40 Years....

I never thought I would get to the point where I could say "40 years ago...." Well, it's happening more and more all the time. 40 years ago today, Roy and I were married. It was a Thursday. And it was a cold day... but really warm in my heart. We were married in the Monteview chapel, which was new and beautiful, and had our reception in the Terreton church, which was home to me.

I got out our wedding book this morning and we had fun looking at all the old pictures. Our pictures were taken with an old Polaroid camera and are fading. Its hard to even see who's in some of them.



I bought Roy a camera for a wedding present, so our honeymoon pictures are a little better. This is Roy standing by a huge tire at Kennecot Copper Mine in Salt Lake.

Me at the Great Salt Lake

So much has changed....Everyone wore dresses to my bridal shower. My dad gave me a corsage to wear that night. My ring cost $175. My wedding dress cost $99. The Ramada Inn cost $11.50 a night to stay on our honeymoon. Gas was $.32 a gallon.

Four years ago, my mom passed away on our anniversary, so now a sad memory comes up on November 12. (I'm sure she didn't mean to..)

It's been a 40-year roller coaster of a ride, but well worth it! We've come a long way baby!

On the Road Again..

When my Aunt Mae passed away in Moses Lake, Washington, I really wanted to go to the funeral. I knew there would be relatives there that I hadn't seen in a long, long time. Roy was a sweetheart and said he would take me, and we could hit two birds with one stone by making arrangements to meet with a guy in northern Idaho that Roy wanted to talk business with.

These are some cousins that I really wanted to connect with. There's Ronnie Hathaway, Mauna Hathaway, Nina Neilson, and Sherry Hathaway. (These are all maiden names, of course.) I love to claim them as my cousins...they are so fun to be with.

Had to get a shot with the aunts. Nina, Aunt Ruby, me, Aunt Irma, Sherry, and Mauna. These baby sisters of my dad's are treasures!

Got out my paper and pencil to get information for my genealogy records. This is Glen Smith, a first cousin that I don't believe I had ever met.


We came home via northern Idaho and Montana, where the landscape is still ablaze with fall colors.

We stopped in Bozeman to spend a few days with the kids and grandkids there.

It was pumpkin carving time!

Love to travel, but, as always...there's no place like home, auntie Em.

Ancestors and Cousins

My years of genealogy work have been so fun and rewarding. One day I was at the local family history center and one of the workers let me use her Ancestry.com site. Through that site I found a MyFamily website called Skidmore and More.

It was started by a Skidmore back in West Virginia who claims that if your name is Skidmore, then we are related. The website is a free, members only thing, so I was excited to join and hopefully get as much information as I could. It turned out to be more than I'd hoped for. There was a wealth of information on so many people who shared the same ancestors as me. And I could ask questions in a forum-like setting, and any number of members would be there with an answer. One lady in particular, Linda Creek from Tennessee, was more closely related to me than some of the others.

She and I share the same great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Skidmore. That makes us third cousins. She sent me pages she'd copied out of a book about the county in West Virginia where he lived. Among other things, I found out that a lot of my ancestors and relatives were named after US presidents. There's several George Washington Skidmores, Benjamin Franklin Skidmores, (well, I guess he wasn't ever president, was he?), Tomas Jefferson Skidmore, Andrew Jackson Skidmore and even a Grover Cleveland Frame. My ancestors were big land-owners in Virginia and what later became West Virginia. And some were even slave-owners. (Hope they were good to them.) We have relatives that fought in both the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War (for the south). Anyway, she had answers to so many of my questions, and we have been emailing and facebooking for over two years now. Last month, on a trip to the west coast with her husband, she made it a point to come to Idaho so we could meet. We spent a delightful evening together, sitting at my desk, her at her laptop, me at my computer, sharing information. It was so fun. She even shared a way to cook catfish, that Roy has tried.. and loved. I enjoyed everything about her...especially her southern accent. I asked her if I had an accent to her, and she said definitely yes. Hmmm....

We were too busy to think about getting a picture, so the next day I went to Lava Hot Springs and met her at the motel to get a picture. It was so fun to meet someone who is on the same page as me, looking for the same names, dates, and histories that I am. What an amazing, small world we live in!

Summer in a Nutshell

Warning...this blog post may be a little long. There have been a lot of things going on with us this summer and I feel the need to touch on most of them. Bear with me...

We felt the need to see our two sweet aunts, Aunt Fern and Aunt Noni. So Karen, Di, and I set up a visit with them, and before we knew it there was a party! The Furness cousins joined us and brought a scrumptious lunch. Then we just sat around asking the two aunts questions, giggling, and sharing memories. It was a great time!

We spent the 4th of July in Driggs this year. It was a change of pace for us and we loved it. We rode the Grand Targhee ski lift to the top where winter was still showing its face. Looking at the Tetons never gets old.

We hiked to a pretty waterfall in Teton canyon.

I had always wanted to see the hot air balloons in Driggs.

It was quite the sight...and worth the 5:30 wake-up call!


Roy was diagnosed with full-blown sugar diabetes this summer. Big changes in his eating habits followed and now, 25 lbs lighter, he is doing much better.

The grandkids came down again this summer for a week of swimming lessons at Lava Hot Springs. One day we took them fishing at a small pond in Soda Springs.

We also played in the lake. Love this action shot of Sicilee jumping off the dock.

Our bi-annual Skidmore family reunion was held the end of July at Brianhead ski resort in southern Utah. Roy was partied out so I went without him this time. Sadly the only ones of my family that went were Sicilee and Haddi, who rode along with me and were great company. This is us at Bryce Canyon.

Even though we're all getting a little grayer, balder, fluffier, etc... I really love my siblings and jump at any chance to spend time with them.

River was baptized on his birthday in the Teton River. It rained before and after, but thankfully not at the time. The spirit was strong there. Roy was one of the speakers and mentioned how River followed Jesus' example by also getting baptized in a river. He had to get dunked 4 times in order to get the job done!

Our annual Eddins-Smuin campout was held at the West End campground at the Island Park reservoir.

The water was down quite a lot, and the weather was less than desirable, but there was still a lot of fun to be had at the beach: motorcycling, kite flying (shown above),

sand digging, and swimming.

We even found huckleberries to pick. This is Misty and her 3 cutie-pie girls.

Roy always had a couple of grandkids on his lap....a tough job, but someone's gotta do it! This is Axel and Bella.

We four-wheeled to the top of Caribou Mountain with our friends, Gordon and Sherry. It's hard to see in the picture, but you can see the top of the tallest Teton in the background, as well as part of Palisades reservoir. Another beautiful spot.

Labor Day weekend found us camping at Birch Creek, fishing, sight-seeing, and four-wheeling. This is Roy standing by the Indian writings on the rocks there. Roy said we saw these before when were in grade school on a field trip, but I didn't remember it. I thought they were really cool.

Pass Creek Lake used to be one of our favorite destinations when we lived in Monteview. Roy used to catch huge trout out of here. It has changed a bit over the years....and our mode of travel has changed, too. I used to ride up here with him on the back of his motorcycle.

Eight-mile canyon....a gorgeous view! You can see all of Monteview and Mud Lake from up here. Even further on a clear day.

The summer of 2010...great memories made. Now here comes Fall...ready or not!

The Jerk

Is that what you call someone who makes a lot of jerky? A jerk? Then that's what Roy is the past 6 months or so. He decided to use some elk meat that wasn't getting used up fast enough. Sometimes he mixed it with some beef, sometimes not.

Mixing up the flavorings...here he's using a bit of plum syrup.

Sometimes he grinds the meat, then presses it out onto the smoker grids.

Putting it into the handy-dandy homemade smoker.


Cutting it into slices to store, or to share. The guys in the family have especially liked Roy's jerky. And Haddi, too. She likes the spicy kind. If he shows up to any event without the jerky, he might as well pack it up and go home! Val thinks its good enough to go commercial. Roy just likes to think of it as a fun and yummy hobby. I think of it as another one of his many talents... the jerk.

Feeling Mom's Love

After my mom passed away in 2006, Karen and I wanted to get starts from her beautiful peonies. She loved peonies, and we wanted to have them on her casket spray, but it was the wrong time of year. So we got the closest look-alike we could find. Early that Spring, we went to her front yard and dug up some starts. We really didn't know what we were going to get, because she had red, pink, and white ones out there. I brought them home and ended up with about 6 starts growing along my fence to the side of my house. Years went by....some of them grew, and some of them died. The green part got bigger and bigger, and last year little buds formed, but still no blossoms. I loved looking out my kitchen window, though, and seeing them everyday.

Then last week when we returned home after being gone a few days, we were checking out the garden and greenhouse. We walked around the back of the house and WOW! The biggest peony bush was in full bloom, with the most beautiful white flowers, dotted with the tiniest of dark pink color here and there. My heart was touched and it felt like I was getting a hug from my mom!
I don't know what color the other two plants blossoms are going to be, but I'll continue to baby them along until some year they bloom, too. Thanks, mom, for sending your love to me. Miss you..... and love you, too.

Today is Going to be a Good Day..

It seems nowadays we have to look for opportunities to spend time with our grand kids. When school was out, and the timing was right, we put out the invitation and three of them, River, Boston, and Indee, were able to come stay for a week at our house. It was kind of a cold, windy week, but we were able to fit in several fun things with them. The first thing was a day of fishing at Johnson reservoir near Preston. When we got there that day, the kids got out of the truck, looked around, and Indee said, "Today is going to be a good day!"

We made a fire, roasted hot dogs, caught some fish, and played in the water.

River got to come with me to Day Camp another day. He loved shooting BB guns, bow and arrows, making bottle rockets, and buying his first pocket knife. The rest of the week was spent playing games, "camping out" (in the backyard), swimming at Lava, shopping at Alco, and spending time at the library.

And we topped it off with another fishing day, this time at Blackfoot reservoir. Roy had dreams of catching everyone's limit of six fish each. It was not to be. We were totally skunked! Eating treats in the boat, going for a bike ride, and playing in the water at the dock were the fun things that day.

At the end of the week, we met their parents and a lot of others for a ride at the Indian Creek area above Medicine Lodge. We ate lunch at Paul Reservoir where everyone posed for a picture before taking off again. There were 8 four-wheelers, five motorcycles, and two side-by-sides.
We rode about 75 miles that day and saw lots of beautiful country. And even though we were rained on, and dead tired and sore....it was a great day!
I've thought a lot about Indee's simple phrase, and I want to say it more often...
"Today is going to be a good day!"