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.)

i want to be a cat

Adam: "Mom, Jesus is sooooo nice! He will let us be anything we want to be."

Mom: "What do you mean by that?"

Adam: "He is going to let me be a cat when I'm done being a boy because I want to be a cat really bad!"

Mom: "Why do you want to be a cat?"

Adam: "Because I want to meow and lay around all day and do nothing."

(Hmmm........not much different from his life now - minus the meowing part.)

happy love day!

From my sweet boyfriend, Adam. He woke up early this morning remembering all by himself that today is Valentine's Day, and he wanted to make a Valentine for *whispers* ......his girlfriend.

He wrote 'Mom Adam' with arrows pointing to the heart which means "I'm giving you my heart, mommy." It took him 4 tries to finally get the perfect heart.

I'm not supposed to tell his dad about this Valentine because "daddy might feel bad that you are my girlfriend."

Don't worry Adam, it's our little secret :o)

i almost forgot....

.....to post the best photo of the trip:

Ya gotta love the Tower of Terror.

a few of my favorite pics.....

....from our recent vacation to paradise.

(par.a.dise, n. 1. Any place on the planet warmer than the current Utah temperature of 19 degrees f., and does not require bundling 5 layers on each child before they can go out. 2. Any place on the planet where an inversion doesn't block every single speck of the sky to the point where you forget what sky looks like, for weeks, perhaps months, on end. 3. Any place on the planet that has a PinkBerry Yogurt shop. 4. Any place on the planet that claims to be "The Happiest Place on Earth".)

(I promise this is not photo-shopped! The sky was actually this color for about 3 minutes.)

(Again, no photoshop. Promise!)

hike to the hollywood sign

We actually got much closer. This is on our way up. WELL worth it. The view of LA is spectacular!

reality check

Why is it that, after being gone for TEN GLORIOUS DAYS to Southern California, I am not happy to be home again? As we drove the looong drive home yesterday, I asked the family if they felt ready to go home. They all unanimously exclaimed that, although they had a fabulous time, they were all ready to be home. I followed this up with, "What is wrong with ME?! Why am I the only one who is so NOT ready for this vacation to be over?" John's reply, "Because, honey, you want to live in a fantasy world and you now have to leave your little fantasy world and you don't like it."

Sometimes the truth hurts.

Well, my "little fantasy world," which is now left behind in the dust, includes the following:

*Palm trees

*85 degree weather

*No snow

*No inversion

*Finding a secluded lagoon on the beach in Corona Del Mar and having the whole thing to ourselves (which, by the way, included an entire army of pelicans).

*Eating my morning Cherrios on the balcony of our Marriott in Newport Beach whilst gazing out at the whales swimming up the Pacific.  (Well, I didn't actually see the whales but I'm positive they were there.  Somewhere.)

*Hiking up to the Hollywood sign.

*Feasting on the most delectable frozen yogurt at "PinkBerry" in Hollywood.

*Disneyland/California Adventure for 2 days. (Okay, I know, I know, more days would have been even better, but I can only do so much, people!)

*No lines for Space Mountain (walk on, ride, walk off, walk on, ride, walk off....).

*The Tower of Terror. Possibly the best ride EVER invented.

*The Enchanted Tiki Room. Need I say more about this beloved Disney icon?!

*Being on the Indiana Jones ride and having it STOP in the middle of our ride, having all the lights in the building go ON, sitting there in our jeep for 20 minutes while they try to fix the problem, then the ride starting up again but the lights staying ON and NO sound for the rest of the ride. The BOMB!

*Eating out every single night (except one). No prep. No clean-up. Does life really get any better than that?!

*Legoland (but withOUT the rain. Please.)

* Eating the BIG muffins from Costco and not feeling One. Ounce. Of. Guilt.


As I type this, I reluctantly look out my window at the snow, blanketing my lawn, with the current temperature at 21 degrees.

Good-bye fantasy world, hello reality.

my baby is T.W.E.N.T.Y.

How can it be?! I now have a child who is beyond her teens. Today Brooke is 20-years-old. Twenty. Do you hear me? TWENTY!!

I reminded her last night that when I was her age I had been married for almost a year and was only 3 months away from being pregnant with her! The reality of those facts, well, let's just say........ *whispers* it freaks her out.

Brooke is an amazing child, er, I mean woman! (Sigh...) She is so full of compassion. She is patient with her siblings (well, not necessarily with Raegan but that's a whole different story). She is a hard worker and as her dad describes her, "Brooke is a machine." She plays the flute and piano like nobody's business. Brooke is not afraid of adventure, and is doing a great job of seeing the world while she can. I also must mention that one of the best things about her is she doesn't even mind when people think that she and I (her mother) are sisters!! It happens ALL the time! *tee hee* You are such a good sport, Brooke :o)

And.......she ran a marathon. Can you get any better than that?! A mar-a-thon, people.

She has certainly picked the right profession to go into - elementary education. She will be the teacher that all the moms want their child to have! She is a natural - patient, loves children, and is pretty dang smart! (Did I get all of my quotation marks and periods and in the right places Brooke?) She just loves to correct me.

6-months-old

20-years-old

Birthday dinner of "Bang Bang Chicken and
Shrimp" (divine!) at The Cheesecake Factory.

(THANK YOU Cheesecake Factory people for finally responding to my many emails and phone calls and finally giving us a long-overdue, well-deserved Cheesecake Factory in the glorious state of Utah! I am sure that you are thinking....."We should have listened to that woman years ago!"  I know, I know, who would have known that a Cheesecake Factory in Utah would garnish a 4-hour-wait for its customers?! Yes, you should have listened to me years ago.)

The birthday cake made by dad.

(And no, we were not confused thinking that Brooke was actually 137-years-old. See, we are birthday-candle unprepared at our house on a regular basis but, being the creative people that we are, we can always come up with something. 13 + 7 = 20. It works, trust me.)

Happy birthday Brooke. We love you to pieces!

have you ever wondered (#4)......

......what it would be like to go to a New Year's Eve David Archuleta concert? And what it would be like to have the best spot in the house - standing right against the stage front and center? And what it would be like to have at least two-thousand screaming tween and teenage girls behind you pushing, pushing, PUSHING you against the stage until you knew that, at any moment, your pelvis was going to crush into a million pieces? All this while you are forced to listen, for 2 1/2 hours, to the most obnoxiously insane LOUD rap music (and watching annoying break dancers) while waiting for David to come out and grace you with his glorious voice, and the whole time thinking to yourself, "I hate this. I hate this. I hate this!", but knowing that you are doing this for your daughter and that she will forever be indebted to you for your willingness to sacrifice your pelvis (and any hope to ever bear another child).

Have you ever really wondered?

Well, I don't wonder anymore. Now I know.

Ashley Tisdale (with some guy's tie and 2 unknown girls) was supposed to be the "host" of the concert. She came out after David was gone and was there for about 30 seconds. Literally. She introduced the next band and POOF! she was gone.

I have hope that my ears will stop ringing within the next week. Or two.