Remembering Summer

Family reunion time in Iowa with almost all 16
grandchildren sitting still.

Summer is officially over. How do I know? School has started, or in my case, I'm back to work at the university. But what a great summer it has been. For the first time in 10 years I took the whole summer off - granted, not by choice. But the reality is that I'm more prepared for fall then I have been for a number of years. I know there are those who scoff at a "summer off," but that's one of the reasons I went into higher education. Most of those summers over the last 35 plus years have involved travel, research, writing, and an occasional class. This summer I had great hopes for all of those things and the travel provided the best experiences of all.

It's not an official reunion without cake
and ice cream - and LOTS of it!

Trips to Idaho, Utah, and Iowa were stupendous. We were gone for almost all of July and into August and while we thought that was a little long, there were a lot of years when a 3-week vacation was standard for us, but as the children left home and started their own families we found we had not single, but multiple destinations to visit including, at various times, Utah, Idaho, New Mexico, Iowa, Michigan, California, Colorado, New York, North Carolina, Missouri, and England. That idea of a single summer vacation has morphed into year-round vacation opportunities that are usually shorter. Much of the notion of a 3-week vacation was built around the need to drive from the mid-west to California. Now we hop a plane for those longer destinations.

Summer used to be a time for our families to visit us, but since we moved to the desert there is less interest in seeing us during our summer head and more incentive for us to visit further north - or to the California beaches.

The Allen's hamming it up!

Yet, our summer trips remain a staple of our opportunity to visit family. We have a longer period to stay at each home and we can try to get quality time in at several homes. This summer we were able to spend time with the Bake and Bradley families in Idaho, the Hansen's in Utah, the McLean's in Iowa, and JoAnn spent time with the Dunn's (less David) in San Diego. By the time late August got here we were ready for a quiet few months at home, but we are already planning Christmas in Idaho with a new grandson.

Summer has been good to us. We have enjoyed it. We expect to continue to enjoy it in the future and while it remains the foundation of our vacation, we now visit year round because we love seeing our families. We feel blessed by these opportunities.

Grandma celebrating her birthday with all of her very
best friends - her family!

The Joy of Play

JoAnn and I love watching our grandchildren play - together and alone. Of course their play is sometimes loud and other times quiet and it is usually the latter that parents worry about. When you have 15 children together ranging in age from 16 to 2 years of age there is a lot of diversity in what is considered play. For the teens it is texting, texting, and yes, more texting interspersed along with a few video games. For the younger children it verges on a lot more spontaneity and physical play. Joshua had a brand new play structure in the backyard that immediately captured everyone's attention who was under the age of 12. I would go out on the upstairs patio and see the youngest ones playing on the structure, running around the house exterior, and having a wonderful time. No one was in charge, but everyone was together. The photo shows six grandchildren from 3 families having a great time - each one of them individually engaged in active play and using their imagination.

The above photo, while only showing Joshua, shows how engaged he (along with his cousins) were with his Thomas the Train set. The train set usually had 3 to 5 children gathered around it, all engaged in a different form of plan. It was amazing how they were all individually engaged and yet didn't seem to get frustrated with the others. There wasn't a lot of space for 3 to 5 children, but they made the most of it each time. They were all pretty much at the age where playing together is still a novel idea.

Playing with Grandma is also very important. All of the kids enjoy playing, and learning from, Grandma. Joshua and Chas loved having Grandma working with them on a puzzle and teaching them to work together. I'm not so sure the "working together" idea was fully grasped. Grandma also found time to eat a little dinner out at the farm with Lexi and Meagan. They are both at an age where food is more important than it used to be, but fun is even more important. Finally, there is the first grandchild with a "driving permit." I personally find that scary, but while we were in downtown Des Moines and found an Italian festival she found the car of her dreams. Of course Grandma was there to share it with her.

It's all about play and fun. It's about practicing for life. It's about learning to work with others, but in the end, it's about family and joy and love. I could have talked about adult play too, but this one is for the kids.

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

Wordless Wednesday

Dad's Going to be 90!!!

In just a few days my Dad is going to be 90. It seems like just yesterday we were all kids living at home. How life changes. Just 9 days after he turns 90 I will turn 64. When my grandparents were 65 I thought they were really old. I don't feel old and I don't think of Dad as old.

Today I wanted to post a presentation we 5 children made for Dad 10 years ago on his 80th birthday. We had a wonderful get together and families came from all across the United States to get to the reunion. Enjoy the video.

Newbies

If there is anything constant in our family it is change. We figured since we, or I had to be in Salt Lake City, we could just drive on up to Boise and check things out. There is a good reason. Daughter 3 is due any day now with her 5th child - Hattie. And Mike gets married on Friday, October 23.

On Saturday, that's today, his fiance Allison (photo below) is going to the Boise LDS Temple to receive her endowments. If you aren't LDS I will only say this is a very sacred ceremony and prepares them for their marriage the following week, which unlike most we see, includes being sealed for time and eternity. We wanted to be present for today's experience and support her and Mike.

Over the past 15 months JoAnn and I feel like we have been on the road almost constantly on family business. It's not really business, but it is support. It includes 3 new babies, a funeral, 1 marriage, a family reunion in Colorado, Christmas in Des Moines, 2 college graduations (note some of these activities are still in the near future), baby blessings, Aaronic Priesthood ordinations, visits to my Dad and Sisters, and visits by families to Las Vegas. There is one common thread in all of this - family. Our move to Las Vegas was truly a blessing. We are now able to share more of our time with all of our children and grandchildren. That is exciting for us. We enjoy these times and experiences. I feel like I know the roads to Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, and California and the sky-ways to Iowa. They have become common to us.

When we lived in Indiana it was so much more challenging to make these visits. We felt like we missed a lot. Not now and while I know we will slow this pace down, it has been fun.

Family Pictures are the BEST! Most of the time.

Did you ever wonder where those cute family photos come from? Not from this crowd. You can't imagine how difficult it is to get everyone to sit still for 15 seconds, and all at the same time. It's bad enough that they all love to talk, but they also all love to squirm, change positions, act out, see what they can get away with in a photo with no one is really watching.

Take for example Cole, on the right side of the photo. Why is he holding up a dollar bill? I'm not even sure it is a $1 bill, it could be more. Tim has just launched Joshua on to his shoulders and Lonita is checking out to make sure Joshua is okay. Meagan is exhausted and laying all over her brother and Sydney (alias Bear) has 2 arms around Alyssa hoping no one steals her. Jeni is trying to help Alyssa smile. Bonnie is trying figure out what all the fuss is about and Charlotte looks like she finally learned how to stand up and that's pretty good at 3 1/2 weeks. Danny has learned the cheesey smile from his mother. Ellen and Alexis always tilt their heads to the right away from the family. I've got to work with them on that. The good news is, this is one of the first family photos without the dreaded rubber neck - you know a vertical body with a head at a 90 degree angle to the body. I don't know how they do it. My doctor wishes I could.

Okay, enough fun. It was great to have all of the family together - or almost all of us together. Next time we will do better. We had a great time, breakfast and dinner together every day and then on-your-own for lunch, which was and wasn't happening. This photo was on Sunday evening about 6 pm and turned out pretty well. We had an awesome time and look forward to doing it again in 2 years.

What is it with girls and photos?

Daughter number 2 beat me to putting this photo up on a blog today. I can't believe it. That's what I get for putting it on flickr first. Oh well, the truth is I took quite a few photos of the daughters and daughter's daughters standing on the hill. Some are quite good, and then some are, well throw aways. In fact, almost every photo prior to this one was a throw away. So I started moving the camera to different angles. The result was this photo and the group came alive! Of course this is a group that is easy to come alive.


The second photo was taken a few minutes later, after we rounded up Bonnie to make sure she was in the all-girls photo. There was never a dull moment when all of the kids lived at home and when we have a reunion there are even fewer dull moment - like NONE!

Papa's Car

Our 3rd daughter's youngest son calls me Papa and at almost 2.5 that's just fine with me. Truth is he could call me anything and I wouldn't care, as long as he knows I'm his grandpa and JoAnn is his grandma.


We had a lot of fun at our reunion (more on that in later blogs) in Breckenridge, CO and on Monday morning six families began departing for different parts of the mountain west and midwest. We left about 30 minutes before 3rd daughter's family and headed west down the mountain. I figured Grand Junction was a perfect place to get gas and maybe drop by a grocery store and grab a sandwich from a deli for lunch.

We pulled off the highway, got gas for the car and pulled back out into traffic. JoAnn asked where we are going and I said straight ahead (south on a city street) to look for something to eat. Just then the cell phone rang and it was daughter number 3. "Hey Dad we're going to Burger King for lunch."

"Where are you?"

"Right in front of you." And they were! While we were getting gas they had pulled of the highway and as we pulled out of the gas station they were turning left literally right in front of us. Had the light been different we would have missed them.

"How did you see us?"

"I didn't, little Deano said, 'There's Papa's car.' And when I looked it really was you."

So we had a bonus coming home, we got to spend extra time with one of our families.

Cousin Bonding

One of the real reasons we get together as a family is to help the cousins to get to know each other better and to build long-term relationships. That has begun during this reunion. The cousins are sleeping in different condos every night with different cousins and during the day they engage in activities as a group. Two of the photos I took yesterday afternoon were of cousins 10 years apart, and yet buddies. That was reinforced today on an outing of most of the girls and some of the mother, sisters, and grandma. Bonnie (4) and Alyssa (14) were having a special moment together. Bonnie is never at a loss for words and Alyssa is a good listener.

Mid-Afternoon Break

It had been a busy day in Breckenridge by 3:30 pm yesterday. We had experienced sunshine, rain, sunshine, rain, and of course the ever present gold panning - just out of site in this photo. The streets had been walked, but shops had been shopped, the gold had been panned (more or less), and folk were beginning to gather at a main square. As I came back from an ice cream run I saw them all lined up on the bench just waiting for their photo. It's only 1/3rd of us, but it is all the bench would hold.

Panning for Gold

We are having a family reunion in Breckenridge with almost the whole gang (I think that totals up to 27 people less 1 son-in-law and 1 son). This includes 14 grandchildren ranging in age from 3.5 weeks to 14 years-old. They are all fun to have around. Yesterday, the most popular activity was panning for gold and all of the kids, except the 3 youngest. It was a hoot to watch them having so much fun. They spent hours at it. Donna's Baby was focused on finding the next BIG nugget, so he could retire at age 8. Somehow, I don't think that was going to happen.

Baby and Mac working hard on extracting gold

Bonnie took a novel approach to panning. She decided it was better to submerge the pan and see how full she could get it with river sand. Gold wasn't important, just how much she could get in the pan. And she was absolutely serious about it.

Bonnie's bandage is from a previous, non gold panning incident.

I've placed some additional thoughts below of the group panning for gold. I left out all of the dads who were panning for gold since I didn't want anyone to think their wives were bankrupting them.

When you are looking for gold it is all about being focused on the task.

Little Deano is really focused on the speck of gold

Alexis can smile and pan for gold!