Happy Birthday & Almost Flashback Friday

Happy Birthday, Sara! We don't know if you ever read the blogs since you're such a big Facebook person, but we hope you have a great day and that you can spend it away from the students!

Only three months minus two days until Christmas. Let the holiday season begin!


Jeni helping decorate Grandma & Grandpa Call's tree.


Chelsea, Eric's head, Jeni, Ethan, Ali, Grandma Call, Grandma Sessions and David on Christmas morning.


Kelly's Christmas boogie (his style of music has changed a little.)


Chelsea on Christmas morning at Grandma & Grandpa Call's.

Grandma Sessions, Debbie and Eli on Christmas morning.

Denice, Romel, Casey, Misty, Kelly, Carlos and Glenn on Christmas morning (just look at all that hair on Glenn!)

A True Miracle

From Misty Harper - "Are you sitting down? Don't die of shock but I joined the bandwagon. My blog is startupfamily.blogspot.com. Glenn, I don't have Jeni's email....do you? She will really die of shock!
Love to you all!"

Another Anniversary

It was 161 years ago today that the Sessions family arrived in the Salt Lake Valley with the second group of pioneers. Perrigrine Sessions and Daniel Spencer were the leaders of the group. .

Fifty-two year old Patty wrote in her journal -

Sept, Friday 24: Got into the valley. It is a beautiful place. My heart flows with gratitude to God that we have got home all safe, lost nothing. Have been blessed with life and health. I rejoice all the time.

Sept, Saturday 25: PG (Perrigrine) went back to help up the rear of his camp. They have all got here safe, some broken wagons but no broken bones. I have drove my wagon all the way but part of the two last mountains PG drove a little. I broke nothing nor turned over, had good luck. I have cleaned my wagon and myself and visited some old friends.

Sept. Sunday 26: Put Lorenzo Young's wife, Harriet, to bed with a son, the first male born in this valley. It was said to me more than five months ago that my hands should be the first to handle the first born son in the place of rest for the saints, even in the city of our God. I have come more than one thousand miles to do it since it was spoken.

Perrigrine wrote in his journal:

Met the first Presidency of the Church on a stream called the Little Sandy. Here we called a halt and they gave us a brief account of the Valley with many instructions pertaining to the course that the camp should pursue when we got into the Valley. This was cheering to the camp as we had but about two hundred miles to travel before we could begin to build and inhabit.

Although in the midst of the wild men of the mountains, yet our spirits were refreshed and it seemed as though our burdens were light although we were worn out with the long and tedious journey.

When we got to the Big Sandy there fell about four inches of snow. This was the first of September and the weather was cold, the ground frozen, but after some two or three days the weather turned warm and we were able to travel on. The most part of the Saints were obliged to walk on foot and many without shoes, but after a long journey of almost four months we landed in the Great Salt Lake Valley on the twenty-fourth of September, all well and not a death had been while on the journey in my company of four hundred Souls, yet several children were born on the way.

Pretty cool people, I think

Happy Anniversay, Denice and Sam!

Happy First Anniversary on September 22nd, Denice and Sam! One whole year already! Your wedding was also the very first blog we ever posted! We hope you had a great day and another great year!

Erin Is Home!!!

Yesterday was Erin's missionary report. I was the first family member to get to the church. I wasn't sure I was in the right place until I saw LaMar and Maralee Taylor. When Erin walked in I wasn't sure it was really her, she is still supposed to look like this!



Well, maybe not quite so young, but at least like this!





Here is the episode of Erin's homecoming (and Tom & Lisa's announcement!)

Ali is back!!!

Ali is back for two weeks!!!

Next episode - "Erin Is Back!!!"

PInk Floyd Summer 2008

I finally got the pictures together from Reed & Kim's visit and the big family reunion. I tried to narrow it down to five minutes but just couldn't do it - so here are about thirteen minutes of pictures set to Pink Floyd.

Another confused tourist

I had another confused tourist. She said her brother-in-law married a Mormon woman. Because she married outside of the church as penance she has to wear itchy white underwear.

Close Encounters

I just had my closest encounter with a famous person on my tour this week - Dick Locher. He's the cartoonist for Dick Tracy.

He's also an editorial cartoonist for the Chicago Tribune.

He and his wife were some of the nicest people I've had on my tour. He's about eighty years old so he thinks he'll be passing "Dick Tracy" on to some else soon.

And there are still dumb comments from the tourists. I had a lady who said, "I can't believe how vain and self-centered Brigham Young was! He had pictures and statues of himself in EVERY

room of the Beehive House!

Middle Age

Lance told me that I was middle-aged when I turned forty, but I didn't feel it. Now I do! Today I got my first artificial body part - a crown! It's not much, but it's still enough to make me realize I'm starting to fall apart. And it's not just the body that's going- I just washed a load of laundry and realized I forgot to put detergent in. (How important is soap to clean laundry anyway?) Oh, well - Jane forgets to put bananas in her banana bread :)