A word from the "North Country!"

We've logged lots of miles in the car, snacked more than we needed to, attended a great show - 12th Night - at Cedar City, did family names and sealings at the Logan Temple, had a good visit with Jim and family, enjoyed reunion festivities at Lorin Farr Park in Ogden - with assorted Terrills, Teeples, Fortners, Roberts, Kreitleins, Cieslas, Doneys, had an enlightening adventure at the Ogden City Cemetary, and now we're looking forward to Sabbath celebrations tomorrow at Jim's ward in Benson.

We've also taken lots of pictures, so look forward to some fun posts!

Anniversary Year #4 - the Big 7-0!!

Karl says that no one likes to read a lot of "print" on a blogger page - but I notice that he has a lot of "print" on his blog - but I have more words than pictures to tell the story of 1970! I'll try to break up the print with the pictures I do have. I think Bonny has many of the baby pictures of her - at least the snapshots - I recall telling her she could take any she wanted - and I have memories of pictures I can't find! You need to remember that for us anyway, taking pictures was a real hit and miss kind of thing.

This is how we looked in 1970 - pretty much the whole year - I just got bigger - and then smaller! This was a camping trip we took - we did a lot of camping in those years. I was excited with my new job - and Dad was enjoying grad school. But the war and the threat of the draft still hung over our heads. There was more than one occasion when I had to step over protesters to get to work!

Ironically, when we notified the draft board of my pregnant state, they sent Dad a hardship deferment - one we were pretty sure we didn't qualify for - but we didn't question it - just counted it as a blessing.

We were pretty much the first ones in our "crowd" to have a baby, so we enjoyed a lot of attention and support. We didn't own a car - we'd sold the Jeep truck and walked or took the bus everywhere. So we borrowed Frank Rizutto's car to go to the hospital when I went into labor. I was 10 days late - it was General Conference weekend - and my water broke! I was surprised - and proceeded to sit on a towel in the living room. Dad came in with Frank and said, "Do you want to whip us up some pancakes?" And I said "No." Frank left after a bit and I told Dad what was going on. We didn't go to the hospital until midnight - and I made Dad brush the tangles out of my hair before we left!

We borrowed the Swenson's car to come home. And I wore my pink checked housecoat - that's what women did in those days - gee, I sound old, don't I??


We were pretty excited to find out that we were having a baby - we'd gotten a bit discouraged - and had gone the fertility treatment route - and you need to remember that it was really different back then! For one thing, you had to go in for a pregnancy test - and then wait 3 days for the result! Dad came to the Registrar's office and we went to a payphone to call and get the news. We sort of skipped our way home after getting the good news. Let me add here that I had told them when they hired me that I'd probably never have children. I was discouraged - and they took me literally - so I had to hide my pregnancy. I did so for about 5 months - hard to believe I know, but as you can tell from the shot on the 1969 post - which was really taken in February of '70 I think - I was pretty skinny. And fashion was dresses - A-line skimmers that hid a tummy quite well.

What was harder to hide was the nausea - whoa, my days were a trial for sure - one of the first "surprises" of parenthood!

Bye the bye, the above shot is of Joy and me at a baby shower she gave me. No one knew what they were having in those days.

The above was taken in November of 1970 - at Joy's house - with Joan holding Bonny. Mary is holding Joy's son Brent.

This is a shot of Bonny on our kitchen table in the Portia Apartments. We moved into them in early summer of 1970 - they were newly renovated and beautiful - which is probably why they were sold, torn down and the spot became a parking lot!! We loved our time there though. We had a music room, a small balcony, a "back porch" and it was very close to 13th East.

This is a shot of Dad with Paulo and Rita Puerta - he was Dad's last missionary companion and we went with them to the temple for their sealing - Bonny was a couple of months old. And we still have that blanket kicking around - Patte Nieman made it.

My mom came for 10 days - she kept saying, "I don't know why you are stressing so much; you've been around babies your whole life!" (They weren't my babies though!)

As Bonny got older and "did" things, we were inclined to think of taking pictures. I was looking for a shot that would highlight her large eyes. We drove home for Christmas that year - rode with someone in a VW bug - Dad and I sat in back with a car bed across our laps for Bonny to sleep in - we were young - I guess that's how we survived such a trip! We drove back to SLC with Ernie and Frances and kids - in their VW van - so the ride was much more comfortable - and then you didn't have to put kids in car seats, so I think we all took turns holding Bonny!

And at some point, Karen said, "Baby Bonny looks like she has button eyes." Bonny Button Eyes stuck for a long time!

This was my "free" photo from a studio in Salt Lake. I used every "free" offer there was - and didn't buy any others! We were pretty strapped for cash - before Bonny was born, we got rid of the Jeep and bought a Scrabble game - we'd play all the time - maybe that's why I love it so much!

It was a year of growth - physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual - and I remember it as being a very happy time. Bonny was a colicky baby - but slept through the night from age 3 weeks!! Gotta love a fussy baby who sleeps at night!

And when the colic was gone, you could set your clock by her routine!

The parenting adventure was beginning - and Bonny was our guide!! She still is a "guide" for our family - and we love the wonderful daughter, wife and mother she is today!

since I never post on here

I thought I would post a picture of our new kitten.


Mel and I love her. Her name is Lucille. I also posted about her on my blog.

Since I don't have babies, expect numerous videos of my new baby kitty doing things that mostly I find funny or cute. I'm already weirding out my friends when I say "AHHH look how cute!" whenever she does anything, like breathe and things like that.

Granny fun!!

Our weekend with the lovely Bolander sisters started on Saturday morning. Bonny dropped off the girls, and then we went to visit Harry and Dawn - who it turns out were having a garage sale.

I was sorely tempted by a couch that Paula and Rebecca had for sale - and they would have given it away - but I was pretty sure Dad would veto another couch - we have one in just about every room now!

After a Wendy's lunch, we went to Molly and Emma's house for an afternoon of swimming, sunning and snacking!! We were having so much fun, I forgot to take any pictures.

After an afternoon of swimming, the girls still hadn't gotten their fill of water fun - so we came over to our hose to fill water balloons - Ara's choice from the Grandma's Treasure Box - and have a water balloon toss - that quickly degenerated into a water balloon fight.

Hootie thinks water balloons are "the bomb" as they say. He was single focused in his quest to lay his hands on a water balloon - in fact, many water balloons.

He mostly just liked to throw them and watch them splat!

Dawn had to work Saturday night, so Harry and kids joined us for a spaghetti dinner. Molly babysat for me while I went to the grocery store. She and the "big girls" also had a lot of fun playing "Mormon Poker," "Syzygy" and "Phase Ten."

Sunday found Dawn and the kids hanging out with us after dinner. Annika especialy enjoyed pushing baby Harry around in the doll stroller. While I was at the Stake YW Transition to Relief Society, the girls enjoyed some "Grandpa Time" with Dad.

Everyone wanted to get in on the act when Dawn suggested I get a shot of Annika pushing baby Harry in the doll stroller.

Porter discovered the doll stroller and could not be persuaded to get out of it for a grandkids shot on the swing. (Maybe this is why baby doll strollers don't last a long time!")

Annika delighted in pushing Porter around in the doll stroller too!

Finally managed to catch baby Harry with a smile!

The kids watched Annie, then Esme and Ella went for a sleepover with Eve. We bedded down here, but didn't get the best sleep - Annika had a bit of a time "missing Mom" but we survived.

The plan was to have the little ones go to "Sarah's Sitters" for the morning while I sewed with Ara and Ella - but Annika had some anxiety issues in the a.m. too. So Ella went along as a one on one aide so to speak! (And did a great job too!)

We got the pillowcases made - that was the goal too, so we felt accomplished.

It's fun to have everyone here - but it doesn't always allow for getting a lot of projects done - so we're planning a fall "Work Weekend" to get some more sewing in with Ara and Ella.

Bonny came in the afternoon - we lunched, visited, did laundry, packed up, tried hard not to forget anything!

But alas, Miss American Girl got left behind - she was outside in the doll stroller - probably waiting for a ride!

Post number 3 - 37 more to go!!

If '67 was heaven and '68 was great, then '69 was fine!

Lots of good things happened - Dad graduated from BYU, we acquired a cat named Amado, we headed back to CA for a summer of various adventures, Dad got accepted to graduate school, and we continued to avoid the draft.

Once again, we didn't take many pictures - or we'd take them for a bit and then not take them. We certainly didn't imagine we needed to be chronicling our lives for future blogs!

Here's Frances and kids in 1969 - one of the pluses of being in SoCal for the summer was hanging out with the fam out by the pool.

One of the first adventures was a "road trip" to Ensenada, Mexico. It was very different than it is today - it was pretty uninhabited. We camped the whole way.

My famous "two piece" shot.

Dad's famous "strongman" pose in the waters off of Mexico.

Dad worked in a bomb factory for a bit - it was pretty nerve wracking for me - he worked the night shift and I kept imagining all kinds of mishaps.

There are better pictures of Amado, but I can't find them at the moment - he figures in the years ahead too, so you'll see him again.


Dad was looking for a place to go to graduate school - some plans didn't pan out - then he got accepted to the University of Utah - we went from being "loyal Cougars" to "runnin' Utes." Here he is with our good friend Steve Gould - who also enrolled at the U.

We lived on Douglas Street in Salt Lake City - and it took me forever to find a job - I was over-qualified in many instances - and in those days, young married women were discriminated against in the workplace.

I finally got a job at Holy Cross Hospital and it was a nightmare - the people I worked with had wanted someone else to get hired so they made my life so miserable, I went and found another job - at the Registrar's Office at the U. (That job was great - I could walk to work and I loved the people I worked with. And I loved being in a university environment.)

The nightmare didn't end there, though. I had gone to an employment agency and they suggested the job at Holy Cross. I told them that I had already interviewed there from a newspaper ad. So when Holy Cross did hire me, the agency started dunning me for their cut.

Later, when we moved from Douglas Street to the Portia Apartments (across the street actually) I went back to our old place on Douglas to see if we'd gotten any mail. The young man who was now renting the place said someone from an employment agency had come looking for me. He said to me, "I told them you'd died!"

They never bothered me again!

This is me outside our basement apartment.

And this is Dad playing with Amado in our living room on Douglas Street. We were still living in furnished apartments, but the rocking chair was - and still is - ours. Note the black and while striped walls.

While Dad was still working at the MTC, some elders had taken in a stray kitten. When they shipped out, we ended up with the kitten. And we had lots of adventures hiding him in our Campus Plaza apartment - where animals were not allowed!

When we went to California, our good friend Ronnie took care of him for us.

We did travel to Utah for Christmas - here's Mom and Dad in December of 1969.

Seventy doesn't rhyme with anything, but the 70's were certainly some "happening" years for H and B - watch for upcoming posts!

surprise

i don't think i've ever posted on here...but i was looking through the posts of this past week (which i do, from time to time, usually when i have internet access) and checked out the little billboard site that was posted a few days ago...i thought it was interesting that the #1 hit song on may 12, 1987 was, in fact, 'with or without you' by none other than U2. i have always taken a great liking to that song, and now it all makes sense to me. so now you know.

wish me luck, for tonight i am playing at the world famous pig 'n' whistle in the world famous hollywood, c-a. this might be my last show for a while, depending on how things go, but i have a good feeling of nervousness and excitement that i haven't had before a performance in a while.

anyway, just thought that i would stop in and leave that with you. i'm sure that i'll see many of you next week or later...or earlier. until then...

Recent comments

Hi all, just FYI I added a Recent Comments widget to the sidebar. I hope that is OK with you all. There have been so many posts lately that sometimes it's hard to keep up with the comments. I don't really like the one I chose though so I'm working on it.

It is easy being green.

Matt and I were just discussing today how we have had so many visitors, which has been so fun; yet almost all of them have come during the dead-tree season when it was COLD.


It was so gorgeous today. Virginia is amazingly green and the sky was blue with puffy clouds. It was probably in the 80s, with a pleasant breeze. The perfect summer solstice, really. Granted, the summer here is mostly hot and humid. But it is still beautiful, despite the sweatiness.

You are all invited to come visit sometime when the trees are NOT bare. Fall is pretty amazing too! (As long as you are here before the end of October. By then the leaves have fallen and the dead-look begins.)

If not, then I will still keep you updated with pictures.


This is Burke Lake in Burke, VA by the way (a few miles south of us).

And I forgot the camera, hence the low-quality camera phone pics with the greenish tint around the edges that makes my arm look like a corpse arm.

First Week of Summer Vaiquet!*

It all started on Saturday when Von's had strawberries and raspberries at rock-bottom prices - especially the raspberries. So I loaded up my cart. Since my freezer is already full of the pureed strawberries and raspberries that I need to make into jam, I decided to just cook up the fresh stuff. 6 batches later, I am on my way to laden shelves in the pantry. Have toast next time you come - and ask for jam!

Then I had the bright idea to make aprons for the Young Women Transition to Relief Society that we are doing on Sunday. And with my swell new sewing room, I have had a lot of fun. I think I need a DVD player in the room though - I could watch GWTH and An Affair to Remember to my heart's content as I stitched. It does get a little solitary!

I'm on apron 10 of 12 at this point - the Grannybabs Pinnies from Heaven are for my counselors - I've wanted to get that done since we got called last year!

And of course, Dad went running this week, but willingly posed on the new couch!!

Yes, this is the couch Bonny and Bruce had and gave to us - and it's been in the shop - that is, Dad's shop - for months. We bit the bullet and Paul Rannis did a beautiful job for us. It was fun to visit with him too, when they came to deliver it. (His oldest boy just started high school for heaven's sake!!)

Last night was Enrichment Mother/Daughter Night - so Bonny brought the girls out and I also brought Molly and Emma so their folks could go out to celebrate their anniversary. Notice Dad's "Alfred Hitchcock" touch in this photo.

The event was held to inaugurate the Gutierrez's new pool - water, women, good food - doesn't get much better than that!

Tonight we are off to the temple and tomorrow the Bolander Vowels are coming for the weekend while the Bolander Consonants celebrate their anniversary - a bit late, yes, but better late than never!!

Watch for more exciting updates on Summer on Primrose Avenue! (and you thought you needed reality T.V.!!)

*pronounced "vay kay" - just a little "jolie Francaise" for the Francophiles in the audience

Check here for Father's Day update!

Go to my blog for the rundown on the day's festivities.

A Not-Quite Centennial Celebration

On this day in 1912, Peter Afleck Clayton married Agnes Marietta Busath - that means today is their 95th anniversary!! Like the other photos in this post, I don't have dates. Anyone out there who does is welcome to share them with the blogging audience!!

(I had previously posted that he was married in 1907 - but that was the day he was endowed prior to leaving on his mission for Holland in 1907. He was there for 3 years. Thanks to Donna for her eagle eye!!)


I am named for my paternal grandmother - and didn't always appreciate having Agnes for a middle name. (I wanted my name to be Barbara Ann - like the bread and the song!) I have grown to cherish the name though and look forward to meeting my grandmother someday. This photo is from before she was married, but I don't have a date.

I posted this on the birthday post for Grandpa Clayton, but thought it would look nice here. This is a missionary photo of him.

I'm not sure of the date on this one - maybe Joan or my mom knows - if so, I hope they share the info. Agnes died at age 47 I believe, so there aren't a whole lot of folks left who remember her - Dad's cousin Margaret has been my major source of info about her. She had some great stories to tell me about her favorite aunt. (Just the fact that she was the "favorite aunt" tells you a lot.)

My father always loved his parents - honored and cherished their memory - it's a good legacy to remember - and emulate!

Bar report

Sorry these are so late!!

A week ago today, Matt was sworn in to the bar of the state of Maryland. He sent in the paperwork to be waived into the D.C. bar early last week as well so that should also be finalized soon and he will be licensed to work as an attorney in both Maryland and D.C.

This picture is a little deceiving; there were quite a few women who were sworn in.


We left Theo with a friend and made the trip to the state appellate court in Annapolis (thanks Brenda, not that you read this but thanks anyway!). It was fun to have a little afternoon date and to mill around with the other candidates and their friends and family. Matt milled with the candidates; I milled with the friends and family. I made friends with a girl whose cousin was also getting sworn in--she had the cutest 6-month-old girl I've ever seen. I almost wish I had taken a picture, she was so cute!

Matt after the ceremony, inside:


and outside:


I will not be including any pictures of myself because I was having a not-so-good hair day.

The ceremony was very nice and the judges gave pithy and funny commencement-like remarks as well as some interesting info about the history of the Maryland state bar (it's a long one! Like 400 years long). We wish you could have been there!

Here's Matt signing the book of sworn-in attorneys, a tradition that also goes back to the 1600s. That's a lot of books.



If you would like to see the webcast of the swearing in, you can go here and download the 12:45 p.m. session. (As far as I can see you can't stream it.) It takes a couple of minutes to download and is 40 minutes long, but here's some timing if you do want to browse through it: The walk-in of the candidates starts at 9 minutes and lasts about 1 minute. The justices walk in at 14:30 and that lasts about 5 minutes. The "commencement" speech which is about 3 minutes long starts at 19:00. At 23:30, Matt says his name (you need to turn it up to hear since none of the candidates have mics). At 26:30 one of the judges gives a little talk and then at 37:45 is the swearing in/oath which all of the candidates recite together.

Also, Matt is in the second row near the middle.

We are so proud of Matt and his MANY accomplishments, not the least of which has been completing law school and passing the bar exam!