Jacob Lake, Arizona

The last time I was through Jacob Lake was with my sister. We had asked where the Lake was and decided to not go look for it but to "drive on".  Well this time, Curtis and I decided to find it. If you drive south of Jacob's Inn like you are heading for the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and about 1/4 mile there is right hand turn onto a dirt road - Turn there! Follow the dirt road about another 1/4 mile and there are signs that say "Jacob Lake" turn left.  Well, we did.  This is what we found! A truly beautiful sight!

 Here I am standing next to the sign, but if you look above the sign and my head you can see an indentation in the ground. Well, there it is!! The lake used to be BIG one time, but the earth shifted, ground cracked, and the water drained out. Now it is just lush pasture for the horses that were grazing there.

 Immediately across from the sign is this old beautiful Ranger Station. It was one of 6 in the 1880's. This is the only left. You can actually go in and see the rooms.

 This is what you first see when you walk in. I found it interesting - 2 rooms. Every room had a door that opened to the front and one that opened to the back. If you opened them all up you could get a nice breeze right through the cabin! An old wood cook stove in the corner. Most of the furniture in it is original.

Here is the old crank phone (crank missing from right size of unit). You would crank the handle with either a combination of long and short rings to reach different parties, and you had to listen if it was ringing in your house - because if it wasn't your ring - Don't answer it, it was for someone else. Unless you were nosey and listening in on the party line! 

 This is the second room. It had two beds, a desk, and an old typewriter. It must have been their office and sleeping quarters.

Here is the old manual typewriter. I had to try it out and demonstrate my incredible typing skills to Curtis. I still can type fast! Just down the road is an RV place with hook ups and camping. All the years we have traveled through Jacob Lake to the North Rim, or just for lunch on our way to and from Kaysville - we never knew this existed. What a treasure!

All roads go through Utah!

Every time we take a trip to Sparks, we take the short cut home - across I-80 and to Utah! We were able to spend a week with Curtis' folks and we had a great time.

 This is the home where President John Taylor lived the last few years of his life, in Kaysville, Utah, while he was hiding from the polygamist hunters. We searched for this house on our last trip, but didn't go quite far enough. But we found it this time!!

 One morning we took Melvin and we went to the Hill AFB Museum. It was so fun seeing all of the great planes. Above is Melvin and I by one of the jets.



This is the chapel that my sister was
married in on Halloween Day!




Inside of the chapel.



 My other sister and I sang in this chapel for our sister's wedding. It is now part of the Museum. Great memories of living on base and attending events here.

 One morning we went to the Oquirrh Temple in South Jordan, Utah. We had watched it being built over the years as we visited family, and I really wanted to go on a session. We finally did and got to be the witness couple! We also watched some baptisms of our family while there. So beautiful!



Curtis and I outside afterwards.

After the temple we met Curtis' sister for lunch at the Lion House. Ohhhh they have good food. She gave us a tour of new City Creek Center. Here is one shot where all the fountains line up with the waterfalls at the Conference Center if you look straight back through the trees. We window shopped to see all the stores.

On the drive back to Arizona we had to stop in Scipio, Utah. This is where the Nielson family first came from Sweden and settled. This was the house! It is really old, but to the Nielson family this is sacred ground. I remember when we were first married we went through the house, up in the attic, and even down in the cellar to see the home. Amazing structure. I would actually love living in a house like that today and renovating it! We made our trip home without incident. But it was good to be home again.

Special Time in Sparks, NV 2012

We had a great reason to make another road trip to Sparks, NV - Kavan Richard Haines was born! We spent two weeks there. Curtis and Nick did a lot of home repairs: repair the roof, install a heat-o-later (sp?) into the fireplace so it will give them heat this winter, and some electrical switch work. I painted their front door and trim, but my main job was burping and holding Kavan.  Hunter is such a great "new big brother". Every time he would come into the room he would go to Kavan and say "Hi! You!" and then kiss him.

 Here is the little family before the baby was even 1 week old!

 One of the highlights is attending one of Nick's concerts while we were there. He plays the cello (the other side of the girl with the cello on the right) and his sister, Natalie, is the blond on the violin on the left.  They play professionally with a Toccata group that performs near Lake Tahoe, Incline Village, CA and in Reno, NV.  They were amazing. There was a mezzo saprano from Russia as guest singer that sang to Curtis and gave him a rose - totally embarrased him! Hunter is already learning the fundamentals of playing with a bow. Won't be long and he will be old enough to start lessons.

 Here is baby Kavan at 2 weeks old. This was his blessing day. He is just so beautiful! Don't you think!

 Hunter is being trained by his dad already! Here is in and out of a kayak. He has his own camelbag, backpack/sleeping bag, and is always wanting to be wherever his dad is at! Even if that is underfoot! 

Curtis, Hunter, Serina, Nick, Kavan and Sandi - on blessing day in front of their church building. Oh, we hated to leave them. 12 hour car rides do make it possible, what a blessing we are not in wagons - or we would never be able to see them. 

Memories of the island of Newfoundland, Canada

I ran across these photos today of when my family lived in Stephensville Crossing on the island of Newfoundland, Canada. My dad was stationed at Ernest-Harmon AFB while I was in grade school. What memories come back.

We lived in an 8' x 40' (that included the tongue!) trailer. We only had about two months of summer and the temperatures only go to 67 degrees F or so and we thought that was HOT! Now living in Arizona...I had no clue what HOT was!  During the winters our trailer would be covered with mountains of snow. We would hike up to the top and sled down the sides.  I remember learning to ice skate and play hockey on the creek that ran by our home. 

 When I was visiting a friend one day, her doberman dog ran around the house to the front porch and bit me through my jean into the fleshy part of my rear! I never visited her again.  This trailer park had half of the trailers facing west, the others facing east; so that when a blizzard of snow socked one side in, the other half of the trailer court would go and dig out the other side. Can you imagine that today? Friendly people willing to help each other without knowing them very well!  There were two ways to get to this place - an ice breaker from Halifax, Nova Scotia (that is how we went - both ways) or fly in to the airport that was just up the hill from us. There might have been only a few flights a day.  One summer my two aunts came to visit us from Seattle, WA. They became the "Aunts" to all the neighborhood kids because NO ONE ever came to visit! They would jump rope with all of us!

 Here is a picture of me and my sister in front of our trailer.  Doesn't it look spiffy?!

 This was the living room. The couch barely fit. You can see our dining table, TV on a TV Tray! Do you think that was what it was really made for? ha ha! When it was Christmas, we had a little 10" fake tree that sat where the white lamp is in the corner. Boy the style of furniture has 1963 all over it!

Here you get a look at the dining room, kitchen, hallway, and even my parents room at the WAAAAYYYY back of the trailer! My little sister was only 18 months when we moved into this home. That is my dad at the kitchen sink. Look at that phone! I remember it ringing for my dad. This was during the air raid drills of possible threat from Russia (during the Cuba missile crisis era) and he was always on call for the base for possible scramble of fighter jets. I remember my school was in a Barracks. My classroom had a fireplace - which we used! We had air raid drills where we darkened the windows and would take cover under our desks. I am glad we don't have to do that anymore!

Ahh, this is the kitchen cleaned up. Look at that old gas stove. Wow! You can just past the kitchen where there is a bed. My dad built bunk beds in. The bottom was where I slept with one of my sisters, and the top bunk my other two siblings slept. We had one small bathroom - you had to close both doors in the hall way for privacy - much like a motorhome style of living!

There was an old man who fought in either WWI or WWII that was shell shocked. His name was Moses and we used to call him "Old Mosey". He would go through people's trash looking for items that he could sell to make a living off of. So a lot of the people would put crazy things into the cans and watch from their windows because he would try girdles on, old clothes, etc... to see how they looked. He even tried old sponge curlers in his beard. Us kids loved him.

We would have great fun in the evenings. Our whole family would be out playing baseball in the fields, tobogganing or snow mobiling in the winter. There was never a dull moment. We spent a lot of time out of doors - because some winter days - you were stuck! We had a horseshoe course in our yard. We were really good at it!

I remember watching on tv when President Kennedy was assasinated and then someone shot Ruby as he was leaving the jail. It was all caught on live tv. I remember the news ending with "Good Night David, Good Night Chet". We only had 1 station. So whatever it had - that was it. There was Uncle John's House - a kid show that would show cartoons, have kids come into the studio to be the audience. I remember being their one time with my school class and I danced the Jig that we learned from Ireland.

I had a fun childhood living there. I can't imagine living like that with 4 kids and a dachshound dog now! But we did.  Some day I think it would be great fun to go back and see what the place looks like today.

Our 2nd Church Fire Experience

The early morning hours of June 29, 2012 I received a phone call from son about 2:40 am that our church building was on fire! He received the call from Tolleson police department to contact the church and let them know. I then made a few calls to our Bishop and Stake President Counselor (Stake President was out of town).  After that point I told Curtis. We could not sleep after that. I kept texting our son to find out what the status was.  The next two photos are just two of the ones he sent us.   Boy did this bring back memories! 

It was July 23, 1983 when our chapel in San Manuel, Arizona burned down due to a lightning strike.  I went to that fire at 1:00 am thinking we could do something to help put the fire out...pass buckets of water...SOMETHING!

 This is when the chapel of the Tolleson building burst into a fire ball

after the firefighters thought it was put out! They were packing up when it exploded!

This is from another angle. You can see the steeple and sign on the
front of the building are not harmed!  The ATF did a full investigation
 and it was arson caused.

So recently we had a meeting where our Stake President came and gave us an update. Because we have three large wards that meet at the Tolleson Bldg we were going to be getting the larger model of the Heritage Style chapel. There are four types (differing roof slopes, color of brick) but this is the closest one to the color of the brick we had...so we are hoping this is the style we get. They have completely removed everything from the building that was salvagable, so now we should be seeing bulldozers soon.  I can't wait to see, and attend in our new building. If all goes well, we should be in it within 18 months or less.