Cool Stuff

So, sorry I haven't been on here forever… there's so much to write about, I don't know really where to start.  Ben and I had an awesome opportunity to go on a Baltic cruise. (Can I just say it was HEAVEN?? not so much for the destinations, which were great and all, but just to be with Ben and spend quality time together alone.)  Ben's parents came out and watched the kids for us.  The cruise departed from Copenhagen and included stops in Warnemunde (Germany), Tallin (Estonia), St. Petersburg, Helsinki, and Stockholm.  

We had an amazing time, but I wanted to share something cool from Copenhagen.  Ben's mom told us about a memorial in Copenhagen that was created by an LDS sculptor named Dennis Smith that honors the many Danish Mormon converts who emigrated from Denmark to the US at the end of the 19th century.  Ben has Danish ancestors, and of course, we have a great-grandfather who is Danish!  Hans Jensen emigrated when he was five years old with his parents, Niels and Anne.  Besides Papa being born in Canada, he is the closest foreign born ancestor we have.  

So, the memorial consisted of three parts… a sculpture of a young woman named Kristina (loosely based on Dennis Smith's grandmother) who is looking out over the harbor, the relentless Baltic wind blowing her hair (notice the horizontal pony tail), then there is a plaque that describes the memorial and the LDS immigrants, and then there are several cobblestones with LDS immigrants names engraved on them, with the town they were from and the date they immigrated to the US.  I guess there were like 40,000 Danish converts in fifty years of missionary work there.  

So, we found the memorial on the way home and it was way cool.  It is at the location where the LDS immigrants sailed from in Copenhagen.  It was cool to think that this was the location the Jensens left from.  Familysearch.org shows that the Jensens sailed from Copenhagen in 1882 to Liverpool London, from where they sailed to New York. I have to think this was the location.  I looked and looked for Hans Jensen's name… or his parents Anne Jensen and Niels Jensen, but didn't find them.  I guess you can contact Smith to see about getting your ancestor's name added to the memorial.  That would be really cool.  We did see a ton of Andersens, Nielsens, Jensens, Larsens, Madsens, and Christensens… basically all the Mormon names.

Me looking for Hans Jensen's name.  

Here is a Hans Jensen, but it can't be our Hans Jensen since he wasn't even born until 1877.

We did find Ben's ancestor though, Ole Nielsen.  Here is a pic of him in front of the cobblestone.

So, it was cool to be in Denmark and feel of our ancestors' spirits there.  We did a fun bike tour and learned some interesting tidbits about Copenhagen and Denmark.

*Denmark only has five million people… it's made up of 70 islands, 40 of which are inhabited.  Or something like that.  Don't quote me on these numbers, ok?
*The climate is miserable.  We were there on a beautiful day, 75 degrees… our guide said that is very unusual.  Usually there's a lot of wind and clouds and it's colder.
*Denmark is very vanilla… not much diversity.  Our guide referred to his fellow countrymen as "country bumpkins."  I thought this was particularly amusing since Oprah once did a special on Denmark as the happiest place on earth to live….touting their progressiveness, etc.
*Denmark has shrunk more in size than any other European country.  I guess they were once quite the force to be reckoned with.
*The Danes helped quite a few Jews escape to neutral Sweden during the Nazi occupation.
*We can thank the Danes for Legos
*And Neils Bohr, a Dane for figuring out the anatomy of the atom
*And Hans Christian Andersen for The Little Mermaid, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Snow Queen (Frozen), and a myriad of other fairytales, plays, poems, and novels
* The Martin Luther reformation had a huge impact on Denmark… most Danes are Lutheran.
*The port in Copenhagen is so clean you can swim naked in it.
*One in four wind turbines are made in Denmark
*Most people get around on bicycles… most places in town are more quickly accessible by bike than car
*It's a very liberal city… the first country to give same-sex unions the same rights as marriage (just short of calling it marriage), one of the first on woman's suffrage, and freedom of religion (hence all the Danish Mormon converts).
*There is a 30 km bridge that connects Denmark to Sweden
*The Danes love Obama… he has been there twice and loves to go there since he receives such a warm welcome.  Our guide says he goes to Denmark to boost his self-esteem after being dogged in the U.S.
*If you retire from the same company after working for 40 years, you get invited by the queen to the palace for a cup of tea.
*The Danes are nuts about their royal family, who are just figure heads and have no power whatsoever
*The largest 4th of July celebration outside of the U.S. is in Denmark… because of the close ties Danes have to America… so many immigrated to the states! 
*Kids don't start school until they're seven years old

And Wow!  I'm amazed I remembered so much from that tour!  Worth the $50 I suppose.

The Little Mermaid:

The Royal Palace

And this little guy celebrated his second birthday on the 2nd of July.  That chocolate nutella strawberry cream cake was TO DIE for.  I am making that on every birthday for now on!!

WHAT HAPPENED?

What happened to life that it got so busy.  It is the first Sunday of the month, and I'm not putting very good odds on you all getting on here!  Still, if for no one else but Mindy, I will post a few things.  I am sitting in my living room on Sunday night, July 5, watching "Glory" on TV, and listening to the sound of fireworks outside.  I hope you all had a good 4th of July.  I think I got a sense of what most of you were doing (tho some of it I had to learn through facebook/instagram-who says it isn't a good thing), and I think we're all in good shape.  Just a quick family rundown, in case you're wondering who was doing what:
1- Becky and Dave and family headed to Grand Junction, where they attended a Griffin family reunion
    at Dave's brother's home.  THey have returned to Utah, giving the trip rave reviews.  THeir numbers
    are similar to ours, tho their ages put them about 5 years ahead of us.
2- Phil and Kathryn, I hear, went to Rocky Mountain National Park.  Looks beautiful.  Details, Phil?
3-Travis and Tammy?  He checked in with me to see if the family was doing anything..when I told him     not really, he said they might head to Cedar City to Tammy's family cabin.  That's the last I heard.
4- Mindy and family were sighted in Copehagen.  Where in Europe will the Shaha's turn up next?
5- Reed and Amber went on a hike with Hyrum  in the morning, bbq'd with Amber's family in the
    evening.
6- Dennis went on a bike ride in the morning, then spent the late afternoon/evening in Kamas with the
    Engars.
7- Bonnie & Greg headed to Arizona, where they paid a visit to Greg's brother and wife.  Again, my
    best information is from posted pictures...it looks like they had a great time.
8- Mary & Trent.  I've been told it's a good thing I had lots of kids, cuz there will always be
    SOMEBODY to keep me company.  Mary & Trent were those SOMEBODIES this weekend.
    I realize I had claim on you all for a FULL WEEK in Mexico, so I am more than happy to yield to in     laws and other pursuits, but still I count myself lucky that I got Mary & Trent for part of this holiday.     I had an invitation to join my cousin Diane and her family for a trip to Payson Lake to swim, paddle       board, etc.  Mostly, it sounded good to kick back and not be in charge of anything and relax.  When       I  realized we would all be scattered this weekend, I accepted the invitation, and when I invited Mary
    and Trent to come with me, they were up for it!
9- ME!!!!  So I rented a paddle board, packed us a picnic, and we left here shortly after 10 am Saturday
    morn.  The day was great, and I was very grateful to have Mary & Trent along.  We ate, visited,
    relaxed, and played on the paddle boards.  I worked up the nerve to attempt the paddleboard in a
    standing position at the end of the day, and actually managed it, only to have a major rain storm            overtake us (Mary, Trent and me) on the lake.  Our scramble to get in to shore was a grand                    adventure, as was taking down our canopy and packing up in hard, soaking rain.  We got home and
   Mary and Trent left for a bbq with his family (thanks for the kind invite, guys), but I decided to
   spend the night at home.  I was pretty content until it got dark, and I heard fireworks all around me,
   but could see nothing for the trees.  You know how I can't stand to miss a party, so I put Buddy on a    leash, and headed to the high school field.
   On my way, I met up with some nice neighbors, and we sat together on the lawn in the middle of the
   field.  We could see fireworks all around us, some far away, and some right on top of us.  All
   beautiful, and I felt the spirit of the 4th!  I had worried a about this day....would it be hard as "special"
   days can be when they are no longer familiar or sure.  Grateful that it was good.

So that covers the 4th, and the weekend was rounded out with a dinner invitation from Dennis and Ashley today.  They had invited some neighbors for dinner, and I was asked to join them.  Wonderful meal, wonderful time.  I am surely blessed!

In other news, Phil and Kathryn are arriving Sunday,  July 19th, and will be here for two weeks.  The weekend of the 24th will be our only whole weekend with them, so save some time for gathering!

Cousins Camp will be July 28-30.  Invitations have been sent, and I have big plans for it!  Our theme this year will be WOLVES.  Mindy, you will get t-shirts and stuff in the mail.  Just cuz you're not here in real time, doesn't mean you're not in our hearts and minds.

It is way late, so that will have to be enough for tonite.  Love to all....when are we going to pool our Mexico pictures?

Update from Denver - life post Mexico!

 OK, so my July Fast Sunday post.  Before we get there, though, some fun pictures from our trip home at General Conference time.

Here are some of the older cousins...

And here is one of the youngest - with his Nana of course!

And here he is admiring Meg's hair.  Trent looks great here!  They look like Jensen's parents!

And here are the little girls.  Growing up so quickly!

 Last... here is generation 1 and part of two.  Mindy, we missed you!  Reed and Bonnie had both been there earlier in the day but we missed them at picture time.

So, I told you about this last month, I don't think I included any pics.  Here is our home on Mother's day, under 6 inches of heavy snow.  You can see branches down throughout the yard.  Our trees got hammered.  We had sold it 3 days earlier, and were renting back at that point.  It still made me sick to see the damage to the trees... but all but one of them are bouncing back pretty quickly.

Kathryn came up with the idea of us each alternating with a "date" with one of children each month - I took Neil to a fancy breakfast in May.  We had a good time - but he didn't like the Pecan's in the pancake.

In early June, before Mexico, we were invited over to some people's home in our ward.  They have a climbing wall in their garage - all three of our kids were excited to try it out and proved good, confident climbers.  Here is Josie about halfway up the wall.  She did great!

So here is Mexico.  Awesome!  We loved it.  Here we are at the top of the temple we climbed at Coba.  Can you find our #6?  Jensen is lurking behind his mom.

And here are our children with Nana overlooking the beach at Tulum.  What a great trip.

Kathryn & J as we were leaving Xelha.

Ha!  An action shot as we boarded the bus to head to the airport.  Lots of memories.  Thanks again, Mom, for your amazing generosity.

So we got home from Mexico Tuesday night.  The very next afternoon, after closing on the purchase of our new home, I drove home to pick up Neil after his Piano lesson to take him to "Twilight camp", an evening camp for Cub Scouts.  Neil was waiting outside for me and I pulled up and found him asleep on the lawn, with head and legs propped up just like this.  Amazing!  Isn't he cute?

So the next few days were crazy.  Thursday night I was supposed to begin the move.  Kathryn called at midday to say that Jensen seemed to have an infected finger, he had jammed it in a door in Mexico.  She took him to the hospital and it seemed it was causing a fever.  She took him home and gave him a bath to cool him down, but it was too late, he had a "Febrile Seizure", which is a seizure in an infant/toddler driven by high fever.  It had us concerned and I drove straight from work to the ER, but it turned out that he was fine.  He was a grumpy SOB over the next few days, however, with his finger bothering him and his temperature still frequently breaking 100 degrees.  This was our last night in our old house - he wouldn't sleep so Kathryn finally brought him to bed, I took this pic on Friday morning.  Movers came at 9am.  When I went to our "new" house at 4pm, they were just headed out.  We were "moved"!

Of course we still had a ton of stuff at our old home - odds and ends in many rooms that Kathryn meant to tackle Thursday PM and Friday while the movers moved our other boxes and our big stuff, but that she couldn't when Jensen got sick and grumpy.  So I spent Friday night and then most of Saturday emptying out our old place and then cleaning it.  I have to tell you that it is pretty darn satisfying to finish cleaning out an old residence.  It looked good when we left.  I took the kids over with me on Saturday morning and they helped out some.  While gone in Mexico our freezer hadn't shut all the way, so it had defrosted some including some bacon - which then crystals formed around the edges and thus allowed the freezer to refreeze - including the bacon freezing to the bottom of the freezer.  The kids were totally grossed out by it.  I told them I would eat it and they couldn't believe it - they said they would NEVER eat it.  Sure enough on Sunday morning I cooked pancakes and bacon in our new place and the kids wolfed it down.  When I told Sam afterwards that it was the bacon he saw frozen to the bottom of the freezer he freaked out.  It was awesome!

Moving is hard work and Mom (Nana!) came to our rescue, driving over on Sunday afternoon and bringing Lizzy.  It was the end of Father's day.  We were happy to have them arrive around 9pm.

The next day nana took charge of the kids and allowed Kathryn to tackle lots of projects around the house, getting out of boxes, etc.  Nana was unbelievable with our kids.  Thank you!  That night we had a short FHE where we talked about some other "fathers", mainly about Baba and about Papa, Nana's dad, and memories of them.  We have been blessed with some great men.

The next day, Tuesday, I had to head out on a business trip to Pittsburgh.  I was grateful that mom was able to be there for the next couple of days while I was out.  She and Lizzy drove back on Thursday morning and I got home about 7pm Thursday night.  Again, thanks Nana!

I had a meeting with MSHA, a government regulator, on Wednesday PM in West Virginia.  Let's just say that if I've mellowed out as a Libertarian in the past 10 years, in a day it pretty much brought back all my frustration.  Dealing with government entities is so unbelievably frustrating.

The only highlight was I was able to go to a Pittsburgh Pirates game that evening, here is a picture from my seat.

So, last, we thought about driving home for the 4th of July.  But we are still living out of boxes and it would have meant being on the road for a full 4 weeks.  So we stayed around this weekend (4th of July weekend).  On Friday, July 3rd, we had the day off, and we went to Rocky Mountain National Park.  Here are some great pictures from that trip.  To be honest, my Friday 7/3 and Saturday 7/4 were too pretty darn idyllic days.  highlights:

7/3:

-4 mile round trip hike to Gem Lake (many of the pictures below)

-1 mile hike at 12,400 feet at the top of the park - snowcapped mountain peaks on every side.

-Driving around the park and thinking about how beautiful it was, and how much dad would have enjoyed it.  I don't think he ever made it there.

-Kids being well behaved, for the most part.  We finished our last hike at 7pm, and didn't eat dinner until 8:15.  The kids waited patiently.  We got home at 10:15, a perfect day.

7/4: 

-8am church pancake breakfast.  I rode my bike the 4.5 miles to church (and then back)

-Spent until 2pm getting caught up on lots of projects - cleaned out cars (way overdue) for our upcoming trip to Utah, and also cleaned up our backyard.

-Rode my bike to the pool with Sam, Neil and Josie.  Swam for 1.5 hours in the local pool - so fun to be able to ride bikes there!  We had to get out for 15 min in the middle (mandatory kid break) and we played baseball in the sun.  Anything more "4th of July" than that?

-Had friends over from 4:30-9pm for grilled dinner and conversation.  kids entertained themselves.  I took them to the nearby park about 8pm and we played "rabbits" for 30 min.  They loved it.  

-Kathryn took the kids to a nearby hill at 9:30 to watch fireworks.  I cleaned up the kitchen and read in 2 Nephi.  Perfect end to the day.

Don't have good 7/4 pics but here are our pics from Rocky Mountain National park (7/3):

Gem lake:

12,400 feet, half mile walk up above the top of the pass

Family photo around Bear Lake

 Sam & Josie at Bear Lake

And K & J.  Beautiful!

I love summer!  For all of you who haven't read Mindy's blog on the jobs of summer, you should.  I read it the other day and totally feel the same way, there is something magical about this time of year.  I love being able to play with the kids outside after dinner, it is my favorite thing about these 2-3 months.

We head to California on Thursday (7/9) to attend Kathryn's 20th high school reunion on Friday.  We are there for a week before spending the next two weeks in Utah (mostly at mom's), and we finish the month by attending my 20th high school reunion (7/31).  See you all soon.  Much love, Phil