Flagstaff: Simon's Choir Concert

This past weekend, my parents, Emma, Brian and I went up to Flagstaff. Shrine of Ages, a choir that Simon sings in, had their final concert in a beautiful old Catholic Church. 

The acoustics were, of course, amazing, so all of the beautiful choir voices floated through the air and filled every nook and cranny of the chapel. I used Brian's iPhone to take photos for fun. Unfortunately, because I was new to the iPhone, I didn't realize that I wasn't saving the photos as I was taking the next one, so all of my best work got away! I tried to recreate some of them and I will add those later, but thankfully, I had my 'ol Trusty with me, too, so I will post those here now.

Simon and the choir after his piece

 The choir performed a piece that Simon had composed this semester. It had 3 movements and was based on 3 Swedish poems about man and the earth. They sang in Swedish, which was fun for my parents. The piece was impressive and the audience must have thought so too as they gave him a standing ovation. We were all so proud of him. Simon is majoring in Choral Educationn at NAU. He's just finishing his second year.

 It was actually a little chilly after the concert. Emma snagged a coat to wear, making Simon's friend, Cory, her new favorite "brother".

Emma, creating her own Picasso

As we pulled into Flagstaff, we stopped to eat at Picazzo's, a gourmet pizza place that we all like. The grown-ups decided to go "healthy" and get the whole wheat cracker crust. This was a grave mistake. All we could taste was the crust. The grown-ups looked longingly at Emma's pepperoni pizza with white doughy crust.

The evening was complete with a 2 for 1 stop at Cold Stone Creamery. We always get the same thing: Banana ice cream with brownie mix-in. I have yet to grow tired of it.

This made up for the pizza!

Downtown Flagstaff...

My little papa.

Babbits sells crunchy outdoorsy stuff. I could definitely plunk down some cash at this place.

Not a big bumper sticker fan, but I DO like this one.

Window shopping at small boutiques is fun...especially when it involves shoes.

Baxter Black, a very friendly, cool, XXL Black Lab, therapy dog we met while strolling the city.

This dapper dresser added a colorful touch.

Great concert, great food (almost), great company, great weekend.

100 years and not counting!

For the past two years we have helped Elsie celebrate her birthday. For the longest time it wasn't on my radar that we had relatives here in Mesa, just a couple of miles from us. Elsie's mother, Anna, is my grandfather's Aunt. Anna left Sweden to follow her sister, Julia, to America in the early 1900's. That makes Elsie, my grandfather's cousin. 

Here is Emma with Elsie, on her 98th birthday. 

Here she is turning 99. She has stopped aging. I mean really.

Last year we told her, "Oh my gosh, Elsie! Next year you are going to turn 100!" She couldn't believe it herself. She just keeps plugging along. She is bright and cheery, can still get around with a walker, lives with her younger brother, John who is a young 91, in an apartment not too far from us. We have been looking forward to her 100th birthday all year. Today is finally the day. It's here! I have never personally known anyone who has lived this long, so it has been so much fun getting to know Elsie and John. I had the opportunity to interview Elsie last week and hope to put together something to celebrate her life. We will gather with family on Sunday to celebrate in style.

This is one of my favorite photos of Elsie, when she was around 6.

She grew up in Wyoming. She loved animals and especially loved riding horses. She said she was a shy girl who didn't want to be in the limelight. Wouldn't it be fun to time travel and meet people at different stages of their life? I would have loved to meet Elsie at 6. She attributes her long life to good genes. She has never done anything special to promote longevity. I hope it has something to do with her Swedish heritage. I'd like to think we're a hardy bunch. 

Elsie married Fred Bemel in 1932. Five years after they were married, Fred was diagnosed with MS and they were counseled by the doctor not to have any children. Not much was known about MS in the 30's, so they didn't have any children. They spent 52 years together, before Fred passed away in 1984. Elsie soon relocated to Mesa from Northern California to be near her brother, John and his wife. She is a delight to talk to and told me several times not to make a fuss, but who wouldn't?! It's not every day that someone gets to finish a century of living here on this earth. That is worthy of celebrating. We feel blessed to have both John and Elsie around.

I've been thinking about what you  get for someone turning 100 and the one thing that I came up with was some love and attention (and maybe a jar of pickled herring!), so that's why I've enlisted the help of family and friends to send Elsie a birthday card. I think it would be fun if they trickled in all month. For those of you who have already done this, Thank You!! She showed me her first card last week, so I know she enjoys the mail. She is too hard of hearing to talk on the phone, so a little card in the mail is a good connect to the world around her. If you'd still like to get in on this, here is her address:

Elsie Bemel

35 W. Brown Rd., #229

Mesa, AZ 85201

Happy 100th Birthday, Elsie!!

(even if they don't have a computer, I hope she can feel the good wishes)

More to come...

A family thread.

A little while ago, my cousin posted a photo of our grandmother on Facebook and when I saw it, I was stunned. There, looking back at me was my grandmother with a camera looking so much like me! I wanted that photo, or at the very least a copy of it. She has been on my mind lately and the photo seemed to be her speaking to me from the dust. The last time I saw her was when my mom and I had the good fortune to travel back to Sweden together for my cousin's wedding in the summer of 1999.

(At the wedding)

A few days before my mom and I left Sweden we visited Langgarn, a small island that is part of Stockholm's archipelago. My grandmother's family had 3 cabins on the island that have eventually been passed down to my Uncles who live in Sweden. For fun, I was mowing the lawn at the middle cabin with a push mower while my grandmother sat and watched me, but pretty soon it felt like it was more than just watching me. She was memorizing me, absorbing me.

Finally, I stopped, went over to her and sat down beside her and said,

"I know what you're doing."

"What?"

"You are soaking me in because I'm leaving."

"Yes. You know that there are nine of you over there now."

She was referring to my family of six at the time and my parents and younger brother who all live here, in the United States. I realized then how much time she spent thinking about her family that lived an ocean away. 

An hour or so later my mom and I walked down to the dock so my uncle to take us back to the mainland. My grandmother sat in a chair at the top of the pathway leading to the dock with another uncle standing at her side as she watched us walk away. She looked like a grand dame, sitting there watching me go. She was my last living grandparent, the matriarch of my father's side of the family. I am so grateful for such a clear memory of our last visit together. She passed away 3 months later. Our conversation became more poignant knowing it was our last one in this life. 

My Aunt was nice enough to send a copy of the photo so here it is:

I love it! And this is also why I love photography. Photos enrich our memories and preserve them for future generations. What a treasure.

Music to my ears.

      It's been such a long time since I've posted anything, but I'm just going to jump right back in. I finished my semester at MCC's Red Mountain campus and now I have the summer to play catch up on other things. I made new friends, loved being a student and had fun learning again in a school environment. Overall, I was happy with how the semester turned out. I could not have done it without the support of Brian. Thank you, thank you. He joked all semester that he was dating a college girl. I do still feel like a girl on the inside, so I was always surprised when I was reminded in one way or another that I might not be as young as I think I am. I was mistaken for a teacher on my first day in the cafeteria when they were trying to point me to the teacher's lounge! I met some great "kids" in my classes who are impressive and then there are the slackers who don't know how lucky they are to be in school. So that kept me very busy on top of everything else. Happy to have summer here.

     Jon-Erik has been living in his own apartment with 1-2 other guys since January. It's fun when he drops by for a visit. He stopped by yesterday and said six words that are music to my ears, "Want to give me a haircut?" How about YES!!! I would love to. Let's go. Right now. Aside from the actual haircut, there are so many other nice things about this little ritual that goes way back for us. With just a few exceptions, I've always cut my kid's hair. When they were younger, they hated it. They thought it took SOOOOO long. "Are you done yet?!?" (Hey, I'm not a professional. I go at my own pace. Precision takes time.)

"Owww, you're digging!" 

"Hold your head straight or I'm going to take a chunk out and you're not going to like that."

"Sit tall like a giraffe, please. Almost done." 

"Just have to blend it."

"This is taking SOOOO long!!"

"We're almost done."

"Just think of how much money we're saving."

Sometimes I would threaten to take them to a real barber and for some reason that WAS a threat. I don't know why. I would have thought it would've been a treat for how much they complained about the job I was doing.

But now, it's different. They ask me for haircuts instead of the other way around and we get to talk and laugh and it's fun. I occasionally have to remind them to hold still or sit straight or explain that I'm almost done. So, when Jon-Erik asked me for a haircut yesterday, the haircut was the bonus, but the time we got to spend together was the real treat.  We tried out some different "looks" along the way to help build up my haircutting portfolio.

Shmansome! I'm a sucker for short hair.

Olivia turns 3.

My niece, Olivia, turned 3 last Friday and on Saturday she had a birthday party with a Princess theme. It's fun to look back on Olivia's birthdays and see how she has changed. For her 1st birthday, it was mostly family and she wore a cute outfit that stayed pretty crisp and clean. She was shy about all of the attention. On her 2nd birthday, she had a lot more people and bouncy house and didn't mind the attention, her parents still ran the show, deciding when they would open presents, etc., Her brother, Christopher was still growing in her mommy's tummy. Then this year her cute face was already smeared with stuff, her pigtails almost falling out and her knees scuffed by the time I got to the party. I love seeing her  emerging independence. Opening presents was the first order of events, initiated by Miss Olivia, herself. Christopher was now part of the family and party. Olivia was a girl on the move, so I had a harder time catching her with my camera.

(Those cute little hamburgers are actually  2 vanilla wafers with a peppermint patty and green and red and yellow frosting for the condiments.)

Here is a collage of some of her guests, small and well, not so small.

The kids and even some of the grownups had fun bouncing in the bouncy house. I loved the pile of kids that came spilling out of it.

By the end when things started to quiet down, Olivia and her friend found a quiet corner in the bouncy house where they could play with some of her toys.

What do I love about Olivia at this age?

1. Her warm greeting whenever she sees us.

2. Her cute lisp and "w" sound that she makes for r's.

3. Her cheery nature.

4. Her independent streak.

5. Her hands and cute feet.

6. The determined look she gets on her face when she's doing something that requires concentration.

7. She makes me (and everyone else) feel loved and that is no small thing. I love being her Aunt.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Olivia!

Olivia & Christopher: Love 'em!

One advantage to being the oldest in a family is that your younger siblings are still having children when you have stopped, thereby giving a person (like me) a much needed outlet to having little people around when her own little people have gotten bigger. Hooray for being an Aunt! I just love these little peeps.

A Side Note: The other thing that I am pretty excited about, that I just found today is that I can skip the middle man in uploading photos to my blog because Google has now made some much needed changes for people like me to upload photos. When I say "people like me", I mean people who couldn't just upload from their desktop or computer for whatever reason AND who also want larger photos on their blog. You can make your photos larger right here on your blog. I do still size them in Photoshop, but I can just upload directly from my desktop! I may be the last person on the planet to know this, but I can't tell you how happy this makes me. Maybe I'll be a little better at blogging more frequently now that there is one less step.

Here's How to do it:

Log in to your blog.

Select Customize.

Then Settings.

Next the Basics tab.

On the Basics page, scroll down to the bottom until you get to Global Settings.

Underneath Global Settings, look at "Select post editor" and

Select "Updated editor". It has the latest features.

The uploader for photos is much better and much more compatible with mac...at least with my mac AND it gives you the option to select the size of your photos underneath the photo after it is uploaded, so I chose the largest on this post to see what it would give me and it worked out great. I DO size my photos in photoshop first for my blog, but I was never able to go from my computer to the blog without first going to Photobucket and copying the HTML code for the photo. Now, I don't even have to deal with the HTML. Hooray! Let me know how it works for you. Good Luck!

Emma turns 9!

There are certain moments that stand out in life. One of those for me was when we went for the ultrasound with our 5th child. The doctor, who happened to be the father of 6 boys and 1 girl, asked us if we wanted to know the gender of the baby..."Uh...Yeah." He asked what we had at home..."4 boys." We had already heard from the nurse before we went in that the chance of us having a girl after 4 boys was only %25. So I was expecting to complete our little basketball team with another boy. We were, after all, on a roll. I know there must have been a drum roll at this point. From the time the Dr. asked what we had at home to when he was going to announce what this one was seemed like an eternity. The words came out in slow motion as he said, "Well.......this one...........is............a...........................................................................................girl." Did I hear that right?? I let out a yell and at that moment the ceiling opened up, the heavens parted and a little ray of sunshine beamed down in that doctor's office. Emma was a surprise from the beginning as we thought we were done with our 4 cute boys. I always knew that I would have 4 boys, but a 5th child was unexpected. Brian and I had driven to the doctor's office seperately as he had come from work and I from home, so I drove home alone with this wonderful, unbelievable news floating around my head, while listening to the radio. All of a sudden a Stevie Wonder song came on that will always be our song...mine and Emma's. I felt like the following lyrics embraced how I was feeling and continue to feel about having her in my life. I, of course, immediately burst into tears. There we were: Me, Stevie, joy, sunshine and Emma in my belly, driving home to Newhall with a wonderful secret that was so deliciously sweet.

For Once In My Life

For once in my life I have someone who needs me

Someone Ive needed so long

For once, unafraid, I can go where life leads me

And somehow I know I'll be strong

For once I can touch what my heart used to dream of

Long before I knew

Someone warm like you

Would make my dreams come true

I might add that the high I experienced lasted less than a week when doubts started setting in to the point that I had to call the Dr.'s office to ask them," Uh, when Dr. G said that this one is a girl, he didn't use the words "for sure" or "definitely"...can you check my chart again?? Big pause..."Mrs. Nissen, if Dr. G wrote down girl then it's a girl." "O.k....thanks...just checking."

4 months later, we knew for sure. I think my mom refused to believe it until she saw her. Emma's middle name is Ingegard, which is actually my first name and my mom's middle name and my grandmother's first name. There aren't many girls on either side of the Nissen or Flink side of the family. They are a rare breed.

So today Emma turns 9 and it's fun to look back and think about all the ways that she has blessed our lives. She is tender hearted, feisty, energetic, loves babies, sneaks a little make-up on occasion, likes to fix her own hair, has her own fashion sense, writes sweet notes, loves to sing, loves animals, has started "baking", loves to play with friends, loves to be tucked in at night and still showers me with hugs and kisses. Oh how we love her!

HAPPY 9th BIRTHDAY, EMMA!

Ben Bakes No Bake Cookies

Ben turned 15 this past week on July 15th. He was away at Football Camp all week, so we couldn't even wish him a "Happy Birthday" or sing to him on his actual birthday. He got home today. Tomorrow we'll have a family birthday dinner for him. Grandma and Grandpa are coming over. Mormor and Morfar are in CA. Ben is such a fun part of our family. It's fun to see how he's growing up. He has a good heart and good sense of humor. He is constantly surprising us with his dry sense of humor. A little interesting tidbit about Ben is that when he was born, he scored a perfect 10 on his first APGAR test. Most babies score a 10 eventually, but it's unusual to have a baby get a perfect score right after they're born. The pediatrician commented that Ben was the first he had seen in the 400 births he had attended. So we tell him he was a perfect baby...which he was...SO cute, a real chunky monkey with the biggest, bluest eyes and dark eyelashes and round little head. He was baby #3 and Simon and Jon-Erik were both old enough to enjoy him, so he was very loved by all of us...still is. I was a vegetarian (except for fish) when I was pregnant with Ben and for a couple of years afterwards. I think this is the reason that Ben was a very picky eater as a young child AND I think it also accounts for his interest in food now. He is my guy that likes to cook and not just top ramen. One of the things that Ben learned how to make this summer is "No Bake Cookies". This recipe came from an old church cook book from our days in Newhall, CA, Cookin' from Scratch. Along with the Chocolate Chip cookie recipes on pages 93 and 119, this recipe gets the most use. Thank you Pam Castagna for submitting it. Here's the recipe:

NO BAKE COOKIES

2 c. sugar

4 T. cocoa

1 cube margarine/butter

1/2 c. milk

Bring ingredients to a rolling boil in a 1 1/2 quart saucepan. Boil for exactly 1 minute. Remove from heat. Stir in the following:

3 c. oatmeal

1/2 c. peanut butter

1 tsp. vanilla

Drop by teaspoonfuls onto waxed paper and let stand for 10 minutes.

Here is Ben making them. As you can see we kind of use what we have by way of aluminum foil and the scooper.Once Ben realized he was being photographed he made sure he was flexing for the pictures. Please make a special note of his muscles.

Nice form, Ben.

As you can see,the recipe makes quite a few.

Important to leave a little in the pot to clean out.

They are pretty tasty and hey, they DO have oats AND peanut butter in them and go great with a glass of cold milk. AND for my friend, Megan, who is dying of heat in CA, you don't need to turn on the oven and heat up your house.

Well,we're off to CA on Monday to visit my brother, Andy and his family.

BTW, Simon has 27 stitches on his back, plus the one that we took out today from the tube that was draining his spinal fluid in the hospital. Just thought you'd want to know. He's doing really well.

Summer means Kino Swim Team

Well, we went to the final swim meet of the summer last night. When you have kids who are 8 and 12 participating, you are there for quite a while. It is H-O-T!! (And that is an understatement, especially since I just got back from UT yesterday where I wore a sweater and socks to bed. I know...very whimpy, but once my feet are cold...well, that's it. Where they go, the rest of the bod tends to follow.) BUT, heat or not, it is totally worth it to sit and watch my kids swim. I didn't have my camera with me tonight. I couldn't have taken pics anyways...I finally volunteered to be a timer and they(the solicitors of timers) were right: they were the best seats in the house AND they brought us ice cold water and snacks on top of it. Next season, I am NOT going to wait to the last meet to volunteer! Here are just a few images from this year...

Along with great exercise, the kids always make new friends. Glad it's part of our summers.

My Dad

One of the nice things that happens as you get older is that you grow to appreciate things that as a child you didn't fully appreciate. The house that I grew up in seemed to have very thin walls. That seemed especially true of my room that bordered the living room where we had our piano and the room where my dad would also play his accordion. He probably didn't play it late into the night, but it seemed like it to me at the time. I remember sometimes putting a pillow over my head just to try to block out the sound. (Sorry, dad, I was like 11 or 12) Just a note: pillows do NOT block out accordion OR piano for that matter.

Well, now that I am older and my dad's love of music has been passed on to his grandkids, I see his accordion playing on a completely different level. It is endearing. It is so "him". It is something that I will always remember about him. He has even started taking accordion lessons, so now he has to practice along with just playing. Another interesting thing about when my dad plays either the piano or accordion is that he does this monotone humming that is pretty constant. I haven't figured out if it keeps time with the music or if it's just random, but it always seems to be the same note no matter what the song is. I think he has learned that circular breathing that trumpet players can do because I never hear him breath when he hums. So, when my parents come over for a visit, my mom buzzes around the house, my dad will run the kids to and from swimming or wherever else they need to go, but he also likes to play his accordion.

Isn't he cute?

I know he's humming right here.

My parents came over for dinner tonight and I noticed he had a red shirt on so I asked him, "Is that the same red shirt you had on when you were here earlier this week?" "What?" "No, I don't think so, do you think I wear the same shirt all of the time??" "Well, I see you in a red one a lot." "Well, I have 3 of them and I also have 3 black ones." They're his faves, so chances are if you run into him, he will probably be wearing either a red shirt or a black one. Looking back at these photos, I think I know why...they match his accordion. :-)

Thanks for caring so much about us, Dad.