Sunday, July 31, 2016

Our Family History Staycation

A STAYCATION is ...

just as fun as a vacation
lots of eating out
no cleaning
no packing
sleeping in your own bed instead of paying for hotel rooms

Add family history to your staycation and it's even better!  

A few months ago we started brainstorming.  We decided we needed four days of staycation ... one day for each of our four family tree branches.  It wasn't hard to think of activities that we could do in honor of each branch.  Here's what we came up with:


DAY 1: GREENHALGH DAY

Our Greenhalgh family is from Nephi, Utah, in the shadows of beautiful Mt. Nebo.  Years ago, Uncle Wes built a cabin hidden in the forest on Mt. Nebo, and it's a good hike (you just have to be a Greenhalgh to know how to get there)!  




We hiked to the cabin, and then enjoyed a nice dinner in the canyon with some of our Greenhalgh cousins.  Guess what we ate?  


Obviously, it was Great-Grandma Greenhalgh's "Cowboy Delight" and cake.  That's what she would have served.  On our way home, we took a few rocks and flowers from Nebo down to Great-Grandma & Grandpa's grave in Nephi.


DAY 2: LOSEE DAY

Our Losee's lived in Provo, Utah, and Grandpa Losee was a professor at BYU.  We started the day by delivering some Lehi flowers to his grave (Grandpa grew up in Lehi, which is where we now live!) 


We stopped by the BYU Creamery for lunch and ice cream before heading to Seven Peaks Waterpark for the afternoon (we completely justified this activity for Losee Day by remembering how much our grandma loves swimming).  


Some of our cousins joined us and we had so much fun we didn't even take any pictures at the waterpark!  But here you can see that we enjoyed an amazing dinner at the Brick Oven restaurant afterwards.  It's good to be a Losee.


DAY 3: HARDMAN DAY

Grandpa & Grandma Hardman joined us on this amazing day of our staycation.  We traveled to a cemetery we've never been to before, and we found the graves of Grandpa's grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandmother!


From there we traveled to the middle of nowhere.  In honor of our many ancestors who traveled to Utah by train, and because some of our Hardman ancestors actually worked on the railroad, we visited Golden Spike national historic site.  The steam engines were awesome!



After a nice picnic, we journeyed to the Hill Air Force Base museum to admire other awesome machines.  Engineer Grandpa (who works for Boeing at HAFB) made a great tour guide.



To finish off Hardman Day, we found a hole-in-the-wall "chippy", The Little Taste of Britain.  Since Hardmans are British, we thought we'd give it a shot.  We can recommend the fish & chips, but we certainly cannot recommend the Steak & Kidney Pie (that must be a British tastebud that is NOT passed through the generations).


DAY 4: BISCHOFF DAY

A few of our Bischoff pioneers settled the beautiful town of Midway, Utah.  On our way to visit their graves, we enjoyed a picnic in Provo Canyon and watched dad demonstrate his fly-fishing skills (that's a Bischoff trait, for sure!)




We boarded the Heber Creeper that afternoon and enjoyed the area via old train car.  



And what's a trip to Heber Valley without stopping at Dairy Keen for a milkshake?  We sure needed it after the un-air-conditioned train ride and four big days!  



Sunday, July 17, 2016

Worldwide Indexing Event 2016

Did you participate in the FamilySearch indexing event this weekend? There's still a few hours left to participate!

Indexing is a great service project, and kids can do it! (But we keep mom close by for help reading tricky handwriting).
This weekend we helped to index Kentucky marriage records, World War II draft registration cards (these are fun because they give a detailed physical description of each person), and UK Probate abstracts (that's a good project if you don't want to read handwriting ... It's typed!)
A few tips for kid-indexers:
1. Index with a buddy that can help you read the records.
2. It's okay to index just a few names at a time (some batches are pretty big for kids, but your work will be saved even if you don't complete the whole page).
3. Have a bowl of candy close by.
4. Think about the people you're indexing and what life may have been like for them.
5. Enjoy the unusual names and information you discover.
Nathan just indexed a marriage record. The bride was 14 years old ... Nathan's age. Crazy!
Handwriting can be a challenge. Nathan just said "Why did people write so weird back then?" and "These people are so old they didn't know how to write." But if you've made it through 3rd grade cursive class, you've got some handy skills. Just do your best and ask your parents or a friend for their opinion on the tricky spots.

Even though indexing can be a challenge, it can also be fun, so give it a try! #TheWorldsRecords


Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Amazing Family Reunions

Warning: by the time you read this post you'll wish you were in our family. But then you'll realize that you can use these ideas in your own family, and everything will be okay. (Our family really is pretty cool, though.)

WHAT MAKES A FAMILY REUNION AMAZING? Well, it's got to be fun for everyone ... all ages. Our family just pulled it off in a big way, and we'd like to share some of the successful ideas with you:

LOCATION: We chose to book some vacation rental condos for a few nights in sunny St. George, Utah. This was a central meeting spot for our family since many live near Salt Lake and many live near Phoenix. By picking this location and putting it on the calendar a year in advance, we were able to get 90% of our family to attend!
It never hurts the kids' feelings if there are swimming pools involved.
ACTIVITIES: Reunions need just the right balance of fun, family time, nap time, and meal time. At our recent reunion we spent three days together, and most of the time was flexible, but some fun options were: dinners together as an entire extended family, swimming, games, swimming, crafts, swimming, movie watching, and swimming. 
T-SHIRTS: No, really. You have to get matching T-shirts. Nothing says family unity better. You'll get over the cheesiness. Our Hardman grandparents had six kids, so each of those six branches of the family got a different color, but we all had the same design on the front. 
Seriously, how adorable are these mini matching reunion shirts!!?
Stay tuned for more fun reunion-related posts!




Friday, July 8, 2016

Reunions done right ...

Our next few posts will revolve around family reunions, because it's that time of year!  We just got home from an AMAZING reunion.  Check out this fantastic video our aunt made at the "Minute-to-Win-it" activity: