Onward and Upward

Hello Family!

I don't feel as though I have much to write about, yet I feel like we are as busy as ever! The boys are doing great! School is moving along; Ryder and Cannon are busy with swim team; Ryder is loving basketball and cubs; Hudson continues to love his SportBall class; and everyone seems to be loving the ski season (although, Hudson's experience is more along the lines of love/hate). The older boys are anxiously anticipating the start of baseball season. I may not be as excited. ;) Ryder and Cannon get to play on the same team this year, and Cannon is THRILLED! He sure adores his older brother. Nixon may not be as involved in the activities as the other boys, but he sure doesn't notice a difference. He loves being a part of everything and thinks he's just one of the big boys! Even on the ski hill... I can't keep him in my arms. He is often off running up the ski hill, not realizing he's lacking a set of skis and poles like everyone passing by him!

All four boys just spent a week down in Raymond with Todd's sister's family, while Todd and I spent about a week in Maui. My body definitely felt the temperature shock upon our return! Brrr! We took advantage of a UCSF conference and our 10 year anniversary to venture out on our own. The boys seemed to have survived just fine. :) We had a wonderful time relaxing, hiking, snorkelling, and swimming. Todd's favourite experience was snorkelling along the southern volcanic coastline (Kanaio Coast) and out at a volcanic crater (Molokini), and my favourite was definitely the hiking... we swam in tide pools, explored a cave and jumped off waterfalls. We so look forward to taking the boys back with us one day. It was a long week without them. :)

We spent some time today showing the boys pictures of the Disney Fantasy trip and looking up youtube videos about snorkelling, stingray city and parasailing. Ryder's joyful response, "I don't know why you had to tell me all about this now! Now I have to wait a whole year!!!" :) At dinner tonight they were already discussing gear they may want to ask for for their birthdays to go along with the trip. We are definitely all looking forward to the time together and the fun adventures!

Question - is anyone interested in going a few days early to hit up Disney World and/or World of Harry Potter? We are contemplating it, seeing as we likely won't be back down that way for quite some time. Let us know!

The boys have a mid-winter break this week... off of school on Thurs/Fri/Mon. Todd's sister, Angie, and her family are coming for a couple of days, and it looks as though the weather may allow us to make it to the zoo. Our winter has been MUCH milder than last, which has made getting out and about much easier on the boys. The milder weather sure makes school much easier! I always find it so difficult to push my boys along to school when it's -20* F and so very dark in the mornings. But they are such great sports! Our chinook winds have allowed us to be sledding and skiing one day and then heading to the zoo just a few days later. I won't complain about the warmer temperatures, but we could use a bit more snow at the ski hill. ;)

I've gotta cut this short and head to bed. We have a long week ahead of us... getting back into our routine and unpacking. We love you all and pray you are happy and well!

Love,
Jenny

A New Year!

Dear Family,
With the beginning of a new year, I decided it might be a good time to try to keep my resolve of contributing to the blog each month.  I'm even going to try to have Amy teach me how to post pictures!  Now that the details of the "cruise" are pretty much in place, we can turn our minds to everyday matters and to "saving and planning" for this wonderful, forthcoming adventure!  Dad and I are really looking forward to next February, as we know all of you are!
So much has happened since I last posted...The middle of November was our fun trip to San Francisco where Kevin and Julie, Dave and Cinda met us for dinner and a play and we made a quick trip to Fresno to visit the temple and have dinner with dear temple friends.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and so much fun with Todd and Jenny, Zach and Amy and their families.  We were able to host a dessert get-together for my extended family and it was fun to see many from out of town.  December brought Christmas with the Gruwells and Fenns and most of you coming afterward.  Thank you so much for all the effort and time you put forth to make the trip.  I know it wasn't easy with the weather, work schedules, etc.,not to mention the fact that so many took turns getting sick!  It was a "special memory" to be together on my birthday...thank you for everything!
January has been full of many activities....Sometimes people ask us "what does it feel like to be retired?" (!)
We really don't know what to say.  It doesn't really feel any different from any other time - we seem to be just as busy - only doing different things!  I try to help Grandma as much as I can - this month taking her to the doctor, to lunch with friends, to the temple and to an institute class every Wednesday morning.  Becky and I take her to the temple each month - usually the first Tuesday morning -  along with anyone else who can go.  This month we also gave a baby shower for Ashley Wise McCune while Aunt Debbie was here.
Dad keeps busy working two shifts at the temple on Wednesdays and Saturdays, doing any outside work he can do this time of year (which has actually been much warmer than usual) and going to as many BYU games as he can!  We also keep busy with the missionary prep class we teach.  I was "hit" with "some kind of cold" two weeks ago which settled in my sinuses.  I haven't been able to "taste or smell" for a week...I've decided it really isn't any fun to eat if you can't taste the food!  Finally, today I have been able to taste things...thanks to modern medicine!  It is good to start to feel better - I only hope Dad and Scott can stay well.
Last November we had a wonderful stake conference.  I was so inspired and wanted to email everyone about what a wonderful spirit we had at our meetings and what the focus was on.  In an effort to be brief, I'll mention just a few things:
1. Saturday the focus was on family history and we were all reminded of the value and importance of our patriarchal blessings. We were counseled to read them often to help us keep our focus on what our priorities should be.  I thought that was a good reminder.
2. Sunday's meeting was around Jarom 3. Our stake president, who is a very humble and sweet man, made the comment that it is rare for anyone to quote Jarom - only one chapter in the entire book! The verse mentions "hardness of their hearts", "deafness of their ears", "blindness of their minds" and "stiffness of their necks".  He gave a beautiful talk mentioning that he didn't want to be negative and he wasn't accusing anyone of such behavior, but he was continually concerned and reminded of the importance of "being truly converted", believing and following the prophets, continually repenting and moving forward in faith.  He said we needed to be "firm and steadfast" and be careful not to adopt the tendencies mentioned in the third verse in Jarom because that will hinder our progression.  Good food for thought!

We love you all!  We hope to hear from all of you so that when our blog is printed we will have regular contributions from everyone!  It can serve as part of our family history...Have a wonderful week and stay well!
                                                                                 Love, Mom
 

Beautiful Fall

Dear Family,
We have been enjoying beautiful fall weather.  Our temperatures in the daytime have consistently been in the 70's with only a few cloudy/rainy days now and then.  Almost every day I check the weather in all of your cities on my phone and it seems like everyone has had wonderful weather.  As I speak, I just checked my phone and it is already dark and cloudy in Erie and 52 degrees!  I am always surprised when I see sometimes our temperatures are close to that in Roseville and other times closer to Calgary and Erie.  I understand our temperature is going to plummet this weekend so our cold weather may be just around the corner.
We had such a fun trip to St. George over what Utahns call UEA weekend when the kids were out of school September 16 and 17.  Greg had to travel for work so Kristin and their children drove down with Scott, Dad and me.  We all stayed between Amy and Zach's, Magleby's and a hotel they are affiliated with.  We saw the "Little Mermaid" at Tuachan - a beautiful outdoor theater at the base of the mountains just outside of St. George.  I have always wanted to see a production there and it was amazing!  It was incredible what they were able to accomplish with their scenery, sound effects, etc., not to mention the talent of the performers.  We look forward to going back...Zach had to work and so Amy took us to get acquainted with the city: we toured the old tabernacle and Brigham Young's home, walked around the temple grounds, visited a children's museum and cooled off at the city splash park.  We also took time to visit a large pumpkin farm on our way out of town.  We returned on Friday so we could make it to the BYU Homecoming game on Saturday.  Sadly, BYU isn't doing their best at football, but we still enjoy going to the games.  We "tailgated" - had dinner from the back of Kristin and Greg's car before the Homecoming game.  While we were eating Tom and Karen Fife along with Julie and her new husband parked close to where we were.  It was fun to see them...As you probably know, Tom and Karen moved to Provo the beginning of Sept. just after Julie's reception at their home.  Chad and Christy Rowan bought their home...It is fun to have them here.
Well, I have to bring all of you up-to-date on the latest "happening" in our home.  A week ago last Monday in the late afternoon while we were preparing for our "Empty Nesters" group to come for a family home evening,  I went downstairs in the basement and just happened to walk by the bedroom where the king bed is.  I heard water dripping and went in to see what it was.  Water was dripping from the ceiling over the crib and in the corner under the window.  I could see where there was water damage in the ceiling.  I called Dad to come and look and he found that the carpet between the bed and the closet was also soaked.  Come to find out, water had frozen in an outside pipe leading to an exterior water faucet and the pipe had burst causing a leak.  Also, it seems when the brick was laid a pipe had been shoved to such an angle that the water couldn't drain anyway.  Dad could probably give you a better explanation, but the "long and short" of everything is that we had to move all the furniture out and have a restoration company come and take up the carpet and pad, tear out one wall, part of the ceiling around the edges and some baseboards.  They placed fans in the room to dry everything out.  It seems the pad will need to be replaced but the carpet will be alright.  Everything is dry now and a company is coming tomorrow to replace the wall and ceiling.  We are hoping to everything in place when Jenny, Todd and family come for Thanksgiving....we will see.  It seems there is damage to the headboard and two nightstands.  So, we may need to replace some furniture....I am just grateful we found the leak when we did and that we have been able to get things taken care of.  It seems that our insurance will pay for most of it....Thankfully, we only had to have the water turned off for a short time and it came back on just in time for our guests to arrive for our family home evening.  We were blessed - we had a lovely evening and no one knew what had happened!
We are busy....I take Grandma to an institute class every Wed. morning and I'm working with Aunt Becky on some family history and  going through  a lot of Grandma's boxes, trying to organize things while she is still with us and can help. Dad still works as a sealer in the temple on Wed. and Saturdays. We love being close to Kristin and Greg and being able to help out with Jacob and Eliza.  They both keep us laughing!
We love all of you soooo much.  I loved reading Kevin's last post...What a trooper you are, Lizzy!...Tyler, too!  Keep up the good work.  You will both be good hikers like your parents!  We will watch for Emily on TV! 
Come and see us!  We look forward to having Jenny & Todd and their family for Thanksgiving and maybe Amy and Zach if they can come.  Any of you are welcome whenever you can come...
                                                                       Love, Mom

Sierra Wanderings

Hello from NorCal

Since we're praying for torrential rain, we've been getting outside to take advantage of the weather while we can :)

Over labor day weekend we camped up in Tahoe and took the kids on a six mile hike through some High Sierra lakes.  Having hiked in the Rockies, Cascades, Andes, White, Appalachian and Himalayan mountains- there's still something about our home state's Sierras that is special.  The stark contrast of granite gray slopes and deep blue lakes is inspiring.

Julie spent a long weekend with her nephew Logan getting settled at BYU-Idaho.  He was very appreciative of her help and she was excited to find out his roommate is straight from Nepal! Yay Dal Baht!

This past weekend I took Lizzy on her first overnight backpacking trip.  She was amazing- carrying a 15 pound pack for 11 miles over two days in the Caribou Wilderness.  She caught her first fish- and after 6 little rainbows still wanted more! (catch and release- no animals were harmed in this production)

Emily is excelling in ballet and trying to decide between Julliard and The London School of Dance.

We love you all - come back home to visit!

Hansens

We're On Our Way

Dear Family,
We have missed everyone so much since our reunion....We had a wonderful visit after Newport from Jenny and the boys, Stacie, Matt and Family, Cinda, Dave, Katelynne and the boys for a very short time and Amy and girls.  (Did I miss anybody?!)  This last month has flown by with opportunities to help Grandma and just the everyday around home.  We are actually on our way to Canada in just a few minutes to be there for Ryder's baptism on Saturday.  We are driving this time since the weather is good and we are told the countryside will be beautiful!  We are looking forward to being there and will return next Tuesday.
We have loved reading Jenny and Kevin's recent posts with pictures, etc.  We have watched Kevin's "Tough Mudder" several times and can't believe they CHOSE to do that!  It makes me wonder what people will think of next! 
We are "gearing up" for BYU football.  I guess this first home game is a week from today.  We are also looking forward to a visit from Amy and Zach next week and Julie and children.  Dad is calling...!  I must run.  We'll write more later and try to include some pictures.  We love you!  Love, Mom and Dad

Electrocution hurts...

Swim team has transitioned to soccer- so summer must be officially over.  We'll be cheering for the Dragons and Lady Bobcats on Saturday mornings this season.
We've got two weeks of school under our belts here and Tyler and Elizabeth both love their teachers.  Tyler is fortunate to have the same teacher Elizabeth did for kindergarten, so he feels right at home.
Emily is left alone to rule the roost, which she loves.  But she can't wait to pick up the kids when 2pm rolls around.
Emily finally loves nursery, making the block much nicer for all of us.  Tyler will be giving his first talk this coming Sunday.  Topic is right up his alley -  'healthy physical recreation'.
Julie and I were assigned to a member missionary Sunday school class for  a couple of months.  Much of the curriculum is based off of Clayton Christensen's book, The Power of Everyday Missionaries.  We've enjoyed reading it and would recommend it to everyone.  Even you Utah Mormons could probably find something of value :)
One of the challenges I've always felt with missionary work, is discomfort inviting someone to a life in the gospel when I feel like my life is far from perfect.  The following excerpt addressed that really well I thought:
Sharing the gospel doesn't just require that we have the power of God unto the convincing of men.  It gives us this power.   Missionary work will help those of us who are battling against addictions and bad habits and are struggling to feel worthy, to stand blameless before God, to become forgiven of our sins, and to have the strength to keep God's laws.  It doesn't just demand our purity.  It will help us be pure.  For those of us who struggle with sadness, sharing the gospel will give us great joy.  It will make us become holy men and women who have great revelations and are borne up from our burdens as on eagles' wings, begetting glory and honor to ourselves and unto the Lord's name.  

We're being taught that success in missionary work is based on inviting, and as soon as you invite you've succeeded - the rest is on them to accept the message.  We invited some neighbors over to have a family night with us and the missionaries - we'll keep you posted.

Julie is traveling to Rexburg via Salt Lake in a couple weeks to help her nephew coming off of his mission get situated in school.  For those of you who didn't know, he's in Rob and Diane Eaton's mission, which has been really fun.  He loves his mission president!

Some of you may remember that last year our elder's quorum climbed Mt. Whitney together.  This year our planned 'quorum bonding' event was to have a team for the Tough Mudder Tahoe event.  Those of you unfamiliar with the event, click on the video at this link for a quick description
https://toughmudder.com

It's 11 miles with 20 obstacles meant to present a physical challenge and require a team effort.  It's actually not a race and not timed, but rather a team event to complete.  This particular one made all the harder because it's on the mountain with about 2000ft elevation gain over the 11 miles.

We had been planning and preparing since the first of the year.  Six of us ended up doing it as a team and it was a blast.  Actually a lot more fun than I expected.  Did I mention you get electrocuted?  The final obstacle involves running through a field of live wires with 10,000 volts (a taser is 5000 volts).  I got shocked four times and it hurt like *#@!.   Our team name was  I will go, I will do.  We had shirts and a team cheer and had a lot of fun with it.  One of our guys wore a GoPro camera and put together this video if you care to watch.  (Note- it actually streams a lot better through an iPad or iPhone.  To watch it on a computer I've had to download it)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6LJIxXsJ0xSTUJKTDJyd1pEMW8/edit?usp=sharing

We love you all!

Hansens

New Backpacks!

First Day !

Post Berry Picking

Berry picking

Berry Picking

Electrocution

Walk the Plank

Arctic Enema

Thawed Out

Hello Family,

Thanks to Kevin, I found my longer post! Here you go... :)

Written July 7:

Here we are in July, and it's sunny and beautiful here in Calgary. I have loved seeing the city come back to life this spring/summer!! I don't think I fully appreciated the area when we moved in a year ago. There is so much green everywhere. Calgary really is a beautiful city.

School is now over (just got out the very end of June), and summer is finally here. The boys are done with baseball (I'll be honest, I'm not complaining... it was intense), and are now on to bike rides, shooting hoops, and playing in the sprinklers out back. Ryder's baseball team ended up winning the championship game, and I don't think you could find a happier boy on the earth at that moment. Cute boy. He and Cannon both had a great time. Hudson enjoyed his soccer team, but he constantly talked about wanting to play baseball like his brothers. Maybe next year.

We made our way down to Raymond for the July 1 festivities. Todd's grandmother is here visiting for a few weeks from St. George (she recently moved there), and it was great being able to visit with her. We enjoyed the famous Raymond parade, a family bbq, watching bits of the rodeo from the backyard and the fireworks show that night. Our Fourth of July wasn't quite as eventful, but I have big plans for hosting future celebrations. :) Todd operated on his sister, Robyn, that morning, so the boys and I spent the day helping her recoup.

We've enjoyed getting out and about now that the snow is gone and getting to know our city better. There are some great forest areas just a few minutes drive from us, with access to the Bow river and plenty of rocks for the boys to throw. And we made our way west a few days ago to Kananaskis country (just before Banff) and enjoyed a small hike to some falls. Todd took the older three boys on their first camping trip a few weeks ago, and it all came to an abrupt end when Hudson threw up all over Todd at 3am. Needless to say, Todd is not planning any other camping trips for the near future. Poor guy. But the boys had a blast the night before, so I think I may be able to convince Todd to give it another go sometime. We really do feel so blessed to live in such a gorgeous area! Come visit, and we'll show it to you! :) Todd has a couple of days off this week, so we're off to explore a lake here in town tomorrow and are heading to Calaway Park (an amusement park) on Friday. It's a scorching 75 here this week... haha! I don't know how my boys are going to survive the California heat during our visit. ;)

Todd's practice is moving along well, and we feel very grateful for the blessings of the Spirit and personal revelation as we try to make decisions for our family. It looks like we'll be moving to a different rental in August, which will make the end of the summer sure busy. Ryder, Cannon and Hudson are all attending a sports and adventure camp at the nearby Canada Olympic Park two weeks before school starts, and the timing will be super helpful as I pack and prepare to move. They are excited (and a little apprehensive) to try their hand at ski jumping, the luge, mountain biking, etc. Ryder still can't believe I'm making him do so many "Canadian Sports"! ;)

Only a few more days until the boys and I make our way down south to Utah before heading down to SoCal. We're excited to see you all! I'm looking forward to lots of time at the beach! Yay for summer!

Love you all!

Jenny

 The older boys with their cousin, Colton, at the Raymond July 1st Parade.

 Cannon on the last day of school.

 Ryder with his team after winning the championship game. Ryder is in the front left, next to the trophy.

 

 The fam at the family July 1 BBQ.

 Hanging out on the back deck after playing in the little pool and sprinklers.

Ryder on his last day of school.

Summertime, when the living's easy...

Hi guys!
Summer is fun.
Tyler and I joined Dad and co. for an impromptu excursion to Coors Field in Colorado.  We saw a couple of fun games, hid under a zoo carousel from a monster hailstorm, and dad now knows the denver metro area well enough to run a taxi service.

We spent a week in San Diego with the family.  El Nino has the water warm and the marine life doing funky things.  It was the best weather we've had in the ten years we've been going.  Sea World, Phils BBQ, hanging with cousins, Wahoos fish tacos, a couple surf sessions and Mr Frosty took up the rest of our time.

Fourth of July is our second favorite holiday so we went all out and had a blast.  Took the kids to the city for a night, found some good neighborhood eats for my birthday dinner, rode bikes all over Golden Gate Park- including playing with the buffalo and sliding down some cool concrete slides (never showed us that park Jenny?!), then went to Giants game/fireworks night.   Not quite Henderson Park in the morning and lazy evening on Whitegate Dr.  Though I did see Steve Fife at the Giants game  7/2 and he said the Fife/Callister reunion was going to bring the noize and pyrotechnics to Whitegate Dr. this 4th for old time sake.

Kevin is training for Tough Mudder Tahoe
Julie is shunning sugar
Lizzy learned to kneeboard!!
Tyler is psycho-T in coach-pitch baseball
Emily is writing a biography of her infancy, titled:  Why am I so much smarter than all these people?

Over and out
Kevin

An abbreviated version...

Hello Family...

I just lost a very lengthy post I was writing. :( So, now you get an abbreviated version. So sorry, but I have to go try and get some sleep before Nixon wakes up.

We are doing well. The boys are busy with summer fun. Ryder is reading Percy Jackson and loving it. Cannon has a football in his hand every time I turn around. Hudson is at the height of his terrible threes, forcing me to have to remind myself constantly how much I really do love him. :) Nixon is crawling all over the place. We love Calgary and all of its beauty. Come visit us! Todd's practice is going well, despite ups and downs with the contract portion of things. Todd, Nixon and I had a great long weekend trip to Seattle a few weeks back. We're moving to a different rental in August. Ryder will be getting baptized August 30. We're excited for our visit to Utah and California in a few weeks!

Love you all so very much!

The End.

Jenny, Todd and boys :)

In Suuummmer #2!

Dear Family,
I side with Bella in saying that Olaf is my favorite character in "Frozen", which is a "beloved" movie around these parts as well!  Eliza stands "transfixed" whenever it is on and I can count on her "staying put" and not moving an inch when she is watching it.  Disney really struck it rich with that one....
Summer has officially come to Kaysville with the opening of our pool!  We had a barbecue for Jake's birthday on May 26 and followed with another one for Dad's birthday on the 31st.  We also plan to have some family here this next Tuesday night to help celebrate Great Grandma Horne's 91st birthday.  We are going to the temple in the morning and having a swimming/dinner party here at night.
Dad has been working hard ALL DAY EVERY DAY in the yard (surprise, surprise!) - planting flowers, mowing, edging, watering, doing whatever he can to keep everything looking so nice.  So much for deciding we would have "only a few areas with flowers" in our new yard - in order to "simplify"!  He planted our vegetable, fruit garden as well, along with some herbs!  It is a little challenge adjusting to different growing conditions, but we are hopeful...We love our yard and the view is still so beautiful with the meadow and mountains in the background.  We are truly blessed.... 
Speaking of blessings, I had a wonderful trip (a little earlier than planned!) back to Pennsylvania to help and to welcome little Monty Gruwell into the world and into our family.  What fun it was to be there to not only celebrate his arrival, but Mother's Day and Elli's birthday as well.  I had fun seeing where all three girls go to school, watching Ashlan at an ice-skating lesson, visiting their ward, meeting many wonderful Gruwell friends and learning my way around (a little!)  It is plain to see that Stacie, Matt and their family are very much loved by so many.
Dad continues to be busy serving as a sealer in the Bountiful Temple.  He works Wednesday afternoon and evening and the early morning shift on Saturday.  We both help teach one of the two missionary prep classes in our Stake.  We are learning to love and appreciate the manual, "Preach My Gospel" that the missionaries use.  It truly is an inspired tool.  We just had three young men and one young woman leave for the mission field from our class with more leaving in the next few months.
We are looking forward to our trip this weekend to Roseville to see Cordon, Cameron, Katelynne, and Lizzy perform with their "sing and dance" groups.  We weren't able to attend their performances very much when we were serving in the Fresno Temple, so we wanted to see their program this summer.  Jacob is going to travel with us so we think it will be really fun.  We, along with all of you, are also looking forward to our family reunion in Newport and to summer visits from different family members to our home here in Utah.
We love all of you so much and are so proud of you for the wonderful things you are doing and the way you are living your lives.  I hope you are taking the time to read the talks in the Ensign from the recent General Conference.  They are all so wonderful.  We read President Eyring's talk, "A Priceless Heritage of Hope" last week in our family home evening and we studied Elder Nelson's talk, "Let Your Faith Show" in RS today.  They are both such wonderful talks. 
A huge "thank you" to Kevin and Amy for their recent blog posts!  I will try to do better and hope all of you will, too!  Love, Mom