Ann's Words

Claire’s little family decided to fly in for the 4th of July–a big one this year, celebrating 250 years since the colonies declared their independence from Great Britain to create the United States.  Tomorrow is a big family celebration in Alpine.  Today was the calm before the storm and I hung out with Caleb at the Farm House.  I am slowly turning the Farm House into a Grandma House, filled with children’s books, games, puzzles and toys.  We’ve decided not to rent it again, but to keep it available to us and the family for comings and goings.

This afternoon Claire and I started prepping a salad she is making for the party tomorrow.  We ended up buying 27 ears of fresh corn, tripling this recipe about twice.  We’re expecting about 50 people to come to the Lewis Family Gathering.

This is a recipe worth keeping.  It was delicious!!

Fresh Corn Relish Salad
4 large ears of fresh corn
1 ½ c. diced bell pepper
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1 c. English cucumber
½ c. red onion
1/3 c. fresh cilantro
3/4 c. fresh Cotija cheese
Fresh parsley

Dressing:
3 T avocado oil
1/4 c. lime juice
2 T. Red wine vinegar
1 T. Honey
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 tsp. Salt
1 tsp dried Parsley (fresh above instead)
½ tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. Garlic powder
1/4 tsp. Chili powder

We also made homemade ice cream for the party.

Caleb LOVES helping in the yard and wearing his work gloves.

After our visit to St. Louis, we returned to Orem and went to check on the new house, to see what changes had been made.  The walls are going up and the view of Mt. Timpanogos is Spectacular!

Every day from now on was filled with packing and moving.  We had lots of repairmen coming and going, fixing this and that.  We had the windows washed and cleared all the floors to have the carpets cleaned.  We filled more boxes and stacked more in the garage.  We have been filling the Farm House garage and upstairs.  Things are filling up!

That sofa in our master bedroom now holds most of my finished quilts.  It will stay that way until we can move them into the new house later.

We enjoyed a wonderful Sabbath with the kids.

From my journal:  Church here is at 9:00.  We filled our row with all the kids and saw people we remember from other visits.  Father’s Day wasn’t mentioned in the talks, but they handed out chocolate bars and then cinnamon rolls to all the men.  In Primary, Josie gave the Article of Faith and Clark gave a talk (we prepared on the way to the graduation last night).  He talked about David and Jonathan’s friendship and what a blessing friends can be in our lives.  He said he was grateful for his friends here and he was glad none of their dads tried to kill him.  It was a great talk.

Then we slipped into Adam’s Gospel Doctrine Class.  He’s been the teacher since about the first of the year and I can tell the class members have loved him.  Today was his last time teaching.  Next Sunday is their last week here.  The members here will be really sad to see this family go.  They have really contributed to the ward.  And word is getting out that Heidi is pregnant again.

On Monday we took the kids to Suson Park.  The kids had a great time with lots of farm animals–cows, horses, goats, sheep, pigs, turkeys, chickens and ponds with ducks.  We spent a few hours there with the kids touching and petting and feeding them.  Then we went to the playground area and the kids played.  Heidi takes them out somewhere every day.

This evening Clark had a baseball game.  We took them out to Burger King before the game to relieve Heidi of preparing a meal.  They’ve packed up a lot of their food like we have.

Clark is such a good athlete. He plays up one grade, so he’s the youngest one out there (also the tallest). He plays 1st base and he had some great catches and throws this evening. I felt really proud watching him. He also got on base each time he was up to bat. These little boys are very good at stealing bases. They are really fun to watch. Heidi said the coach, George, coaches several different sports and this same group of boys move from one sport to the next, so they’ve become really good friends. Clark will be really sad to leave them.

We leave tomorrow morning early.  I think the flight is at 8:00.  Ad will take us on his way to work.  He works until the end of the month, then he’s done.  The new job in PG starts Aug 25th.

We have 2 weeks to finish moving our of our home.  Adam’s family will leave here on July 7th and arrive in Orem July 8th.  Yikes!  These last 4 months have gone by in a flash!

This evening we celebrated Adam.  After 5 years of Medical School in Kansas City and 4 years of residency here in St. Louis, he has completed his medical training.  He is Dr. Adam Lewis, Ophthalmologist.  I still can’t spell that word.  “Eye Surgeon” is so much easier.

From my journal:

This event was for the 4 graduating Residents: Adam, Michael from Syria, Matthew from Korea and Vivian from Vietnam.  Their visiting parents were all immigrants.  The 2nd and 3rd year Residents were also there and the Attendees (teaching professor doctors)–about 10 of them.

We had a nice Mediterranean buffet meal at 7:00, then the program started after we’d eaten.  Each Resident was introduced by a faculty Attendant.  Adam was introduced by Dr. Cruz, who said if he had one word to describe Adam, it would be “faithful.”  Not particularly in a religious way, although Adam is a religious person.  He said Adam was faithful to his work, to his patients, to his beliefs and especially to his family, always putting them first.  I think Adam was the only one in the room who had a bunch of children.  Most are single, one or two were newly married.  We got to meet all the other residents.  They’ve become close friends through these last 4 years.  And we learned more as each was introduced by the faculty member of their choice.

After the introductions of the Residents, some special awards were given.  The first was for research.  The second was for patient relations (Adam was awarded that last year as a 3rd year).  The last award was for the Outstanding Resident:  Adam Lewis.  We were Very Proud.  Wow.  Adam has done so well.  We quickly saw when we arrived that everyone in the room loved Adam.  He’s just such a good guy.  Everyone thanked us for raising such a good son.  After the awards, they had a slide show of photos of each of the residents, Adam first.  He’d asked me for photos from his life several weeks ago, and those were added to with pics of his 4 years here.  It was so fun for the others to see other parts of his life.

After that, the evening was over.  We stayed for photos and visiting and well-wishing.  It was such a fun evening.  I really enjoyed Clark watching how everyone treated Adam.  And his face was in the slide show several times.  I think he felt pretty important and grown up.  He was the only kid there (the little ones weren’t invited).  We had a really wonderful evening meeting Adam’s world.

Adam Lewis, Outstanding Resident.

Below are random photos of sorting, organizing and packing to move out of our beloved home.  These are just a few memories capturing what a big job it is to thin out our lives.

Above is the bulletin board from Aaron’s room, still in tact.  He doesn’t seem to want to keep his Scouting knots.

Below are books to donate.

From under Aaron’s bed:  Santiago Mission treasures.

Books to donate:

My sewing room:

Fabric donations:

Claire’s room coming apart:

I found a cassette tape boom box!

From my childhood:

So many old games to donate:

Now, where to put all of the boxed things we’ll take with us??  We are filling up our garage and the Farm House garage.  We are trying to make this move without paying for a storage unit.  We will be able to leave some things in the house until the final move this Fall.

A load for Deseret Industries:

International Magazines featuring an article I wrote about my experiences in Nigeria:

Bins of toys to wash and sort:

The garage is filling!

A vintage Tupperware toy, given to a friend.

My sewing room grows in the garage.

Garage shelves being emptied.

We are thinning out SO MUCH old media.  VHS tapes, DVDs, CDs, books on CD, oh my!

Does anybody can anymore??

Why do we have 5 tripods??

Some memories I’m uncovering are sad ones.  I kept the pregnancy tests from my 6 miscarriages.  Now I just have these pics and a mended heart.

Oh, the hours and hours we listened to these cassette tapes of Harry Potter on road trips!

Adam’s drawer in the family room:

Aaron’s drawer in the family room:

It took me several days to sort and organize 35 years of bows, wrapping paper, gift bags and boxes (I never parted with a useful one).  I kept a few things for me and for Heidi, but a full carload was donated to the United Way for Sub for Santa giving.

Going to the United Way:

Memories of our return from Yakima:

Every week we take carloads of things to Deseret Industries and books to Pioneer Book in Provo.  Wow, we have a lot of stuff we don’t need or use.  It’s feeling good to thin it out.

This is the comic that is in my mind continually.  We keep telling ourselves that we are doing this for the kids–it’s a labor of love.  It’s just really a lot of hard emotional work.

And in the meantime, our new place is being prepared.

This morning we had some adventures in downtown St. Louis.  Adam and Heidi and the kids took us to the St. Louis Arch.

From my journal:

We had an appointment at the Arch Museum at about 11:00.  First we went to watch a 20 min. documentary film about how they built the Arch.  The monument is a symbol of the role STL played in western expansion during the 1800s.  The Arch is 630 feet tall and 630 feet wide.  The Arch is designed to withstand earthquakes and lightening strikes and designed to sway up to 18″ in a 150 mph wind.  There are 1,076 steps in each arch leg.  On a clear day visitors can see up to 30 miles.  Construction began on 12 Feb 1963 and completed on 28 Oct 1965.

We walked through the museum and looked at the covered wagon and the handcart.  We looked at a teepee and Indian things.  We learned more about the Arch and we waited for our 1:00 ticket time to go up in the Arch.  We rode up in small elevators that held 5 people.  By now Adam had joined us from work.  Margot said the ride was kind of scary because she thought we were going to go upside down.  Clark worried that we would run out of air.  Josie worried that we’d get stuck or locked in the little elevator cars.  There there was no way to look out as we went up, but when we got to the top, we got out of the cars and looked out some small windows.

We saw STL down below and the Mississippi. The windows up there were small. We got to stay up on top for about 8-10 minutes. A second set of elevator cars came up the other leg of the Arch. It took about 4-5 minutes to go up and about 3 to come down.

We spent a little more time in the Museum after that. We watched a 3D virtual history about the docks at STL in the early 1900s for about 10 min. Then we left the Museum and walked down to the water where the river boats docked. Our tickets included a 1 hour boat ride up and down the Mississippi. The chairs on the 3 decks quickly filled, so we sat inside and listened to the captain tell us things about the history of STL. It was interesting but the kids were more fun. Mark Twain’s town is about 160 miles upriver from where we were.

We know the kids are excited to move to Utah, but they are also sad to leave this place.  They have loved it here and they’ve made so many good friends.  They will make good friends wherever they go.

Adam is graduating from his Residency program in St. Louis this week, so we hopped on a flight and headed to STL.  This evening was pretty exciting.  We started with dinner at our favorite Teppanyaki place near their home.  The kids love the food and the entertainment.  That would’ve been enough excitement for one evening, but no–there was MORE!

Once were were back at their scarcely furnished home, Heidi had prepared a Scavenger Hunt for the kids, with clues hidden all over the house.  Vivy opened the last clue that took them to a gift bag in the back of the van.  She pulled out a strip of ultrasound pictures showing a little baby growing in Heidi’s tummy!!  Another baby is coming to this beautiful family!!

After the big announcement came the gender reveal.  Clark had been let in on the baby secret a few weeks ago, but no one knew the gender.  Heidi brought out some pink and blue cupcakes for the kids to bite into to see what color cake was in the centers.

Clark, of course, hoped for a boy, but he was still pretty excited for the girls to have another sister.  He simply said, “I’ll just have to wait another 2 years!”

What welcoming news we received today in STL!  We are thrilled.  Claire’s baby is due in September.  Heidi’s is due in November.  Our little family is growing.  YAY!!

The more we sort and thin and pack, the more detached we feel from our home of 33 years.  But still, it’s our beloved home and we love it here.  We are Thrilled Adam’s family is coming, but we are sad to leave this place.

Today we celebrate Aaron’s 31st birthday.  He spent his entire life here, in this beautiful place.  Here’s a pic of him celebrating in Salt Lake:

I’m thinking about Heidi and Adam in St. Louis, packing up THEIR home, getting ready to move here.  They have had to move most of their things into storage to show the house. After the open house, they had several good offers.  The sale went quickly and smoothly.  Now their attention is turned toward getting the family to Orem.

I took these photos of our yard today to send to them, to help excite them about coming.  They really will be stepping into a paradise.  I’m really happy that, for the summer while our house is built, we will be living right next door in the Farm House.

This is the arbor leading from our back yard to the Farm House nextdoor.

All of our kids have taken turns living in the Farm House.  Now it will be our turn.  I’m looking forward to it!

Here’s another batch of photos of the sorting and thinning and organizing.  It took us several days to work through all the cupboards and drawers filled with media.  Every move and every CD had memories attached.  Below is Classical Barbara, the music we listened to on our first date as we went for dinner up in the Provo Canyon.  John sang along with Barbara in perfect French.  I was impressed.

We don’t use CDs anymore.  All this beautiful music and nowhere to play it.

Another load going to Deseret Industries.

These old balls have been in our garage for years.  Why is it so hard to get rid of useless things??  Each of these balls is a memory, a part of who we were.

Aaron dropped by to take some things from his bedroom.

He has less room to store his treasures than we have.  He took a few books.  I’ll find a place to keep the rest until he’s got more space.

Claire’s 2 harps are here.  What do we do with them??  This was her first harp.  Oh, the music she played on these beautiful instruments!

Our COVID masks from Africa.  Memories.

Snowboards no longer used.

Clearing out spaces in the garage that haven’t seen the light of day in YEARS.

Sorting through games and pieces.  John counted every single card deck.

Plates from my growing up years.

Grandma Elsa’s everyday dishes.

My mother’s dishes:

Mom’s bean casserole dish:

John’s mother’s pot:

A Jack Foreman grill to give away:

Another trip to Deseret Industries:

Old stereo equipment from our bedroom:

Old stereo equipment from the family room:

A drinking cup that hung on an outdoor faucet at Grandma’s house:

A dress I’m guessing Grandma Elsa wore on her honeymoon to America in 1929:

These old suitcases have been displayed at the top of the stairs for many years, reminding us of how we traveled when we were young.  These belonged to our parents.  I donated them to a local theater company who loves receiving vintage pieces for their productions.

A good deal of my closet, thinned out:

Extra kitchen pans:

Extra feather comforters and pillows:

Too many coathangers:

A box from Mary Ellen’s mother’s chocolates:

A recipe holder one of the boys made for me in Cub Scouts:

Personal pizza pans for Heidi:

Why do I have so many spreaders??

John spent a week cleaning out his workbench and shop area in the garage.

So many boxes of books to donate!

My Mom’s Spritz gun, used every year at Christmas:

Sorting through piles and piles of piano music, choir music, sheet music, harp music:

Water storage bottles to empty:

We also took plenty of food from our food storage to the Food Bank in Provo.

These are my South Africa Mission shoes.  I wore them every day for 19.5 months.  They were worn through on the bottom.

This is an immersion heater that I used when I lived in the BYU dorms (we had no microwaves).  We heated water for hot chocolate and Lipton chicken noodle soup with this plug-in heater.

Stuff to take to Deseret Industries.  A box of LP Records.  More canning jars.  More STUFF.

Gift bags, enough to last until the Millennium.

One of my Grandma Elsa’s kitchen tools:

Another trip to Deseret Industries:

A piece of fabric from the curtains that hung in our old Reedley farm house in the 1960s.

My Ziggy poster.  It went with me to South Africa and to Nigeria.  It’s just as meaningful for me now as it was then.