From the old folks home!

Will wonders never cease? Gram and I are on board the Elrey Family Choo Choo. We are thinking about each one of you and the things you have written on the blog. It has touched our hearts and we look forward each day with much anticipation to reading the things that you tell us about. We particularly want you new mothers to know that we are praying for you each day. With one or two or three or four Children it is still a sacred, mind boggling challenge and we love each one of you for making the sacrifice of your time and personal lives to make room for these special spirits with which the Lord has entrusted you. We cannot express how grateful we are for the blessings which Auntie "M" has received and for the blessings that have come to each of you as answers to prayers that are so sacred and unique to each one of you. This blog is a wonderful way for us to keep in touch and to share our thoughts on many subjects. We hope that we can be source inspiration and strength to each other and that our sense of humor will always be close at hand. Well, we have launched the old folks ship, we will try to keep it upright. Love to all, Gram and Gramp

Mom And Dad

Hey, I know that I said that I'd come over and show you how to post to the blog but if you follow Jamie's instructions you will be just fine. How are you doing? Hope things are well. Just wanted to encourage you to try to post a note. C'mon it will be fun. You will get hooked and we will be so happy to read your little notes of wisdom.. auntie M

We won!!!

Hurah for us!
We beat the imperial Senate and stopped them forcing the amnesty bill down our collective throats. Now we have to show them that there is a price for such arrogance and disregard for the will of the people. Do not give them one cent, and do not vote for any of those that pushed the bill or voted for cloture. Throw them out! Demand that John McCaine resign his seat if he is running for the Presidency. (what a waste of time.)

Happy Birthday Dear Maren...

...Happy Birthday to you!

(we love you, Cuz!)

Click on over...

...to Life in a Northern Town for more fun with the Melin kids!

Hello Family

Hello everyone! This is Elder Michael Drews and I have finally added myself. I am doing really good. I come home in two months. I can't believe Two years have gone by so fast. I would love to hear from alot of you so let me give you my addresses: My Apartment: 6814 104th st E Puyallup WA 98373. the mission office is 4007-D Bridgeport way W University Place, WA 98466. So who ever writes me first there will be a little treat in the mail for them. I have seen the power and love of God so much on my mission. It truly is transformational. I am grateful for the Gospel in my life and the blessings that it brings. We are so blessed to be apart of the only true church on the earth today and I love having the opportunity to share the powerful life changing message as one of our Heavenly Fathers full time servants. I have a testimony of how true this church is and how it can help you with any struggle. Rely on the atonement of Jesus Christ and allow it to change you into what our loving Heavenly Father wants you to be. Much Peace and Love, Elder Drews

A Fun Link

I just mentioned Square Foot Gardening in my comment on AuntieM's post...here's the link if you want to learn more. I'm not doing it now, but I have before (I had a 9-square salad & herb garden with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and herbs). Me-n-my black thumb grew edible food with this SFG thing, so try it!

We have had a busy week...tonight is date night, with dinner followed by the downtown art walk, and tomorrrow we're all going to the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman for some dinosaur and King Tut fun. Have a great weekend everyone! Happy first-full day of summer! It's all downhill (darker & cooler) from here! :) XOXOXO

Ryanator

This past week we have had the privilage of having Ryley staying with us. What a riot!!!! You really have to be on your toes when Ry is around. She is 4(as of May 19th) and she has the reasoning power of a 30 yr old. We had so much fun with her. We went to the pool , the movies, rode the horses ,baked cookies, colored, painted, sang silly songs and told many a blanket show story. Scott and Steve were the official roll Ry in a blanket and swing her go to guys. It was never enough.... My hat is off to Kate for being such an awesome Mom and knowing the needs of each of her children. We loved having Ry and hope she had a good experience. Maren was able to have her play for a few hrs. on Monday. She was saying wow is that what I have to look forward to... Ryley is a busy girl. She wants to live life all at once. She doesn't want to miss a thing.
We are looking forward to going to the Temple tomorrow. It has bee a while sence I have been able to go and I am really looking forward to being at peace for those few hrs. Scott is working at a pick it yourself farm in Palominas. He works from 6-11 M-F. He then rests for a while and then does his 12 mile run for his running scholarship. He is amazing. Steve is being our scholar this summer. He is taking summer school and is almost finished with the first sesson. Next sesson he will be taking two classes. One at school and one on line. Sooo the garden is growing and we have two whole tomatoes coming on. Sometimes I feel like gardening in Az. is just a jolk. Then I look across the street at the Haymores garden and know I am so wrong. It will be fun to wait and see what we get out of our labors. Love you all and Pray all is well with your families and with you. Auntie M

5 Years ago and 1 day

5 Years ago and 1 day something wonderful happened. A special Soul made the decision to come and join our family. This soul has made our life much more meaningful. He has been such a blessing to our lives. I just wanted to to let you all know how much I love my little boy. He makes me smile everyday.

My Dad/Grand Dads

My most tender memories are of Dad/grandpa Bill giving me blessings. I guess I needed a heck of a lot of them when I was little because I remember how safe I felt when dad would pronounce a blessing when I was sick, starting school,being insecure and needing comfort, just about any and all reasons and Dad gave me a blessing. Last June when I was in rehab mom and dad came everyday to visit me. They had spent the last two weeks at my bedside sence Ariel had sat on me. It was Monday evening and they came for FHE. WE shared our favorite scripture, that being 3rdNephi 17. It was sweet how we had our own special part in this chapter that touched us. I was so impatient with the Lord in not healing me. I knew that if I could just touch the Hem of His robe that I would be healed. Dad in his most wise and loving tone asked if I wanted a blessing. I said, I did. I don't remember everything he said but the part I do remember is that I was blessed to withstand the natural process of healing. Over this past year I have cried many times in frustration with the limits of my body. The sweet memory comes of that blessing. I can withstand the tenents of the natural process of healing. It is slow and pain is a demanding taskmaster, but I know that Heavenly Father is so very aware of my limits and my strengths. He has blessed me with a loving ,worthy priesthood holder as an earthly father and I am so very humble and grateful for this great gift.
Grandpa Dy, what a character. He was the meanest son of a gun... Always pinching us ,telling us we have the thickest shirts of shorts on.. He would always fuss at us when we told him that smoking wasn't good for him ,"damn Mormon kids... but with a smile.. He reenforced the importance of Integrity. You were nothing if you had no integrity. Being honest was very important to him. He let you know if you disapointed him. He always forgave you if you were sincere in you apology. He was a tender man and I know that he loved gram so much. They sure could fuss at eachother. lol I miss them so much. They sure would be so proud of you grandkids. You are great people .
Dad Thanks of loving our mother. That is the single thing that has given me the desire to want to live the gosple. Yours and moms love for eachother. The way you honor and respect eachother is such a tended blessing in my life. I hope I can become as tender a companion to Ralph as you are to eachother. Tons of love Daddyboy.
Grandpa Art was what can I say, I don't know, he was not hard but tough. He was a merchant Marine and you could feel his strength. He loved teaching us to fish,and play cards... Oh the hours we all (the Clark cousins and us ) stood on the banks of the East Verde River and caught trout. He would go from one kid to the next taking hooks out and putting bate on. He taught us to clean and gut our own fish and how proud we were to take them up to Florine for her to cook. Playing 21 taught us to add. We had to be quick or Grandpa would encourage us to think faster. I'm sad we never had the experience of taking our kids to the cabin and letting them roast a marshmellow around Smokey Joe, ride a wagon down the drive way, get tucked into the hammock and get swung all the way around, climb the tree house, and just enjoy the beauties of seeing the beautiful place that Grandpa created with is own hands. One of his last earthly bits of instructions to Brent, Kev, and David was to teach them how to ask for more to drink.... It was not the Please may I have more juice... It was, Real men don't ask like that! They pound their cups on the bar or table and let the waiter know their ready for more.... I didn't try to change the kids to much because it wasn't long after that Grandpa died. Love you all. Auntie M

Fun In The Pool

The Boys were having fun at Grandma Hamlins house over fathers day weekend. They were so cute. These boys are water babies when its only up to their knees. Kaylee pretty much just stayed in our arms the whole time.

We had a good time.

First attempt

Ok, now this is the second attempt, since my 1st attempt did not work. I've gotten a bit of grief for not having a blog of our own... but now I have no excuse, right? We are the Allred's living in SV. Matthew works at Pioneer Title doing foreclosures, and I play Mom and part-time RN at the hospital. Morgan is our favorite part of every day. and again. I'll try and post a picture. love, maren

..... we're now on attempt #4....

Hello!

Hello everyone in the Elrey family! I'm so glad that we all have a place to tell stories and just communicate!

Well... We got a new dog about a week ago and he is a Five month old German Shepherd puppy and we named him Major. We also have a Corgi that will be two in November named Fred.

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x267/Pearlynmarie/MajorandFred003.jpg

that will take you to a picture of them...

I'm just really excited that I have another dog...

I love you all!

Love,
Pearl

How To Blog: For Gram & Gramp

Blogger Tutorial from MelinFamily on Vimeo

Heres one for G-pa Bill.

One of my favorite memories of G-pa Bill was when we were all visiting the Mayberry's in El Paso. We were playing backyard baseball and I was on third base. I forget who was up at bat, But they hit the ball and G-pa told me to run...(he was the third basemen). I didn't see where the ball went and I thought G-pa had it. He told me he didn't and that I needed to run home to score a point. I ran........G-pa tagged me out!

My other favorite memory of G-pa was the pancake breakfasts. He would make us pancakes that were our initials. I loved it.

G-pa Bill, I love you more then words can say. You are truly the rock of this whole family.

Of Dads & Such...

Brent...ahhhh! Thrifty's ice cream! That was the BEST! Wasn't it great when we went to Mexico and got double chocolate malted crunch?! I miss that place! (I miss Maverick fro-yo self-serve for 89 cents, too).

I have a similar memory of my own dad, only it's about getting sodas at teh Maverick back when Maverick was only in Idaho. He had tons of the little 20-ounce mugs in his camper truck and refills were 20 cents....good times! I was searching my brain for some other Father memories that weren't bittersweet, but I'm afraid I can't come up with ANY (which is telling). But I do love all three of my dads and recognize their efforts to help us each become quality people in a less-than-ideal situation.

And of course that leads me to my Grandpa and my uncles who have done so much for the past 30+ years to fill in the gaps. Thanks so much to Papa Bill, Uncle Sam, Uncle, Matt, and Uncle Ralph for your unconditionaly love, your support, your wise counsel, and for living and cherishing the gospel. Like the song says, "I'm everything I am because you loved me."

Which THEN leads me to my dear brothers and cousins...Happy Fathers Day to you dear newer Daddies, and those of you who are still professional five-star uncles. NEVER underestimate your influence in the lives of your nieces and nephews as well as your kids. Every loving word and special one-on-one moment adds up and can reinforce a child's self respect and desire to choose the right. You add so much to lives of my kids--the more righteous priesthood holders they have intheir lives the better!

And to my dear husband whom I love with all my heart (and whom I already wrote about HERE)--thank you for giving our girls the life I dreamed of. Your hard work and self-sacrifice, your gentleness and love unfeigned makes our family a forever one (and makes up for my craziness).

And now we are off to celebrate with a nap! The best mother's or father's day gift of all!!!!

Mucho Amor--Jamie

Dads

Hello, dear family! Happy Father's Day to all the dads in Elreyland!


In honor of our dads, I'd like to...um..."challenge" everyone to post a memory of their dad or a dad that's significant in some way. Wouldn't it be great to read everyone's thoughts about dads? I'd even love to hear a story about Grandpa Art or Grandpa Dynomite, hint hint.



One memory I have of my dad is how he'd take us to the Thrifty's in Tucson to get ice cream. The cool thing about Thrifty ice cream was that the scoops were little cylinders of joy that fit right in the cone. I'm pretty sure this was a regular post-Family Home Evening event, and I loved it because we got to spend time together and enjoy what has become an important staple of the Mayberry diet. In my little childhood mind, my dad was a loving, caring provider of ice cream, and that made him my hero. Ha ha. It was simply comforting being able to enjoy something together as a family and I'm glad my dad made the sacrifice to take us.



Yeah, yeah, I know this is a minor memory, but it was one of those little, seemingly insignificant details that, put together with all the other little details, reminds me of how much I love my dad.



Now come on, family, let's hear your thoughts!

Activity Day

I work in the Primary as an assistant Activity Day leader. I have an opportunity to work with girls 8-11yrs old. This is my 4th or 5th time to do this calling. I have so much fun with these little girls. I try to not be the grandma, but I am. The other leaders are young mothers with 5-6 kids each who home school. Go figure. I am so anti home school that I don't even go there when the coversation comes up. Any way this week we went to the "music under the stars" at the city park. It was fun because it was the High School show band and they were great. The only problem was that the girls were more interested in the park itself. So the leaders enjoyed the concert and the girls towards the end enjoyed the park. perfect weather and a gorgious sunset.
Ralph and theboys(Scott and Steve) are doing our big garden to day. We have what I call a Lady's garden in the back yard. It has flowers and grape vines and tomatoes,squash,greenbeans,and eggplant. Now we are planting watermellon,cantalope, pumpkins and corn. Pres. Kimballs instruction to plant as much of your land asyou can has scared me a little. I don't have water to care for the two acres we could plant. So we are doing a little bit and enjoying the fruits of our labors. We ate the one and only plum off our year old plum tree today. Ralph and I shared it. The peach tree is full and our Fuji Apple tree is over loaded. I love it. Well I'll let you go. I have to finish the laundry. Thanks to every one who are leaving notes they are the best. Aunti M

Re-Invite

I'm fixin' to send out another invitation to blog to those family members who have not logged in yet. Maybe some of you have info on the emails I am missing:

Elise, Joseph, Jeff, Pearl (the one I have for Pearl bounced), Kevin & Katie M, Scott, Steven, and Candace. Oh, and Uncle Matt's bounced, too. Please send them to jamiemelin at msn dot com.

In case you run into somebody who wants to post but doesn't have their own ID or didn't get the invite, you can use the blogmaster log in, too:
user: melinhead@hotmail.com and PW: arizona

So there ya go.

Yo

Yep, Sara (and anyone else), I can make you a header like this if you email me the photos you want in it.

Busy day, great pix to post, trying to find time to do it. I sewed like a crazy woman this morning and then it seems I was in the kitchen/wrestling kids most of the afternoon wiht the lunch, the cleaning and the dinner-making (turkey burgers on homemade buns with spinach-arugula-strawberry salad...thaz what I'm talkin' about!)

Uncle Sam, here is a link and here is another to the blog discussion about The Secret. There are some good points made here, too, although I find the whole thing to be benign--I think it could bring people closer to truth if they'd be willing to take the leap and call it "Faith" and call the Universe "God." I haven't watched the movie, but what I have read and seen is a lot like what we teach theYoung Women in the Divine Nature and Individual Worth values, and like the special Zone conference we once had called "Drawing on the Powers of Heaven." Afterall, Happiness is the object and design of our existence and will be the end thereof if we follow the path that leads to it. Or something like that.

I'mgonna follow the path to my bed. Tomorrow I am going to post some video instructions for Gram & Gramp to learn to blog. I know you can do it, and I bet Google will send you a trophy for being two of the oldest bloggers--my techie G'rents! Love you ALL!--JM


PS: Happy Birthday Couisn Dave! Check out the adorable tribute on Lacy's blog today!

Well what a good idea.

At first I ignored the notice thinking it was a bit of uncooked spam. Mom and Dad asked if I'd seen it and said that it was real. So here I am now joing the fray.

Not much to say at this point other than to recommend that all who read this go to
The Secret .tv web site and get a copy of the video and watch it 10 times. It will change your life if you use it.

Love to all. Stay out of trouble and carry on.

Uncle Sam.....

Um...You got a little somethin on your dashboard.

A new Blog! Excellent idea I say ol' chaps! I lllllike it! The Post family's tip for the summer is to spend it outdoors! When you live in temperatures that range mostly from 25 to -25 degrees for the majority of the year you tend to start out every morning that begins in the 40s screaming "WOOOOOO WHOOOOO! It's warm out!" It's a predicament really because although you would rather be out in the sun and all it's glory you end up in the car for 12 hours at a time going to visit family since you have a very limited 3 month period where the roads are thawed. Then istead of getting that golden-all-over tan you've been hoping for all winter you end up with that half arm-out-the-window sunburn.

So! Enjoy it while it lasts! Hike, camp, garden, bike, walk whatever you do and however you do it, get it done!

Amie

Oh, What Do You Do in the Summertime?

Here's a little sneak peek of what's coming up at Life In A Northern Town tonight...I don't have time to blog now because I've got to go work a couple of hours at the front desk tonight, but we had a pretty fun day here today: There were only two mallards at the lagoon today, but Addie and Heidi had fun feeding them and eating the popcorn. James Ole loved the ducks so much! We also spent some time at the playground and did some errands. It' was a PERFECT day: Blue skies, 72 degrees, no wind, our beautiful mountains and rivers...Montana Summers ROCK.

We love & miss you all! Check my blog later tonight or on Thursday...mucho amor!

How Fun Is This????

Thanks Jamie and Brent for draging us over 50 into the 21st century... I know that there have been many times I wish I could contact everyone at the same time and now I have a way. To all of the neices and nephews,cousins and my kids, How I love you and appreciate you. You have been a great strength to me this past year and I just want to thank you for all your prayers and the opportunities you took to remember me in your fasts. I am so much better sence I had my last surgery in Apr. What a relief to have the screws out of my sacrum. I'm healing up well and am now just trying to be patient and let the natural process of healing take place. Nerve damage is the last thing to hold me hostage. I will prevail...
Well we are having fun trying to figure out what to do with ourselves for the summer. Steve is now a Senior @Buena and is taking summer school to aliveate the crunch of his senior year. Soooo, he is tied down all summer. Ralph and Steve just returned from a week in the Grand Canyon with our stakes YM. They had a blast and took some really awesome pictures. I'll try to get them on the blog.
No real news except that we love you and think of you so often. Auntie M

Fun Fun Fun

Hey Guys,
This is so great. I am not to big with keeping up with emails or trying to Blog. I did try the yahoo 360 but not for very long. I love you all and I am so excited to see everyone's comments and updates. I hope all is well for everyone. I love you and I will continue to add my share to this blog. All my Love, Lisa

New Arena for me

Hey folks, I have never been one to chat online or blog. But I think that keeping up with y'all might be kinda cool.

So We, the Johnson Family, are out here in good ol' Massachusetts. The Red Sox are having their best season in a decade or more and the Patriots look to take another Superbowl season.

Our little family is just chugging along. I am on break from Law school working part time with an attorney a couple of towns over. I am also thoroughly enjoying being a daddy, working on and around our house, and mostly in our huge veggie garden.

Amy finished her Smith College grad classes last month, and the online class she teaches for Umass finished last month too, she will be done with teaching at the high school next Wednesday, then she will off for the summer to enjoy some well deserved rest.

Gabriel will be 3 in a couple of weeks. His true love is anything with a ball, mostly baseball. He really has a keen eye. He has been hitting slow pitches for about a year now and is getting better all the time. In Aug he will begin Pre-school and he is so very excited.

So of we go into the wild blue yonder hopefully to report on our outings and experiences. As well to hear about all of you guy.

Till next time,

Aaron, Amy, & Gabriel

Still Tweaking

That last post was from Sara ("My Family")--Brent, do you know how to make it show the post author's NAME?

I've gotta go plant Addie's flowers with her--she grew sprouts from sunflower seeds--I'll let you know how they do! Hope to see more peeps posting by day's end! OXOX--Jamie


noon update--oh, wait--I see the author's name at the the bottom by the timestamp--silly me! :)

How Fun Is This

I am really glad to be apart of this blog. It will be nice to be able to post how my family is doing on this knowing that you will see it when you go to post on how yours is. I love everyone and miss you all. Today has been an awesome day. It is really nice outside and the boys and our new puppy(austrailian sheppard) named Budy were playing outside. I was able to just sit in the sun and watch as they played. It was just so nice to have Rob next to me and my boys playing. Kaylee was upstairs sleeping. I am so lucky. well love you. I will post again soon.

Welcome Home!

Everybody, especially Aunt Marti and Gram, has been talking about starting a blog, so I thought it would be fun to do the fancy footwork to set one up and let anyone in the family post to it--sound liek a good idea? If you are part of the Elrey Family group, you should have received an email from Jamie with all the log in information. You can post messages and photos on this blog or just direct us to your own family or personal blog. I hope it works! I know Brent will have some great ideas for tweaking this and making it a great "Home Base" for the Elrey Family to keep in touch!