The Last Eighteen Months in 18 minutes

Let's see.

This may take longer than 18 minutes.



The national square dance convention was hosted by our state in 2007. We had a great time working on the committee for the youth hall. We were impressed by the caliber of the kids who danced in the hall for the week. Our friends, the Barnes family, were our roommates in a big suite in Charlotte. Also, the Dempsey's bunked in the suite one night. We enjoyed the convention and renewing old aquaintances, and strengthening friendships in and out of the square.



Our family was involved with the Raleigh Stake Pageant, The Promised Land, summer 2007. That was probably the highlight of last summer. We enjoyed making new friends and getting hot and dirty in preparing the site and sharing our testimonies with all those who were involved and who saw the pageant. This was Leon's second year and he loves to get into his parts. I haven't seen too many who alter their appearance for a volunteer short-run production. Maybe I need to get him involved in some community theater.



Curtis probably had the busiest summer of us. He went to scout camp, then straight to Concord to help all of the RVers who came in to camp near the speedway for the square dance convention, then danced some at the convention. And he was in the pageant, too! At the campground, his brand new pair of glasses got run over by an RV while he was leading one to a campsite on the new bicycle Grandma and Grandpa brought for him. He and Ivan also got stung many times while heading to pageant practice one evening. Luckily, both of them were o.k. and they didn't have any reaction to the stings.



We usually spend time with our favorite cousin, Kathie for Thanksgiving. But this year, our wonderful cousin gave us a great trip to Orlando for Christmas/Birthday/everything. We loved our villa at the Marriott Cypress Harbour. All of our family in Central Florida gathered to spend the holiday together. Since all of them were living in RVs at that time, the villa was the perfect place to stay. We are all in agreement that we'll need to get a place down there someday. It was so nice there.



While we were in Florida, Leon and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary. My mom gave us an evening at Epcot to ourselves. We enjoyed it so much. When we were last at that park alone, it rained the entire day and the temperature never rose above 55 degrees F. That was 15 years ago. It was fun to have the park photographers take our photos throughout the park. We really enjoyed bringing back lefse from "Norway" to the kids and Grandma.

Christmas was very quiet. We are getting used to that around here. Since that's Grandpa's busiest time of the year, we don't see them usually until sometime after the first of the year. After a nice Christmas morning, we went to visit Uncle Bubba and Uncle Charlie, then went to Kathie's for dinner. The beginning of 2008, brought Leon's 49th birthday. We hope next year we can host a square dance for his 50th. That would be fun. Curtis flew a plane for his birthday. That was just insane. I rode in the plane he was flying, Leon sitting beside me, laughing at me, and Curtis was flying with instruments only. He couldn't see over the panel.

Charlotte has made some really good friends. She has a mini posse at church and neighbor girls next door. We were able to have a cookout for her birthday this year. The Henry family, the Absher girls and the Wilkins girls came to the house for hotdogs and cake. Curtis gave the girls "wagon rides" around the garden and yard.

Leon was laid of due to economic circumstances in the first week of June. June brought us a very busy summer this year. Leon, Curtis and I participated in the Pioneer Trek. We dressed and lived as pioneers for 5 days at Camp Reeves in the sandhills of North Carolina. But, thanks to the Marcoms and the kitchen staff, we did not eat like pioneers. Mmm. The Stake had about 200 youth and I guess about 100 adult volunteers take part this summer. Again, Leon jumped completely into the whole experience and started growing the facial hair in preparation. It wasn't long before people around the stake starting to notice the resemblence to our dear Brother Brigham. So, he was tapped for some special duties during the Trek.

While we were sleeping under the stars and pushing handcarts through the woods, Ivan and Charlotte went to Florida to spend a couple of weeks with Grandma and Grandpa. Cousin Miranda could not wait for them to get there. She stayed a week with them also. The three of them had a good time together. Grandma and Grandpa took the kids to Disney, swimming, church, and work. I understand that Ivan has a job at the Bishop's storehouse any time he wants to return.

We took the first week of August and travelled to Wisconsin. We were there for the annual Spersrud Cousins reunion. A small crowd this year, but still a great chance to see relatives we don't see often. It had been too long since we have had the opportunity to see Great Grandma Arlette and Aunt Charlotte and her family and Uncle Norman who was in from California. Three years is too long between visits. We had a great time in Wisconsin. The time we spend in Stoughton is always fun. That town is one of my favorites. The Esselmans have a new house in a new town, so we went to see their place. We really enjoyed the visit there and the time we spent with them. The Dells of Eau Claire was a favorite spot. It was really pretty there.

We went to Grayslake to visit a few of my classmates before heading home. Our mini GCHS reunion was fun. I enjoyed watching Curtis listening to all of the stories (I'm not sure I wanted him to hear), looking at the class photos, and holding his own with my classmates. Thanks to Laura and Matt for opening their home to all of us.

Now, Ivan is in fourth grade with Mrs. Stallings and Mr. D. He enjoys it, but is still struggling at times. Curtis is an eighth grader now. He frustrates me at times. I believe he is probably over-scheduled or stretched to his limit at least. But he's doing good in school, he is a captain on the soccer team this year, he still plays the trumpet and is also starting to team up with the VFW in Wake Forest to play "Taps" at ceremonies for them.

Both boys are progressing in the scouts. Ivan will be ten soon and will move into the Webelos den. He loves being a cub scout and following his brother's lead. Curtis is working on Life now.

Leon is working a contract position at Siemens in Wendell. It's in a good location. It would be nice, however to find something that would promise a permanent position. I am still trying to find time to substitute teach, while still volunteering in and for as many things as people ask me to help with. This year, I've worked the polls during the primary and worked the general election. I am on the district training team for the BSA. I help in both schools on booster clubs and PTSA and in the classroom. I teach every third Sunday at church, plus help sub for primary teachers when they're out. I'm excited this year to be able to help with the Stake Creche (Nativity) exhibit. The list goes on...

What can I do for you? Just ask... I rarely say "No."

Paddling the Pond

Merchant's Mill Pond in Gates County.

First time we've ever taken the canoe out in all of these years. Got everyone new PFDs and new paddles for the canoe. It started out kinda rough, we put in off the road and then Leon went to park in the picnic area. Our plan was to try to find him along the shore somewhere. Well, there was alot more shore than we thought between him and us. We paddled around and thought we'd missed him and kept calling out his name. He finally heard us and we had to go a pretty good ways to get to him. That we couldn't find Daddy upset Ivan and Charlotte for awhile and Ivan wasn't sure he liked canoeing at all after that. The next morning, Curtis and I wanted to go again, but Ivan and Charlotte chose to hike a couple of shorter trails instead of looking for alligators in the canoe. We went our separate ways for about an hour and a half, then met back at the boat launch, then the younger ones were ready to get in the canoe. This time we let Curtis be in the stearn, our mistake. It's quite likely Ivan will never go canoeing again after that 15 minutes!

We saw so many turtles. And cool water birds. And beaver lodges, and beaver damage. What a beautiful place.

Six Mile Hike

We needed to take Curtis on a five mile hike for his first class requirement in Scouts. So, we went camping, hiking and canoeing this past weekend at Merchant's Mill Pond state park. The trail had markers for each mile in the loop, so we went left so we could count down the miles back to zero! The first mile was really hard and took us one and a half hours. We thought we'd be hiking all day at that rate. But, we picked up the pace and the next hour and a half, we covered two miles. The last two and a half miles we did in the same time. So, we have figured if the sign says "Allow 3 hours to complete" you can add 30 minutes for EACH child 12 and under. Had so much fun. Pictures first of the hike, then some from the canoe.

I'm Thankful...

... for a fun time in Florida.

We left Youngsville around 7pm on Wednesday. The kids were funny on the way down. They started out watching a movie. Then one-by-one they drifted off to sleep. Leon and I finally found a station in Georgia playing all Christmas music. It carried us past Jacksonville. Curtis was stirring as we were coming into Florida. Ivan spoke to us as we were traversing all of the bridges and looking at all of the lights in the city. I thought I'd never convince them to go back to sleep. We called mom from the driveway to warn her we were coming in. After a little sleep for all of us, we had some breakfast and headed to Animal Kingdom. Unfortunatly, Mom had to work on Thanksgiving and couldn't stay at the park with us. That's when the bad mojo started. We really lucked on the Bug's life show, except the kids didn't care for it at all. Then we walked right into the Lion King show and it was so cool to watch the opening number and see the cool costumes, but that's all we saw. It was cancelled, due to some technical problems. By that time, Dad was returning to the park and we met up in time to get in our first really long line. Charlotte was starting to show signs now that she was not feeling well. We rode through the safari ride and saw lots of animals. The driver moved way too fast to get good photos. I was very lucky to get just a couple. After that, we tried few more things and Charlotte pretty much shut down for the remainder of the afternoon and evening.

We left Animal Kingdom, checked into the hotel, and tried to decide on lunch/dinner. We ended up going to Downtown Disney, see Grandma, and eat some really great sandwiches. After that we headed to the Magic Kingdom to get there in time for the people to be lined up for the night parade. We got into what looked like a short line for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Well, it was short, but it completely stopped moving after we got into it. We waited for some time and then gave up. Without knowing what to do next, we then rode the Walt Disney World railroad for a complete loop and a third around the park, in the dark! Ivan really wanted to see Mickey and Minnie's houses. We did that and then rode Goofy's rollercoaster. Charlotte by this time was really ready to leave and it was time to get Grandma anyway. So the fireworks show started and we watched and then tried to leave. Big mistake! Got caught in a massive crush for the exit. They should really have more than one way out. We finally made it out and Grandma didn't freeze by the time we got to her.

End of Day One.

Ivan's Baptism

It was such a nice day for a baptism. We were so excited to have Grandma and Grandpa there with us. Ivan said the water was really warm.
After the ceremony, we went to Pizza Hut with Grandma, Grandpa, Cousin Kathie, and the Ferguson's. Then the boys went swimming at the hotel where my parents were staying.

New Friend

We went dancing Friday night in Chapel Hill to see and old friend. Were we surprised to find him there with a sweet lady from England, Jeanna. Nasser and Jeanna have been married for 4 months. We had such a good time dancing on Friday night. Hope we can find them at a weekend somewhere and really spend some time together. BEST WISHES to the Shukayrs!!!!

Pictures from the Fourth

God Bless America and her leaders and citizens.





I hadn't posted these and I thought they were really nice. After going to the coast to see the tall ships, we were home on July 4th. In the morning, the kids participated in the children's parade in Wake Forest's historic area and then activities in Holding Park. Later in the day, we went to Rolesville's Old-Fashioned Fourth of July celebration and ran into some friends there. It was a good day, a good day to reflect upon what sacrifices have been made in order to have such a wonderful nation to be part of and what our duty as citizens might be. We hope you take the change to do some reflection too. We live in interesting and trying times. As we continue to be enlightened on the purposes of life on Earth, we don't sweat the small stuff anymore. When you have things in the proper perspective, it's easier to get through the everyday bang-ups and hang-ups.

Great Day

We had a great day yesterday. We attended the baptism ceremony for Katelynne and Nikita and Megan. What a special time for them and their family. If you don't know these girls and their parents, Cedric and Tamara. You should meet them. The five of them got up and sang a special song together. They looked so nice all together, I told them that I'd like to have a photo of them afterwards.