I remember the day I found out that I was going to have our first girl. After 5 boys, you can bet I was pretty excited. She was born after my shortest labor ever--slightly longer than an hour. She has been setting her own pace ever since. She has many great qualities--hard-working, ambitious, kind, adventurous, always wanting to do the right thing. She has always been eager to show she can keep up with her brothers and do what they can do. I think she's proved that!
Susanna is currently serving a mission in California, speaking Spanish. It's been challenging but she has continued to work hard and has learned a lot. We enjoy speaking with her twice a week and hearing all about how she's doing. Susanna has been a huge blessing to our family. We love her a lot and hope she has a great birthday!
Christmas 2004
With her friend Sage Gurney
Susanna loved to imitate the people she saw walking around with their Nordic walking sticks--very big in Germany
Turning 5 in Germany--she picked split pea soup for her birthday dinner
Kindergarten spotlight for her 6th birthday
When she broke her arm after climbing on a stool on top of a pillow
Dressed up for her kindergarten play
Turning 7, 7 days after Camille was born
Age 8, at her baptism
Right after her baptism
Age 9
Turning 10
Turning 11
At David and Stephanie's wedding
Age 12
Visiting her Grandpa Broadbent to get her patriarchal blessing, age 13
At Niagara Falls, age 12 1/2
Turning 14
Zion National Park, 2014
Susanna ran cross country for 4 years in high school
Turning 18
Going to prom
Graduation
Turning 19
Leaving on her mission, January 2020
Here's a video of her playing the piano at Christmas time, a few years ago:
This is a juvenile fiction book about a young girl named Melody with severe cerebral palsy. Her body doesn't allow her to feed herself, speak, or do much at all. She's very intelligent with a photographic memory but she can't really communicate. Finally, in 5th grade, she gets a "Medi-Talker" which is a computer that speaks what she types in. Finally she has a voice. This book explores what it is like to be severely physically disabled but not mentally disabled. It seems like one of the most frustrating of all scenarios. She is completely aware of all the cruelty (subtle and otherwise) that her classmates inflict on her because they don't really want to include her in their activities. One of the saddest moments in the book comes when she realizes that every one of her special ed classmates is kind, where the "normal" ones are not. Who really has the worse disability? The book was a quick read and fairly enjoyable. Wha...
Recently we had another Hansen Family Reunion at Bear Lake. We've been having these destination reunions since 2008. There were about 70 of us in attendance. Bruce and Michelle organized the activities and did a good job. I enjoyed myself! Hopefully lots of other people did too. We showed up on Wednesday afternoon and enjoyed a taco salad dinner, served by Neil and Kristie's family. We also worked on two mixer games: a word search with the names of all 100 Hansen family members as well as a Bingo card that involved finding people with different attributes like recent high school graduation, birthdays in certain months, etc. The word search was definitely the most popular. Also popular was playing Nine-Square and Sandy Pickle (a cross between pickle ball and badminton). Thys and Katrina might have won! After dinner, we had an FHE activity/lesson. Liz had made a book with stories of the first ancestors to join the church. She had selected different stories for us to act out in g...
For lunch on Thursday, Lauren and Kurt made Cafe Rio which was delicious. On Thursday afternoon, we had free time at the lake. Heidi and Aaron rented a pontoon boat and took people out for rides. This was very popular. Some of us went on the kayaks and/or swimming or just hung out on the beach.
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