Throwback Thursday

Linking up with Bonnie again this week for another round of retro memories...

www.thelifeofbon.com

I'm still digging through all those boxes underneath my desk.  The purging process has slowed considerably, though, as we ramp up for both a LATE family vacation and the start of the school year shortly after we return from Florida (more on that later...)  

In my digging, I came across a whole stack of pictures from a Hawaii vacation in 1981.  My parents LOVED to travel and we made some major trek every summer to national parks, beaches, campgrounds...always in the car, always with the Kenny Rogers cassette tapes, and always with stops along the way to various rock shops and roadside stands.  This particular summer, though, my parents decided that they needed to take their close friends on a trip to Hawaii.  These friends were from New York and had never been to Hawaii before, so what better tour guide than my mother who had grown up there and still had people there?  She conspired with her best friend, Irene, to put together the multi-island tour of a lifetime...and it was!  (If you've been reading here for awhile, you'll recognize Irene's name.  In 1981, I thought she was just my mom's best friend, just "Auntie Irene."  Later I found out that she was my BIRTH grandmother.  Read here and here for further clarification on that confusion.)

Irene and my mom took us around all the touristy sites on Oahu, Kauai, Maui and Hawaii.  As many times as I had been to Hawaii with Granny for summer vacations, I had never been to the outlying islands and certainly had never done any of the touristy things, so this was a whole new experience for me.   

this is the whole group of us outside a hotel waiting for my dad to pick us up

We traveled in a giant pack of six or seven at all times, which is normal for me now, but completely unnerving for 11-year old me.  When you're used to being an only child, adding even one other kid in the backseat can be a tumultuous experience.  On one of the islands, we rented a station wagon.  My parents sat in the front seat.  Their friends sat in the back.  And their 13 year old son was my traveling companion in the rear-facing backseat with two suitcases piled in between us so we wouldn't have to look at each other.  I remember thinking on that whole vacation how nice it would have been if these friends had had a daughter instead of a son.  (ugh...I despised that kid.)

Despite suffering through the close proximity of a 13 year old boy for two weeks, I thoroughly enjoyed that vacation.  It was so fun to hear my parents talk about their island home with so much pride and delight.  Their friends LOVED the trip and were overwhelmed at the beauty of the islands and the warmth of the people they met.  

Macadamia Nut Factory, Hawaii

Fern Grotto, Kauai

Diamond Head, Oahu (it's that volcano in the background)

this is a postcard, but this is what our sinks actually looked like in the hotel...I was totally impressed

Punaluu Black Sand Beach, Hawaii

I loved looking through all these old pictures and once again got completely lost in the memories of this amazing trip.  I'm so grateful that my parents decided to take their friends on that tour and to have all those memories of the wonders and sights of Hawaii ingrained in my memory.  I love that I can claim that place as my heritage.  And we look forward to re-creating that trip for our kids in the coming summers.  

Throwback Thursday

I was 17 when I graduated from high school, and wouldn't turn 18 until the following February.  I had only been driving for a year and a half, when I drove my little blue VW Rabbit ("Bunny") to Austin in August 1987 to start my freshman year at the University of Texas.  I'm shocked that my parents let me do that.  But I was so dead set on being free and getting started with my independent, parent-free life that I'm sure I didn't give them much of a choice.  I was living on campus, so technically I didn't need a car, but I wanted mine anyway.  

In that first semester, I became an expert parallel parker, squeezing Bunny into the tiniest available spots.  My previous car had been a 1976 Chevy Caprice (think: very large boat with wheels) so Bunny was a breeze! 

When I applied for dormitory housing the spring before I graduated, there was a tiny little mix-up and they assigned me to a men's dorm.  My maiden name was George and with my uncommon first name, they just assumed I was a boy.  I was notified by mail sometime in June that George Haunani would be heartily welcomed into Roberts Dormitory in the fall with a roommate named James or Jack or something more masculine than was acceptable to my conservative parents.  (eek!)  Phone calls were made, new letters were sent, and in August of that year, I walked into my reassigned female dormitory with an adorably cute roommate named Jennifer Brown.  

We were instantly best friends.  She was from Houston, too.  She played the piano.  She talked incessantly.  She loved Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith.  And she was bubbly and outgoing...the perfect complement to my tentative, cautious personality.  

Jennifer and I quickly made friends with the two girls next door, Tamara and Gail, and we were inseparable for the next four years.  

Jennifer and I spent almost every free hour in Tamara and Gail's room.  Jennifer was a complete mess, so our room was never as inviting as theirs.

We ate together, studied together, went to football games, shopped on the weekends, and socialized with our companion dorm (which, coincidentally, was that Roberts dorm I had previously been assigned to.)

Spring dance with Roberts dorm

Co-ed softball with Roberts dorm.  I was so pitifully uncoordinated that they let me keep score.  :)

Halloween party with...yep...Roberts.  Sheesh...with 49,000 people on that campus, you'd think we would have branched out a little more.  

We were all so different, but so compatible.   Tamara was a Marine Biology major.  Gail was a Mechanical Engineering major.  Jennifer was a music major.  And I filled in all the gaps for us.  I was a Psychology, then Architecture, then Oceanography major until I finally settled on Elementary Education with a minor in music and Latin.  That either makes me sounds really impressive or really flighty...I'll let you decide.  :)

I loved these girls and could not have asked for a nicer group to help me make that transition from sheltered teenager to independent adult.  I was so excited to leave home and start my own life, but I really had no idea how to do that.  Neither did they.  We learned together and made tons of mistakes, but we all came out of it relatively unscathed.  We saw each other through mounds of homework and finals, boyfriends, heartbreaks, questionable parties, student teaching and summer internships.  We stayed friends through the whole thing...and we all graduated!  

Tamara's graduation party in 1991

my graduation...a year later

Tamara's wedding. She married one of those Roberts Dorm boys!
And that's Gail and I in the mass of flowered fabric. (sigh...80s bridesmaids dresses...)

Throwback Thursday

Do you know what my favorite show was when I was a little girl?  

Well, I had a lot of favorites.  I loved the Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family and The Monkees, and The Donny and Marie Show!  I was definitely a TV girl.  

But the show that would capture my complete and total attention for a whole hour and launch me back in time to the 1800s was LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE.  Melissa Gilbert made me want to wear calico dresses, call my parents Ma and Pa, and punch Nellie Oleson in the face.  I remember being really little and watching this every Wednesday night.   I dressed up as Laura Ingalls for Halloween one year.  And I devoured the entire series of Little House books one summer...which I still own and which my children have since devoured.  

This summer, Megan and I were talking about old TV shows and she remembered watching Little House in syndication when we lived in Utah.  Just before dinner every afternoon, the girls would sit in front of the TV just as captivated as I was at their age.  

We found the whole series on DVD at the library, so we decided to check out each season one at a time and spend our lazy summer days watching ALL of them!  Today we watched Disc 1, Season 1. 

And you know what!  I actually think I love this family more now than I did in 1974.  I cried during episode 2 when Ma made TWO blue dresses for Mary and Laura out of her beautiful fabric.  (...sniff)  

And even after almost 40 years, I still kinda wanted to punch Nellie Oleson in the face.  

Throwback Thursday

I love summer.  I love that the sky is always blue.  I love staying up late and then sleeping in the next morning.  I love lazing around reading all the books I don't have time for during the school year.  I love watermelon.  I love the smell of grilled dinners.  I love road trips.  

But the thing I love most about summer is WATER...

lake water...

pool water...

beach water...

sand mixed with water...

It doesn't really matter to me.  I just love that the summer makes all that water a little more accessible.  I look forward to lots of watery activities in the next few months!

Sisters

I did not grow up with siblings.  So things like sharing, contention, fairness, competition and rivalry are a mystery to me.  

Last week we had a few challenges with sisterly love in our house.  Not everyone wanted to include ALL of their sisters in their fun ideas.  Not everyone was very nice to their sisters when they had to include them anyway.  And not all the sisters in our house were being very agreeable.  

Some privileges were taken away.  Some sisters were grounded indefinitely.  Some sisters were threatened with potential roommates if they didn't figure out how to love EVERYONE in their family pretty darn quick!  (It's all I could think of...thank goodness I didn't have to follow through on that one...I had visions of the fish incident happening on a much larger scale!)

This week has been much better.  Long lectures on love at home have been given.  Reins have been tightened.  People have come to their senses.  And sisterly love abounds once again.

I thought I'd post evidence (since it's Throwback Thursday) that they love each other more than they frustrate each other, that it was actually a good idea to have more than one child, that they're learning good lessons from this sisterly experience, and that eventually they'll be friends.  

"She is your mirror, shining back at you with a world of possibilities.  She is your witness, who sees you at your worst and best, and loves you anyway.  She is your partner in crime, your midnight companion, someone who knows when you are smiling, even in the dark.  She is your teacher, your defense attorney, your personal press agent, even your shrink.  Some days, she's the reason you wish you were an only child." - Barbara Alpert

Throwback Thursday

This is one of my favorite pictures EVER of Craig's family.  It's is an outtake, but it's the one I have hanging in our family gallery because I think it's more genuine than the one where we all look posed and ready.  I love that it shows how effortless it is when we're together.  I love that Craig is laughing with his brothers.  I love that two of them are looking at their wives.  And I love that my friend, Shalon, who took this picture, captured this moment.  

I can totally remember everything about this day.  We were at the end of our month long trip to Utah in July 2011.  We had asked the people who own this property if we could take our family picture there, and we dragged the ENTIRE family and a photographer up there to do it.  It was a perfect summer day in Mendon...but really, everything after May is pretty much perfect there.  I remember how the air smelled, how the breeze felt, what the gorgeous Wellsville mountains looked like in the distance.  And while we took this picture, the kids were all standing around having their own happy cousin connections.  

I also happen to love that this picture was taken when I was at my happy weight.  That weight comes and goes for me.  But this picture proves that it isn't that far away, that it's very attainable, and that I'm happiest when I'm at that weight.  

Throwback Thursday

I went with another random selection today from the iCloud for tbt.  My mouse scrolled and scrolled and happened to stop at September 2009.

One day, in the middle of the fall, the Scout Master and his brother decided to take all the cousins (minus Flowering Buttercup) to Antelope Island.  Those two are impulsive and adventurous like that.  They can cook up a snow cave expedition or a hike for the kids or a fishing trip in a matter of minutes.  They're pretty fun dads.  I packed a picnic lunch and loaded five kids into the van, and off they went for a day long adventure.  They spent the entire afternoon hiking, exploring, wading in the warm water, and bonding.

yikes!  is that my baby up on that giant rock????

Do you know what I thought about when I looked at these pictures?  I could not believe how much these cousins have changed in 4 years!  But, as grown up as they've gotten and as smart as they're becoming, they still LOVE being together.  It doesn't happen as much as we would like, but when it does, it's bliss for everyone.  These guys are more than cousins...they're FRIENDS.  I love that our 7 years in Utah seared in all of us that eternal bond.  I love these kids so much.  

 And I SUPER LOVE their adventurous dads!