Preparing For the Big Day!

Christmas is coming and the Poulsen Family is getting ready - visits from Santa and Gingerbread houses!

Sisters

I needed a sister fix this weekend so I took a little trip to Vegas to visit my sister, Jean.  We did a little shopping, a lot of talking, and looked at all the slides I scanned of us last month when I was in New York.  This picture was taken in '74.  I know it's not a great picture, but I love the way we are holding hands and getting ready to run off to some adventure.  I've even got a leaf in my hand that I must have collected somewhere.  Ahh, those were the days!

David's Dinosaur

David has taken an interest in Dinosaurs lately.  Last week he said, "Mommy, next week I want to go to one of those places where they have Dinosaur bones."  Lucky for me I had already planned on going to the newly reopened California Academy of Sciences!  Lucky for me they had a cast of a T-Rex!  Lucky for David he has a 17 year old brother that can lift him up high for a cool picture!

Halloween Gunk!

My Connor is very good at expressing thoughts and feelings that we all have!  Carving pumpkins is hard work and yucky too!

Bride - 1962

For years my mother always said she didn't have any pictures from her wedding.  Recently we came across some slides taken by her brother-in-law.  When I was visiting her we found them again and I scanned them!  Isn't she beautiful!

Hillcrest Pumpkin Patch

The TreeHouse had our annual trip to the pumpkin patch today.  It all went well if you don't count the fact that Boone was in one of his moods and kept shouting "Shut up!" at everyone including me.  I think I may need to change my parenting technique with him.  What do you think?

Spider Buddies

The boys got new PJ's from Target today!  They decided they were spider buddies!

Football

Connor has been playing Football this season and doing great!  I'm very proud of how hard he has worked for his position on the team.  Today we played Fancher Creek (that is way out there, by the way).  We won!  Connor made a few excellent tackles, and almost made a sack.  Isn't he cute!

Gray Cemetery in Hadley, New York

We went and checked out some family grave sites today.  These ones, Loton and Betsey Herrick, were special to me because I just did their temple work last year.

The Wild Center - Tupper Lake

This was one of the coolest nature centers I have ever seen.  And I loved these twig blocks we made this tower out of so much I bought some to take home.
But probably our favorite thing was when they brought out Stickley the Porcupine.  I'm not sure if I have ever seen a porcupine at such close range!

Help!!!

Will somebody please show me how to make my blog super cute like everyone else!  I'm going to get an inferiority complex!

Rafting With Dad

Today I took a break from my slide scanning project and went river rafting with my Dad.  The colors where absolutely beautiful and we had class 3 and up rapids.  Never hurts to sit across a boat from your parent for a few hours, even if you are, well, as old as me.

They Don't Make Clothes Like They Use To!

No matter how hard they try, they will never be able to truly reproduce clothes from the 70's!  This is my paternal grandparents with my siblings and I in our driveway in New Jersey, 1973.  Those were the days!

Me in 1972

I'm at my parent's house in Albany, New York with a tempermental slide scanner and around 2,000 family slides.  There is no telling what you will see this week!  This picture was taken in Florida in 1972.

Big Baldy

What a busy day!  I hiked Big Baldy, watched a soccer game, and hosted my husband's office party all in one day!  I'm going to bed!

Memories of the '80's

This photo was taken in Provo, Utah during the fall of 1989.  My husband, Eric, (in the car) had just gotten back from his mission.  This Porche 914 had been his car since he was a teenager and his parents had stored it for him.  I (on the car) was living in this decrepit old house on 100 West.  I seem to remember on this occasion we had just washed it in the front yard of my house, which I shared with his brother and my good friend, his sister-in-law.  Right around this time we decided to get married.  We kicked out my roommate and Eric moved in!

Labor Day in SFC

We took a walk at Land's End.  We toured the Balclutha.  We had ice cream in Ghiradelli Sauare.  We rode the Cable Cars.  We went shopping.  And we did it all in one day!

New Bike

I would not even know where to begin to build a bike.  Fortunately my husband is not overwhelmed by the prospect!  He built this bike for me piece by piece.  He even designed custom decals for it.  It says 'Six Boys Racing' on one of the main tubes and 'the jiller ' on another.  I've taken some short rides this week in the mornings before getting the kids ready for school.  I'm looking forward to many more!

Santa Cruz Tennis Academy Challenger

Seth took third place at the Santa Cruz Tennis Academy Challenger.  On the way we stopped at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse.

A New Use for My Living Room

Oh well, it never got used that much as a sitting room.  We don't do much sitting around here!

Pokemon-the great equalizer

Pokemon spans the decades in this picture.  All six of my boys seem to be drawn to this Asian card battling game.  Go figure!

Panoramic Point - Kings Canyon

We had a picnic dinner up past Grant's Grove tonight.  A series of bad events culminated in a bee sting.  The pictures turned out okay though.

Taylor Creek and Sailing

This morning, my parents and I took 16 kids to the Taylor Creek Cutaway.  The kids loved it.  Basically, it is a piece of glass in between you and the stream bed.

Then we rented a Catalina 25 for the afternoon.  Unfortunately we didn't have much wind, but we still had a good time.

Painful Pictures

We took family pictures tonight.  It was easily the most painful picture taking session ever.  Eighteen kids in white shirts on a dock?  It is nothing short of miraculous that one or more of them didn't end up in the drink!  I don't have a group picture because we used a tripod and timer for that.  But here we have my parents with their four children, my parents with their 18 grandkids, and my parents with their children and spouses.

Is that a ......BEAR???

A bunch of us drove over to Rubicon Bay for a hike.  The kids were thrilled because we saw a bear!  We hiked to what is called a 'lighthouse'.  The kids decided it much more closely resembled an 'outhouse'.  When we were done, in order to get everyone back to the entrance and not have to hike another 3 miles back up hill, we loaded 22 people in our 12 passenger van.  Don't tell the State Trooper!

Lake Tahoe! Emerald Bay and Vikingsholm

Friday we arrived in Lake Tahoe for our Eckenfelder family reunion.  We are staying in the Richardson house at Camp Richardson.  Today we drove out to Emerald Bay and went for a short hike down to Vikingsholm which is the coolest vacation home ever built (wishing it was mine!).

Not So Little Boone

Here is not so little Boone, who was nasty and said he absolutely would not let me take a picture of him with his sand castle (in the way only a four year old boy can).  But as you can see, I managed to get one anyway!

Whoa!

I think Seth and Connor felt a little rattled when they came down from this one!

A Good Day on the Lake

I'm not sure how you could possibly have a bad day on a lake, but never the less...   I love to see my boys enjoying the company of their girl cousins.  Since my boys don't have any sisters I think their relationships with their girl cousins are even more meaningful. This is Seth with his cousins Miranda and Bea.   I love the composition of this photo.  I just happened to snap it at the right moment!

Family History Sleuth

Whenever I'm in the Salt Lake area I try to take a day and spend it at the LDS Family History Library.  Today was my day.  The best part about it this time was that my sister, Tina, came with me.  I had previously decided to focus my attention this time on the Drewes branch of my family (the maiden name of my great grandmother pictured here).  The Drewes family resided in Hoboken, New Jersey during the late 1800's and the beginning of the 1900's.  

My sister and I gathered up some of the films that we had decided to use to begin our search and were happily reeling away at them on the microfilm machines.  We were discussing the different counties that we were investigating and all of the sudden a voice from the other side of my sister said, "Are you searching in Hudson County?  I'm from there."  Turned out this guy was on his yearly two week genealogy trip to Salt Lake.  He was able to give us all kinds of advice and practical help.  He was also very entertaining.  What are the chances!

In the end we were able to locate the birth record of  my grandmother, Sophia Anna Drewes's, brother.  They came from a family of twelve children.  I've now identified ten of them.  Only two more to go!