26 Years Ago Today..............

Garrett D. Carson was born on February 27th, exactly eighteen months after his big sister. He was induced, and missed being a leap-year baby by two days. He had lots of dark hair as a newborn, but it came in lighter as he got older.
(A reminder: the quotes and personal history excerpts won't always go with the pictures.)Kent worked in Boy Scouts when Garrett was a baby, so for his first Halloween when he was six months old, I made Garrett a boy scout uniform.

Age 20 months: from his personal history: "Whenever you see an open room you lean against a wall in that room and say "go", then run to the other side of the room. I guess you're running a race against yourself."

Age 2, April 12, 1986: "At every meal you say a prayer. If Lissa or Mommy or Daddy says the prayer, after it's over you say, "Garrett's turn. Heav' Fadder, ... day...daddy...work...food. Jes' Christ, Amen." If I try to help you by telling you what to say you cover my mouth with your hand and say, "Quiet".

Age 3 quotes: That's just what boys do.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm not Garrett Dale, I'm Garrett Carson!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Age 4 quotes: You make us do all the work in the house.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I guess I'll just die when I'm six 'cause then I'll be old.

Age 4 1/2, quotes: My legs have a headache.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Mom: Why is Paul your best friend?

Garrett: Because he has shoes like mine.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I can't marry Dominique because how would I speak to a German wife?

(Dominique was a German girl in Garrett's pre-school class that he had a crush on. The pre-school teacher told me that Garrett had told Dominique she was beautiful.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Age 5 quote: I don't think it's fair that girls get to wear pants and dresses but boys only get to wear pants.

Age 7: "You're usually hard to rouse out of bed, so I'd go in and say, "rise and shout!" Then I'd sing the BYU fight song to you. One morning when I did this you really surprised me by letting out a loud yell. It really blew me away and you said, "You told me to rise and shout!"

Age 7 1/2, November 8, 1991: Mom, why isn't the real world as colorful as cartoons?

------------------------------------------------------------------

Age 8, February 14, 1993: on a Valentine he gave to Lissa: I just like you in every way. One way is...you are my nicest sis I have. (not to mension the quietest!)

Age 9, August 25, 1993: on a paper he wrote on the first day of 4th grade: I would like to try to do better in the area of: speeling. I plan to do this by: praktis frum time to time.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Memory of Garrett: I started giving Garrett piano lessons when he was seven. I told him he needed to practice each of his assigned songs five times every day. He's the only one of my students who figured out to play each note in the song five times in a row, then say he'd practiced the song five times!

When Garrett was about five I started filling out an "all about me" page for him every year. Almost every year he answered the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?" by saying "in the air force" or "an air force pilot".

We're so happy that his life-long ambition is about to be fulfilled as he begins his U. S. Air Force officer training and flight school in the next few months.

Happy Birthday, Garrett!

We love you!

New Addition to the Family

This week we welcomed a 2010 Toyota Camry to our family. Now if only the roads weren't so messy and wet from the melting snow and ice we'd get it out of the garage and drive it! In the bright sunlight it's hard to tell the actual color of the car is a light aqua shade. I like it.

No, we're not worried about the troubles Toyota cars has been having lately. We are loyal Toyota owners.

We Meet the Terra Cotta Warriors Again

In 2000 when our family was living in Japan, Kent and I fulfilled a life-long dream to go to China. We went through a travel agency and planned our own itinerary. Besides seeing Beijing and the Great Wall of China, (of course) I wanted to go to the city of Xian to see the terra cotta army. It was one of the most fascinating sights Kent and I have seen. (Note: the warrior we're standing next to in the above photo is a reproduction.) Ten years later a traveling exhibit of the warriors is currently on display in Washington, DC. Kent met me during his lunch hour on January 22nd and we toured the exhibit. It was extremely well done, and gave lots of history of China and the emperor who commissioned the army. We learned that in the ten years since we were at the excavation site, they have uncovered not only soldiers, but musicians and acrobats. I think we learned more about the terra cotta figures from the Nat Geo (yea, I just think it's fun to say that) exhibit than we did in China. The website about it has lots of good information; you can click on this link to go to it: www.nationalgeographic.com/terracottawarriors/

The museum exhibit showed the process of how the figures were created out of clay, which was very interesting. The coolest thing to remember is that these figures are 2,000 YEARS OLD.

Here are some pictures we took in China ten years ago.

The picture below is grainy, but I wanted to show the condition the warriors were in before they're reassembled. I learned this year that computers are used to help put the warriors back together.

Below is an overall view of what the excavation site looks like. You can see that tourists are only allowed to walk around the perimeter, which is why we don't have too many good pictures.

The terra cotta warriors have been called one of the man-made wonders of the world, and Kent and I would have to agree!!

Snowmageddon

After the storm--this is what our house looked like when we woke up on Sunday morning, February 7th. Kent spent most of Saturday and Sunday shoveling snow. On Saturday he cleared our driveway, and on Sunday he worked on the road since the county snowplows don't clear our street.

This is what our house looked like at 10am on Saturday. Snow started falling at around 11am on Friday morning, but didn't stay on the ground until around 4pm. Fortunately, Kent arrived home from work at about 4:15pm. He shoveled the driveway twice on Friday evening, but it snowed all night and we awoke to about another foot of snow covering the driveway. Our prettiest magnolia tree in the backyard snapped from the weight of the snow on it's branches.

Snow piled up on our porch because of the wind.

The photo below was taken on Saturday morning.

The photo below was taken Saturday afternoon. Notice how deep the snow is on the porch steps.

I did some shoveling, too, but not as much as Kent. The snowpiles on either side of our driveway are about four feet deep. The picture below was taken at around 3pm on Saturday. The snow finally stopped coming down by around 6pm.

Our road hasn't been plowed at all, so there's about 18 inches of snow on the road. We won't be going anywhere tomorrow--church has been cancelled again. That's the third week in a row for our ward, which has got to be some sort of record.

Kent and I have been trying to remember if we've ever had this much snow anywhere we've lived during our almost 29 years of marriage, and we can't recall. Maybe Walla Walla in the early 80's.

23 Years Ago Today.........

23 years ago today at 4:47am, Tyler K. joined our family. He was born in Kaiserslautern, Germany. I remember that the month before he was born it was extremely cold. I didn't have a coat that would fit around me, so I had to borrow one.

We called the birthmark on his forehead his "kissing spot."
At age 7 months I wrote that we called him "Tyler the Smiler" because he smiled at everyone. He would smile so big that his eyes would close, but not when we took his picture.

I wrote this in Tyler's journal when he was 17 months old--"You have a mischievous little smile that gets you out of trouble sometimes when you've done something naughty. You also have a cute little laugh and a twinkle in your eye when you want to be charming." (Note: The quality of the picture below is awful, but Tyler looks so ADORABLE!!)

From the journal entry on his 2nd birthday--"For some reason you will take almost any object that remotely resembles an L-shape, hold it like a gun and make shooting sounds. Since the only type of gun we've ever had in the house is a squirt gun, I don't know why you're so enthralled with guns. You even took your candy cane at Christmas time and pretended it was a gun."
From the journal entry when he's 2 and a 1/2 years old--"For a long time your hair always looked messy because whenever I would brush it you'd rub your hands through your hair when I was done and mess it up again."

Quotes from when he was age 3 and a 1/2--

Tyler: Mom, my tummy was laughing.

Mom: Why was it laughing?
Tyler: Because juice kind of makes it laugh.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tyler: I hate wearing church clothes.

Mom: Why is that?

Tyler: I hate looking cute.

Age four-- "When Heavenly Father made poeple he had to make the feet first. Do you know why? Because if he made the head first it would just fall down with nothing to hold it up."

Age 4 and a 1/2-- "I know what 'impressive' means. It means, 'Wow! I didn't know you could do that!'"

Age five-- " If you eat on one side of your mouth it makes that side of your body grow more. See, I'm leaning."
Age 9-- Tyler: Do I have to go to college?

Mom: Yes

Tyler: But that means I'll have to go to three extra years of school!
Age 10, letter to his friend (written after they'd had a fight): "You don't like me so I don't like you. You just walk in our house like you own it. I mean we need some pirevicy, right? We don't just walk into your house, do we? Didn't think so. For all these reasons, TJ is my best friend.

from your ex-best-friend, Tyler Carson"

Age 11 (when he wrote about himself for a school assignment)-- "My big brother, Garrett, is my best friend of all. We like to play legos and role-playing games together, and we also play computer games together."

Happy birthday, Tyler; We love you very much!!