Finally......

Brooke has posted!!  

 http://atisket--atasket.blogspot.com/

2 of 137 senior pics

happy birthday, four years apart

Fourteen years ago we were living in Brampton, England. I was 9 months pregnant with Haylie who was due on May 23rd. It was the 20th and I was visiting my doctor for my weekly check-up. I strictly told him that under no circumstances was I to have this baby two days early on the 21st. That was Raegan's birthday and I did not want two of my children to have to share the same birthday. He laughed and said that there was no chance this baby was coming early as my body was definitely not ready to give her up yet. I went home and later that night, as I was watching ER, I started into labor. I thought, "Okay, this had better be a quick labor so that she is born before midnight!" Needless to say, my labor was much longer than I had ordered it to be, and low and behold Haylie was born at 2:30 p.m. on May 21, 1995 - Raegan's 4th birthday.

As the years have past I don't know why I was so worried about them sharing a birthday. It has worked out just fine. In fact, it was a bonus for me the first several years as I only had to throw ONE birthday party for the two of them. Haylie was too young to know the difference!

As they've gotten older, it has ended up being a wonderful thing for these two sisters to share.

I remember when my girls were little, people would say to me, "Enjoy it now because the time goes by so fast and before you know it they'll be moving out." I didn't really believe it, that time could go that fast. It just seemed so far away to me!

Raegan is now 18, officially an adult. She will be moving out and going to BYU in the fall. So it's true, before I knew it she was "all grown up and moving out." We will miss Raegan terribly (and not just for her impeccable cleaning abilities!).

Haylie is now 14. She is such a sweetheart - I just want to bottle her up and keep her this way forever! She is a friend to all and the most tolerant and forgiving person I know.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our beautiful daughters!

now that's what I call TIRED!

Apparently, Adam dropped the remote while watching t.v. and on his way down out of the chair to retrieve it, he fell asleep. He stayed like this for about 30 minutes until we could stop laughing long enough to pick him up and put him in bed.

Poor little guy - his socks don't even match (ah yes, last week was a baaaad laundry week).

brooke's adventure begins

Yesterday morning Brooke left to spend the next 2 months in Jolly 'ol England. She is there for the Study Abroad program through BYU. I believe she only has two classes a week, and the rest of the time the students are taken on field trips all over England and Scotland (Wales too, I think). She will also spend a week in Ireland.

We lived in England for 3 years when Brooke was little. We were there from the time she was 3 until she was 6 1/2. She went to British school and developed the most perfect British accent you have ever heard! All the teachers and parents at her school would always be shocked to learn that she was American. They would hear me talk with my 'rough and lazy' American accent, then hear her talk and the look of confusion on their faces was always a great sight to see! Too bad she lost it about 2 days after we moved back to the States! She has been looking forward to this Study Abroad for months and was SO excited to go back to England. It's amazing the things she remembers from when we lived there.

When I woke up this morning I was anxious to get to my email to see if she had emailed me yet. Luckily she had, and the title of her email was, "I'M STAYING HERE FOREVER!" :o)   She had arrived safely, had just unpacked her bags, and was looking out the window of her "flat" in London.  She even took a picture out her window so that we could see the rather sad view she will be forced to look at every day. We are weeping for you, Brooke, really hard.   

Psssht *insert eye-roll*.

Here is the darling view out her window:

I thought I'd also post a few pictures of Brooke from when we lived in England.....

Brooke on her bike in front of our tiny house which was in Ramsay, England. We lived here for a year before moving to a bigger house (one that actually had a closet!) in the village of Brampton.

On "Brooke Avenue" in Chester, England.

In front of her school, Brampton Infant School . The grade schools are called Infant Schools rather than Elementary Schools. And instead of calling the grades 1st grade, 2nd grade, etc., they are called "Year 1", "Year 2" ..... Children start school when they are 4-years-old. They go to "Reception" which is Kindergarten. (Brooke really IS wearing shorts under this shirt although it appears that she isn't!)

Raegan and Brooke standing by the sign of our cute little village of Brampton.

....and eating a snack at the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey in Yorkshire.

Me, Brooke, and Raegan at Stonehenge.

Brooke has set up a blog to document her England adventures:

http://atisket--atasket.blogspot.com/

(Just a little FYI -if you read her first post you may need some explanation...a "fag" in England is a cigarette.   Just thought I should make that clear.)

daddy-daughter date

"Piece of cake," was Brooke's reply when I asked her how her 13.1 mile run went this morning.

Today she and John ran the Salt Lake City half-marathon together. One year ago this week Brooke ran her first marathon. Apparently, once you've run a marathon everything else is just.....cake.

Oh! I know exactly what she means! I once ran 3 miles (yes, all at once!), and the next time I only ran one mile and it was just SO. MUCH. EASIER!

Whatev.

(So John just read this post of mine...."You didn't say anything about me blowing Brooke away at the end of the race!" he proudly protested. He confindently reminded me that he is 45 and she is 20 and he left her in the dust. Yes, he beat her by a whopping 26 seconds! Woooo. However, I should mention that Brooke finished in the top 10% for her age group! Not bad. Not bad at all.)

It must be Easter!

john's new baby

John is very, VERY into emergency preparedness lately -- purchasing everything from water filters to rotating food storage shelves to portable toilet seats! Not that I'm complaining. I'm not! I actually love that he has taken this huge project upon himself, only involving me when he needs a second opinion.

He came home last week with a Solar Oven. I must admit that when I saw this rinky-dink looking contraption, I mocked it (silently, as to not make John feel ridiculed). I could tell John was proud, REAL proud of his little purchase so while biting my tongue, was able to muster out the words, "Oh honey, that's awesome. What a great thing you did in spending our money on this, this....thing!" (Ya, this thing that looks like it would be better off roaming around the planet Mars retrieving soil samples!)

So yesterday was the big day. In between Conference sessions we put this baby to the test. John placed the Sun Oven in the back yard and we watched as the temperature in it quickly rose to 325 degrees! "Is it possible that this 'thing' might actually work?" I pessimistically thought to myself.

We cut up a Butternut Squash, placed it in a small dutch oven and then baked it for about one hour. I sheepishly admit that is was THE BEST SQUASH I HAVE EVER EATEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE! So flavorful, so moist (the Sun Oven claims mega-moistness as one of its bonuses). No butter nor even salt and pepper needed!

IN. CRE. DI. BLE.

So on to the next test, which to our cookie-loving, cookie-baking family was the ultimate test. Can this thing bake cookies? AND, if so, can it bake them to our family's satisfaction? We are, you see, cookie snobs at our house.

Well, we shall see.....

Proud father John, admiring the latest addition
to his family.

Can it pass the cookie-snob test?

Baking at 335 degrees.

Eager mouths anxiously awaiting the results. (And this picture was NOT posed! Well, maybe just a teensy bit. The kids were actually all gathered around. Watching. Waiting. Drooling. Watching. Waiting....)

Low and behold, after about 12 minutes they were done.

The verdict is in - the cookies are delicious!
Crispy on the outside, warm and chewy on the inside.

You did good John. Real good.

A "wow" experience

Recently my sister-in-law Jan asked me if I would like to take a little road trip with her to Ogden to visit the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum. She needed to visit it as she had been assigned to write a story about the museum for her Salt Lake DUP chapter. I was excited to go because my mother worked at the Ogden DUP Museum for years and years and years. As a child I spent many, many hours there each summer as my mom would conduct tours through the museum. I haven't been there for several years so I jumped at the chance to visit it with Jan.

So yesterday was the day we went, and just walking in the door and taking in the smell of the museum brought back so many memories! We walked around for quite some time taking pictures of artifacts and talking with the woman who had let us in.

We were about ready to leave when I said to Jan, "Oh, there is a small basement if you want to see that before we go." She agreed, so we went down the back stairs to the small and dungeon-like basement (as a child that basement really gave me the creeps!). As we were leaving the basement to go back upstairs I noticed a very old family picture hanging high on the wall. This framed photograph was not alone - the walls were covered with other pictures but for some reason this one jumped out at me. I stopped to get a closer look. The name on the frame said, "William Fuller Critchlow Family." I said to Jan that the name Critchlow was somehow familiar to me but I wasn't sure why. I grabbed a folding chair to stand on so that I could get a closer look. As I looked at each person in the photo, my eyes stopped at one little boy. He looked to be about 9 or 10 in the photo, and he seemed to be looking right at me. I couldn't take my eyes off of him. I said to Jan, "See this little boy on the end? He is looking at me, almost like he is trying to tell me something." I stared back at him for the longest time. I took a couple of pictures of the photo and as we were leaving I told Jan that there was "something about that little boy." Luckily his name, Charles Robert, was on the photo so I couldn't wait to get home to do some research on him.

I need to back up - several months ago I was talking to my mom about our ancestors as I was trying to put together a genealogy sheet. I asked about my grandmother's father who I knew had divorced her mother when my grandmother was quite young. My mom told me that we don't know anything about him and that we didn't even have a photo of him. We were more focused on her adoptive father as he is the one who raised her. She said that her mother never spoke of her birth father.

I was very intrigued about this man whom we knew nothing about. I felt like he and his line should be included in my genealogy since it is his line from which I come but I felt like I was at a dead end with my mom not knowing anything about him.

So last night I sat down to figure out who this little boy is and why I was so drawn to him.  After a bit of research I soon discovered that HE is my grandmother's father!  The man whom we knew nothing about! I called my mom to tell her of my discovery and thought that after her working there for so many years certainly she knew of the photo. However, she was shocked to learn of it! She had no idea that a photo of her own grandfather and her great-grandparents was hanging in the museum for all these years!

I have also now found that the written histories of his father, William Critchlow, and his mother, Mary Eliza, (my 2nd great-grandparents who are also in the photograph) are also there at the museum! Mary Eliza is the daughter of Captain James Brown of the Mormon Battalion. He is my 3rd great-grandfather.

I know it was not by coincidence that I found this photo at the museum. I am so happy that Jan knew to invite me to go with her! I know I was supposed to be there to find these things. This little boy was looking right at me, saying, "Look at me, look at me! You need to know who I am."

And now I know exactly who he is.

Here they are - Charles Robert Critchlow and his father William Fuller Critchlow, my great-grandfather and my gr-gr grandfather. It was this little boy and the look in his eyes that caught my attention.

twenty-two years ago....

....I married my sweetheart. TWENTY-TWO years, people!

We spent the day Saturday in St. George helping my brother and his family move to a new home. On our drive home that night we decided that instead of grabbing Arby's or McD's for dinner we would make the most of our anniversary and stop at a nice sit-down restaurant. Hey, after all it was our special day! The problem, we soon found, was that in these little tiny towns in the middle of Utah there is no such thing as "nice sit-down." Nope, those are words these small town folk maybe have never uttered in their communities with a population of 37.

We finally got off an exit after seeing several billboards for a sit-down that was claiming to be the best in the West. My first clue that we should avoid this place was evident on one of their billboards -"Come in and enjoy the best steak's in town."
Steak's? With an apostrophe "s" ???

BIG. RED. FLAG.

Our waitress was a sweet girl. A bit naive, but very sweet. Here are some excerpts from our conversations with her...

The restaurant was SO cold that we had to bring in our jackets and blankets from the car and bundle up in them.

Me to the waitress: "It is so cold in here!"

Her: "Oh, do you think it's cold in here? Well where are you from?"

I told her where we lived (a town that's even colder).

Her: "Oh, well that's why.....they keep their buildings warmer up there than we do down here. Ya, that's why you're cold."

Me: "What kind of lettuce is in the salad?"

Her, looking a bit confused: "Umm, just regular lettuce."

Me: "I mean is it Iceberg? Romaine? Spinach?"

Her: "It's just, ya know, regular lettuce. But there are some purple things in there that I think are just regular lettuce that they dye purple to make it look better."

After the salad came, we found that it actually was not "dyed regular lettuce" but "red Romaine." John explained this to her and she said,

"Oh, I always wondered how it got purple. I didn't know it GREW that way!"

Her: "We have two kinds of pies for dessert - Pumpkin and Mince Meat."

Us: "What exactly is Mince Meat Pie?"

Her: "Well, it has apples. And some nuts........or something like that. And then some spices....I think."

Us: "Why is it called Mince Meat when it is more of an apple pie?

Her: "Well, I think it's because the little old lady who invented it a long time ago decided to call it Mince Meat so, ya know, it just stuck."

After bringing us vanilla ice cream (we passed on the pies, feeling that ice cream was the safer choice at this point).....

Her: "My boss's daughter is mad at me."

Me: "Why?"

Her: "Because I gave you two scoops of ice cream and I'm only supposed to give you one. Ya, she's really mad. She was giving me really dirty looks. But I don't care! I really really really really really don't care (as she was skipping away from our table)!"

Cutting the wedding cake - March 14, 1987

(Well, would ya look at that - I used to have a defined waist! Huh, whatdyaknow.)

When we got home late Saturday, the kids had made us an "anniversary cake" (totally delicious, from scratch Buttermilk Lemon cake). We tried to re-create the cutting-the-cake moment from 22 years earlier.

I know, it's cheesy.

Brooke originally had decorated our bedroom door with balloons. Matthew later moved them to the bed. (I don't know why - maybe to make us feel like we were in some cheap motel in Vegas or something.)