Home Sweet Home

This past weekend I went to my mother and father's home in Wendell, Idaho. My 4 sisters and 1 brother all met there to finish up the task of cleaning out the house. It was a long day Saturday, but we are finished, basically. We all had loaded vehicles and there's just a few things left to take to D.I. Thanks to Marla for finishing that up for us. Marla is also going to hire some ladies to come in and give it a good cleaning. Then we're praying that we can get it sold quickly.

It was however a bitter sweet weekend for me. As I thought I'll probably never set foot inside that home again. It wasn't my home where I grew up, but it was the last place that my parents lived and I have many memories of being there. As I was single for so long it was my home away from my own home and I spent many holidays and long weekend with my mom and dad there. It was a place where many a nephew or niece stopped on there way through to see Grandma and Grandpa and have a place to rest. Many other relatives stopped by to take a break and spend some precious time with them also. Even though I never lived there it is hard to see it being sold. It truly feels that I am a homeless orphan in some ways. I'll miss going to Wendell to visit the cute little town and my parents.
We saw one of my mother's best friends at church Sunday morning and she told us that it felt like a funeral all over again...'cause she knew she would probably never see us again as that is how life seems to go. I don't expect we will ever have a reason to attend the church there again. I know that I'll return to Wendell, because I will want to visit the gravesites of my parents, but I'm sure that it will not be quite as often. Thank goodness Katie, my niece is still there. Maybe she'll let us stay with her once in a while or Marla is not much further.
Mom and Dad.. I love you and I miss you,and now it all seems so final. Thanks for the wonderful parents you were and all you've helped me to become. Goodbye Home Sweet Home!

School Days

Well, it's been quite the week. My fellow teachers and I have had quite the emotional ride. The district has made some decisions in behalf of our school. They feel that our 4 grades will be split up. So the 5th and 6th grade are going to the Jr. High school and 3rd and 4th grade, which is me, are going to Willow... the k-2 school. I'll be out in a portable probably for the next 2 years. I'm sure that I'll make the best of everything with the help of my friends. The worst part is though that the insurance and the disaster team has not yet released the school to the district so I won't have any of my teaching files or manipulatives to begin school. So now I have to start rethinking how I'm going to begin and what do I need to do so. The district has been gracious enough to give us a good sum of money to go and buy some things to start. So...I guess I'll be off shopping in the next little while. We've made some phone calls to some companies of things we've used and they are graciously trying to help us replace some things. I've shed a lot of tears with losing 26 years of hard work. I don't think those who don't teach understand the time that I've put into making things I teach with. There is no amount of money that can replace that time and effort. However, I'm now looking ahead and am trying to think of what I need to get doing so that I'll be prepared for the children that I'll be teaching this year. I know that it will all work out and although it may not be my favorite year...it just might be a well remembered year of working together as teachers to make it one of the best! Maybe this will even make me a much better teacher...I hope it does.
This is faculty room where the fire began



There's my stuff


Looking in to see how my stuff survived

My classroom

20th anniversary of 20th high school reunion

Larry and I attended his 4oth class reunion Saturday night. He went to Roy High School in Roy Utah. The home of the Royals. It was held at Timbermine Restaraunt up in Ogden Canyon. It was a very nice place. He had about 60 of his classmates there. He seemed to be enjoying catching up with people he hadn't seen for awhile. You know me I just make conversation with whomever I'm with. It was fun to see them taking a class picture together. They had about 350 in his class. They even had pictures of those who had passed away, which was about 35 of them. Their colors were black and gold and I guess I just never made that connection that his colors were the same as my high school. They had Black and Gold fabric napkins and black and gold candies on the table. I almost felt like I were at a good 'ole Boron High School reunion. This year was my 30th...but we've never had anything since our 10th that I know of. There's a few of us old girlfriends that have found each other through facebook, and we're going to go to Sedona Arizona and enjoy a weekend with each other this next October. I think it will be fun. It's been fun talking with them on facebook and I'm sure after getting together we'll have a lot more in common again. I'll have to write more after this adventure in October.

FIRE

Well...I got home Sunday night from the Family Reunion and thought...."I'll just relax on Monday and take it easy", that was not to be. Monday morning about 10 after 10:00, my fellow teacher, Brenda calls and says our school is on fire. I couldn't believe it! We went over about 11:30 to see what was happening. The faculty room had started on fire because of a stove. By the way I've never seen anyone ever use that stove in the past 6 years. I thought that maybe my room could be gone, because I'm close to the office and the faculty room. The fire department did a good job of keeping the fire contained in that area. My room does have smoke damage, but I'm not really sure about how it all is. At least I didn't lose 26 years of teaching, which would have been devastating. We have a meeting next week to see what is to become of our school. I don't think we'll be starting on Aug. 24th there...which means moving everything. What a pain!! Will the excitement ever end?? If I find a video or picture of it I'll add it to this post soon.

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Willard Family Reunion '09

This past week July 9th - 11th, we had our yearly family reunion with my sisters and brother. However, Cliff wasn't able to make it this year, so it was just us 5 girls and our families. It was our first year to have it without Dad or Mom being there. The theme was "Continueing the Legacy, Back together again!" I know that Mom and Dad were with us and were proud of our family continueing what they both felt was so important, our family remaining close and making memories together.
I was in charge this year and we had it up to our cabin in the Uintas. It was a a lot of work to get ready for it, but so worth it. I think that everyone had a great time. We had about 53 people there total. Most set up tents around the property, and except for the first "cold" night they faired pretty well. Of course one advantage of the cabin being yours is you get the bed inside. We had some good food if I don't say so myself and a lot of fun activities. We had games that we could play around the camp, we went on a GEO Cache hunt (you have to use GPS units for that), some went down to target shoot and trap shoot, and we all had fun on taking turns on the ATVs, especially Jordan!! He went down to let everyone in at the gate as they arrived. It was never hard to talk him into going anywhere on them. Some left after it was over Saturday, but some of my sister and our kids stayed to spend another night.












Larry and my family has been wanting to do this night time Cache, and we finally went and did it. It was a lot of fun to find, even stumbling along in the dark. It was called ""9 refletors" and so we had to do it at night with a flashlight to see the reflectors. We had to go to the first reflector and then shine our flashlight until we saw the next, and then on to that one to find the next. It pretty much just took us in a circle and we found the cache on the other side of the road across from our bikes. Very fun Cache though. All in all we had a very exhausting, but great time. Thanks for everyone coming and supporting us. We hope you all had a blast!!

July 4th weekend

We went up to the cabin this weekend to get a few thing done before reunion. Chris and Shannon called and said they wanted to go with us. We were happy, but since our hard working son in law, Chris, came a long we got a lot more done than I thought we would. They cut down I think 6 or 7 trees that are infested with pine beetles, or that were dead. It looks a lot better, but I think that Shannon, our grand daughter, Jennsen, and I must have taken 10 loads of brush and junk from off the property. We all found muscles that we didn't know that we had. The property sure looks better even though there are a lot more to get cut down. It will be an on going project this summer.
We also found time to get out the ATV's and ride a little too. The Unita's are beautiful. We got a new (used) 4 wheeler around Valentine's Day and I had yet to ride it, so it was fun to ride my own, even though I enjoyed riding on the back with Larry too! We had a lot of fun in spite of the hard work. Thanks Chris,Shannon and Jennsen, we couldn't have done it without you!!





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Voila!!

I think I figured this out with a little hellp from Becky, my niece, I saw on her blog the site that helped her do it. When you follow directions it's not so bad. Okay...I've really got to go and get some things done now!!

My New Toy

For my 6th anniversary, which just took place on June 14th, Larry ordered a lap top for me. It just arrived yesterday. I played around and got it all set up and so today I'm playing a little more. I wanted to try to get a signature on my blog too. I gotit for this time but how do I add it the next time? I'm not sure.
I should be doing things to get ready to go to the cabin this weekend. We've got a little more work to finish up there so that we'll be ready for the family's arrival next week. I'm excited to have everyone up with us and enjoying our property as much as I do. I guess I'll finish this up and then get going on all my other errands.

Day with Ellen

Yesterday I had a wonderful day with my best childhood friend Ellen. We've know each other ever since I moved to California when I was 5. We went all through school together and had a lot of great times together. She lives in California still with her husband and she has 4 beautiful children. We've always stayed in touch, sometimes better than others. She talked me into getting on facebook so that we could stay in better touch and share thoughts and pictures. That was a great idea because we've really done well the past 7 months of having very regular contact. She was here in Utah this past few weeks taking care of her mother-in-law. I'm so glad that we made some time to go out for lunch and some fun together.

Just getting started

I thought this would be fun to try. We'll see how it goes. Maybe this will be a great place to share things that I love and help me in keeping a journal also. I'm a bit busy at the time getting ready for a family reunion....in fact I don't know why I decided to do this today, other than I was looking at some of the nieces blogs and clicked on the make a blog and I just kept going. I'll try to have some pictures and other things soon.

Our Home Away from Home

Since 2005 we've been working on this little cabin of ours. Larry, along with the help from family members, spent that whole summer and into October working on this project. Throughout the past 4 years we've worked to get it to the point that we can enjoy it, althought it still needs some finishing touches. We've been up with the famly snowmobiling in the winter and riding our ATV's in the summer. It has really been a place for family and we are happy about that. In fact we're going to be having the Willard Family Reunion there in a few weeks. I'll have to share some of those photos when I get them.

The Walker Family

Larry has wonderful kids that have really accepted me as part of the family. They've been so good to me and I appreciate them for all their love and the fun that we have together.

The Kids

We have two kids, I mean labs, that think they are the princess' of the home. I think that they just might be.