Beneath the Wraps

Mom has always taught her children how to be supportive of one another.   We’ve gone to baby blessings, missionary farewells and homecomings, advancement in the priesthood, plays, sports; I suppose I went to more events when I was single. Sunny is awesome.   She always lets us know ahead of schedule: We’ve got this planned.   Please come.   And we have.   We make plans to fit it into our schedule.   And then there’s my family . . . It’s got to be hard to be one of my siblings if they want to be involved but aren’t given much notice for birthday celebrations, graduations, parties – even our own wedding.   I can’t find the post, but I think I wrote it down somewhere that Roland and I changed our wedding date at least nine times.   It wasn’t that big of an issue for me in the beginning.   After all we had met only three days before he proposed.   THAT IS OUTRAGEOUS!   I have chosen not to go into detail at this time –...

Patrick has always been a game collector.  I think with every passing year, there were always at least two games to be added to the collections. We played lots of games as a family when I was growing up.  Even after Patrick and Sunny were married, we would continue to play.  Some games more than others. Pit is a card game that I don’t actually remember playing since Patrick and Sunny were newly married.  I hadn’t introduced it to my own family until last night when Randy and Carrie had us over for dinner.  For the most part brother pitted against brother.  The bear and the bull both got passed around and ended up in Randy’s hand as I called, “Corner on the Market” and Biff was laughing so hard I thought that he would split.  I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard while playing Pit.  It really is a fun game...

          Almost every household in America has at least one ghost living with them.   Since being married to Roland, I have encountered three.   Their names are “It Wasn’t Me”, “I Don’t Know” and “I Didn’t Do It”.   The ghost who gets blamed the most in this house is “It Wasn’t Me”.   “I Don’t Know” received most of the blame in our last house – though “It Wasn’t Me” seemed to share a lot of blame as well.           I find it interesting that about 20 minutes before Jenna returned home from school yesterday, I retrieved a hand mirror from the coffee table and put it in the bathroom.   She couldn’t have been home more than five minutes before I found the mirror on the coffee table again – in almost the exact same position it has been only 25 minutes earlier.           “Why is that mirror on the coffee table?” I asked...

          I took Highness for a walk for the first time this month.  Poor dog.  (I've been going to mom's, trying to assist at Jenna's school or the cannery and Biff has taken on two full time jobs leaving Highness somewhat neglected)           The weather has been awesomely beautiful once the sun is out.  When it’s down, it can get quite cold. But during the day – I often get hot and will turn the heat off and open a window.                                                                I don’t recall a November ever where I could get away with wearing just a sweatshirt over my clothes.  But then we had wonderful weather last Christmas.  I took a picture of Jenna in some new clothes that had been sent – she was outsid...

Recently I made a scrapbook page of Jenna posed with various dogs. They have all been good dogs – except one.   Our first dog ran away before I had even learned that I was pregnant with Jenna.   Houdini was our favorite dog. I had worked with a women who was a humanitarian and on a mission to save all animals – dogs in particular.   She asked me if I’d be willing to take a dog.   And the boys had always wanted one – and finally we had the room.   We went to take a look at the dog before we moved to the house I had just purchased. My boys commented that the dog was fat.   They were more interested in the dog’s sister (who was not available for the taking)   apparently a fat dog was better than no dog.   I told my co-worker we’d take it – but first she’d have to wait for us to move into our house before she brought the dog.   But actually the dog was brought to us on first day of the move – so we hadn’t actually settled in yet. ...

                 When I got married for the first (and only) time, I not only got a husband,   I had a ready-made family. Our boys were 11, 12 and 14 (we were married six weeks prior to the 12 year old turning 13)           I met the youngest one first.   My mom and I had gone over to a quadplex unit to visit someone.   We had knocked at the door but there was no reply.   I don’t know if Randy called “Hi” to us from the tree before or after we knocked.   He smiled brightly but gave no information about himself nor inquired who we were.    As it turned out the sister we were searching for had moved out and Randy was actually living at that particular unit with his two brothers and dad.           Randy was ten going on eleven.   We had the same size hands at the time.   ...