People I will Never Forget

As many of you know, these wonderful ladies are not here with us anymore but they will forever touch our hearts! 

 I don't even know what to say. I could talk forever about all the amazing things they did and the big impact they had in my life. It seems unreal that they are gone, and I hate to think about how our lives will be different without them. But this time has actually been very peaceful and comforting. I know that they are where they should be, and they are so happy.

Mom served everyone. She hardly ever let me help out with dinner, because she genuinely wanted to serve others because she wanted everyone to be comfortable and happy. She loved the temple and went 2 or 3 times a week. I got to go with her and her mother for many months and I could just see the excitement and love that she had for the temple. My love for the temple grew because of her. She loved being with her family. She cried for months after Spencer and I got married because she just missed him so much. She always called months in advance to make sure we were coming to watch football games, or go out for dinner while the men go to the priesthood session. She anticipated every trip with the family. She showed so much love to me and treated me as her own daughter. I will forever miss her but it calms my heart to know that she is taking care of our sweet Calvin.

Jess made this family who they are today. They all loved her so much, included her in everything and had such a strong relationship with her. She was such an influential person. She always wanted to know what was going on and you could rely on her to get the scoop. She was such a hard worker. She got amazing grades throughout school, she put her all into her callings at church, and she did great at work. I could talk with her for hours and even then we had to make ourselves stop. She became such a great friend that I looked forward to talking to and hanging out with. A lot of her wonderful qualities came from her mother. They shared them because they spent so much time together. This family will miss both of these fun, silly, beautiful women.

Valerie, I wish I knew better. After meeting her the first time at the Christmas party, I liked her right away. She was so easy to talk with, and she seemed so comfortable with everyone. She really cared for Matt, which we all were so happy to see him with such a wonderful person. She was so beautiful and friendly to all. Spencer and I moved away, so our times of getting to know her went down. But I knew I could always ask Jess to tell me more about her. Everyone in the family only ever had good things to say about her. She is with Mom and Jess now, but she will be sorely missed here in this family.

We love you Mom, Jess and Valerie!!

Triathlon in Moab

Jackman boys competed in yet another triathlon first week in June. It was a much more rigorous trail but very pretty. They all did good and it was so fun being there to watch them. 

 Spencer took 3rd place overall and Mike took first in his age group. I could never do this ha ha.

 On the way home we found a fun arch and hiked up to it.

Japanese Sundays

After moving to Flagstaff I told Spencer that we needed to plan something special for Sundays to fill the time that we would be with family if we still lived in Utah. He mentioned making Japanese dishes and it stuck. After going there in October, many of the meals seemed not too hard to make here at home. 

We have enjoyed some yummy meals, and we documented some of them.

Okonomiyaki Hiroshima style

pancake like with meat, onions, carrots, cabbage on top of noodles, and of course all the yummy sauces. On the side we did chahan rice.

Tempura

Fried anything really. We did jumbo shrimp, onions, asparagus, and zucchini. It turned out ok, this is a lot harder than it looks. Ours were kinda wimpy. But still tasty.

 The oil you fry it in. That kinda got to my stomach after a while. 

Omuraisu

rice mixed with ketchup and ham covered in egg, topped with more ketchup. Doesn't seem Japanese to me but we saw it there a lot.

Udon Noodles

Large long noodles and you can add whatever you want. We added shrimp, mushrooms, and egg.

Sushi

And just a few weeks ago we had over one of Spencer's friends who is half Japanese and he made us sushi. It was so yummy. I didn't have any of the raw stuff. But this one under here is california roll with no meat. 

Then we make some with friend shrimp which was the best. So yummy.

 We made a ton of sushi and fried shrimp and had a fun night.

Concert in the park

Flagstaff always has things going on, especially downtown. Spencer won some tickets at work to go to this one, but I'm having a hard time remembering the name of it. It was for fun live music, local food, and local art booths. We decided to go with some friends from Spencer's work. 

Flagstaff is an interesting place. There were lots of hippies and cross-dressers at the park, so there must have been more to the festival. But, luckily we just got some yummy Greek gyros and then enjoyed El Ten Eleven, a group that Spencer and I really enjoy. We listened on our blanket and the night was so perfect.

We probably would never go again unless there was a good group playing that we really enjoyed.

Hiking in Flagstaff

Flagstaff is full of trails, even around town and right behind neighborhoods. We decided to go on one a few weeks ago and found a few fun things to take pictures of.

 The ponderosa pine trees are really interesting. I love them, but when you drive around town it looks like they were all burned a year or two ago. This picture kind of shows it but there is black in the creases and some have it a lot. It is a cool effect.

 Spencer found this ball among other things, and we kicked it on the trail all the way up and all the way back to the car. Silly but fun! The temperature was great, as most nights are here. I am really enjoying the neat things about Flagstaff.

Home projects

When we moved into our home here in Flagstaff, we were putting things up in the attic to get out of the way and Spencer found this big, old and heavy chalk board.

 It is old slate from a grandpa and uncle to their nephew/grandson and the note left on it was pretty cool.

 On the back was taped a letter which was from 1942, saying that it was a christmas gift for his son. The slate comes from a old school back east that their family went to in the 1800's.

 We both thought it was super cool. I kinda wiped it down and now it is hanging in our back TV room.

Another little project I finally finished was this little doilie table-runner.