Thomas' birthday

Dojin chose to play in Hyeji's room this week because, he said,
 "I don't want my room messy!"

Yuna had a ballet recital.  She's in the above picture, 2nd to the right.  We didn't sit in the best place for the optimal view of her dance.  The recital had a lot of talented dancers and we enjoyed it, but Yuna's part was only a minute.  I remember my mom making elaborate costumes for me and Christine for a dance recital that we were in (I only took ballet for 1 year when I was 10) and complaining that for all the work, we were onstage for less than 3 minutes.  Christine had a second number that was longer and either the second costume was simpler or she was onstage long enough to warrant the costume. At least the grand kids got a lot of use out of those green tutu costumes.  I think they played with them for years.

Yuna's a goofball, we couldn't get her to smile normal
for even a single picture.  I'm hanging on the the flower
because she kept putting it in front of her face.  Jieun
and Dan gave her the flower--not us.  I have to make
that clear so no one expects flowers at their recitals. 😊

At least Jieun got a few good pictures at home.

Thomas' birthday was on Friday.  We chose (because of Crista's urging) to think a little more of him this year than we've done in the past.  We all got together on Saturday for lunch (I had a leadership meeting from 11-1, but more of that in a minute).  I made soup and we ordered a couple of salads from Plates and Palates.  Everyone left their kids home with babysitters for this part of the day and just associated with the adults which was nice for a change.  At 1:15 we left to do a session together in the Bountiful temple.  It turned out to be a busy session (new endowment), but it was lovely and the spirit was there, as always.   It's amazing to be in the temple with all of your children (Cait was in the baptistry).  After the temple, we went back to our house and were joined by all the kids.  We didn't take any pictures, but Adrienne visited the grave with her family on Friday and she took a couple.

Finn, Adrienne, Ila, Gunnar, friend, and Ollie
It's a tradition to send Tom some balloons on his birthday--this year the
Green's carried it on.  I am guessing they all let go of the balloons after this picture was taken.

Finn, Ollie, Gunnar, Adrienne, Ila and AJ

Back to the leadership meeting: About a month and a half ago, I was informed that there would be a leadership meeting on the 22nd.  There were to be three sessions.  One was specifically for the youth, but there would be more information on who was invited to the other meetings.  After that it felt like a big secret or something because I couldn't find out any more information about it.  Finally, 6 days prior, we were told who was invited.  Basically--Bishops, Stake RS president, Stake YW president, Stake primary president, Stake presidencies, and ward RS presidents  For the youth meeting, only the youth were invited, but bishops and young women presidents (ward) were invited to listen in the over-flow.  Because of not knowing anything about the particulars of the meetings, and not knowing if I was even supposed to go, we made the plans for Tom's birthday.   Our multi-stake group consists of 9 stakes, which is why the invitation was so limited.  Anyway, Elder Craig C Christensen and Elder Neil L Anderson were the presiding authorities.
It was a wonderful meeting.  The main concept was that we need to get each individual member to take responsibility for their own, personal conversion.  Elder Anderson said that though we live in a wonderful, strong area--the church will not save us--only our Savior can save us.  He said we need to focus More on the Savior--Less on the church; More on Ministering, Less on Administering; More one on one--Less group setting; More on the temple, Less on the chapel; and More in the home, Less in the classroom.
He showed an excellent visual of a silhouette of a parent or leader, holding a lantern in one hand, and leading along a youth in the other hand.  We talked about what was depicted, then he showed the next slide--the youth had let go of the leader's hand and was heading into the darkness in the other direction.  Elder Anderson said that every individual will let go at some point and begin to make their own decisions.  He then showed the last slide of the two individuals going separate directions--each with their own lamp.  That is the goal.  To make sure that each individual develops their own light and testimony so that if others around them falter, they will not.
It was a two hour meeting, but it seemed to go by much faster (which says a lot coming from me!).  A good portion of the meeting was question and answer.
After the meeting I joined our family as we headed up to the temple.

Sunday morning Crista and Matt and family; Adrienne and AJ and family; Jennie and Jordan, Caitlyn and Roy and I were all able to go and hear Amelia's welcome home.  I have to admit I was torn because Dan and Jieun were speaking in our home ward (which I didn't know until a couple of days ago).  Amelia did a great job and it was fun to see her and then go up and spend some time with extended family.  Adrienne had to get back for primary, so she didn't come to Christine's.  Roy and I had to get back for church meetings, also, but not until about 1:00.  I had a ward conference I was speaking at, and Roy had a presidency meeting.

Matt and Crista (Dave and Becky in the background)

Becky, Dave, Kim and Chris Saling, and Steve.

Caitlyn's going to love me for putting this picture on display!

Christine and Catharine

Jacob-- You can see Christine had quite a crowd show up.

Christine with her daughters
Eliza, (Christine), Amelia, Brianna, Sara and Mykelle. Only Nathanael's and Andrew's wives are missing.
They are all wearing wrap around skirts that Amelia brought from Argentina.  They are also reversible.

Jennie, Jordan, Rachel and Laura

All in all, another great and busy week.

Ruby and Greta

Hyeji, Dojin and Yuna

Hyeji and Ruby

Spiderman!

Jennie, Greta, Yuna Dojin and Hyeji--very interested in something
on Jennie's phone.

Correction on last week's genealogy story.

 Hyeji was in a program this week celebrating the train tracks meeting at Promontory Point.  That's what our DUP lesson was on this month, too.  I didn't go see Hyeji's program, but I helped her put her costume together.  She needed a white apron, so we picked a cute colorful one I had and she wore it inside out.

Crista sent this darling photo of Greta, Bridget and Ruby

And Adrienne sent this one of sweet Ila.  This was quite early
in the morning and she's all dressed with he hair done.

Yuna celebrated her 6th birthday on Monday.

Last week I told of an ancestor coming on the Mayflower and I received some corrections from my siblings.  I may not have been listening closely when we talked about it at the meeting because I thought they said that John Howland was my great....grandfather.  Family Search also said he was my 10th great grandfather.  However, my brothers (Bruce, Glenn and Dave) told me that we are direct descendants of his brother Henry Howland, that came to America a little later.

Here are the responses I got:  From Bruce: When I looked into our Mayflower ancestry, I concluded that the Mayflower passenger we descended  from was George Soule, although there may be another one as well.  As to  the Howlands, I believe we descend from Henry Howland, who was the brother of John Howland, and who came over to America after John.  I would be interested in the ancestry by which you believe we are descended from John Howland.  I would also ask David and Christine what they think as they have done much more in genealogy than I have.

From Dave: On the Cook side of our genealogy, Bruce is correct.  George Soule is the only direct ancestor on the Mayflower.  John Howland had two brothers who came to the Plymouth Colony after the Mayflower.  Some think they came in on the Anne (third Ship in). , Arthur was an older brother and Henry was younger. John and Arthur are our 11th great Uncles, while Henry is our direct ancestor (tenth grandfather). The first time Henry is named in the colony is an allotment of cattle in 1624, he appears to own a black cow.  In 1633 he is found in a list of freeman. He is listed as living "by the bay side, near Love Brewster's," and the record continues "He was one of the substantial land holders and freeman".  In 1635 he was chosen "constable of Duxberry"  In 1643 he is on the list of men who could bear arms. In 1657 he was on the list of those who refused to serve on the "Grand Enquest"  The reason for this was he had joined the  "Friends" sect.  After joining the "Friends" aka Quakers, he was greatly persecuted.  Henry stayed true to his faith the rest of his life.  His property was close to the Rhode Island Colony.  Rhode Island was where most Quakers lived to avoid persecution for their faith.  However, Henry's land was subject to the Plymouth Colony, which levied many finds on his household for holding Friends meetings in his home and other crazy things.  

The Howland line is a very religious line.  Their Father apparently suffered many persecutions in England for his faith, which could explain why they were in Plymouth in the first place. 

On the Clyde line, I've heard there may be three ancestors, but I haven't worked on these lines. 

I hope this helps.  

From Glenn: When I visited Plymouth many years ago, I thought we were descended from John Howland.  Going through my family tree, I found that Henry Howland , John’s brother was the ancestor.  However, the pedigree is compiled by people’s submissions.  I don’t know if it’s completely accurate.  I didn’t know about George Soule.  Thanks for the info.

Final comments were made on the fact that Family Search is not very accurate as people are allowed to make changes even without documentation.  Janet Porter (on the CFO board) wrote a letter to Family Search and asked if she could lock our line down because it is complete and documented.  She spends hours updating and correcting information on Family Search only to have it changed by someone who thinks they know.  She was told no, that it was better just to have a place on line that had all the correct information.  We are trying to have all this information at www.cookfamily.org.   I intend to ask Janet about the relationship to the Howland line and clarify what it was I heard at the meeting on Feb. 1.

I had a wonderful lunch with Christine celebrating my birthday.  I love getting together with her and thoroughly enjoyed our visit.

We were invited to dinner on Saturday night with friends that we haven't seen for a while.  We met them when we first moved to Bountiful and were in the Canyon Estates Ward.  They told us that they prayed us into their ward as their kids needed other youth their age.  It worked--but we only stayed a year.  Since then they have lived in Hawaii and China.  We had a good time catching up.

I love all of our interactions through letters, Marco Polo, and by other means.  I'm glad we have such wonderful family relationships.  It's worth every effort to maintain them.  I love all of you!

Palm Springs, California

Greta turned 3 this week.  I made her a unicorn pillow.  She's holding it with her
unicorn dress.

Roy had a NATSAP conference in Palm Springs this week and I came along for the ride.  It's been a fun, relaxing week for me, and a fun relaxing weekend for Roy.  He worked really hard until about 11:00 am on Friday.  NATSAP stands for National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs. When Roy goes to these conferences, he sets up a booth and then talks to people about his business of providing software for electronic medical records.  If he can get a demo set up, he usually gets a new customer.  The tiring thing for him is just having to be "on" for several days in a row.  While he was working I was able to exercise (I tried out the hotel's yoga and Zumba class, and used their exercise room) and then sit out in the sun and read (it wasn't super warm until Friday afternoon and Saturday, but it was sunny).

Each evening there were "events" hosted by various companies involved in the conference.
 Usually it was just light appetizers, but sometimes it was full meals.  Below was a "masquerade" event.
We usually just went for a short time to see if there was anyone Roy needed to socialize with.

Friday we took Roy's work associate to the airport then we took a tram up to the top of a mountain here in Palm Springs.  Someone must have been watching out for us, because our timing was perfect.  A young couple was leaving as we were arriving and they held out two tickets and said they weren't going to use them.  Roy was really confused and asked if they were still valid.  I said "Thank you" and I think Roy mumbled that, too.  He still didn't believe they would just hand over some tickets so he took them to the ticket booth to make sure we could use them.  We have no idea why the couple left--an emergency at home, a realization that they wouldn't be able to make an appointment...but the tickets were worth about $50.  We went on the tram and took a short hike around to see all the viewpoints.  The most enjoyable thing was just uninterrupted time with Roy to talk.  It was supposed to be 40 degrees cooler at the top of the mountain, but it couldn't have been because we were very comfortable in just a sweater.  There was snow on the ground, but not lots, just enough to make it a little bit slick and somewhat muddy in places.

There were some great views

On Saturday we went on another hike--this time we had to pay for it.  We hiked to a waterfall, and the land on which the waterfall resides is Indian reservation land, so there's a fee to hike it.  We'd been told by a man we met on the hike the day before that it would take 2 hours, but it was only an hour at a fairly easy pace.  Still, it was a beautiful day with beautiful scenery and again, uninterrupted time together.

The waterfall doesn't look like much, but it was bigger than it
seems in this picture 

Overlooking the valley towards the end of our hike.

Following the hike we went to Palm Springs air museum.  Roy loved it, of course, and I even enjoyed it.  He was very impressed with the collection of airplanes on display.

The last two evenings we opted for staying at the hotel and having a relaxing hot tub.  Friday night we shared the hot tub with three high school students that had obviously snuck in.  They were cute kids and happy to converse with us.  The girl was from Ukraine and had moved here when her mother had remarried.  At first I didn't believe her because she didn't have much of an accent.  Saturday evening we had the hot tub all to ourselves.  One of the boys said he planned to be a nurse so that he could make enough money to build a sort of commune (he didn't call it that) where he and his brothers would buy some land and build underground homes with rules that everyone pull their weight or they'd be booted out of the community.  Interesting idea; but the kids seemed like pretty good kids.  

As usual, we were glad to get home so that we could sleep in our own bed and shower in our own shower and get back into our routine.

I'm now 60!

I neglected to mention Mav's birthday last week.  He's 4 years-old now.  Time goes fast.

I didn't put any pictures of the Green kids when I mentioned that I spent Saturday evening with them.  Adrienne sent me this one of  Ila--ready for bed.

 I finished Mav's birthday present a little bit late.  I hope he loves it.  I used bamboo batting as well as minky, so it should be super soft.

Mav with his birthday blanket

We had a multi-stake YM/YW Fireside this past week.  Our speaker was Collin Kartchner.  He did a great job and communicated well with the kids.  He talked about the things that can be done for good on the internet, and also how there is a lot of content that deprives us of joy.  So many kids suffer because of social media.  He had some good ideas of things kids and parents can do to protect ourselves from some of the dangers.
He suggested that we 1) eliminate one app/game/thing that distracts us from our relationship with our Savior.  2) Pick a day each week to have a no phones/screens for a four hour period (5-9 pm).  3) Keep your kids phones with you at bedtime (I don't have to worry about this anymore, and I'm pretty sure none of my grand kids have a phone yet, but it won't be too far off).  He said that it keeps them from sleeping and lack of sleep is the leading cause of depression in teens.  He suggested that the ym/yw all go home and completely delete snap chat (and TikTok if they have it--he said TikTok is the large and spacious building and has no redeeming qualities) and to unfollow every person or group that doesn't make them happy. 
For the fireside I was responsible to fill the regional center.  We've had the speaker scheduled for a year, but I didn't get the assignment until November.  I invited every stake in our multi-stake group, but they already had firesides or other activities scheduled in January.  So, I invited our old stake (Bountiful Heights), and we already had a stake from Ogden interested, so I followed up with them.  Then one of the other leaders invited the North Canyon Stake (which was the first stake we lived in when we moved back to Utah in  1998).  There was another Ogden stake that was interested, but though I sent word they were welcome, they somehow missed the message until a couple of weeks before the event.  They said that some would come from their stake.  I was so nervous until starting time when the building looked full enough that I could relax.  We ended up having over 1400 people there.  The building fits 2300, so we could have fit one more stake.  It was "comfortably" full (Roy's language), so I was happy.

Crista came down on Thursday afternoon to spend most of the weekend.  Matt had a conference in Salt Lake where he had the opportunity to present.



 Crista went to hear his presentation while I played with Greta (she took Bridget, and Jieun took Ruby to her house).  Greta was supposed to nap, so, I put her to bed and went upstairs.  She came up within 5 minutes and said she was done with her nap, could she have her gum (an agreed upon treat for when her nap was over).  I said she had to have a real nap.  This time I put her in my bed and had a nap with her.  When I rest in the daytime, I use a sleep mask.  I offered her one and let her choose the color.

She chose green.  It's a cool mask--literally, it has little green beads that have a slight weightiness to them and they keep your head cool.  She slept with it the whole time--even though it covered almost her whole face!

Matt and Crista ate dinner with us and got Ruby and Greta to bed (with my help--they wanted me to read to them).  Then they went back to a party at the conference and Roy and I played with Bridget.  Soon we took her to bed with us and put her in the middle while we watched Netflix.  As you can see she was totally content and happy.  When she started to get fidgety, we put her to bed.  She fussed for about 3 minutes and went to sleep.  Lucky parents.

I had my usual monthly genealogy meeting with the Cook Family Organization on Saturday morning.  It was brought up that one of our ancestors was mentioned in a talk Elder Ballard gave in Massachusetts.  Here is the link Elder Ballard talks about John Howland, but I'm also quoting a small part of the article:

"Because of my own DNA connection to the British Isles, I was particularly interested in the English men, women, and children who made the long voyage on the Mayflower to the New World, where they hoped to retain their English identity, enjoy the same degree of religious freedom they had found as strangers in the Dutch Netherlands, and earn a better living. Among them was a young, single man, an indentured servant to John Carver, and my ninth great-grandfather, John Howland. The ocean voyage across the Atlantic took 66 days before the Pilgrims, literally “ones who came from afar,” arrived off the coast of New England on November 11, 1620. During that historic voyage, the crew and passengers of the Mayflower encountered many turbulent storms. In the middle of one storm, young John fell overboard. By all accounts, that should have been the end of John Howland. However, the Lord had other plans for him. William Bradford, also a passenger on the Mayflower, reported: “In these storms the winds were so fierce and the seas so high the Pilgrims were forced to remain below deck. And one of them John Howland came above and, with a roll of the ship, he was thrown into the sea; but it pleased God that he caught hold of a rope that was trailing in the water and held on though he was several fathoms under water till he was hauled up by the same rope to the brim of the water, and then with a boat-hook and other means got him into the ship again and his life was saved; and though he was something ill with it, yet he lived many years after, and became a profitable member both in church and commonwealth.” When the Mayflower finally arrived in the New World, they discovered they were more than 250 miles north of their intended location. Because of the lateness of the season and lack of supplies, they decided to stay there. When they explored their new home, they found land already cleared, corn supplies, and an abandoned village whose inhabitants had died in the disease epidemic of 1616 to 1618. 3 Later, a leader of one of the villages arrived in the struggling settlement to help the Pilgrims. They formed an alliance, and during the second fall after their arrival in the New World, 52 colonists and some 90 natives celebrated Plymouth’s first successful harvest—the first “Thanksgiving” in Plymouth. At the time, John Howland was not as famous as fellow passengers William Bradford, John Carver, and Myles Standish. However, standing where we now stand, with nearly 400 years between us and these courageous Pilgrims, he may have had a greater impact on the history of the United States than any of them. About four years after they arrived in the New World, John married fellow Mayflower passenger Elizabeth Tilley, a brave and committed daughter of God. They eventually had 10 children and nearly 90 grandchildren. But that is not where the story ends. Today, an estimated 2 million Americans trace their roots to John and Elizabeth. Their descendants include three U.S. presidents—Franklin D. Roosevelt, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush; American poets Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; and two influential 19th-century American religious leaders—the prophet Joseph and his brother Hyrum Smith. Think about it for a moment—the existence of these political leaders, poets, and prophets hinged on this one young man finding and grabbing a rope in the ocean and holding on tight to be saved. It was a miracle!"
The point of the talk was that we need to acknowledge the Lord's hand in our lives. Elder Ballard continues, "Brothers and sisters, please look for the Lord’s hand in your lives and in the lives of your family, as I do in the lives of my ancestors and family. Expect it. Do not dismiss it. Do not relegate the experiences in your lives to coincidences. As you see the hand of the Lord in your lives, thank Him for it. Please record and share your stories. The more you recognize the Lord’s hand in your lives, the more you will see it in your lives today."

Roy and I celebrated my birthday Saturday evening.  We went to Market Street Grill (birthday coupon), and then to Knives Out (a movie).

Then on Sunday, all the kids came over to celebrate my birthday--the big 60 (you can't put numbers in caps, but I tried). It was pointed out to me a couple of times that my birthday this year is a palindrome 0202/2020

Caitlyn made the cupcakes.  

Avie wasn't so lucky this week.  She was really sick--she may have broken her nose, and she ate "butt paste."  Yuck.

Elise sent us a cute picture of Bevy.  She's super happy about something.