Old Family Pictures 2

I don't have many pictures of my father when he was younger, but I wanted to post some of them as well:


This is Dad (dark hair on the left), his twin brother Jim, and Grama Ella and Grampa Herb. It's from Herb that my family's males (most of them) get their red beards. Herb was a red head, and I understand Red was his nickname.


This is a wedding picture. Dad was 19 and Mom was getting ready to turn 22. She didn't realize he was so much younger than her until on their way to the wedding. He had to fess up that he was under 21 because in those days you had to have someone sign for you.


This is Dad and his cousin, Betty. It's through her that he met my stepmother, Gloria.

Can't resist showing this one, since I was going through old photo albums. This is a picture of when we arrived in Korea to join my father, when he was stationed there. He'd already been there for several months before we arrived. My mom had bleached her hair, and she commented on how differently she was treated as a blond than she was as a brunette.

Haha! Doesn't my brother David look thrilled to be there?

Old Family Pictures

I thought I'd share some of the pictures I've scanned from days long ago:


This is my grandmother, Hazel Kaneaster (maiden name). She was married four times. Her first hubby was John Thomas Mahaffey, and they had two daughters, Helen and Lorraine (my mom). Hazel went to school to be a beautician to support her daughters after the divorce, and eventually opened her own shop. She married three more times, and was widowed three times. Her has fourth husband, Bill Galloupe, was the only one I remember. He was awesome!


Here's a picture of my grandfather John Thomas Mahaffey. He was in the cavalry, and I'm guess this must have been from around World War I. He's the one on the left.


And another one. He's the one with the X above him.

Since I'm talking about my mom's folks, following are pictures of Helen, their oldest daughter:




and of course my mom, their youngest daughter:

Embracing Imperfection

My friend Carole shared this, and I thought I would pass it on:

"When I was a little girl, my mom liked to make breakfast food for dinner every now and then. And I remember one night in particular when she had made breakfast after a long, hard day at work. On that evening so long ago, my mom placed a plate of eggs, sausage, and extremely burned toast in front of my dad. I remember waiting to see if anyone noticed! Yet all my dad did was reach for his toast, smile at my mom, and ask me how my day was at school. I don't remember what I told him that night, but I do remember watching him smear butter and jelly on that toast and eat every bite!

When I got up from the table that evening, I remember hearing my mom apologize to my dad for burning the toast. And I'll never forget what he said: 'Baby, I love burned toast.'

Later that night, I went to kiss Daddy good night and I asked him if he really liked his toast burned. He wrapped me in his arms and said, 'Debbie, your Momma put in a hard day at work today and she's real tired. And besides-a little burnt toast never hurt anyone!'

You know, life is full of imperfect things.....and imperfect people."


And I imagine that father, whom I assume was grateful that he had a wife helping him to support the family, was just glad someone besides him had made dinner.

Smart man.

Father's Day

It started out pretty well with some of the kids coming over for a nice dinner--Erin and her kids, David and his family, Robert came by for a bit but his wife had to work, Paul and Kelsey came later since they were at her family's for dinner. Afterward, the vote was to watch the movie Forever Strong. It's an inspirational movie about an award winning Rugby team (here in Utah).

It all went downhill from there.

I'd made a double batch of brownies (that Ed could actually eat), but Dave found a piece of glass in his brownie. I had used a plastic bowl to fix the mixes, and the glass baking dishes didn't have any chips in them. It appears the glass shard was in the brownie mix itself--so I threw all those brownies away.

Paul and Kelsey arrived, but Paul seemed a bit of a grump. He says he doesn't like any kind of sports film, so he messed around at Ed's computer. Since we were halfway through the movie and continued watching it.

The grand kids kept going in and out of the house (and since the TV was facing the door, the evening sun was blinding). Eventually I told them they had to stay inside, so they went downstairs to play in the playroom. The movie finished, and I commented that Aidan hadn't come back in. While we were chatting, Erin must have decided to go check on him. She came in quite angry a minute later because we hadn't kept her daughter Madelyn from going outside, and Mad had run in the street.

But worse yet, Erin couldn't find Aidan. We hadn't realized we were supposed to be watching Madelyn and we were a little stunned, but we all jumped up to help search for Aidan.

After a few horrible minutes--poor Erin was so frightened--Paul found Aidan hiding on the back porch. Erin and Adam had both looked back there. The little stinker thought it was time to go home and didn't want to. Ugh!

Then as David and Shannon were leaving with their children, the topic of David's birthday last year came up, and I found out we'd really dropped the ball. Through oversight, inattention, or whatever lame excuse, the bottom line is that Dave had a birthday that had gone unacknowledged (except for my e-card) even though the family was gathered for a late celebration of Ed's birthday. What should have been a joint event was not, and Dave felt really bad.

Dave, if you read this and for what it's worth, I'm really very sorry. I wish I could take back your hurt. With you and your family moving to China, I don't know how many birthdays we'll be able to celebrate together, and I'm sickened that we blew the chance to party on the first one you'd spent in Utah since you were married. I know what's it like to have a sucky birthday, so I apologize for having contributed to a sucky birthday memory for you.

Anyway, I wasn't feeling very well yesterday. The pews at church are about the worst ever for my tailbone, and I ended up having to stand for most of the service--and that makes my lower back hurt.

I'm glad that at least Ed seemed to have a nice day.

Tail Bones

For the last month my tail bone has been really hurting me again. Almost 13 years ago my youngest, Adam, crashed into me when we were rollerskating and I fell--hard. I knew the tail bone was broken because there was a crunching sensation if I moved certain ways, but I never went to the doctor about it. What would they be able to do--cast it? After about 3 years it was finally not too bad, though certain positions would begin to cause great discomfort--a recumbent exercise bike would never be my choice.

So I went to the doctor on Wednesday, he sent me to get x-rays taken, and guess what? I've got quite a nice break in my tail bone. How could this happen? Surely I haven't been running around for nearly 13 years with an original, unhealed break. But I haven't done anything to my tail bone. Surely if I'd broken it again I would have noticed it right away.

Ugh.

Princess Festival and the Fairy Tea Party

Last Friday, we went to the Princess Festival in Lindon. Erin left Madelyn with Grampa who was also with the boys, and they all went to have fun at Nicklecade. So it was just Erin, Sienna, Shannon, Savanna, and me. Only Sienna and Savvy were dressed as princesses.


This is Sienna and Savanna by the fountain before the group was taken to the castle to help save the princesses.



Sienna gets a picture with Ariel.



This is Savanna sitting next to Aladdin. Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter (to the left in the picture) had the group play the game of Duck Duck Goose. Savvy watched what everyone was doing and even jumped up to chase one of the characters when she was touched on Goose, but suddenly she realized that everyone was looking at her. Overcome with shyness, she ran to her mommy.



The Blue Fairy led the group to the castle. Sienna's back can be seen in her white dress.


Savanna (and all the little princesses) walk through the flowered arbor.



Their first stop is the house of the Seven Dwarfs to rescue Snow White.



Then it's up to the castle to save several princesses: Beauty, Rapunzel, and Cinderella.




Then it's off to another large building to save one more princess (Sleeping Beauty). On the way, Savanna gets a little distracted by the elephants.


The little girls all screamed that the prince should "Kiss her!"



Posing with a royal couple after the ball.



The girls ride in the pumpkin coach.


Then it's home to the Fairy Tea.


Savvy remembered her fairy outfit, so she's playing with the fairies in my garden.


Sienna joins her.

Warbreaker

Last night I finished Brandon Sanderson's newest book Warbreaker. I loved it. I want to read it again, but I'm letting a coworker read it first. Click here for more details about the book.

I am a fan of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, and I had never heard of Sanderson until it was announced that Jordan's widow had chosen Sanderson to finish the Wheel of Time series. I thought I would try out one of his books to see how I liked his writing and see if I thought he would do okay with Jordan's series. I was thrilled to find that I loved the book Elantris. I then began to read his Mistborn series. Loved that one. I think he does a fabulous job with his world building. And what he does with magic! It's so imaginative. What's really something is that with these five books, he has three completely different kinds of magic--and they're WAY cool! He's got a gift at making me care for the characters he writes. And since becoming a Harry Potter fan, I learned to appreciate plot twists and foreshadowing. Sanderson hasn't disappointed me yet. Each book gets better and better.

So if you're looking for a fun summer read, check out Warbreaker!