Throwback Thursday - early 2025

Jan 19 - Three Watson boys getting ready for church

Feb 8 - Joy and I go on a golfing date in Weatherford,
followed by Chinese The mini golf there is very beautilful. You can almost pretend you are in California with palm trees and a very lovely waterfal.

Feb 23 - Hyrum let BYU know that he was accepting them just as they accepted him. Nia made him a cake to celebrate the Y in hYrum.

Feb 26 - Nia was feeling down about her hair, if I remember, so I took this picture to show her how pretty she looked.

Mar 6 - Our church building got a LOT of new chairs. JT, the missionaries, and a couple friends and I broke open all the boxes, got rid of the old chairs, set up the new ones, and cleaned up (Joy was there at the start). It actually took less time than I thought it would. The bishop told everyone to pick up some of the older chairs if we could use them, so we came home with half a dozen.

Mar 20 - Hyrum got some suitcases in very large boxes.
Nia decided to turn one into a robot costume.

Mar 23 - Elder Masaki (center back) ate dinner at our house on his first day in Stephenville. We were also the last family he ate with on his way out. We all liked him and he was emotional as he told us how special our family was. This was a goodbye pic of him. Elder Masaki really loved his large family and it was an honor to be included in his love for them. He couseled my boys as if they were siblings and we still miss him and think of him. Derrin says, "He was Awesome and was really good at pickleball!"

Big Family Vacation to Utah 2025, part 1

 Fri, July 18 – Left around noon, arrived in Colorado AirBNB. Lovely home, well-appointed, lots of space, but they plugged in air freshners Joy was allergic to. Four bunk beds to sleep in, one large enough for Joy and me. They provided breakfast foods and water bottles in the fridge, which was special and welcome. I cooked things up at night to be reheated the next morning so we could leave first thing. The kids were particularly impressed by their outdated technologies: a record player, a Playstation 2, and an 8-track!

Nia: “It stank, and we found four different scent dispensers in the house. We removed them but we’re sure there were more because it still smelled in the morning.”

JT: “It was really nice. I liked being on the top bunk for once. It had stairs”

Nia: “I couldn’t sleep because it kept creaking. But I liked the pretzel.”

 

Sat July 19 – We drove through CO and WY to reach Logan via Bear Lake. It was a small AirBNB: two rooms with large beds and one child on the couch. There was barely enough room with our luggage for us to walk around. The tree dropped a LOT of pollen on us. On the other hand, when I mentioned to the owner that we needed something, it was on our doorstep the next morning complete with four breakfasts from McD’s.

We stopped at the USU Creamery for ice cream. Nia stayed in the bathroom until her stomach calmed down.

Hyrum: “The ice cream was really good.”

Nia: “The leaves were sticky, so we kept tracking them into the house, and the couch was dusty so you had to go to the store to get a sheet. But they had funny signs decorating the house: ‘Welcome-ish, depending on who you are and how long you plan on staying.’ I was badly homesick for the first week.”

 

Sun July 20 – We attended church with Joy’s sister, Fran, then joined her and her family for the rest of the day. Casey made some wonderful French beef and we brought a pork roast for dinner. We got to meet Christopher and Anna’s baby, Cal. The kids admired Christopher’s sword collection. Joy wheedled Casey into playing Uno with us.

Nia: “He had throwing stars too! Plus a punching bag”

JT: He’s an actual ninja!

Hyrum: I really enjoyed spending time with Christopher. We played on the Switch and talked and played board games.

Nia: We played Boomerang Fu and Christopher got a caffeinated hot sauce powerup chasing a bunch of chocolate milks around!

We gave my brother the Trogdor board game for his birthday.

 

Mon 21 – We visited Joy’s youngest brother, Dustin, and his family.