Flashback/Flashforward Friday - Double A

Flashback: Spring 2003

Aubrey's Blessing Day

03/03/03: Aubrey's Birth

It was a Monday. I had gone to the doctor on Friday and at that time I was only a few days overdue. Doctor Barton told me that if I hadn't gone into labor by Monday morning to call around 6 AM and come in for an induction. Well by golly, I was not about to be induced. So I made it my mission that weekend to go into labor on my own. My parents hadn't moved to Utah yet, so my mom was here from Dallas for a few weeks. I remember sitting in church with her on Sunday and she was timing my contractions. They kept getting closer and closer together. After church Steve and I went for a long walk and he took over the timing of my contractions which were still getting closer and closer together. Then I came home and the contractions stopped. I was so mad. But YAY! I woke up around 3 AM ready to go to the hospital. My neighbor came over to stay with Zac and Em and my mom and Steve and I left for the hospital.

They checked us in and gave me an epidural. Then Steve, my mom and I promptly fell asleep. We woke up around 7:30 - 8ish in time to push the baby out. And we were so excited to find out she was a girl (we didn't find out what any of our kids were before they were born). That was one of my easiest births. And my worst recovery. That was the only time in my life when I was in such excruciating pain I really wanted to die. Literally. Thankfully I didn't and life is all good now. I had an epidural headache because my spinal cord was punctured by the epidural needle. But that is a story for a different day.

Regardless of my problems, our little family was so glad to have our sweet little Aubrey Anna (Double A) with us at last!

Steve and Aubrey

Pretty-N-PinkAubrey and Me

One Year Old

She was playing one day and she was wearing my shoes and carrying her baby doll around. She fell asleep half leaning half standing by the fireplace.

Aubrey's 2nd Birthday

Flashforward: March 3, 2003

When I started this post it was still Friday. It is just now Midnight which means that Aubrey is officially 9 years old, and she's asleep so she doesn't even know it. My sweet little Aubrey Anna is 9! I can't believe it! Here is a picture of her in Missouri in November of 2011.

November 2011

September 2011
September 2011

August 2011

First Day of School August 2011

Aubrey, I can't believe how grown up you are. I remember when you were little and it was just you and me at home together everyday while the other kids were in school and before Addy was born. I used to tell you that you had to stay my little baby forever so I could just love and snuggle you. You didn't listen very well. I am glad. Because you have grown up to be such a sweet, beautiful girl. You are crazy and funny and I am so glad you are a part of our family. I love you!

Survivors

We have had a very mild winter around here. Hardly any snow in the valley. We really haven't worn coats at all, just hoodies. And we have had some beautiful short sleeve days that feel like spring. It's been great...except...all winter long I have know what was coming with a winter like that. A spring like we had last year. It snowed all spring long. We couldn't even go swimming the whole month of June without freezing our patooties off.

So today it got really windy. Thankfully not windy like Storm of the Century windy, but windy enough our power was out for a few hours today. Then all of the sudden these huge nasty clouds came screaming by. They were moving so fast. And now, well, it's a blizzard outside. Now that it's almost spring....

My kids got so excited when they saw the clouds moving in, that they went outside to play in it. When it started to snow they went around gathering all the junk they could find to build a shelter out in the corner of the yard. I went out to take a picture of them. They are all huddled in their "shelter" as you can see from the picture. Zac tells me that this is the first Apocalyptic snow storm and they are preparing to be able to survive the rest. Who knows, he could be right....

Family History Field Trip

My Great Uncle Ronald Tolman passed away recently, and his funeral was in Salt Lake City on February 6th. My Grandma came into town from Dallas and stayed for a while. My mom's cousin Brent Tolman also came into town from Washington state. His brother David lives here in Utah. On Thursday, February 9th, My mom (Kay Tolman Snow) and grandma (Gwen Tolman) and my mom's two cousins Brent and David Tolman, and Addy and I went on a Family History Field Trip. It was a fun day and a wonderful opportunity to learn and see some of my family's history. It started first with a stop at Tooele's new grocery store to have a look at the floors that Steve did. Believe it or not, this is a part of the Tolman family history as well. I'm planning another post for that. Anyway, here's his floor.

The next stop was a Tooele city park to see this monument. I think it is funny because when I first moved to Utah, I used to date a guy and he was from Tooele and I drove out there with him for a tennis tournament he was playing in. I made fun of the name of his town Tooele (pronounced Too-will-uh). That was before I knew that my pioneer ancestors settled that town.

A few years ago, Emily wrote a paper on Cyrus Tolman for a contest sponsored by the Sons of the Utah Pioneers. She won second place for her entry of her paper written about her 5th Great Grandfather. Cyrus Tolman and Alice Bracken (my 4th great grandparents through my mother's father) came to Utah with Brigham Young's 2nd company of pioneers in 1848. They first settled in the Salt Lake Valley. Then in 1849 Brigham Young sent Ezra T. Benson, John Rowbery and Cyrus Tolman to survey Tooele as a possible place for a new settlement. Cyrus and his brothers and their families went with a group of pioneers to settle the Tooele Valley. They opened a saw mill there. Here is the monument erected in their honor.

My grandma, my mom, Addy and me by the Tooele Monument

We also saw Tooele's First Cemetery where we have a distant aunt buried

Her name, Mary Agnes Utley, is listed below

This is where I think the story of my family gets interesting. So Cyrus Tolman settled in Tooele Utah. While we were on our field trip that day, we also drove out to St. John or Rush Valley. My Grandma's side of the family, The Arthurs, settled this area - not far from Tooele. While we were there my grandma told me that my Great Grandma Erma (her step mother who married her father, Glen Arthur, after her mother died when she was young) - Erma's family (who came across the plains with the Martin/Willie Handcart Co.) settled Grantsville, which is also by Tooele and St. John. So my mother's father's family and my mother's mother's father's family and my mother's mother's step mother's family were all pioneers who settled in the same area of Utah. All three of those families later moved to about the same place in Idaho (where both of my mother's parents were born). But to our knowledge, they didn't know each other. I found that hard to believe. So as I was bringing this up while we were on our field trip, my mom's cousin Brent got out his Cyrus Tolman history book and found out that Cyrus, who lived in Tooele, was the first Bishop of the St. John/Grantsville Ward. I think that was how they named the ward, I can't remember exactly. But anyhoo! I thought that was amazing.

I know, that was a complicated story. But I figure if you are related to me, you can decipher it and figure out how interesting you think it is. But I will tell you right now. It's interesting.

OK, so we saw the Tooele stuff which was my mother's father's family, the Tolmans. Well, down the street in the next town over, we saw my mother's mother's family stuff - The Arthurs. My Great Grandfather, Glen Arthur, was born in St. John Utah which is now called Rush Valley. This is the original barn that still stands on property where he was born. His family immigrated from England, then came across the plains with the pioneers. They built this barn after the style of barns where they are from in England.

These are cabins that are on the property in St. John. The cabin on the left is the cabin where my Great Grandfather, Glen Arthur was born. The cabin on the right is the cabin his family built when they moved to Idaho. A family member moved the cabin from Idaho to Utah so that family members can visit both, simultaneously.

A close up of the cabin my Great Grandfather was born in.

A close up of the cabin brought from Idaho.

We also visited the St. John Cemetery.

This is the Arthur Family plot in the St. John Cemetery.

Pretty much all the graves you can see in this picture are Arthur's.

After seeing the cemetery, we had a nice picnic lunch out of the back of my mom's van. It was FREEZING! Then we loaded up and headed back to Tooele, headed for the city museum. It was closed on that day, but David arranged to have someone there to show us around. This is the layout of the early city of Tooele. Cyrus Tolman's lot is on the second row from the bottom, in the second section from the left, and it is the second lot from the left.

A close up of his lot (with his name misspelled)

His neighbor down the street. Something else I found interesting.

My Grandma, Gwen, and Addy in the first Tooele jail.

See that bell up there in the tower?

Addy got to ring it. Multiple times.

A pioneer memorial at the Tooele library.

Part of the library monument showing Cyrus and Alice as early Tooele settlers.

Also at the library, this monument and part of the mud wall that the earlier settlers of Tooele built.

I loved it! It was such a fun day for me. I love this type of thing. I love learning my family history. I love old things. I love old pictures. I love all pictures, actually. It's my opinion that I am making my own family history and preserving our family pictures through this very blog. I hope that this post is interesting to my extended family, who for the most part do not live in Utah.

Click here for my previous Tolman Family History post

Click here for a link to the Thomas Tolman Family Website

Click here for a link to the story of Cyrus Tolman

Click here for a link to the story of Alice Bracken Tolman

The Story Of The Grocery Store Creeper

Yesterday Addy and I had an interesting experience at the grocery store. It started like this. I went to the store on Monday and bought 2 bags of the little cutie oranges. We love them and we eat them like candy around here. Well, they were disgusting. The outside looked and felt fine, but when you opened it up the orange was all shriveled inside and it tasted horrible and bitter. So yesterday we were running some errands and I decided to take the oranges back. Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought they were disgusting because the girl at the store said she had several people who had brought them back in the last two days.

So we needed some fruit to replace the oranges we took back. Addy grabbed a little small kids shopping cart and we headed to the produce section. It was then that I noticed the strange guy in the white baseball cap and red University of Utah shirt. He looked like he was in his young 20's. He was carrying around kid coloring pages that they have in front of the bank, that is located in the store, for kids to color. He didn't have a cart and he wasn't with anyone. I saw the coloring pages in his hand and figured he must be with someone with kids and they are shopping in another part of the store.

Well, we just went to get fruit, but I got sidetracked in the store. We ended up spending way too much time walking around the store. Now that I am inspired by my raw luncheon I have every Tuesday, I was checking out what they had in the organic section of the store. And now that I'm giving up chapstick (another story for another day) I was trying to find some type of lipstick or something that had natural ingredients and wouldn't be drying to my lips. And we were checking out several other things.

So in all we were probably in the store for 30-40 minutes. The whole time the guy in the white baseball cap and red shirt was acting strange. He kept following us around the store. After a while I realized that he wasn't with anyone else like I had thought he must have been before. So here he was, a grown man, walking around a grocery store by himself with kids coloring pages and no shopping cart. I still wasn't too concerned about that until I noticed a strange pattern in his behavior. I would be looking at something and he would be standing near us. It would look like he was thinking about something. I know this is strange to say, but by his actions and the look on his face, I swear it looked like he was trying to make a decision. An internal decision, not a decision about which type of bread to buy. So then he would walk really fast up to us. As he came near, I would look up at him. When I looked at him he would slightly change course and walk past us a few feet, stop, and look again like he was having some kind of internal battle with himself. Then he would walk back the other direction. I didn't notice this all at once, but after him doing it over and over, I started to notice it and how strange it was.

He did this several times. Also if we were standing in a more open area, he would stand farther away and stare at us. I would look at him and he would not look away. I kept trying to tell myself that I was imagining things or that there must be some other explanation than the explanation that was starting to form in my mind. I really started to feel like he was trying to take Addy, as crazy and as scary as that thought was and is to me. He was giving me the major creepies. I felt like I needed to put my ridiculously long browsing session at the grocery store to an end. So we went through the line and paid. Then I had to go over to the bank that is in the store to make a deposit. The same bank that has the coloring pages set out that the guy was carrying around.

I was over at the bank making my deposit, and Addy was at the table a few feet away from me coloring. It was the farthest she had been away from me the whole time and I was slightly freaking out. So I was trying to make a deposit, keep my eye constantly on her, and keep my eye constantly on the strange guy. It wasn't hard to keep an eye on him.

So we are on one end of the store up at the front and he was way down just past the front doors near the produce section of the store. And he was staring at us. He just stood there the entire time we were at the bank and stared at us. So I stared back. And he didn't look away. My plan was to make my deposit at the bank and get the heck out of the store and away from him. After seeing him standing there staring at us, I decided I needed to tell someone what was going on. I had planned on being ever attentive as we left the store and as we were getting in the car. But I started thinking that if we left him behind in the store that would probably send him following some other mom and her kids around and if anything were to happen that I could have helped avoid, I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

So just now as I am typing this and realizing where he was standing and what happened next, I am realizing he was probably planning on following us out of the store. And I'm really glad I did what I did next.

I really was still trying to talk myself out of believing what I was believing and trying to tell myself that I was just crazy. But I thought I needed to alert someone so that they could keep an eye out and make sure he didn't do something to someone else. As I was walking away from the bank, I walked right past customer service. Two of the managers happened to be there, and the girl that had taken my oranges back was there also. I told them that there was a man in the store who was acting really strange. As soon as I said that the orange girl said, "Is it the guy in the white hat and red shirt?" Which made me fell better because I now knew I wasn't crazy. Someone else had noticed him and how strange he was acting. So I told the managers what was going on. They both left to go and find him in the store.

This is the part that creeps me out just now, this morning, as I am realizing what might have been about to happen. So the 2 managers (both men) are walking a few feet in front of me towards the produce section where I told them he was. And I am walking behind them on my way out the front door. I can see that the guy is no longer in the produce section, but has walked over and is walking in our direction past the frozen food food aisles (which are right in front of the front door). The managers don't see him, and are now walking in the wrong direction from where he is going. So one manager is only a few feet in front of me and I say out loud, "That's him in front of the frozen section." The manager looked and saw the guy and told the other manager who was a few feet in front of him and they changed direction and went over to the guy.

I didn't stick around to see what happened. I got in the car and left. But this morning as I am thinking about it and thinking how he was standing over in front of the produce section the whole time we were at the bank, staring as us without moving, then as we were making our way toward the front door, he was also making his way toward the front, it kind of makes me think maybe he was going to follow us out of the store. And I keep trying to tell myself that I am just crazy and paranoid, but for some reason I don't think I am in this case. I don't know.

I really want to go back to the store today and find out what happened after I left. I really think it would be interesting to watch the surveillance tapes. This whole thing has made me realize how closely you need to watch your children when you are out in in public. All it would have taken was a moment of distraction on my part and this might have been a different story that I am telling. And I am so glad I didn't just leave the store like I had planned. I'm glad I told someone, even though at the time I thought I was crazy and I thought they would think I was crazy.

I am so thankful to my Heavenly Father who must have been watching over us and protected us at our little small town neighborhood grocery store, located in pleasantville- the place where you think nothing bad could ever happen.

Shot Through The Heart: Valentines Day 2012

I spent all morning at my organic gardening class, then the raw lunch that follows. It was so delicious. Then Addy and I went to the school for Aubrey's Valentine Party. As soon as the kids got out of school we picked them up and headed for Boondocks. They were having a special for Valentines Day where if you bought one unlimited wristband, you got one free. SWEET! My mom and sister Lauren met us there.

We bowled
We ate heart shaped pizza

Played video games

Addy had fun in the kids cove

And we played laser tag about 500 times.

It was so much fun. Seriously. It was hard to tear ourselves away when it got late. But unfortunately it was a school night and kids still had homework to do and it was past bedtimes by the time we left.

It was one of the BEST Valentines Day EVER!

Monday Morning Musings - Always Knock On Windsday

Can I just say: My life is crazy busy right now! I am always on the go. I am glad to be busy and I love all that keeps me busy, but wow. Busy. I have so much to blog about and no time to do it. I thought I'd try and get a post out tonight before I go to bed (even though I'd rather be in bed right now watching The Big Bang Theory) because I know there is no way any kind of post is gonna be happin' tomorrow.

So...American Idol. It's back on and we are so excited in these here parts. Well, most of us are anyway. We were watching it and Steven Tyler was walking out to his car and he had all these people following behind him and one of them was carrying all his stuff. I said, "Man. I wish I had someone to walk around behind me all the time carrying my stuff." Emily said, "That's what dad's for!"

Two weekends ago (has it really been that long-the time goes by so fast) we had a Lord of the Rings weekend and we watched all three of the movies. Zac and Em had never seen them before. I'm tellin' you right now, I am so proud of myself. I stayed awake (mostly) for all three movies. I can't even stay awake to make it to the end of a thirty minute TV show. I regularly fall asleep in movie theaters. Well as regularly as we go to them, which isn't very regular.

We watched the first one on Friday night and I had to stand up and do some calisthenics to keep myself awake. We watched the second on Saturday during the day and then the third Saturday night. Again. Standing. Calisthenics. During the second movie Emily kept saying, "WHAT!?! They are STILL in those trees!?!" I did learn a great trick for staying awake through the third one . I got out my big exercise ball and sat on that. It's hard to fall asleep on one of those. When I started to try I would just start bouncing. I did start to doze a bit toward the end. Ball or no ball, a person can only stay awake in a darkened room that late at night for so long. That's when I remembered that it is the movie of 15 endings. It is so dang long and you think OK- it's ending- I can stay awake for a few more minutes. Then there is another ending. And another. And another. And SURPRISE! Another!

On Thursday Addy and I were driving in the car and she asked, "Is it windy on Wednesday?" I said, "No, it wasn't windy yesterday." She said, "NO! Is it WINDY on WEDNESDAY?" After a few more tries of trying to decipher what she was asking me she said, "Is it WINDY on WINDSDAY? Is that the day the winds come?" I had to explain to her that it wasn't Windsday. It was Wednesday. And no. That day is not reserved for winds.

Yeah. So our doorbell is broken. Again. Why can they not make things to last now-a-days? (I sound like an old person asking that, don't I? Well guess what? I'm old.) We built this house three years ago and we have already had to replace the doorbell once. Well the new one decided to stop working. We now have a sign on the door informing people to knock if they want to be heard. But we didn't always have that sign. Which means that sometimes people stood on our front porch for a while after ringing the doorbell, waiting for someone to answer. FYI: You can hear everything that goes on inside my echoey house from the front porch.

So it was a Wednesday night (not Windsday). I had this feeling that my Bishopric was going to show up at my house that night to give me a new calling. In fact, about 15 minutes before they came I thought, "I really should clean up the living room a little before they come." But I was in the middle of helping with homework and cleaning up from dinner and trying to get kids ready for bed, so I promptly forgot that thought. Had I remembered it I might not have done what I did next. Which was yell. I had very kindly and softly asked my three beautiful daughters to clean their homework stuff up from the kitchen and go get ready for bed about 10 times. When I got to request #11, some of the kindness and softness had left me and I might have yelled something about getting their stuff cleaned up right now and to go get ready for bed. Then I walked past the front door and could see someone in a suit standing by the window next to the door. Then I remembered. I was expecting the Bishopric to show up at my house. Oh that was fun to open that door and see the three of them standing there. They promised me that they heard no yelling. I won't call them liars out of respect, however....

So the story doesn't end there. Oh, how I wish it did. But I doesn't. About two weeks after that, it was a Wednesday night again. And no, it was not windy. The girls and I were sitting on the couch which is about 5 feet away from the front door. The front door that still didn't have a knock sign upon it. Steve and Zac were at the church for scouts. The girls and I had just finished reading scriptures and saying family prayer. Again, I asked very kindly 10 times for them to go get in bed. Again, the kindness left me by request #11. So I yelled again for them to go get in bed. Then I walked into the other room where I could see that there was a car in my driveway with it's headlights on. I went to open the door and SURPRISE! It was once again a member of our Bishopric there to sign Zac up for Seminary next year. He once again promised that he heard no yelling. Yeah, right.

Seriously. How embarrassing. So that very night, a "Knock if you want to be heard" sign went up on our front door. And if you come to my house and want to get and earful, just stand on the front porch for a few minutes before you knock.

Please Pass The Blogger Ketchup - August 2011

After living in Moscow Russia for 2 years, my sister Kristy and her family were moving back to the states. Kristy and her kids arrived some time in June, and her husband Scott came to join them in August. My kids were excited to see him and made him look through our entire Disneyland Scrapbook. He got all the details from our trip.

Owen, Addy, Emily, Tia and Aubrey cooling off in the sprinklers

One of our many cookouts of the summer. This was one of our fav ways to eat dinner.

Crazy girls


Steve after church one day cooling off on the concrete floor

I already blogged about my mom's Surprise 60th Birthday party. The party was on Saturday and her actual Birthday was on Sunday. We had a family dinner and party for her that day. Kristy made (for the second time that trip) her most deliciously spectacular Burnt Sugar Cake with 10,000 candy bars on top.

Last summer (2010) these girls treated us to a performance that we thought could never be topped. Well we were wrong, they topped it this summer! They practiced the whole time Tia was in town, banging out the lyrics, getting the rhythm down pat. Then the day of the big performance arrived- and it just so happened to coincide with Grandmas Birthday. They did a fantastic job.

Shake shake shake. Shake shake shake. Shake your bootay. Shake your bootay.

It was a sad day when these cousins packed up and made their way to Virginia. They became a part of our family while they were here over the summer. We miss them. Ever since they left, my girls have been making plans for next summer when Tia comes to town. Every time we talk about doing something they say, "HEY! Let's do it this summer when Tia is here!"