Halloween

It's that time of year again! I LOVE Halloween. Unfortunately with the big move I haven't invested as much as I usually do, and pumpkins are expensive on this side of the States, so I think I'll just have to reminisce this year.

Ancient Family History

So the last two weeks I've been scanning family pictures that I borrowed from my Aunt Bobbie. Most of them used to belong to Ivy Crosby, since they all have her handwriting on the back. I've shared a few gems that I have scanned so far.

Betty Jo Crosby 

George S Crosby using divining rod 1917 (sorry for the rotation issue)

Main street of Lovell, WY 1917

Rodney age 1

Well those are some I thought were really neat. I have tons of them I can't fit on this blog. I'm thinking about starting a web-site for it all.

Family History

One of my favorite hobbies is to do family history research. So far my focus has been on collecting family pictures and making e-copies that can be available to everyone. I started collecting pictures about a year and a half ago. I don't mean to brag, but I probably have more family pictures that are unique to my collection than anyone else in the family (except maybe Uncle Robert and Aunt Shawna). I love to look back through the lives of my progenitors because it tells me more about them than I could probably ever get out of them by talking to them.

This last weekend I spent my Saturday up in Bountiful, UT with grandma and grandpa and karen scanning their pictures. Boy I sure did find some real treasures. Not only did I find pictures of my own family that my mom and dad didn't have, but Grandpa showed me a box he'd never opened (nor had grandma, at least not that she could remember) that contained Hazel Harmon's most precious keepsakes. Inside we found Grandma's high school diploma's, Owen M Harmon's school records and priesthood ordination certificates, and even Grandma's drivers license from CA back in the day (it's really neat, it has her finger print on it). If anyone wants some family pictures, let me know. Below I thought I'd share some of my favorites from this last weekend that I found.

Emily Anderton. This is a classic face she makes, I want to know who taught her how to make it...

Dale Harmon's LDS Seminary graduation certificate. 1937.

Cloyde Wood Anderton. He told me this is his High School graduation photo.

Mom, Dad, and Emily. I believe this was taken in their home up at the UofU.

Karen and David Anderton. I love this one...

David and William. This was in front of our house in CO. Turbo!!!

David with Emily and William. Sorry dad, you look really tired...

The Ski Trip

I convinced Nicole to come skiing with me yesterday. We went to Alta for their daily free ski from 3pm to close at 5pm. We rented our skis from BYU. It hasn't snowed very much this season thus far. Consequently the guy renting me my skis was trying to convince me that because the snow wasn't powdery I was more likely to break the skis and I should pay for the insurance. It amazes me sometimes that the skiers in Utah don't realize that the snow in Utah is unique, and that snow in other places is usually hard and icy.

We had a nice drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon. There isn't a whole lot of snow up there but the ski runs were well groomed. The weather was warm, which was good since we didn't have real ski goggles.

The end of the run we went on, after Nicole got used to her ski legs.

A picture of the Albion Base, Nicole practiced skiing along the straight run.

I was pretty rusty on my skiing skills, I almost did the splits after a few minutes (and I can't normally do the splits). This was Nicole's first time skiing, she caught on pretty quick, though she tells me she prefers snowboarding over skiing. We had fun, especially watching all the little kids learning how to ski with their parents. Most of them are pretty fearless and you can watch them go down a hill bravely only to wipe out. I was impressed by the parents who were teaching their kids to ski while skiing backwards in front of them to help them keep balanced. It was a really nice day.