First Fall Break

I noticed that Miss V's primary program at church was the Sunday of her fall break from school. Both sets of grandparents had confirmed they wanted to come see her give the two lines in the program and sing her primary songs. Mom has been coming to town lately to see my very first niece, so I arranged with her to ride back to her house, stay for a few days, and return on Sunday morning before the program. I always love spending time at my parents' house, as do the kids. They still have lots of toys, space, and grass. This year it perfectly coincided with North Logan's annual Pumpkin Walk, so Jenny and her kids met up with us to look at all of the scenes. My favorites this year were the miniature Pumpkin Walk (with Barbie looking at the displays) and Finding Nemo. The kids loved finding the tiny pumpkin globes in each scene. Unfortunately, this caused all of them to scowl in concentration throughout all of my picture-taking.

 

 

Aunt Trena came over, and found a whole bunch of Halloween crafts and sight word activities for Miss V. Trena and Dallas gave Miss V a joke book for her birthday, and she's been working on memorizing the jokes, so she shared a few with them.

One day Mom took the kids to a nearby park, which let me walk over to the Hyde Park Cemetery where I'd go for walks as a teenager and young adult. It's a special one to me, so reviewing and photographing the headstones for findagrave.com was a privilege which brought back memories. Some of the headstones were of for people I knew growing up or some of their relatives. I forgot how many people around my age in the town had already passed away. Of course, many of the headstones had already been photographed, but in checking 2 out of the 6 sections, I was able to photograph and upload pictures of headstones for 29 people, which is about 1.5% of the entire cemetery. I look forward to going over the other sections on future visits.

We had so much fun during Miss V's first fall break from school, but we were also glad to come home and see Daddy! Miss V gave her lines in the program wonderfully (each line twice ;), and we got to see Grandma and Grandpa Porter, as well as Aunt Niki. I'm so glad my kids get to spend time with their grandparents; I thank Heavenly Father for such wonderful parents and in-laws. You are amazing! We love you!

I think I get one more year until Mr D towers over me.

Mr D and Nicole A H Porter

Eating out after the Pumpkin Walk

Aunt Trena works at an elementary school, 

and knows all of the resources for fun print-outs and crafts.

His first bee sting (or hornet?), while playing at the park. 

It got his cheek, but we couldn't see it much.

Dressed and ready for her Primary Sacrament Meeting Program. 

Mom needs to darn those hose.

Mendon City Cemetery

While doing some family history, I noticed an announcement about this weekend's Event sponsored by Ancestry.com and FindaGrave.com to visit a cemetery, photograph headstones, make connections, and share stories. Zak and I decided it would make an ideal family home evening activity, so we packed up our camera and winter layers. I chose the Mendon City Cemetery after searching local cemeteries on findagrave.com and noticing that it was only 81% photographed. With about 1,200 headstones, I figured we would reasonably find some of the un-photographed headstones in the time our children could handle being there. The information was a lot easier than I expected to access.

South-east-facing view from the Mendon-City Cemetery, taken by Zak Porter

Mysister-in-law, Niki, who is staying with us for a bit, also joined us. None of us had ever been to Mendon, let alone seen the glorious landscapes of a cloudy day from that spot. Mr C slept the entire time, and Miss V had a blast playing on the grass and looking at different headstones. I'd printed out a list with names and dates of those yet to be photographed, so Zak was in charge of the paperwork and I read the names off the headstones and photographed. Niki was given the special duty of searching for the four headstones people had specifically requested by photographed.

Zak and Niki, taken by Niki Porter

We made it about halfway through the wide section, so about a quarter of more through the whole cemetery. Fortunately, others have done the majority of the headstones, there were just a few they hadn't gotten at the time, and some of the deceased who had passed away since the cemetery was last photographed. We lasted until droplets started to fall, and Miss V was ready for a change.

Besides doing something useful for the cause, one of my favorite moments happened when Miss V played in the car, and accidentally leaned on the horn. She screamed for about three seconds, but fortunately, sleeping Mr C continued to slumber in his carseat.

Niki and Nicole (me), taken by Niki Porter

The next day, I uploaded the images, enhanced a couple so they could be easily read, and linked them to their appropriate people on findagrave.com. After uploading primary images of headstones for 19 people, and additional photos for those who had passed away before their recently-deceased spouses, we increased the number of headstones in Mendon photographed by 1.5%, and one of the four requested photographs.

Adventures at the Mendon City Cemetery, taken by Niki Porter

I happily participated in a very small way in this global effort. This has been a very useful tool for me in finding out if people whom I find connected to family members on familysearch.org and ancestry.com are deceased, and also a good idea of spouses, parents, siblings, or children. I appreciate access to this wonderfully helpful information, and am glad for this family activity and experience.