Family Trip #4: Driving to Utah at New Year's, January 1992

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 Provo Temple with Jennifer Boren and Sandy Gerrard

Visiting with friends Bryce and Jessica Mecham

Kent, Liesl, David, Kurt, Heidi, Tyler at Cougar Stadium

Brian and Kurt

An unhappy Tyler with an unfortunate haircut

JoEllen and Dad--I'm not sure why JoEllen is looking so serious about the book she's reading

Comments

Do Dots Family System

The original post was written in January of 2015. I wrote an update at the bottom of this post in March 2021. A few months ago, a friend of mine told me about something she was doing in her family to help her family function better. Her teenage autistic son had been struggling a lot so they had been working with behavior therapists to help him and this "Do Dots Family System" had been recommended. As she described it, I was greatly intrigued since it sounded like something I wanted to implement at my own house. I looked into it and decided to purchase it right after Thanksgiving. Here is my review of how it has worked for us over the last six weeks or so. The basic idea of the chart is that children need to take care of their responsibilities before they get any privileges. It strongly reinforces the concept of "Work Before Play" . The chart helps children see in a very visual way that, until they have completed their responsibilities, they are on Le...

Hansen Family Reunion 2024, Thursday afternoon

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.

2024 Hansen Family Reunion, Wednesday

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...

Search This Blog