Our Fantastic, Forever Families

Where would we be without our families? Evan and I have been blessed with such awesome parents, brothers, and sisters. We wanted to share a little bit about them with you.

Jenny’s Family:

I am the fourth of six children. I have two brothers and three sisters. We range in ages from 39 to 25. I get along really well with all of them. The only problem is that we don’t see each other as often as we’d like. Now that we’re all grown up, we all live in different states. (Tennessee, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Iowa, and California) My parents live in Washington state. I am very close to my parents and talk to them a couple times a week. They are great examples to me in so many aspects of life, but especially in serving in the church, getting an education, and using blessings wisely. I don’t know where I’d be without their guidance and constant support. I’m so glad they sacrificed so much for our family and raised us the right way, even though it wasn’t always the easiest way. They will be celebrating their 40^th wedding anniversary this summer. I’m so happy our family is sealed together forever and that all of my brothers, sisters, and I have found our eternal sweethearts.

Here’s a quick run-down on my siblings:

Anne is the oldest and lives in Tennessee. She is a school librarian and I enjoy exchanging stories with her about the funny things students do.

Dave is a statistician and lives in Wyoming. He loves laughing and trying to play jokes on us. He always has a funny story to tell.

Kathy is my older sister that lives in Utah. I took some time off from college and lived with her for about a year and a half when she had triplet boys. I loved watching them grow and develop new skills. I learned a lot about parenthood from this experience. I know that it is a lot of hard work, but the blessings far outweigh the sacrifices. Kathy is a stay at home mom with a BA in English Literature.

My little sister, Debbi, has a husband who is also in podiatry school (like Evan). We like to compare their schools, classes, and to commiserate with each other when they have big tests or difficult rotations. She is also a stay at home mom. She has a BS in Communications and lives in Iowa.

“Baby Ken” lives in Colorado and is an IT specialist at a hospital. He has a good sense of humor, loves sports, and is a pretty relaxed guy.

When I get a break from school for spring break, Christmas, or the summer, I usually go visit one of my siblings and/or my parents. As a family, we try to get together for a family reunion every two years. We recently all went to Tennessee for a reunion after Christmas. (That’s why we’re all wearing scarves in my family picture.) We also try our best to get together for special events like baptisms and weddings. For some reason, we’ve had a lot more family visit us since Evan and I have moved close to the exciting city of San Francisco!

I love talking to my siblings about what my nieces and nephews have been up to. We have 13 nieces and nephews and we love it when they visit or when we get to visit them. Evan is a fantastic uncle and I am jealous that our nephews love to wrestle and hang out with him more than with me.

The best memories I have with my family are of when we were growing up and going on road trips together. This was way before the days of DVD players in cars, so we had to actually talk to each other. As a family, we went on several long road trips. My parent’s families lived in Washington state and we lived in Arkansas and Mississippi for large portions of my childhood. We have driven across the United States several times. We enjoyed (for the most part) talking to each other, singing songs, making up silly songs and games, and generally just being together. We got to see a lot of the country and I’ve always thought this was an advantage I’ve had over people who generally live and travel in the same areas their whole lives. Family road trips have also given me the chance to learn about our family history and more about my parents’ own lives as I’ve asked them questions.

Since we lived in the South before President Hinkley’s push for building many small temples, we also went on a lot of long trips so my parents could attend the temple. We learned from their example that attending the temple often was important and worth the sacrifices it took to get there. The drives were six or eight hours depending on whether we were going to the Dallas or Atlanta temple. We lived in southwestern Washington when the Seattle temple was being built and we took many trips to watch it being built and to go to the dedication. Our parents always made walking around the temple grounds a special experience for us.

Evan’s Family:

(Written by Evan)

My parents first met when they were 8 and 9 years old (my dad being 13 months older than my mom). Their families lived in the same town together and were friends for a long time. My Dad’s family moved several times because of the nature of my grandpa’s work, so my parents were never high school sweethearts or anything like that. They reconnected some time later and were married at ages 24 and 25. By this time my mom had been to BYU and earned a Bachelor's degree in Home Economics. My dad had been to a year of college, but had started working in the saw mill with my Grandpa. Dad always says he just kind of fell into the job because he didn’t have much else to do. It was a good job at the time and my Dad owned his own house by the time he married my mom.

Working in a saw mill means periodically having to move. So we moved every few years, always to a new a job and always to some small town in western Oregon or Washington. Despite the periodic disruption of moving and our family’s rather modest means, education was always very important to my parents. When I was about 10 years old my dad decided to go back to school to become a teacher. He has never really enjoyed his work in the mill and saw this as a chance to be a good influence on young people as well. So dad enrolled at OSU there in Corvallis, OR, worked nights and part time at the mill and earned a Bachelor’s degree in History with a teaching credential. It was during this time that I also developed a real love for history. My dad is a natural born story teller and I still remember him telling me stories of the Greek and Persian wars on long car trips.

Looking back at it now, it seems really unfortunate that by the time he finished, he had had such a miserable student teaching experience that he decided to go back to working in the mill. At the time, it also would have been a 40% pay cut to teach rather than work full time at the saw mill. So that is where he’s worked ever since.

My mom came from a slightly higher middle class family. Her dad was a college professor and while you wouldn’t consider my mom’s family to be rich, they never had to worry about how they were going to pay their rent. Given that background, I’m always surprised at how well my mom dealt with the years when dad was in college, working part time and trying to support 4 kids. In fact, their 5^th kid was born during that time.

Mom is a fantastic home maker and sometimes it feels like my childhood was made entirely from bottled fruit, hand-me-down clothes and homemade quilts. She never had a regular job outside the house until the time my youngest brother started going to school, and even then she started working at the school so that she would have the same hours and holidays off from work as her kids. It still amazes me how much my mom could make out of so little. Growing up it seemed like there was nothing she couldn’t fix or use in some other useful way. Mom was recycling before recycling was cool.

She always made it clear that we were all loved and wanted, but it was no secret that she always wanted a girl in the family too. Now that her boys are getting married, she makes a big deal about her daughters-in-law and particularly about her grandchildren (both of whom happen to be little girls). I’m sure it must have been tough to be surrounded by a husband and six sons for so long. Any time I tell someone that I have five brothers and no sisters, people say my mom must have been a saint, and they are right. She always did a great job organizing us into work crews and dividing up the work that needed to be done around the house, but I have to admit there were times when just getting us to do our chores was more work than the actual chore. While we never had anything that you would call a real farm, living out in the country there was always plenty of work to do. Everything from splitting and hauling firewood, feeding our animals, weeding the vegetable garden and picking berries for homemade jam. We even re-roofed our own house.

My parent’s constant insistence on obtaining a good education has lead each of their boys to attend college and pursue some type of professional training. In birth order: I am currently in my 4^th year of medical school to become a podiatrist (foot and ankle surgeon). Eric is a civil engineer working for a land development firm. Vaughn is currently attending college in Hawaii and plans to become a podiatrist, also. Avery is about to finish a BS in psychology and plans to earn a PhD and become a marriage counselor. Logan has finished his first year of college and is looking into PA and PT programs around the country. Bryce will finish high school this year and begin attending college in Idaho this fall.