In May of 1993, I flew with David and baby Jan out to Utah to see my brother Bruce who had just come home from his mission to Uruguay. We enjoyed the spring weather and hanging out with the fam while Scott worked hard back in Wisconsin. Ironically, I have no pictures of Bruce from this trip. David and Liesl were buddies after Liesl got used to us being there This is the new family room at my parents' house, just completed. Tyler, Liesl, David and Jan are getting their daily fix of "Street." Liesl's birthday happened while we were visiting This is a really nice picture of Jan and Craig Uncle Kurtis Dad, JoEllen, Mom, Jan and David College student Neil

 Yesterday Scott put together a tunnel for one of my raised beds.  My goal is to use it as a little unheated greenhouse for my seeds that I start in the spring.  I am hoping the shelter will be warm enough to give the little plants a head start without having to use grow lights. Yesterday I planted some onion seeds in two milk jugs along with some kale, lettuce, and spinach seeds in more conventional seedling starting trays. Scott put hinges on the shelter so I can lift it easily to work on it. When the sun comes out and warms everything up, I'll have to make sure it gets enough ventilation so everything doesn't fry by propping it up or leaving the ends open. It's looking pretty cold with that snow in there. Hopefully it melts soon. I'm going to get a thermometer for it. Scott says it looks like a prairie schooner. All it needs is some wheels and some oxen to set off over the prairie. I'll let you know if it works for my seedlings--I sure hope so. I've been watc...

 In the summer of 1992, our family members came to visit us. First my family came out from Utah in June. Everyone except Neil and Bruce came. They all crowded into our tiny apartment of 600 sq. ft., covering essentially every inch of extra floor space to sleep. They stayed just a few days before we took off with them to visit Indiana where my family lived in the 1970's.  I didn't take nearly enough pictures. I'll blame it on the expense of buying film and getting it developed and feeling pretty poverty-stricken in graduate school. Not to mention the problem with having no idea how your pictures turned out until you got them developed. But here's what I have. In Madison, we went to the small Madison zoo. Then the boys in the family went to a Milwaukee Brewers game. Scott helped make sandwiches for that event and tells a funny story. Kurt was being a little obnoxious. Scott was asking people what they wanted and Kurt asked for a peanut butter sandwich. So Scott made it bu...

 On New Year's Eve of 1991, just before 1992, our little family of 3 made a surprise trip to Utah. I had been feeling sad about missing Christmas and my family, so on New Year's Eve, I told Scott he needed to take a little more time off. We left in the late afternoon and drove straight through to Utah, arriving late on New Year's Day without telling them beforehand that we were coming. It was a very impulsive thing to do. We started wondering if it was a good choice when we hit a blizzard in Nebraska along I-80 early on New Year's Day. There were a few scary moments sliding around so we took an exit and spent about an hour at a fast foodery. When the storm got better, we took off again. When we showed up at my family's house that night, they couldn't believe it. Ten-year-old Kurt said, "Is this a dream?" We stayed about a week, visiting friends, going to the temple, and enjoying a little break. Visiting with our friends, Steve and Melanie Gygi At the P...

 The summer of 1991, we took a trip out west from our home in Wisconsin. We flew to Washington state where we visited with Scott's relatives in the Tacoma area. Then Scott's mother drove us down to California so that we could attend the Broadbent family reunion in northern California in the Sierra Nevadas at the "Sons of Norway" camp. We met my family there and they drove us back to Utah.  After some time in Utah, we flew back to Madison. Scott flew back before me while I stayed a little longer with David. I remember going camping with my family after Scott left. We went up in the Uintas and I got some really poor sleep trying to keep David contained at night in the tent without his crib. Sadly, I got almost no pictures of this trip but here are a few, largely thanks to Bekki, Scott's father's wife. There are a few really cute ones of David. These are from a picnic with Scott's father and Bekki, on an island in Puget Sound. David, Bekki, Neil Here are a fe...

The day after Christmas our family took off on a trip to Arizona. We left about 9am and got to the Grand Canyon at about 5pm and stopped for a quick look before heading to our hotel. The next morning we headed early to the park because I was feeling paranoid about waiting in a long line to get in--we had seen a very long line the previous afternoon. Talmage was feeling grumpy about that, but he appreciated our early start when we saw the crowds later in the day--and the very full parking lot. We did a hike to "Ooh Aah Point" with our spikes on, which was somewhat cold and windy. After a few hours of looking around we decided to head back which is when we ran into my brother's family. We had planned to meet up with them in Phoenix so seeing them at the Grand Canyon was a bonus. We had lunch with them at Wendy's as we headed out. That night we stayed at our VRBO in Scottsdale. The next morning Scott and I did a session at the Phoenix temple and got a dozen donuts on the...