had she looked forward to being with THAT man, forever. And if she had truly loved him, did she believe that after this life was over he would once again be that man that she loved? If the answer was yes, then she could look forward to someday having her husband back, well and whole. She did believe that, and she decided that she would stay with him. Eventually they would have more children, Six in total, three boys and three girls. They have sixteen grandchildren (13 of which are girls, which is awesome!) and if my math is correct, they currently have 36 grand children. 

Now, there may be some people out there who, after hearing this story, would say, "WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD SHE STAY!" I have had different feelings about that myself but as I've gotten older I've come to realize that what my grandmother was teaching me about by telling me about her choice was the Power of Faith. Now, let me say this, she did not live a horrible life with a mean man, they had a good life with wonderful children, but she was married to a man who was different from the man she had fallen in love with. And that is where her faith came in. Yes, she believed that Jesus Christ lived and he died and he rose again, that he is our Savior. That through his Life, Death and Resurrection he made it possible for each one of us to do the same. She believed that some day she would be reunited with her husband, made whole again through the power of our Savior Jesus Christ and that they could and would be together forever, she and her Marden, the one she hadn't seen since before that very last plane crash. 

Grandpa Turner passed away in 1975, a little more than 30 years after suffering his traumatic brain injury. Grandma passed this year, a little less than 39 years later. We had a few days warning before she passed, it was quick, but not so quick that we couldn't go and spend time with her. I found myself wondering how it would be, that heavenly reunion. I imagined in my mind, my grandmother finding herself suddenly in a new place, no longer surrounded by her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, but rather, staring into the faces of her loved ones who had passed on long before her. And there he would be, the man she loved. 

In my mind, this is what he looked like, not all dressed for a flight in front of an airplane, but young and strong, with those same dark eyes that she had found her self so easily lost in when they were young and in love. I imagine that he ran to her and as only he could do, thanked her for her faith that he would someday be that same man that she loved, that same man that she had married. And now they are together again, someday, I hope to be with them too, because we are a family.

I believe in forever. With all my heart. Thank you Grandma for sharing your story and your faith with me. 

Memorial Day 2014

Well, I did it again, I let a month or more go by without an update. It ends NOW. We did this TODAY!

It's Memorial Day! Growing up as a Navy Brat (which is awesome by the way, I'm sorry if you didn't get to be one :) ) we always lived far away from family (not so awesome, but it means you always know where your going on vacation!). Still I have a few memories of being in Utah on Memorial Day, specifically being in Cache Valley at Grandma Turner's house. She would bring out a few mason jars and we would pick flowers from her yard, there was always an abundance of flowers in grandma's yard around Memorial Day. Then we took those flowers up the the Logan Cemetery, where my Grandfather was buried near his parents, and also where my grandmother's parents were buried.

Last year I felt like I wanted my children to have those kinds of memories. I wanted Memorial Day to be about remembering our Family, because OUR Family, the Ken and Kate Wheeler family, wouldn't even exist if it weren't for our parents and grandparents and all of our loved ones came before us. I want my children to feel a connection to their ancestors. So last year we went to the Murray City Cemetery, where my mother's parents are buried, and also my cousin Matt. After we left our flowers, which we had gathered from our yard and after we explained to the boys who was buried there and why we were visiting, we went to a nearby park and played for a while, then on the way home we picked up lunch and Slurpees. And this year, we made it a TRADITION!

Since our grandparents are buried in four different locations we decided that as part of our tradition we would make a trip to visit one set each year on Memorial Day. Last year we visited my Maternal Grandparents, Wayne and Mildred Dowdle. This year we went to the Provo City Cemetery and visited the graves of Ken's Maternal Grandparents, A. Smith and Afton Bernice Pond.

When we arrived little B found this BIG log. He was quite impressed with it's size and he and J speculated about why it was there and how it had gotten into a big dirt field. I thought his Grandpa Turner would be glad to know that his grandsons love large pieces of wood, wherever they may be found.

Thanks to findagrave.com we were able to easily locate the grave site of Great Grandma and Grandpa Pond.

 This year we brought some flowers, though our flowers haven't really bloomed yet, so we only had one purple iris with some mint added for greenery. We were not the first visitor- there were plenty of pretty flowers. This year we added to our tradition, bringing stones to leave on our loved ones headstones. I don't know why, but I found my self thinking about this, stones left on graves, on top of tombstones or headstones. To the best of my knowledge it was a Jewish tradition, but since I kept thinking about it when I would think about this years Memorial Day trip, I decided to do an Internet search and learn some more. What I found was that no one is really quite sure how the practice got started, BUT for most people it meant that you had come to honor your beloved ancestor by visiting their grave, and you leave the stone as a token of remembrance. And so that is what it will mean for our family as well.

 We painted our rocks, each one has a little flower on it (J's flower looks more like a big blue blob and B's is a similar red blob, but the boys and I, and Grandma and Grandpa Pond all know that they are flowers, and that's what counts). J arranged them on the headstone.

 After our visit at the cemetery we ate a picnic lunch in Provo City's Pioneer Park. 

 Then we played on the playground!

The baby discovered that swings are really fun. She was quite hesitant for the first few minutes, but she never fell out! And eventually she even started to smile a lot!

 On our way home we stopped by the 7 Eleven and everyone over a year old got a Slurpee. It was a grand day. Next year, we will head north!

Salt Lake Comic Con Fan X!

Last Thursday the whole family went down to the Salt Lake Comic Con Fan Xperience. When we go out into large crowds we dress alike- mostly so if one of the boys goes missing we can hold up the other one and say "He's dressed like this!" We decided to wear Giants apparel to Fan X and I knew we had a shirt that was just E's size, so I went through a box of baby boy clothes and TaaaaaaDAAAAA! She's adorable :)

 She's pretty much the perfect accessory 

 We had tickets, but we showed up right at the same time as the rest of the state.....so we waited an hour to get in, which was fine because while waiting we realized that my wallet and the baby's bottle had both been left in the van, there was plenty of time to fix that little oversight. The boys enjoyed the times that I was wearing the baby because it meant that the stroller was available.

 I will admit, that we've never seen Dr. Who.....but that didn't stop our boys from being intrigued by the Tardis.....that's what this is right?

 Who you gonna call?

 The original Bat-mobile from the movies in the 1960's, you can see how impressed the boys are.

 They were most impressed by this little vehicle.

 Ken was most impressed with this car (which is the Delorean from Back to the Future) until.....

 he saw this Ferrari.

 THEN........we found the Lego displays......and we spent lots and lots and lots of time there.

Here is a castle. ( I don't know what castle it is)

 Helms Deep!

 The Black Tower

 A city! (and look there's Bat Man)

 A scene from Ghostbusters

 Superman stopping a train! There is a damsel in distressed tied to the tracks....just out of frame.

 The Delorean being pushed by the train, from Back to the Future 3

 Happy Happy boys, they watched a few working electric Lego trains going around and around and around.....for about a half an hour. I eventually just went and got a chair.........

 ........and the baby fell asleep

 Sorry, I thought I turned this the right way and I can't fix it now. BUT Aunt Deb and Uncle Jeff were volunteers and FanX.

 By the end of the day, the baby was a little overwhelmed.

 Back at the Lego table- A Hover Carrier from the Avengers Movie

 Star Wars!

 Iron Man!

 On Wednesday I reminded the boys that we were going to spend the Thursday afternoon at FanX, they were not really excited (and why should they have been, at the time they didn't know there would be a Lego table) Jared reminded me that Thursday night was his schools Art and Math night. He really really really really really wanted us to go and see his art. PLUS they were serving PIZZA for free. SO, we made sure that we were able to attend. J was very excited to show us this art piece he made- it's a Bee!