Sunday, January 7, 2018

One of the Best gifts

For my birthday this year my dad returned a journal I had given him 15 years ago.  He kept the card that I had given him with the journal and gave the whole thing back.  I had asked him to write down the stories he tells us in his own handwriting so that someday I would have them all written down.  I really wasn't expecting it back until he was gone.  I'm glad he gave it to me now, because the kids love to ask him questions and find out more about him.

My dad has always been a story teller, and I was afraid that the stories would get lost after he is gone.  He isn't going anywhere for a while that I know of, at least I hope not, because I'm driving up tonight to go skiing with him.  I also love to see what he remembers about things that I was around for.  At Thanksgiving this year, my Mom was telling us about a year that they had venison and salmon at their house on the ranch.  I thought that sounded really good, so I asked Dad to bring down some venison at Christmas.  I told him where I had gotten the idea, and he said, "no, it was elk and chukkars."  He told me this story about my uncle shooting an elk that had been out with the cows on the ranch and he and a friend had spooked some chukkars and they cleaned them up and had a home grown dinner for Thanksgiving.  I had to laugh, because of course no one knows exactly what happened.  I think they settled on the elk, chukkars, and salmon, provided by aunt from Seattle.  Whatever the real story is, I enjoyed our salmon and venison dinner on my birthday this year.  The kids spent much of their time home reading my Dad's journal and laughing about the stories.  They even had a little argument over who gets the journal after I die.  Some things really are priceless.

This was actually a really simple and lovely Christmas.  Everyone was home from December 24-27.  We didn't do much but eat and hang out together.  My friend Keely out did herself and gave me a beautiful dutch oven.  My mom bought me a different style dutch oven that is blue.  The girls are also fighting over who will get those when I am gone.  I figure they will be well seasoned by then, and I will have to leave them some recipes to go with them.  It also gives me some good wedding gift ideas (not that we have any looming in the near future).  We spent a good chunk of change at Famous Footwear which had the employees telling me, "I'll see you tomorrow."  Funny story here.  Ben, the manager at Famous Footwear has been selling me shoes for 18 or so years now.  He knew I had a lot of kids, but had never seen all of them together.  The day after Christmas we all went to the mall to spend our gift money and take advantage of the sales.  We pretty much took over the store and were negotiating who would get the BOGO on the clearance shoes, when Ben came over and asked if we were LDS.  I laughed and said no, we just like big adventures.  He then told me about his family growing up and how much he loved being a part of a big family.  It was a really sweet conversation and made me very thankful for our small town and the percentage of people we are contributing to it.  Rick even got everyone to go for a short hike (not short enough for most of the kids, but they did it) and take a family picture.  They only complained a little bit, and did all cooperate without any yelling.  I got everything I had hoped for, and so much more.

I am thankful for:
30.  Awkward conversations, involving laughter and tears and real topics.
31.  Worship services, singing, praying, babies, bread and juice.
32.  Breakfast after church with my people.
33.  Fun movies with the kids (Jumanji was really entertaining!)
34.  Singing in the car with everyone laughing and dancing
35.  Popcorn
36.  Washers and Dryers, handwashing in a creek is a reality in too many places.
37.  Sibling conversations
38.  Community service projects that involve being outside and telling stories for hours
39.  Lunch with Art and the kids, always good food and good laughs
40.  Having Brook home for a few weeks, I miss her so much!

No comments: