Fun With Grandkids!

We enjoyed spending some time with our grandkids! We got to see Julia and Emma head off for school with their best friend, McKenna.

Grandpa had fun with Matthew and Katie.

He enjoyed playing Sequence with Matthew.

I had fun with Katie and her Princess Barbies.

We got to hear Emma play the piano. She just started taking lessons.

And a special treat was being able to attend a performance of Julia's school choir!

(She's on the near end in the front row.)

The Physics Graduate!

College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Convocation

April 25, 2008 Wilkinson Center Ballroom 8:00 a.m.

We enjoyed attending the Convocation for John on Friday morning! Some of the other majors in his college are Biochemistry, Chemistry, Computer Science, Geology, Mathematics and Statistics. No wonder when I walked into the Ballroom and sat among all the parents and families, I thought to myself, these people all look like nerds! (Myself included). It is one of the smaller colleges at BYU and I admire anyone who graduated in any of these disciplines!

Among the majors in the Physics department along with Physics are: Applied Physics, Physics and Astronomy, and Physics Teaching. John received his Bachelor of Science degree in Physics along with 13 other people!! Wow! A big CONGRATULATIONS!!
Here he is walking up towards the podium.

Here he is receiving his diploma!

The happy graduate!

The happy mother!

The happy father!

The happy family!

I enjoyed Heidi's Convocation in the College of Fine Arts because it included all kinds of performances and even some videos. It was very entertaining. I wasn't expecting anything like that at John's convocation. But I was in for a surprise! Afterwards, all of the parents of the Physics graduates were invited to the Eyring Science Center for a special presentation of all kinds of fun and entertaining Physics demonstrations. They even had people from the audience come up and participate. It was really great! Then we were all invited to enjoy a very tasty lunch right there in the Eyring Science Center amid some festive decorations. I was impressed--both with the Physics Department and with John, the Physics graduate!!

This is Wayne Peterson doing the Physics demonstrations.

BYU Commencement!

We picked up John at his apartment on the big day. Someone had decorated his car!

They ask you to be seated about 45 minutes before it starts so you can watch the graduates file in. When we first arrived there was some confusion about whether the graduates would be able to file in as it was SNOWING! But it was light and seemed to stop at just the right time. We found good seats while Dan was parking the car and were even able to save some for Reid and Kathy, and then with our cell phones were able to find each other. We also had fun texting to John and finding out where he was sitting. As you can guess, I was talking to Kathy and not paying much attention to the jumbotron which showed various shots of the graduates. Suddenly, Dan said: I see John! And sure enough there he was up on the jumbotron at the

Marriott Center, clear as a bell!

I like sitting off to the side so I can look at all the graduates. Here is shot of them from where we were sitting. John is there!

President Samuelson said there were over 6,200 graduates! And he also told us that there are more than 370,000 BYU living alumni!!

The Commencement Address was given by Elder David A. Bednar

Before he began his speech, he said that from his experience of attending many, many Commencements he knew that no one would remember much about his talk, and so he was going to make it very short. He did keep it short and it was very helpful in making our plans for the rest of the evening go smoothly.

His talk was entitled "Learning to Love Learning.” I was excited about that subject because I can remember the exact moment when I was at BYU sitting in a history class, and I had the thought that one main thing I was getting from my education was that I had truly come to love to learn! I couldn't always remember everything from every class, but I always had a good feeling when I was learning new things, and I wanted to keep learning and learning!

Here are the three main points he developed:
1. Learning to love learning is central to the gospel of Jesus Christ
2. Learning to love learning is vital to our ongoing personal and spiritual experience
3. Learning to love learning is an absolute necessity in the world in which we live, work and serve.

He also told the graduates to:

"Remember, you represent the Savior, your family, the Church and BYU."

(Something all 370,000 of us alumni should remember!)

I felt that a theme from all the speakers in the meeting was that we all need to do more to serve others. I was glad to be reminded of that!

Here are some photos outside the Marriott Center:

Afterwards we drove to an Applebees in Salt Lake City and met Josh and Andrea and their family for a celebration dinner. While they were getting our table ready John opened some cards and gifts.

I hope he liked the road map and cooler filled with goodies and money that we gave him!

Go Cougars!

It was 1990. Heidi, the oldest, was still in high school. We were on the Olan Mills photo plan. We had one year to get our three different 8 X10's taken. Time was almost up on our last one for the year. Over the years we had done a variety of configurations. What to do for this one? Someone came up with the idea of having one taken of the kids all wearing their BYU sweatshirts. Not only was it a great picture of the kids but it was also prophetic! This week the last of our 6 kids will graduate from BYU!

GO COUGARS!!!

The Blogging World!

I entered the blogging world last summer. I call what I do "family blogging," because it's more of an online journal than a forum for discussion on a particular topic. I see that this seems to be quite popular among the young married generation. They are having fun sharing their photos and experiences about their lives and raising young children. They are keeping in touch with friends. It is wonderful! But as I have been blog surfing I have found very few people my age who seem interested in doing this. I can't figure it out. I think it is lots of fun and would be great to connect with friends from the past. Just as the young people share potty training advice, encourage each other to make it through another day with toddlers, and pass along a great tip about getting marker off the walls, we could complain about our health issues, share ideas for long-distance grandparents, and give suggestions on retirement planning. At the very least we could post cute pictures of our grandkids!

So all of this is a long explanation that I have been tagged and why I'm not tagging anyone else. Beyond family, I have no friends that are blogging that I could tag!

1.What was I doing 10 years ago: April 1998-- Teaching Seminary and keeping track of all of this:

Heidi was living in an apartment in Folsom and working; Josh accepted an internship at Cessna and he and Andrea came for a visit. Amanda was serving in Sibiu. Heidi and Dan drove to Utah to pick up Jeff from BYU. Jeff bought two suits that month. MaryAnn and Heidi performed in "My Beloved Christ." Grandma and Grandpa Ricks came to see it. MaryAnn also went to Sports A Rama and did stuff with Tory and Kelli. Dan and John went to a Giants game, and John also went bowling and played roller hockey with the Robinsons. Dan prepared a talk and took us all to help with a League community project "Christmas in April" which involved painting a house.
And President Hinckley announced 30 new small temples at General Conference

2. 5 things on my to do list: Get my wedding ring fixed; Prepare John's graduation gift; Scan photos; Take birthday gift to Rachel; Prepare stake conference talk

3. 3 bad habits: worrying too much, eating too much, computering too much

4. Places I've lived: Salt Lake City, San Jose, Provo, Ogden, West Sacramento, Sacramento, Folsom

5. What I would do if I became a millionaire (in no particular order): Treat the whole family to trips to Israel and to see U.S. and Church history sites; fill an entire cruise ship with family and friends for a week; give each of my kids $166,666.66; buy Dan an apple orchard and nice, large homes at Apple Hill and at Sea Ranch and his own Cessna jet (pilot included) so he could retire; donate to my favorite charities.

6. Jobs I have had: Drugstore clerk, microchip assembly, Pumpkin Patch tour guide, teaching Seminary, Mom (the hardest job of all!)

7.Things you may not know about me (that I am sure you are dying to know): See my 100th Post http://janisharrison.blogspot.com/2008/02/100th-post-addiction-give-away.html

Tagged!

These are the rules.

1. Pick up the nearest book (at least 123 pages).

2. Turn to page 123.

3. Find the 5th sentence

4. Post the 5th sentence on your blog

5. Tag 5 people

P. 123 Sentence #5 "What can we learn from the story told by David Whitmer on page 116?"

I hope someone gets curious enough to read the story on page 116!

This is an amazing book that we can each have in our possession! I loved learning about how it came to be. Here is a quote from the January 2008 Ensign:

"Joseph Smith taught hundreds of inspiring sermons while he was the Prophet and President of the Church. Unfortunately, only about 50 were written down. For the past several years, many people, including professionals and volunteers, have diligently searched historical records to compile and review the statements that have been attributed to the Prophet. His teachings were carefully studied, authenticated, and compiled. The compilation was then approved by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Each statement in Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith was thoroughly researched for accuracy. Extensive and painstaking effort was expended to check original sources. This effort was necessary because the way in which sermons were recorded in the Prophet’s day differed significantly from the way sermons of later Presidents of the Church were recorded. As explained in the new book: “During the lifetime of Joseph Smith, … shorthand was not in widespread use. Therefore, the sermons he delivered were recorded imprecisely in longhand, generally by scribes, Church leaders, and other Church members. Almost all of Joseph Smith’s addresses were given extemporaneously, without prepared texts, so the notes taken by those who listened to him constitute the only record of the discourses."

Jay E. Jensen January 2008 Ensign

A Great Talent!

We enjoyed hearing Jeff play his guitars on our recent trip to Wichita.

He is very good, and even sings as you can see in the last picture.

Guitar music can be very relaxing and calming and soothing.

Thanks, Jeff!

April 13, 1981!

I found this letter a few months ago and have been saving it. I thought the fam would enjoy it! I wrote it 27 years ago today: (Sorry, John, you weren't born yet. You'll get a graduation blog!)

"April 13, 1981

Dear Mom and Dad,

MaryAnn is one month old today. The time has gone so fast--too fast. She is still the best baby and a real joy. Her face has cleared up quite a bit, and she is so cute. The older kids are on their Easter vacation this week. We went to their school Open House last week. They sure were excited about it. Heidi had finished her second dragon book. This one is called "Spikey." Heidi also won a small trophy in a Safety Poster contest at her school. Josh had lots of things to show us and bring home. He got a Science Fair certificate for all the pictures he cut out and brought for the Five Senses. I believe you were here when he was working on it. Last week I got out a box of summer clothes (hand-me-downs from Heidi) for Mandy to try on. She has been trying them on all week by the hour. She never gets tired of clothes. Jeffrey is adjusting pretty well now. He stays in bed great, and it really gives me a break. With the nice weather, he plays outside quite a bit and gets real tired. I guess you will be leaving soon for Utah. Hope you have a nice trip and that you find everyone there well and happy. Stop by here if you can. We have a ward Easter egg hunt on Saturday. Mandy is the most excited. She has also been worried that Jesus has to die every Easter. Love, Janis

Foreign Sites in the Midwest?

The drive from Coralville, Iowa to the Kansas City, Missouri airport takes about 5 hours. We decided to break up the trip by making some stops to see interesting places along the way. I didn't realize how interesting they were until I had the following conversation at the airport. Here's the background and the story. We had a 2-hour delay of our flight, so during the waiting I went to an area where there were very few people and made a cell phone call to Heidi to tell her how we were doing. I told her the different places we stopped at along the way. After the call the man sitting a few seats away said: "Excuse me. I didn't mean to listen to your conversation but I couldn't help hearing some of what you said. Are you just returning from a foreign country? If so, which one?" At first I didn't have a clue what he was talking about. I said: "No, we just drove down from Iowa." Then they called our flight and I left the area. But as I thought about it, I had just told Heidi that we had visited "the Amana Colonies," then stopped for lunch in "Lamoni" and later stopped at "Adam-ondi-Ahman." That would sound pretty strange if you weren't familiar with any of those places! Darn, if I had been quicker on the uptake, I could have had a missionary experience! Here are the highlights of our interesting day:

The Amana Colonies, Iowa

We bought a CD audio tour and drove through the 7 villages of the Amana Colonies. We also stopped to go through some shops. The Community of True Inspiration, a religious group founded in 1714 in Germany, facing persecution and economic depression came to the the United States in 1834 and eventually settled in Iowa in 1855. "Amana" is found in the Song of Solomon 4:8 and means "to remain true." They lived in the seven villages communally up until 1932. Property and resources were shared. Men and women were assigned jobs by their village council and no one received a wage. Over 50 communal kitchens were operated by the women and were supplied by the village smokehouse, bakery, ice house, dairy and huge gardens, orchards and vineyards maintained by the villagers. Children attended school 6 days a week, year round, until age 14. Then boys were assigned jobs on the farms or in the craft shops and girls were assigned to the kitchens or gardens. A few boys were sent to college for training as doctors, dentists and teachers. Well-crafted products became a hallmark of the Amanas, and they also founded the Amana Appliance Company with which most of us are familiar. It was very interesting to learn about in light of some members of our church living the United Order.

Lamoni, Iowa



The name of this city sounded intriguing, so we decided to stop for lunch and look around. Was it named after OUR Lamoni? It turns out that, Yes it was! The city was named after King Lamoni from the Book of Mormon. It was the Church headquarters of the Community of Christ church (RLDS) starting in 1881 and lasting for 60 years. Joseph Smith III (pictured above) lived in Lamoni as he presided over the Reorganized Church as its first president. Recently, the Lamoni area has also become home to a sizable Amish community, and we encountered an Amish buggy on the road into town.

Adam-ondi-Ahman, Daviess County, Missouri

Here is the site where Adam and Eve lived after being expelled from the Garden of Eden. According to the Doctrine & Covenants, Adam met his children at the site three years before his death to bestow his blessing. Before the Second Coming, it is said that Adam will convene another meeting there of priesthood leadership, including prophets of all ages, to turn the government of the human family officially to Jesus Christ. In 1838 Adam-ondi-Ahman was the location of a settlement of between 500 and 1,000 Latter-day Saints. The Saints abandoned this settlement when they were expelled from Missouri. Today 3000 acres of the site is owned and maintained as a historic site by the LDS church and remains largely undeveloped farmland. It is a beautiful, peaceful spot and we had the whole place to ourselves!
(Interesting side note which I learned after returning home: This area was also the site of a skirmish in the Civil War on August 4, 1862)


So I guess if you have to make a long drive to the airport and you have the time, you might as well take a break and learn something new and interesting!!

They Fooled Us!

This is a great sign to see!

But this one isn't!! We had big plans to visit the Iowa Children's Museum one afternoon, but this is what we saw when we got to the front door:

But then we took a closer look!!

We had a fun time visiting the Children's Museum on April 1st!!
Sarah already knew what to do with a glue bottle when we visited the Craft Room!

Courtney and Elizabeth were very creative in the Craft Room!

Painting was fun!

The girls also had fun in the Dress Up Room which had a "Little Women" theme!

Later we enjoyed some ice cream at Whitey's while we watched the ice skaters!

Just a Regular Day!

It was fun spending a regular day with the McClellan girls!

Here is Courtney by the calendar in her kindergarten classroom. The teacher let her give us a tour of the room and school when the day was over.



We picked up Elizabeth from preschool and as she was loading into the van, I turned around and snapped this shot. I think she had a good day!


While Heidi and I went shopping, Dad took Sarah for a walk--it turned out to be almost 3 miles of walking and sleeping!

Sweet Babies!

Grandmas love the babies!!