Photo Memory - Cleaning Surprises

Last Monday JoAnn decided to clean out some files that I had dumped (nicely stacked) on the floor in our office. I figured that at some point we would get tired of looking at them. We didn't get far, but we found a wealth of family information that we knew we had, but not as well organized. Included were patriarchal blessings, birth certificates, our now outdated will, our temple sealing certificate and a few photos. One of the bonus photos, as far as we were concerned was of our daughters talken in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 1986. We aren't sure of the exact date. But it might be considered our first sisters' weekend photo - even if a all of them were young and living at home. Look how far we have come. JoAnn just told me she made Suzanne's and Krissie's dress and maybe Sally's blouse.

Back left to right - Donna, Suzanne, Jeni
Front - Krissie & Sally
I'll also put this up on Flickr in case you want to download it.

Traveling Ruminations

Joshua in his favorite pose - running!

Since March 17 JoAnn and I have been on the road visiting family so much it feels almost as if that is all that we have done. And we are not done yet! But we are taking a short break before we travel to visit more family. Our travel since March has taken us to Utah, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, and Missouri. These have all been wonderful trips and were organized around vacations and family special events. You have already read about the Eagle Court of Honor and the Personal Progress Pursuit on this blog. You may yet read about graduation, a new baby, sister's weekend, and a marriage.

In between these trips families visited us from Idaho and Utah. Families from Colorado and Idaho have yet to make a visit this summer, but they are planned. So even when home, we seemed to keep awfully busy. The next two weeks we will be visiting San Diego and then Modesto, California.

Mother's Day in Iowa

We love our opportunities to visit family. Not only does it make us feel good about how well our family is doing, but it gives us a chance to see our children and grandchildren as they grow and face the joys and challenges of life. It is rewarding for us to see the personal and professional development of each of our children. We are always totally amazed by what they're doing, how much they are doing, and how their families seem to be blossoming.

At the end of our last trip we spent time with my Aunt Marge and her family in Missouri. We always look forward to this visit. We take time to catch up on the family, talk about travel, family history, and the like. It was a chance for me to spend a couple of days going through historical records of the Merriam family that my grandfather had collected and organized. I scanned almost 200 documents and photos. Some of those will appear in future posts of this blog. What I discovered was that I didn't have enough time to get all of the Merriam family information. That means another trip to the midwest next summer, but this time we will drive and not fly!

Our newest pride and joy - Nicholas!

I also have plenty of family pictures that I will be sharing along with stories about our recent and future trips on this blog. Of course the challenge is finding sufficient time to write all of these blogs. So bear with me and have patience.

Wordless Wednesday - Happy Birthday

Wordless Wednesday - Christmas Season

Family Reunion: SquirtGunslingers (Wordless Wednesday)

Family Reunion: Lunch in Ames

I have taken a long summer vacation as is obvious by the lack of postings, but it has been time well spent. JoAnn and I spent most of July traveling to Idaho, Utah, and Iowa. The latter was for our family reunion.

A long set of tables and no talking
from end to end - at least quietly.

Iowa has a particular hold on the McLean family. We go back several generations in Iowa, on both sides of my family and as a family, we lived in Ames and Cedar Rapids for a total of 13 years.

As a child I have such fond memories of summers at my grandparents' homes in Des Moines. During this trip I showed at least one daughter and granddaughter where my dad's parents lived and where my mom's parents final home was. Then we drove through the state fair grounds, which was busy getting ready, and talked about experiences I had there.

For all of us going to Ames and Hickory Park restaurant was wonderful. JoAnn and I remember the original Hickory Park, located in an old converted gas station where you would stand outside in the cold (or heat) waiting for a table. You ate dinner or ice cream (there was too much food to eat both), but never both. We first went to Hickory Park in 1977 and as our children grew we took them. Usually we didn't have enough money to take the whole family all at once, so it was special occasions when we took a child. When Donna turned 12 we went with our Bishop (I was the first counselor) and his son and had ice cream. It was great and I still fondly recall that experience.

It was unanimous among our family, long before we got to Des Moines, that we would all go north to Ames. Tim called ahead and made reservations. When we all arrived we asked for a table for 29! In 1977, there were only 6 of us, and 2 were tikes and only 1 was in school, we never imagined we would have dinner for 29 ANYWHERE! But here we are 34 years later and our family has blossomed. And yes, we missed David and Krissie, but the USMC calls and they respond.

Most of the grandchildren sitting in front of a big screen
television taking in cartoons while the patiently (?) waited
for our table

As I looked down the loooooong table at all 29 family members comprising 7 of our 8 families I realized just how wonderful our family has become. Everyone was busy talking, listening, eating, corralling children, and having an awfully good time. Plus, following lunch, many planned to run by the old homestead (it was a townhouse) for additional memories. It is these types of activities that help our family to build long-term relationships. It is going to be too soon before our grandchildren start leaving the nest and building their own families. I wonder how big our table will be next time we go to Hickory Park?

The view from the other end of the table. Mike and Allison
on the right and Ellen on the left.

I hope everyone is getting ready for Denver in 2013.

Wordless Wednesday on Thursday - Lunch for 29!

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday - Shameless...

Happy Birthday Sally

It's that time of the year when the McLean family birthdays are in full bloom. I was inspired by Suzanne's post for Jeni in January and followed suit. Then I though, why not do that for all of the children this year. Who has more incriminating photos than Dad? And after a 2.5 year hiatus of scanning old photos, I'm back in the game. I'll do a blog on the process, because it is time consuming. Now, let's get down to business and honor Sally on her . . . well, I'm not allowed to tell you how old she is, but her first photos were in 1979.

You have to admire Suzanne holding a screaming Sally, who clearly wasn't impressed that her big sister who was already taking care of her. Worse yet, Suzanne looked a little spacey in this photo, like, "Why me?"

Tim is much more relaxed (JoAnn says to note the peanut butter on his face - a McLean trait), but Sally is still not impressed with who is holding her. I do think I see a little Joshua in Tim.

This is my personal favorite. It must be Easter Sunday as everyone is dressed up, or at least Sunday. Mom passes little Sally ( 2 months) to Donna who is all ready to receive her and just as focused then as she is today. We have no idea who the little tike in the background is. Some neighbor child watching the goings-on.

Remember Sally, it's okay to suck that thumb. Just ask Charlotte.

This photo may explain why you don't see too many photos of me. Yes, it is barely 1980 and yes that is a red flannel shirt and plaid pants, and no, they were NOT bell-bottoms, but they are bright. I never realized my mustache was quite that big, not to mention the long sideburns. If you would have asked I would have said I never had long sideburns. It didn't seem to bother Sally who was enjoying herself.

I have enough ammunition to go on for months and I'll get another blog up yet this weekend looking at some of Sally's later years. I am also posting photos on our flickr page, so you can go there to see more of our loved ones.

This Spot Reserved for Sally

It's been a busy week and Sally's birthday is tomorrow. I intend to honor her with several more photos, but like I said, it's been a busy week. Stay tuned, but as an appetizer, here is Sally, 2 days old in Ames, IA. Enjoy and watch for more...

Adventures in Traveling: Part 2

It seems like just yesterday we were sitting in the Las Vegas airport waiting for our airplane to be deiced and wondering if the previous day’s snowstorm and airport closure was a premonition of what was to come. It was. We flew into wonderful weather, if you recall, leapfrogging our storm so we could experience it twice. During our stay in Iowa we were not disappointed by winter. We experienced snow, fog, rain, ice storm, sunshine (I’m not sure I remember sunshine), windchill down to a -30 F and a January thaw in December when it got to 51 F. Quite the swing. And of course the ice storm had to wait until the day we left. In terms of an ice storm it wasn’t a big one, but it doesn’t take much of an ices storm to mess things up.

So here we are at an airport once again, this time in Des Moines, Iowa waiting or our airplane. We are hopeful the delay will be short. Delay you say? Yes, not only was their an ice storm in Iowa, but frost on the planes in Las Vegas and we all know how efficient deicing is in Las Vegas.

An ice storm is not my favorite kind of storm, but fortunately the airport is functioning and our airplane is coming in from Las Vegas and won’t be on the ground too long - at least we hope. I just took a photo of a United Airlines aircraft with icicles on its wings. I later found out that one of the deicing trucks was broken and folks were waiting for another plane to be deiced before they were going to have their plane deiced. They had been waiting for over 4 hours. I even saw the pilots get up and leave, shaking their heads. Maybe the keystone cop thing is not reserved just for Las Vegas, but Des Moines has their own keystone cops.


At one point while I was in the restroom I heard from the stall next to me at the “little boy’s urinal” a small boy ask his dad, “Why doesn’t if flush?” (They were auto flush urinals).

Dad responds with, “Let’s not worry about flushing, let’s just get your pants up.” [That sounds awfully familiar. The boy was maybe 4.]

Boy, “Dad, I think you broke the toilet, it won’t flush.”

Dad,with just a touch of frustration, “Let’s go.” As they turn to leave the automatic urinal flushes. No response from either of them, Dad was moving too fast.


Home again, home again and how good it feels. Bright sunshine, beautiful red rock hills, our own home, a cat anxious to spend as much time on our lap as she can. It is always good to be gone, but it is also good to be home. We already miss the kids, but know we left a spoiled grandson behind as a reminder. It was a great trip.

Merry Christmas to All

Merry Christmas to all from a cold and beautifully white Iowa. We send all of our best to all of our loved ones and friends. It is a time for remembering, celebrating family, trusting in the Lord, giving thanks for our blessings, and pondering on the wonder of this special season.

Good to be in Iowa - Believe it or Not

I sit here writing this post on the second floor and northwest corner of Tim and Lonita's home, listening to the wind blow; and blowing it is! Until you have lived in the midwest and participated in a northerner you have difficulty understanding just how much the wind can blow. As I write this post the weather channel says the temperature is 6 degrees F with a wind chill of -15 F and a wind blowing from the NW at 21 mph and gusting to 30 mph. Now that has all the beginnings of a true northerner and reminds us of the years we lived in Iowa, especially the winters.

The morning started pleasantly enough at 27 F and when I compared it at 8 am to our other families cities only Las Vegas was warmer. However, that has all changed. By the time 11:30 am got here the temperature had only dropped one degree, the wind was only 8 mph (see to the right), we had a light snow, and it felt 17 F.

I have taken a little effort to point things out on the graphic to the right to make sure everyone understands "how" to read it. Our kids used to tell us the weather channel was old folks "MTV" and I think they were probably right. Since we have moved to Las Vegas we don't watch it any more. Go figure! Actually the whole thing is really self explanatory, so read it for yourself. If you can't figure it out it's because you either don't live in the midwest or you aren't old enough.

The early mild temperature didn't last long, by the time 1 pm rolled around we had dropped 6 degrees in real temperature and 13 degrees in wind chill and the wind was picking up.

Three hours later we began to feel the real brunt of the weather and we had not even gotten to the cold part of the evening yet. A little after 4 pm we were down to a wind chill -10 F, in just 3 hours. We are just beginning to feel a real Iowa winter.

You have got to wonder how the early settlers handled this kind of weather. Some of Willa Cather's "O Pioneers". She writes, speaking of Nebraska (which is only 3 hours away by car), "Winter has settled down over the Divide again; the season in which nature recuperates, in whcih she sinks to sleep between the fruitfulness of autumn and the passion of spring. ... The ground is frozen so hard that it bruises the foot to walk in the roads or in the ploughed fields. It is like an iron country, and spirit is oppressed by its rigor and melancholy. One could easily believe that in the dead landscape the germs of life and fruitfulness were extinct forever" (pp 185-186). And so it does feel that way sometimes, but when you sit in the comfort of your home with your family you have faith and know spring will come again, the green will return, and this winter will be left behind as a receeding memory.

It is good to be in Iowa - believe it or not!

Western Iowa along Interstate 80 at 20,000 feet (or so) - Not quite what Willa Cather remembers, but things have changed in the last 100 years.