Football Game

Jeff and I have been looking forward to attending a BYU football this season and were happy that we got to make that happen this week. We had the good fortune of acquiring a couple of tickets from Paul and Marni for the Friday night's game versus Hawaii. It just so happened that Rachel and Spencer also got some tickets and Sarah, of course, was already planning on being there with her All Sports Pass. Putting those pieces together, we were all able to have a marvelous time watching the Cougars win with an impressive score of 47-0. Great game. Great company.

HOPE YOU HAVE THE BEST BIRTHDAY IN THE WORLD

Spring Art Show

This is rather belated but I thought you'd still like to see some of the shots I took at the Spring Art Show at the end of last year. There were a lot of projects that turned out really well. I had fun trying to make the show be an authentic museum experience. The thing I was the most excited about was creating a gallery map with locations of the exhibitions. The fabulous women that saved the art program (my job) were at the show's opening selling popcorn. You might recognize the poster I created for the popcorn stand which they printed on T-Shirts.

First Grade: Life Cycles

Third Grade: Clay Fish

Kindergarten: Our Community

Third Grade: Collages

Fourth Grade: Fossils

Fourth Grade: Printmaking

Sixth Grade: Paintings on Masonite

Fifth Grade: Phenakistoscopes

COMING TO THE PAST

 Some in the family have recently expressed an interest in things genealogical (... Rachel).  On this FHE evening we take this opportunity for a non-typical post to share some bits of details regarding some historical family COMINGS AND GOINGS.

Recently, dad's aunt, Chris Mix shared an interesting connection between dad’s grandmother Maude Elizabeth Groberg Neeley and Lenore LaFount Romney, the mother of Mitt Romeny.  Yes, that Mitt Romney.  Maude and Lenore were dear friends in high school.   Lenore LaFount would go on to be an actress for MGM, first lady of Michigan and mother of a presidential candidate.  (More on Lenore LaFount can be found in Wikipedia under her name.)

Elizabeth Susan Burnett Brunt & Maudie

Maude and Lenore were both born in 1908.  Maude was born in Idaho Falls, on her maternal grandmother’s birthday, while Lenore was born in Logan, Utah.  Maude was orphaned as a baby and raised by her maternal grandmother – Elizabeth Susan Burnett Brunt – in Idaho Falls.  When Maude was 14 she talked her grandmother into a move to Salt Lake so Maude could attend school and Grandma Brunt could work in the Salt Lake Temple.  (Grandma Brunt often commented on her dream of a temple one day in Idaho Falls.)


While attending Salt Lake City Latter Day Saints High School, Maude made friends with Lenore LaFount.  During their junior year Lenore became sweethearts with senior George W. Romney.  George would serve a mission and have Lenore promise to wait for him (which she did).

Maude Groberg

After high school Maude convinced her grandmother to move back to Idaho so she could attend Ricks college in Rexburg.  George W. Romney’s uncle, George S. Romney was the president of Ricks at the time.  There were a lot of Romney cousins in Rexburg so Maude had the privilege to be in the home of the college president on occasion to visit with her friend Lenore. While at Ricks Maude met Kenneth Neeley.  They married in 1927 and had a baby girl, Lenore Elizabeth in 1928.  They named their first born Lenore, after Maude’s dear high school friend.  The little Neeley family eventually moved to Salt Lake where they grew to 8 children.

Kenneth & Maude

Baby Lenore Elizabeth

Maude and Lenore

As a side note - Maude’s brother, Delbert, who was raised in Ogden, Utah by an uncle, loved his Grandma Brunt. During his formative years he remembered his grandmother saying to him how much she wished there would be a temple in Idaho Falls.  After his mission and marriage, Delbert moved back to the town of his birth -- Idaho Falls.  Delbert quietly went about buying up the shanty shacks around the street where his grandmother had raised his baby sister Maudie.  Eventually he presented the rental properties to the brethren in Salt Lake for the purpose of building a temple. In 1937, six years after Grandma Brunt died, the first temple in Idaho was announced to be built on the gifted properties in Idaho Falls.  Delbert would eventually serve as the president of that temple from 1975 - 1980.  During that time he invited his widowed  little sister Maude, to came back to Idaho Falls to serve as a temple worker, overlooking the site of the little home where she lived and was raised by her grandmother.  The exact property is currently marked with a monument in her honor named, ELIZABETH COURT

We just had to add this last photo - altho' it has almost nothing to do with the above post.

Elizabeth Anderson - 2012      &   Lenore Elizabeth Neeley Cornwall - ca. 1934

Birthday Party

Several weeks ago Elizabeth arrived home from school with the birthday banner up, streamers, balloons, birthday hats, and a birthday cake.  She immediately inquired whose birthday we were celebrating.  I told her it was a secret and that when dad got home from work we would go on a treasure hunt to find out whose birthday it was.  It was pure torture for Daniel and Elizabeth to wait for Dad to get home.

 

We took a 2 day trip to New Hampshire with Marybeths Family in their Motor home. It sure was a very fun trip

One of the very fun things that we did was go to Clark's Trading Post and boy was it a great, we could hardly BEAR it!!!!

We got to rent Segways and ride them around the woods as you can tell by the off road tires. We have always wanted to try them out and it was very fun to ride on them And yes that is a coon tail on the back of my helmet along with all the other segway riders

Marybeth did exceptionally well on the segway. We wouldn't mind riding them again in the future

As part of the tour we ran into the WOLFMAN who lives in the woods, it was an interesting first meeting we can tell  you about it sometime.

The Bear show was one of the highlights of the visit. The bears did a number of tricks one of which here the bear is raising the flag

Here is another bear getting a tax bill out of the mail box

We also got to ride the train and we had more run ins with the WOLFMAN, he even remembered our names and shouted them from the side of the train.

Emary is growing up so fast and she did so well on the long rides in her car seat.

Here is a little video of the Segways in action as well as clips from the Bear show. We could have easily edited the bear show but thought there might be a few grand kids that would not mind seeing as much as they could so please enjoy

ENDEAVORING TO CATCH A VIEW

 People have been out in lawn chairs all morning all over the city waiting for the fly-by of the Space Shuttle Endeavor coming from San Francisco (Katie?).  I was driving back to Pasadena from the LAX area and as I came up the Pasadena freeway (the oldest freeway in the world) through downtown LA I caught a glimpse just after it buzzed L.A. City Hall.  Following it's swing over to the Griffith Observatory and Getty Center and Hollywood sign it came back and flew over Pasadena, just as I was coming up Orange Grove and Walnut and I saw it swing north up toward JPL.

 Mom was waiting with the camera in Monrovia as we thought perhaps it would pass by JPL going east and head down to Disneyland.  But, alas, it did the JPL fly-by coming from the south/east so Mom missed it.  But it was fun to listen to the radio all morning about it's approach and flyover.

)

Thanks to Jon Cornwall's video that he took (that smart boy) from Great Grandpa Cornwall's back yard looking out toward JPL.

7 Months Old

 Emary is such a sweet and happy seven month old.  She loves to crawl around.  She will pull herself up on everything and laughs at just how impressive she is.  She loves watching her brother do anything.  She is so content to sit and play, it is probably one of her favorite things to do.  She loves toys!  She loves to eat and tries to eat anything anyone else is putting into their mouth.  She loves to babble and scream.  She and Bennett were having a screaming party yesterday in the bathroom while Bennett was taking a bath and Emary was watching.  She loves bath time and still loves to be swaddled.  She has the most adorable sheep sounding giggle.  It is so so cute!  We love our little Emary to pieces!

  I absolutely love this face (above) that she makes.  It is a frequent scene.

I am going to miss her little gum chops (below) since the day before she was 7 months old she decided to pop her first tooth.  She is cruising through lots of milestones and we are enjoying every tiny moment!

She is not liking headbands much anymore.

Well, maybe she likes them so much that she would rather have them in her mouth than on her head.  In either case she will not keep them on her head.  

I guess I should have used them more before she had such great hand skills!

Happy Birthday Dad, Grandpa and Great Grandpa

Sunday night, the L.A. County, California Cornwalls + Jon and Lynette Neeley gathered at 1213 for a 85th birthday celebration.  (The actual birthday is today - the 18th.)  Dinner was hamburger pie, made (by Cherie) just the way Great Grandma Cornwall used to make it, rolls and custard banana creme pie (by Sue), and fruit salad (by Shirley) and tossed salad with poppyseed dressing (by Janell)

The big gift was a digital projector.  So after dinner we all sat around... like old times... and watched a slide show of some of the 1000's of slides Grandpa has been digitizing over these past many months.