Hi family,
We promised to report on our wonderful vacation in Hawaii on the Big Island. Dale and Kari's family is fun to be with and we loved playing with Vigo and Gedde. Dale drove us around for most of a day to see the ranches up on the hills with incredible views of the ocean and beautiful surroundings. We spent another day with most of the family in Hawi, a funky little town with fun shops that is on the North tip of the island. Townspeople said the whales were in near there so we drove down to watch and did see a few spouts. Another day we drove up to the only active volcanic crater. It was not spewing lava right then but there was plenty of steam and smoke. We went to an old lava tube and most of our group went through it. This trip took us to the wet side of the island around Hilo. We were staying on the Kona side which is dry. The tops of the old volcanoes are over 13,000 ft elevation so you can have any climate you want if you drive a while. We spent some time on the beach near our condo and enjoyed seeing some sea turtles there and watching Dale and Kari and the older kids kayak in the bay. My favorite activity was the time we spent on a catamaran and looking at the coral and sea life beneath us. Most of the people on the boat went snorkeling but we didn't want to do that. They put us in inner tubes with a view box so we could see underwater without putting our faces in. Dale got a rope from the captain, tied it to my tube and towed me around. He didn't think I was moving myself fast enough. It was great fun. The weather was just the right temperature and we loved our time there. We were able to spend a few days with Cheryl's family before we came home. It had been a while since we had visited them so that was nice.
Back home in Moscow, the winter has been really reluctant to leave this year. All our flowers and trees are about a month behind. Whenever the sun shines, Dad gets out and works. I have done a few small things but he has done most of the spring cleanup. A lot of our fence posts have rotted off after 25 years so today he removed the fence between the backyard and the garden area. We still cannot fill the new raised garden beds because the soil we ordered is too wet to move so we are not even close to planting anything. I guess this year will give us some idea of how we will garden from now on. This morning Dad counted 12 bright goldfinches on our feeders. That was just the males. He has also taken over the chore of keeping the feeders full and the birdbaths clean and full. That has to be done everyday with the numbers we've had.
We hope to see the rest of you this summer sometime.
Love, Mom and Dad

www.amazon.com/abna

Here's a better link for the contest Kari's in - next announcement is April 26, then it's the final round to see who wins. After reading many other entries, I think she has a great shot, unless the judges actually prefer really dark and violent teenage characters who swear a lot for the young adult segment. Regardless, I'm very proud of her, since this is the second manuscript (completely different stories) that she's gotten into the semifinals in as many years (final 100 out of original 5,000 accepted for consideration).

If you want to read an excerpt of Kari's book, type "Leath'dhia" in the search field on Amazon, it can be downloaded for free.

http://http//www.amazon.com/Breakthrough-Novel-Award-Books/b?ie=UTF8&node=332264011

This is the link to the contest that Kari is in - she's in the Young Adult Fiction category, and I'd be surprised if she didn't move to the quarter (final 250) and semifinals (final 50) again given how far last year's manuscript went.

http://http//g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/books/abna/2011/ABNA_Young_Adult_Fiction_Second_Round.pdf

This gives you a sense of the competition - remember, this list is AFTER 80% of the entries have already been cut. By the way, Kari is listed under Kari Edgren (that way, when she's all famous, I can still hang out and travel with her without her getting mobbed and such). ;-)

Message from the lame-O family

After Susie's nudge email I decided that I should probably post as it's been, uh... more than a year. I'll try to summarize late 2009 into early 2011 in short order.

We decided to expand our horizons a bit in late 2009 and after shopping around for a year or so bought a house on 40 acres just Northeast of Moscow, on a shoulder of Moscow mountain - picture of front yard to the left. We'll eventually build a new home about where our car is in the picture, though life hasn't cooperated exactly as we'd hoped thus far. We had a window of opportunity as the boys were entering high school, but will mostly likely wait for a few years now as they're both pretty involved and we'd hate to pull them out in their junior or senior years. Our Woodinville house also didn't sell given a pretty dismal RE market, since Washington has now started to catch up with the rest of the west coast's decline.

In late 2010, as part of the grand plan, we also listed our cabin for sale as long term we'd be moving out of the area, and it just sold this month. Sort of ripped a piece of my heart out as that was my escape from real life/emails/phone calls for the past decade, but we were using it less and less as a family given 'life' on the other side of the mountains. My trips there were increasingly just to maintain it and then dash back home for whatever kid, church, work, or other activities I'd miss otherwise. We'll likely get something in the way of a cabin again in the future, but it will probably be larger, on a body of water, and several hundred miles east of Seattle.

I was just released from the bishopric, also as part of splitting our ward, which had grown to almost 600 members and was becoming rather unwieldy. I already miss many of the blessings and personal revelation that seemed to come with the calling, but I do welcome the 20 or so extra hours that I seem to have each week. I also resigned from several boards (corporate and non-profit) to reclaim my time a bit. I was promoted at work, to Corporate Client Group Director in our region (still a Senior VP and Managing Partner of the Pacific Wealth Management Group), so work has been a bit busy to put it mildly. I generally enjoy the work, but do get tired of all the "HR drama" that working with large groups of people seems to invariably bring.

Kari has just finished her second novel. "Ruby", her first, was a semifinalist in last year's ABNA/Amazon new author's contest - basically, she was in the final 50 from an original field of 5000 novels submitted in her category. Her second, called "Leath'dhia", just got into the quarterfinals in this year's contest - the next two rounds are at the end of this month and then I believe final selection is in May. This is a much better book and we're all very proud of her for doing these - they are great to read and I'm confident she'll get published, as they are both much better than 95% of what does get published. I wish she was as confident as I am in her work.

Grace is about to graduate from the International Community School, where's she done very well and had some amazing experiences. She has travelled in the past five years on separate trips to China, Brazil, Greece, London, Mexico, Jamaica, and Costa Rica, with stops in Paris and Tokyo along the way - about half of those were trips with our family, but her passport has a lot more stamps than mine! She's leaving for ten days in Ireland for her senior trip later this spring. She's trying to figure out where to go to school now, applying for scholarships, etc. We're very proud of her since ICS is in the top 20 high schools (public or private) in the US and she has a very high GPA. She's admitted to BYU but is looking at a couple of places (yes, naturally she applied to Willamette).

Ethan is a sophomore at Eastside Catholic High School, and is doing well in school and especially in his favorite class - rock band. Seriously. He is really into drums and is getting quite good, having abandoned his natural talent at violin a few years back. He's also on the school lacrosse team, which involves wearing some nominal padding and whacking each other with big sticks and throwing a small hard rubber ball at each other. What's not to like about that?

Connor is also at EC and after playing football for a few years, discovered that everyone else had put 50 pounds on over the summer, when he didn't (though he's in incredible shape, he's just not 200+ pounds, which most of the JV lineman already are). So, he ran cross country last year which he enjoyed more since it involved running around in the forest and hanging out with girls more than crashing into each other on the defensive line and tackling smelly guys. He's a great student and both he and Ethan have been presidents of their quorums at church, which has kept them busy.

Elsa is into... well, everything. Currently, she is lead in her school's production of the musical "Beauty and the Beast". Opening night is Friday. She also spends every waking hour with Jalepeno, a very large Appaloosa stallion that we lease at a local barn. Actually, I'm not sure this picture is of Jalepeno, he's bigger and doesn't have the white on his nose. Hopefully she'll forgive me.

Caelen is a reading machine - he's currently about half way through everything that Orson Scott Card has ever written (that is seriously about 30 books), after doing the same with several other authors. He's a blast to hang around, since all the teenagers have better things to do than hang around with Dad. He's my pheasant hunting buddy (even Suki's given up, though that's due to arthritis and all sorts of maladies - she's getting a bit old to join us) and is still active in karate, as are the older boys who expect to earn their black belts this year after three years of work.

Vigo is a wonderful four year old who is a lot of fun to talk to as he spends a lot of time figuring the world out with detailed questions about nearly anything you can imagine, from internal combustion engines to what is the purpose of life on earth (literally, "Dad, why do I exist?"). He and Gedde generate a lot of trouble when left unsupervised. Gedde is either Vigo's best friend or mortal enemy, depending on the circumstance. For Christmas, Vigo asked in all seriousness if we could get a cage for Gedde, since whatever Vigo builds (legos, lincoln logs, blocks, forts, etc.), "Geddezilla" will almost surely destroy. They are both a lot of fun, and show us just how different each spirit is from the others.

I am sorry to fill so many pages - and that it's been so long. If anyone ever reads this anymore, let's see if we can get back with it!

Hope everyone is well!

dtm

Announcing...

For those of you who (like me) don't do Facebook, we are pleased to announce the engagement of Nick to Zaida (see young lady mentioned in previous post). Also, Nick has enlisted in the army. He will leave for basic training in April, and they will be married in early August, when he returns (tentatively August 5). A lot of big changes -- I'm trying to adjust. :0)

The Howells 2010

Alex is a junior in high school, and is on the swimming and water polo teams. He had a great year in water polo, with his JV team taking 1st place in state this spring. In swimming, he generally swims freestyle, but has also had the opportunity to compete in the butterfly this season. He turned 16 in April and was ordained a Priest in the Aaronic Priesthood by his dad. In December, he made his first trip to the emergency room for stitches (5 in his finger). He continues to be a very outgoing child, and girls are becoming a more frequent sight in our home.

Nick is now 20, and glad to no longer be a teenager. He took a welding class this year, which he really enjoyed, and is working on a degree in Biology at the community college. During the summer, he worked for the Mosquito Abatement District, going into the less populated areas and river bottoms in the valley to test and treat for mosquitoes. Nick’s “medical adventure” for the year was having his wisdom teeth pulled. It’s good that the dentist didn’t tell us it was one of his most difficult cases until after it was all over! Nick is very interested in guns, and can tell you anything about almost any kind of gun. He and Alex are both into airsoft guns, and frequently organize neighborhood airsoft “wars” in our yard or nearby fields. He also spends a lot of time with a young lady named Zaida.

Whitney completed a B.S. degree in agricultural business at the U of Idaho this spring. Her last semester was especially tough since Brian had to leave in January to start a teaching job at a community college in Oregon, which left Whitney alone with 5 ½ month old Adelyn. Whitney toughed it out, and their family was reunited in May. They are now living in a 100-year-old farm house on Brian’s family’s 80-acre farm in Oregon. Brian commutes to the college during the week to teach, and helps out on the farm in his spare time. Whitney is busy gardening, being a great mom to a very busy little girl, and doing some on-line work with a former professor.


Jamie and her family live about an hour north of us, where Matthew works for a credit union. They live in a small brick home built in the 1950’s, and have done a lot of work, transforming it (the yard as well as the interior) into a beautiful place. Now they are trying to sell it to find something with “growing room”. The most exciting event, however, was the birth of their first child in March – a handsome baby boy named Walker. They are both wonderful parents, and seem to really enjoy it.

Susan and Sharon still live in the same old house. We are always looking for ways to improve our space, especially now that the family is getting larger as we include our children’s spouses and the grandchildren. This year we put in some stairs leading from the kitchen’s new sliding door down into the yard, which will make using the back yard much more convenient. There are a lot of other plans, but not much time available to carry them out. Sharon is still a counselor in the bishopric, and Susan is still Relief Society president – both callings are time consuming, but come with many accompanying blessings. Sharon just celebrated 25 years as an employee for his company, where he is currently doing customer service, and also doing some deliveries, since the economy required that their driver be let go. Susan is still working as a paraeducator (essentially a reading aide) for first and second graders at the elementary school. She loves the kids and they seem to feel the same way. Our vacation this year was camping on the Oregon coast with some of you! The mountains, lighthouses and ocean were beautiful, but the best part was being together with each other.

Marble Mountains Backpacking Trip

Gorgeous part of the Klamath National Forest in Northern California, and a much-needed headclearing weekend. Late spring meant all the wildflowers were still out . . .just amazing. There did come a point, about 3/4 of the way up, in 95 degree heat, snot running out my nose, dirt coating my lower legs, when it became kind of like labor with Kai did- just something to get through because it wasn't like I could change my mind and turn around . . .but then we got to the end and I almost cried it was so beautiful. Photos are courtesy of the honey's brother, Tim.

oh dear ones

how nice it was to see the ones of you i saw on the coast a few weeks ago. how i wish it had been for longer. i love you all.

Smiley Boy

Walker is 2+ months old now and looking forward to meeting some of his family in a few weeks in Oregon.

-Jamie

Posterity

Hi family,
I've just been looking at the pictures of our great-grandchildren (including Jamie and Matthew's new little boy). It is amazing that one family can produce such good looking people for three generations. We love all of you.
Mom and Dad

Announcing

...that Benjamin Cedric Brighton arrived last thursday morning (11/12) at 8:03am after 5ish hours of labor.
He was born at home, in the water, into daddy's hands.
8lbs even, 20.75 inches, good ol' 36cm Miller/Brighton head (38cm if you count the hand he had by his face--yes I asked her to measure with the hand too ☺)

I'll be writing up the birth story (with all the details) on my blog in the near future for those who want to see it, and there will be more photos as well...unfortunately a lot of the ones from those first few hours are blurry because of the low light and the camera being in the hands of people who weren't used to our camera.

about a minute old (both in the pool of course)


three brothers
(I'm not sure how or why but Will lost his shirt at some point, and Sammy managed to get completely naked shortly after the birth...a potty trip with no follow-up I guess...there was a distinct lack of clothing around the house that morning!)


Daddy


Mommy and Benny

I Think the World Is Glorious...

Hey everyone, we aren't doing so well at Mom's request to each write once a month. So I'll try to do better, and hope to hear from you, too.

My summer was very exciting -- I guess life always is. In July I was able to go to Moscow to meet my first grandchild, Adelyn. It was a perfect visit! Adelyn was a little reluctant to come into the world, so I was able to spend some time visiting with Whitney and Brian, Mom and Dad, and Katy and her family, as well as a couple of nephews from the Black family. Once the baby came, I had fun holding and cuddling her during the day, but since she and her mom had to spend a little extra time in the hospital, I spent the evenings with Mom and Dad. :0) Once mom and baby were home, I found that I really DO enjoy cooking meals and keeping a house clean, when those are the only things to be concerned about (No job to go to, no church calling, no running children here and there, etc.). What fun, being a grandma!

While I was gone, it seems that our commuter car met a truck, and came out a little the worse for the wear. So after spending a few weeks riding Alex's bike to appointments, and begging rides to get to work, it was definitely time to get another vehicle. Sharon and I spent a lot of time on the internet looking at cars for sale, and finally purchased a Hyundai Elantra. So far, so good, except for the crack in the windshield that started a couple of days after we bought it, and the new battery we had to get a week later. It seems that the "new wheels" bug got Nick as well. Someone at his work offered him a truck for $500 -- too good to pass up for a young man who's tired of asking to borrow the car. He's spent lots of time making it look beautiful.

August was full of camps. Early on, we spent a long day driving to pick up Alex from his summer job at a scout camp. Just a few days later, he left with his young men's group to go to Zion National Park. They were planning to hike the Narrows, but ended up going into a slot canyon near the southern entrance of the park, and doing some rappelling. It sounds a little gross to me, but he thought it was great. There was a series of water pools, each lower in elevation than the previous one, as they progressed through the slot canyon. The pools were water from spring runoff, which was pretty stinky and nasty by August, and much of it was waist deep or more. The group would rappell down a "step" into the water, swim to the lip of the pool, and then rappell down the next "step". With the small amount of sunlight that hit the bottom of the slot canyon, the boys were pretty cold, but had fun. Maybe I'm just getting to old to be very adventurous...

August also was the debut for the Relief Society "Sisters' Camp". Some of us (namely me) got tired of sending everyone else in the family off on camps and never getting to go ourselves. We had a group area in a nearby canyon, and had planned a great hike for the next morning. About 20 people attended. Unfortunately, it rained, A LOT! so we ended up cancelling the hike and just heading home in the morning. Fortunately, everyone wants to do it again next year.

Jamie came down the following week and went on the missed hike (Catherine Pass) with me. Thanks Jamie! I need as much mountain time as I can get! Our last camp was for the whole family. It was the ward campout at Pineview Reservoir. My sons arranged with some other ward members to have an airsoft "war" there. We arrived and opened up the back of the truck to see their arsenal of guns that are identical in appearance to army issue weapons, but with orange tips. Very soon afterwards, a local sheriff came driving through the campground to have a conversation with Nick, who was dressed in camo and walking down the road carrying one of the guns. Nick explained, and all was well. I guess Nick has had to explain a few times to police officers when neighbors see teens with guns and get concerned. While they went off to shoot at each other, I went and spent my afternoon swimming in the reservoir and playing with the younger kids there. Very relaxing. :0)

September brought us back to reality: school and/or work for everyone. For my birthday (or just by coincidence), some serious work commenced in the root cellar, or as Sharon calls it, "the pit of despair". We got footings poured, and a few weeks later, put in our first row of cement block to make the walls. We're now waiting on more materials (from a friend who has some extra) to continue the walls. That may have to wait until spring, judging by our recent weather.

The last activity for my adventurous group of Relief Society sisters was to go rappelling. Some brethern from the ward (including Nick) went and set up a spot up the canyon for us. The rappelling spot was maybe 30 feet high, but that was plenty for those who were trying it for the first time. A couple of these sisters were very determined, and overcame an almost paralyzing fear of heights to do this. They were amazing! The men also set up a climbing area for us, that was closer to 50 or 60 feet. I liked that the best -- the challenge of finding new hand- and footholds and relying on my own strength to get me to the next spot. (Don't worry, Mom, we had safety ropes.) They want to go caving next. Hmmm.

And lastly, I thought I'd mention our experiements in "living off the land". Our front yard has a lot of sumac trees which get clusters of red berries on them every year in late summer. We've talked about doing it many times, but this year we actually tried it. We picked the clusters and soaked them in water for a few hours, which resulted in a beautiful pink "lemonade". It was extremely sour, even more so than lemon juice concentrate. Even after adding a lot of sugar, it was too tart for some. One glass was good, more left us with sour stomachs. I wonder how much vitamin C was in that? Our other experiment involved acorns, which are very large and numerous this year. (A sign of a hard winter, I hear.) We shelled them, boiled them to remove the tannin, and then I roasted them in the oven. Then we ground them up into a powder. I used some as flour in some breadsticks, which was okay, and Nick created a hot drink with it that reminds me of Pero. Not bad, but a whole lot of work. Maybe if we were starving...

I love you all!

Susie :0)

Caleb's "Synchronized Swimming" Debut

Dear Family,

We recently had a ward talent show, and Caleb's Priests' Quorum had a good time. We thought you'd like to see it here. Can you tell which is Caleb?

Love,

The Blacks

Another Stork Visit

That cute little baby in the post below will have a cousin on the Howell side before too long. Our due date is April 14th and we are super excited!
Jamie and Matthew

Our Blessed Baby

The Jemmett's went down to Parma this last weekend where we blessed Adelyn. We had to hurry before she outgrew her blessing dress. She's growing like crazy. It was a neat experience for all of us. Here are a couple pictures.

Whew! Summer's Finally Here!

Hi everybody. Thought I'd just update you on the life of Susie. Last April, I finally decided to go to a doctor, since all sorts of people have been bugging me to do so (it had been 9 years since my last checkup), and I've wondered since last November if I was having heart problems, because I kept having weird aching pains in my chest. The whole thing was very stressful, because we changed insurance in January, so I had to choose a new doctor, and well, that was just stressful for me. Anyway, I went for my appointment, and he did an EKG, as well as a chest x-ray, and then a blood test. Well, it seems that my heart is very healthy, and my "pains" are heartburn, which I had never before experienced. The real issue came when the results of my blood work came in. My ferratin (sp? - my blood's ability to carry oxygen, or something like that) level was 1, which is the lowest it can be. So after some B12 injections, I'm now taking B12, iron pills, a multivitamin, and a medication for the heartburn. I know, Mom, 4 pills is nothing to you, but it's been hard for me to get used to. The doctor also strongly suggested that I join the compression club (get a mammogram), which I did, and then had to go in for a second one, and then have a biopsy because they saw some "calcification" that they wanted to check out. They turned out to be benign, for which I am very grateful. At this point, though, I am really tired of being stabbed, sampled, poked and compressed. Isn't aging fun? :0)

Something nice in the middle of all that, was Jamie's college graduation. She received a bachelor's degree in Spanish from Weber State University on May 1. We are SO proud of her! Right now she is working

as a tutor and corrects assignments for the Math Department at the University, and in her time at home she's doing LOTS of yard work on their new house. I think I had that much energy once...

We finally got the mudding and sanding and painting done around our sliding door in the kitchen. Now it's just waiting for me to decide what moulding to put around it, and what kind of curtains/blinds to put up. (Photos will have to wait until it's complete.) We also need to decide whether we want a deck on the back of the house, or just stairs down from the door.

Whitney has been working hard to get as many university classes completed as she can before their baby arrives. She is due July 8. I'm looking forward to becoming a grandma, and spending some time with them. :0)

Nick had surgery early this month to remove a ganglion cyst from his wrist. (Another new doctor to choose.) He seems to be healing well, and we're hoping he won't be bothered by it again. His summer job is working (again) for the South Valley Mosquito Abatement. This year, though, instead of riding around on a bike and dropping insecticide pellets in storm drains, he gets to "swamp tromp", where he tests for mosquito pupae and larvae, and treats the area if necessary. He's enjoying it much more.

Alex spent weekends in March, April and May going to training sessions and first aid certification for his summer job at Camp New Fork in Wyoming (the one where Nick and Whitney worked in years past). He is assigned to work on the waterfront (swimming and canoeing on the lake). He went up June 13, and we're hoping to get at least a couple of letters from him in the 8 weeks he'll be there.

Just this past week, the 3 of us remaining at home all went to our ward's Youth Conference -- Sharon as bishopric member, Nick as part of the cooking staff, and me as a tag-a-long in need of some mountain time. It was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed being with all the young people. We went on a hike, made a lighthouse, and did service projects. We also revived a window-stunned yellow warbler, which sat on Sharon's shoulder before flying to a nearby tree. The morning of our last day there, Nick set up a long rappel for the three of us -- 150 feet! It was a lot of fun.

And going on all through this has been a lot of calling and organizing on Sharon's part. Our stake is helping with the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. Sharon is in charge of it for our ward. Yesterday, our assignment was 68 volunteers! That's a lot from 1 ward! Sharon and I had the opportunity on one day to be in one of the sealing rooms, where we would explain about families being sealed together. That was a neat experience, even though it was a little scary for me. Yesterday, I was part of the Hospitality committee, and handed out cookies and water to people after they completed the tour of the temple. The open house runs through August 1, and then we'll have the dedication, and our new temple will be ready!

It would be great to hear from you all... :0)

I had a great birthday--even if I am 50!

I was dreading this birthday, but it turned out to be a great day. Naomi got up very early to decorate the house, I got nice presents, and I got to go dancing that evening. (Joel and I teach a dance class.) I figure you aren't too old if you can do the polka for 5 minutes straight!

It was a busy day too, and I was gone a lot. Coming home at dinner time, I saw stuff all over the front yard. It turns out some of my friends from our LDS homeschool moms group came to

wish me a happy day too. I couldn't stop smiling :o)

Thank you, everyone, for your calls, cards, and emails.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm waiting for pictures of the new Miller baby.

All Things Bright and Beautiful...

Well, Mom asked for pictures of our new kitchen door, which replaces a window, and will give us better access to the backyard. Unfortunately, I don't have the end result yet, as we still have raw Sheetrock around it. But it does really add a lot of light to the room! Here are the before and during pictures:











Another thing I did recently was to add a little variation to the "Sisters' Hike", which is one of our R. S. Enrichment Activity Groups. I started it last summer, feeling a

lack of daughters to go on hikes with me (although Jamie has joined me for one). We went to Donut Falls in August, and then to Lakes Mary, Martha, and Catherine in September. Then we took a long break, but I decided that we could try snowshoeing. At the end of March, and a day or two after a nice spring snowstorm, we (3 brave souls) tried out our skills at the Spruces. It wasn't too great of an exertion, although I had to break a path in places since the snow was fresh. It was just wonderful to get out in the sunshine and fresh air again. We saw a Red-Breasted Nuthatch (a first for me), and a beautiful blue Stellar's Jay, and had a great time visiting.

just in time for spring snow

ribs are mostly better, now, and the honey's brother and I had a great day up at Hoodoo near Sisters last Saturday. That's a picture of me, in case you're wondering. And I finally figured out that if you click on it, it gets bigger!