Recent Happenings

Here are some recent events at our house:

Mindy participated in the 4th grade wax museum which featured prominent Utahns. She chose Minerva Teichert (who loved the color red) since she wants to be an artist when she grows up. It turned out that her kindergarten teacher's father grew up next door to Minerva and was constantly recruited to pose for her. That was a fun connection.

Camille got glasses! Her left eye is weaker than her right eye, so she might have lazy eye, but for now we are trying just the glasses to see if her left eye starts cooperating. She hasn't lost the glasses yet and she has been good about wearing them.

A missionary from our son's mission came home and brought us a nativity set that our son purchased there. It was fun to meet "Elder Mace" and hear a little more about our son's mission. Elder Mace served a lot with our son but wasn't actually his companion.

On April 3rd, the BYU Harris Fine Arts Center had a big gala celebrating its 50th anniversary. I spent a lot of time in the HFAC as a music major. As part of the celebration, I participated in an alumni concert with the BYU Philharmonic. These ladies that I'm pictured with were all friends from college who played in orchestra with. That was more than 25 years ago! It was fun to see them and fun to play with the orchestra.

Easter weekend was very busy with the concert I played in on Friday and then General Conference on Saturday and Sunday. Fortunately we were able to squeeze in our egg coloring and an Easter egg hunt on Saturday.

On Easter Sunday, we celebrated my grandma's 95th birthday which was the day after her real birthday. She plugged her ears while we sang Happy Birthday to her in our traditional loud and off-key way.

She has pretty amazing health for someone who is 95. She is exactly 70 years older than my oldest son who turned 25 on the same day.

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Visiting Susquehanna: The Priesthood Restoration Site

On our way home from Palmyra, we decided to go a couple of hours out of our way to visit the recently opened Priesthood Restoration Site along the Susquehanna River. This is where we believe that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery received the keys of the Aaronic Priesthood from John the Baptist which gave them the authority to baptize. This site also has the restored Isaac and Elizabeth Hale home where Joseph and Emma lived for a year as well as the home where Joseph and Emma lived on their own. We spent a couple of hours there and I wouldn't have minded a few more minutes but we had a long way to go that night. It's a beautiful setting, very much in rural Pennsylvania. However, on the day we were there, cars at a racetrack nearby were detracting from the peace and quiet. I'm guessing that's not as big of a problem on weekdays. The Hale Family was quite well-off for their day so their home was probably nicely decorated with wallpaper and carpet. ...

Book Review: Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper

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...

Hansen Family Plot in the Provo Cemetery

On Memorial Day this year, our family went to the Provo Cemetery, as we do almost every year. We spent some time at the Hansen Family plot which contains the grave of my 2nd great-grandparents, Peter and Mary Hansen. They both emigrated from Denmark with their spouses to Utah. My grandfather lost his first wife Ane to cholera on the plains outside of St. Joseph, Missouri, along with three of his little boys within a very short time--about one month. It's a sad story but it's also one of admirable resilience. He brought his one surviving son, Jorgen, to Utah. He married his second wife Maren (Anglicized to Mary) some 9 years later in Utah She had been married before but lost her first husband at an unknown date. I wish I knew more about her but she left very few records, although I could do more research! Peter and Maren had 6 more children together. The youngest two were twins, Enoch and Ephraim. Ephraim is my great-grandfather and is buried in California. He is the father of ...

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