"Journey to the Center of the Earth," the movie!

Dean and I just saw the movie, "Journey to the Center of the Earth!" And we both had to agree that it was one of the best we've seen in a very long time. Unfortunately for us, we didn't see it in 3-D. I'm sure that would have been quite thrilling! (Of course, for me with only one eye to view anything, 3-D would have been wasted on me!) Dean was especially excited, because it was filmed in Iceland and he was familiar with the area.

So, if you haven't gone to see the movie yet, go! I'm sure you will enjoy it. Oh, and you ought to check out the website for Audience Alliance! I am a member and get their newsletters all the time. They are all for family-friendly films and will soon be releasing "Broken Hill" (which may be renamed -- we, as members get to pick the name!) Next up for them is their release of "Christmas Jar" (which was one of my favorite books!) Check out their website: AudienceAlliance.com.

Enjoy your summer. Oh, yes -- Rich: Happy Birthday tomorrow! And Heather: Happy Birthday August 2nd. Love you guys@

Travelers from "The Center of the Earth"

The travelers (Dean, Billy and Eliot) are home from their journey to Iceland. They even visited an area close to the volcano where Jules Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" was filmed many moons ago. They had an amazing trip, brought back a "bazillion" pictures and souveniers and memories that will last a lifetime. I am posting some of their pictures here for you to enjoy! Here, you can see one of the towns they visited and a horse-back-riding excursion on Iceland's native horses.

They visited typical mud-turf houses in the back country, saw hundreds of waterfalls, tried to "eat" the big marshmallow/hay bails, and stood under perfect rainbows! Of course, Billy had to "play" on the sculptures! Dean got a perfect picture of a Puffin. Isn't he cute? Lastly, is the map of the entire island -- and in 2 1/2 weeks, they drove around the whole thing (including some of the fingers poking out!)

I'm glad to have them home. I should have taken a picture of Dean before he shaved his 2 1/2 week growth beard! He looked like a regular mountain man! (Or I should say, "Viking" from the North Country!)

Beyond Salt Lake City

First, before I begin our journey beyond SLC, let me clear up a couple of questions. We left Lodi in the fall of 1961 (right after Halloween) and moved to Salt Lake City. This was an interesting move, because I was pregnant with Debi and a moving company took all of our belongings and we drove a big International Harvester "jeep", pulling our little Simca (foreign car). We stayed in a motel for 3 days while w looked for a rental. We found a cute little house on 3020 South, and so began our sojourn in SLC.

With that cleared up, now it is 1966 and time to say good-bye to the home we loved for 5+ years. We were very lucky and sold our house for $25,000, which gave us a little money to travel back to Illinois. We had to store most of our furniture in my folks garage in Santa Monica (that was a trip to remember). The Harvey's, who lived around the corner from us in SLC, took our piano. She was happy to have one in the house to play.

So, the first of September, we were off across country to Champaign/Urbana, Illinois, where Gerry would be furiously working on his Doctorate Degree in Clay Mineralogy. These were anxious days and both of us were at the same time anxious and excited! We traveled through country that I had never seen before. We went through Colorado, Missouri, across the Mississippi River into Illinois, then north to Champaign. Our first year was spent in Student Housing. We lived for a year in a 2-bedroom apartment that held 3 children in one bedroom and Gerry and I and JerriAnne in the second bedroom. These were hard times, fun times, learning times and learning-to-go-without times. In retrospect, they were probably 3 of the best years of our lives!

The first year, while Gerry worked as a Student-Assistant (to help pay the bills), I took in baby sitting. Then, I got a job on campus in the Traffic Control department, as a stenographer for a very busy PhD Candidate. It was a fun job. I got to set up a library for him for all of his publications. That was challenging for me, because I didn't know a thing about setting up a library. Mostly, I just typed up catalog cards. Oh, what I would have given for a computer system way back then. Non-existent!

Gerry was learning a lot, too. He quickly mapped out his dissertation project and set to work on it right away. He also had to take French and German and translate scientific publications in his field from French and German to English. He did a great job and we had some wonderful discussions on how really similar some things are in all languages.

We had so many wonderful experiences while we lived in the mid-west. We took all of the kids (including my little sister, Patty) on a trip to the east coast through many of the Church History sights there. We saw Kirtland, Ohio; Niagara Falls; Palmyra: the Hill Cumorah; Vermont and Joseph Smith's Birthplace; the beach on the coast of Maine; Plymouth Rock; New York City and all of the exciting sites there; Washington, DC; and other sites. We did all of this in 2 1/2 weeks pulling a pop-up trailer/tent. We camped all the way and loved every mile of the trip. The kids came home with many memories. (At least the older ones did.)

We traveled south to Alabama to visit Gerry's brother, George in Huntsville. We went to Kentucky and saw where they held the Kentucky Derby. It is beautiful country. We stopped to see friends from college on the way and had another wonderful trip.

On a trip home for the summer, we went through Nauvoo and saw all of the sights there. I remember the jail at Carthage, a huge hole in the ground where the Temple used to be, the homes, shops and streets where our pioneer Saints lived. JerriAnne and I made a trip back to Nauvoo in 2004 and it is so different. Where there was a hole in the ground, there now stands a beautifully re-built Temple. We loved walking from our motel at night to the Temple grounds and could see lightning bugs lighting up the lawns everywhere.

All too soon (not soon enough for Gerry), we finished what we had come to Illinois to accomplish -- Gerry received his PhD in Clay Mineralogy after a lot of hard work and sleepless nights -- and we packed up our two cars (the old Ford Station Wagon, and my new Ford Mustang), pulled a U-Haul trailer behind the Station Wagon, and headed to California.

Come along for the ride, next time...

Salt Lake City House

I had a request for a "picture" of the house in Salt Lake City that Gerry and I built way back in 1961. The only picture I have of that house is in my head, so I drew a picture (rough as it is!) to post here. It was sort of a western rendition of a colonial. If you travel anywhere in the Salt Lake or Utah Valleys, you will see a lot of this floor plan. It was very popular in the '60's. I hope you can get an idea of what it looked like, since I don't have a picture. I really feel bad that we didn't take pictures of our first house. I remember blue shutters, but there may not be any shutters -- maybe I just wanted them! I couldn't duplicate the color of the brick, just think of it as the color of golden blonde hair!

I lost a friend today!

No one likes to receive or give bad news, but as sure as we live, sadness will come into our lives on numerous occassions. Another of my far too young friends passed away yesterday because she probably wasn't treated properly or soon enough for Pancreatitis. It is too common of a story! Pancreatitis is deadly!

She called me on Wednesday to tell me that she was in the hospital awaiting news about an upcoming surgery to remove her gallbladder. That's a simple enough procedure for a healthy person, but with her complications, it was just too much for her sick little body to fight back -- and now she is gone. She went into complete system failure and the family made the most difficult of decisions yesterday to take her off of life support.

I will miss her terribly. We have been friends for only a few short years, but she touched my life so incredibly deeply. I shall ever be grateful that our paths crossed and that we could share such an amazing friendship.

Good-bye, dearest friend, Verna Starr. Shine brightly wherever you are! I will keep the memory of you and our friendship with me forever -- and we shall meet again!

Check out my Slide Show!

And on and on it goes...

I think one of the reasons that I started this particular "journey" thing, was to review all of the moves that I have made in my life time. Now, let me see, where was I? Oh yes, I believe it was the move to Salt Lake City!

Now that was an adventure if ever we had one! We actually were there for five whole years! AND, we built our first house. We were renting a little 2-bedroom house in a nice little cul-d'sac, and I was expecting baby #3, (Debi). We knew we would need something bigger, so we started looking. We looked all over the valley with a Real Estate friend of ours (from BYU days) and got some ideas of the floor plan we liked, but we really didn't want to move from the East Bench where we were. We liked our Ward and our Bishop and had made some amazing friends.

We started asking around and found out that the owners of a huge pie-shaped lot right across the street from us might be available. And lo, and behold, we found the owner and yes, they would sell. We got it for a steal! $3500.00! It was a 1/3 acre lot. The next step was to get the plans to the floor plan that we liked and find a builder. All of that took some time, but by spring, we were ready to build!

One of the cool things about the house, was that Gerry got to use the new "blonde" brick that he had developed (found the clay and sand and developed the color) for Gladding-McBean (now Interpace Brick). It was gorgeous and there was nothing like it anywhere in the area! Our floor plan was a two complete level house with a split level entry. It had columns in the front and had they been turned columns, it would have looked like something out of the south! We had three bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, a kitchen with a dining area and a living room (with a fireplace) upstairs; and in the sub-basement level, (which was unfinished for a while) were 3 more bedroom spaces, a huge family/game/storage room (also with a fireplace), a laundry room and my cousin (Vance) finished a third bathroom for us. It was 2,200 sf of wonderful space -- and we were able to build it for just over $16,000.00!
(Boy, where have those days gone?)

We had our fourth baby (JerriAnne) while we lived in that house! Gerry and I were very busy in the Church, me in the Young Women's (I did just about everything!) and he in the Elder's Quorum (he was President!) We loved to attend the Temple, go on picnics in the canyons, ski in the many ski areas, and go on vacation back to California.

Gerry sort of got tired of Interpace, and so went to night school (BYU extension) and took a Calculus class -- getting ready to apply for a Doctorate program somewhere. That class helped boost his confidence and so we started writing letters. I think we must have written letters to everywhere in the country! In the summer of 1966, we got theanswer he was waiting for and he was accepted to University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana, Illinois. Now, we had to sell the house!

More to come...

Is Anybody Out There?

I'm beginning to feel like these Coy Fish -- swimming around in circles and not getting anywhere and it really doesn't matter whethere anybody pays much attention to me or not -- I still just swim and swim and swim!

Oh, well! I'll just keep writing, because it is a nice way to post my life's events and keep a mini journal! I found out today that I can print my posts and so I am starting a "Blogger Notebook."

Have a happy day and don't get too dizzy with me swimming around in circles!