DisneyWorld 25-26 - All Good Things

Sunday, January 4 we were all sick. We managed to attend church on Zoom and otherwise slept the majority of the day away. We finally gathered in Pop and Grandma's hotel room for one of the most important parts of our trip:

John-Thomas received the Aaronic Priesthood!

Hyrum was voice, with Pop, Uncle Steve, and me in the circle as he was ordained a deacon. Even though everyone was still tired and worn out, it was one of the higlights of the trip. He has loved serving as a deacon, having a quorum with activities, and passing the sacrament to the congregation.

We had planned to also take him to the temple for the first time on our drive home, but enough of us were still too sick to make that happen. :( 

Monday - Epcot day 2?

Monday was the first day all of us were well enough to get to spend most of the day all together in the parks. Frozen, Remy, and the Guardians of the Galaxy naturally got more love. 

We wandered through Moana's water fountains. It's such a lovely walk! Joy eventually decided to park herself there for a time and rest. "I wanted to stay there because it was so peaceful and beautiful. They even recreated Te Fiti. They did an amazing job with her. I wouldn't be surprised if she was the same one they used in the movie ;)  ."

We finished doing most everything at Epcot and Hyrum had a hard choice. We had talked about him leaving the group to go to Animal Kingdom that he had missed because of being sick or maybe he could catch a couple roller coasters at Hollywood Studios. JT and I would follow wherever Hyrum wanted to go, so I said, "We just want to ride the Hyrum." That was one of JT's favorite memories. In the end, Hyrum decided to stick with the rest of the family for the afternoon. 

We had dinner at the Space restaurant, where Hy told JT he had really been wanting to go on the Tron ride with him. JT: "That was the best time of my Christmas vacation!" The space restaurant had this chocolate cheesecake, covered in decorative chocolate to look like a planet with dusted chocolate chip asteroids and a somethingberry swirl. I liked the whole thing. Joy liked the asteroids. 

After dinner, Hyrum, Nia, JT, and I raced from Epcot to Magic Kingdom (which takes quite a long time, really) to ride Tron. That was Hyrum's last ride. 

Tron is pretty awesome. Since I wore the MagicBand+, it took pictures of me and whatever person I was with, but missed the rest of our party. Here are Nia and I experiencing it for the first time.

On our way out of the park, I parked the kids at the corner of Main Street to watch the electric light parade while I did a little errand. Joy had seen A and L enjoying some giant Mickey chocolate chip cookies and she wanted one. We asked at every cookie shop all over the place, and no one had them. Finally we just asked Emie, and she told us where they were. The cookie shop insisted they only had M&M cookies. I got several, which were WONDERFUL. But the searching and debating with the staff took a while. Once I came out, the parade was just ending. Hyrum said that watching the parade was "the perfect end for my trip." We were all very sad to put him on an Uber Tue morning early and ship him back to the Y.

Tue - Magic Kingdom

At some point I finally had the bright idea of letting the professional photographers around the park take pictures of us when we had a little time to kill waiting for someone else. I wish I had done so earlier when we still had Hyrum. I didn't know my parents were going to buy the full set of pictures. I just figured it was a little fun and maybe we'd be able to find a way to use a miniature or preview version of one. Instead, here are JT, Nia, and I outside Adventure Land:

One of the things I really loved about the trip were the Christmas decorations and especially the Christmas music in every park. The variety and, especially in EPCOT, the cultural versions of beloved Christmas songs were delightful. I've been scouring the internet to find similar renditions and just cannot. Disney is missing a trick, not selling me the international Christmas soundtrack! One of the sad things, was watching the Christmas decorations slowly vanish. There were a few fewer every day after New Year's, and by our last day they were mostly all gone. I sure do love me some Christmas!

Nia's favorite souvenier was a mini Eiffel Tower. She has loved learning French at school, so greatly enjoyed her time in France at Epcot. Here she is posing with it outside Tiana's water ride that replaced Splash Mountain. Sadly, it broke. Both the ride (again!) and the tower. Pop and Grandma were staying in Florida an extra day or so beyond what we did, and even though they were feeling very sick, they did a quick jaunt to Epcot to get her a new tower. My parents really spoiled all of us!

Our second time on Tron.

Wednesday morning we flew home (well, my old home), arriving in Santa Barbara in the early/mid afternoon. We rearranged all the stuff we had left at Pop and Grandma's, fed the cats, and drove off to Riverside, CA for the night. That's where we had hoped to do temple work Thursday morning. Instead we got off to a late start, ending in our usual stop in Deming, NM before finishing the drive home Friday. We were very thankful to have taken two nights for the drive instead of just one. That gave us permission to pause or rest when we needed to. I attended my college meeting on Zoom as we drove.

And THAT was our great adventure to DisneyWorld and California this Christmas!

Joy's big test

With Hyrum away at college and the other kids much older, Joy has been pondering what more she wants to do. 

Joy: "The one thing that was really clear to my mind one day was a timeline of my life. I had focused on being a mom for something like 20 years, and I probably had about 20 more years of feeling really good and being able to do some good. If that was what I had left, what was I going to do with it?"

One of her big desires has been to serve. So she volunteered to be a temple worker in the Dallas temple Fridays and reached out to a local counseling center. She has been volunteering there with whatever odds and ends they needed help with ... while preparing to join them as a counselor!

~~~Wavy flashback~~~

The first night we met

22 years ago, Joy was a graduate student at Edinboro University, PA (now PennWest University) getting a masters degree in counseling. She got her degree with a concentration in career counseling at the beginning of May 2005, and we married just 3 weeks later. She opted to stay home from the beginning so she could prepare our home for the children we hoped for and now have.

In the intervening time, she has kept her membership active in the big counselor associations. That has included taking continuing education credits, studying family counseling, and spending several years studying new counseling techniques. This was in preparation for the day she might want or need to make more professional use of her degree. And that day is here!

~~~End of wavy flashback~~~

Since we got back from DisneyWorld, Joy has been increasingly focused on preparing for the major National Counseling Exam. The last time she took it was 20+ years ago right after spending two years of classwork studying. It was the culmination of her masters degree. Now she's going after it without the help of teachers or fellow students. During the last month, she spent 30-40 hours a week in fulltime study mode.

Joy: "I feel like Heavenly Father has helped me as I have tried to find the best way to study for the test for me. Even as I've made my note cards, everytime I felt the test coming closer and I felt to stress out about it, I've been able to quickly get ways to adjust my studying so it wouldn't be as stressful and I would be able to understand the material better."

"A tender mercy came a week ago Friday when my supervisor at the temple decided to let me stay home because of the expected bad weather, and I felt like I really needed the time to study. I wouldn't have asked for the time off, but I was thankful when it was offered."

The test is this Tuesday!

When she passes, she will join the Compassionate Counseling Center across from the high school as a counselor a couple days a week (the only days they're open). The women there all love Joy - naturally! - and have been very cheering and encouraging, helping to pave the way for her to move forward with this. It will be volunteer work to serve the community, and we are all excited for her to accomplish this dream and move forward.

Joy: "I'm really looking forward to being done with the test!"

Good luck, Joy!

Joy's birthday plus some other photos

The most important thing most every Oct/November in our home is usually Joy's birthday. We also had a surprise visit from Pop and Grandma, who delivered us a replacement for our car Joy had just had an accident in. Not knowing if we'd be able to drive it again, my parents offered to just GIVE us their car. We very thankfully accepted. Among the nice parts is that they drove the exact same make and year we did, just in red instead of black. That made the trade much easier. Once we learned that our black car would live again, we similarly handed it off to another family who had lost theirs.

Joy says:

I have a hard time deciding where to start. Everyone takes such good care of me. This year I feel very successful in not getting stressed for the holiday season. My birthday is so close to the season that I often have a hard time enjoying it. So that is my biggest gift to myself: being relaxed for my birthday. Part of being relaxed is paying for a cake and not making it myself. I got a lovely cake from HEB, the Oreo ice cream cake, yum. At some point Derrill got me some flowers that I am still enjoying. We were at the store and Derrill asked me what kind of flowers I wanted for my birthday. I looked at all of the pretty flowers and wondered if I would finally have the courage to get baby's breath instead of large flowers. As I asked myself that, I started looking at the Baby's Breath and found a nice marroon colored group. I told Derrill I was thinking about getting the little maroon flowers, He seemed ok with it, so I got them. I really enjoyed them and I might get that kind of flower again sometime. 

July-Oct 2025: praise for Initiative and Sewing

Nia trying on one of my hats
and a new hair style.

JT and me at Six Flags Over Texas

In October, JT was honored for showing a lot of Initiative. His teacher praised him for how he tries to get his work done and to help everyone else in class be happy. He asks a lot of great questions that show his understanding and a creative mind. As far as we are concerned, she really nailed a lot of what makes our youngest great!

 Joy and I enjoyed a date at the cafeteria and another walking along the Bosque River Trail

Nia started attending an online public high school. That's been very useful for her medical visits! They sent her a school shirt, but it was several sizes too small (kids vs. adult!) and they couldn't send us another. So she ripped open the seam and put in a decorative trim. Here she is showing off her new shirt and shiny shoes.

Joy and the Accidental Miracle

Joy was driving to the Dallas temple in the very early morning tenish days ago (as we start writing this post). She was nearly at the temple, still on the freeway. She saw a chunk of metal on the road ahead, but there were cars to either side of her, which made avoiding it rather difficult. It attached itself to her car's underbelly and she dragged it for some distance until she was able to get it dislodged and move to the side of the road. She parked on a narrow shoulder and started calling people.

J: After I pulled over, the first thing I did was see if I could put it in gear again. It wouldn't even rev, which meant it wasn't really in gear. It was more like in neutral.

She called her temple coordinator first, to let them know she might be a little late. She called me next, and I had woken up by that point to get her call as soon as it came in. She reported that she was okay, no injuries, and not even particularly rattled. I was very impressed with how calmly she was taking the situation. But it sounded quite clear that she could not continue driving just now.

After me, she called a friendly tow truck, that took her first to a mechanic who said he couldn't repair that.

J: That's when I saw - because the mechanic looked underneath - all three of us could see that the transmission was hanging down that had been broken off of the casing. He only repairs them, but that one needed to be replaced. So the tower took me to another place that was recommended by the first place.

They hadn't opened just yet

J: So I had my key, we left the key at the gas station next to it

Because there was no room for them at the inn

J: I mean, really, all the parking was stuffed with cars in different directions! Like, on their property there was no space. We could maybe fit the nose of the tow onto the property.

And then the tow drove her to the temple, which was only a few miles away. She called me again from the temple, and we spoke with tearful gratitude about her safety and now being at the temple. We both had the odd feeling that this accident happened with deliberate timing - that having something go wrong now was much better than it happening later. She was safe and completely uninjured. She felt peace!

J: I would go as far as to say that I felt joy bubbling up inside me.

... time passes ...

It's been three weeks since the accident. Insurance decided to replace the transmission, but conversation between them and the mechanic has been exceptionally spotty, so repairs haven't really started yet. We have been very thankful that we inherited my great aunt's car a few years ago and that one can take care of us. In another post we'll probably talk about how this week my parents drove up from California to gift us their car (same year and model as ours, but with 130k FEWER miles on it) (!!!!). We are indeed very most fortunate and blessed!

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!"

Fossil Rim

Most summers we like to get season tickets for somewhere interesting and really enjoy it. One year (21-22) we did Fossil Rim, the safari park near Glen Rose, TX. We visited often and enjoyed each trip, but one thing we never seemed to manage was to get there first thing in the morning. This year, someone - I think it was the alumni association - paid for all faculty and staff at Tarleton to get free access for a couple weeks. So shortly before graduations, we drove down and really enjoyed seeing much more active animals than we would find in the mid- or late-afternoon in the Texas heat. (Go figure!)

One of our best encounters was the first and also the last. An ostrich came over, feeling very aggressive, to demand our food pellets. It attacked Joy through the window and tried to eat the toy giraffe hanging there by its neck. Joy tried to protect herself ... using the bag of food pellets! She quickly realized how counterproductive that was and closed the window. When we left the park again, the ostrich came to dance for us and snuggle with the van. 

Joy: I think the ostrich was trying to open the window so it could get to me.

Joy: Everyone that wanted to had personal encounters with the giraffe.

D: Often there is a long line of cars for the giraffes. They are quite adept at welcoming themselves inside in a gentle, non-threatening way (unlike the ostrich!) It was nice to have this one to ourselves for a while.

Turns out, 2021-22 when we had season passes was the last time we went to Fossil Rim. Joy took the kids to Fossil Rim a number of times while I had to work. Given that I wasn't blogging that year, here are some pictures from a couple of those trips too, below the fold:

20th Anniversary

Patrons of the Arts,
June 2023

DW: We are celebrating our 20th anniversary this year. Rather than having a larger trip, we decided to devote special time every day for a bit over a week, making 7-10 dates together.

Joy: We went for time together and for variety. Our goal was at least a couple hours together every day.

DW: We officially started with Pride and Prejudice at the Granbury Opera House. We were pleased to see that they still have their list of supporters from 2023 up, which includes us! 

Joy: We had some nice conversations with the people we sat near. When we first sat down, they had some windows on stage at really odd angles and we were thinking that was strange. The windows came down either at the front or back of the stage depending on if the characters were inside or out. It was really a good impetus for us to watch some more of the movie (Firth and Ehle). The love story seemed a lot more abrupt in the play!

DW: It got me thinking about the real challenge of taking a novel as complex and character-rich as P&P and turning it into something for 90-120 minutes. Some characters are just going to end up on the cutting room floor. And in this case, the growing love story between the two main characters was one of the casualties. Intermission ended, Elizabeth walked on stage, and said, "Well, that was a lovely six weeks in Derbyshire!" and you now knew we had skipped Lady Catherine and every conversation that would redeem Darcy in her eyes. But it's easier on the set designer! The letter shows up, telling us Kitty has run off, and Darcy happens to call on her whole family to learn the disaster. Lady Catherin did still show up at the very end.

Joy: I thought she did a good job. I liked how they did a flashback to the ball at Merytown, talking about what happened while other characters danced and Darcy insulted. I think they didn't have near enough of an idiot for the dad, which I don't see as an improvement. He's really supposed to be a comedian in the show.

DW: I was impressed to see Mary played for laughs.

Joy: Mary was done well.

DW: And Mr. Collins was more of a fop, less cringe, with his over-exaggerated bow. Mrs. Bennett was in too much self-command.

Joy: No kidding!

DW: And afterwards we got on the free trolley for a short ride around the square in the dark. The trolly ride reminded Joy of the Cinderella carriage ride we took after the family dinner on our wedding day.

DW: Over the 20 years, we have had to replace Joy's wedding ring a few times. She likes opals, but opals aren't really good at staying put in their ring setting. The first time we had to replace it, I hid her new ring in an unopened jar of Nutella. We opened it for New Year's and Joy was very pleasantly surprised to have a new ring.

Return of the Blogger?

 Some time ago, all the backup copies of our family pictures failed. Computers and external hard drives all. I only have a very few of them saved on my work computer, and really only since, like, 2022.

I finally realized that not all was lost. I had this blog and our old one. And we have saved pictures! I shared pictures and wonderulf, wonderful stories. Over the last month I've gone from 2008 or so up through 2012, saving every single picture I uploaded and reliving all those early glory days of baby/toddler Prince and baby Princess. (Baby J-T had not yet arrived, much to his dismay when I start sharing stories).

How very deeply thankful I am for this old blog, for our Newlywed History, for Facebook, and for the scattered physical journals I and we have kept over the last 20 years of our marriage.

... and maybe I should try to get back to This Old Blog too.

Christmas trip to Disneyland, 2024
Joy, Princess, JT, Derrill, Prince

We went to DisneyWorld in Feburary 2022 - a conversation

<Each paragraph begins with the name or letter of whoever says it. If there is no introductory letter, then it's me, Derrill>

My dad speaks at a regular pension conference in Orlando, Florida each February. That has become a convenient opportunity for him to take some or all of his family with for some Disney World fun. We hoped to go up in 2021, but couldn't for obvious reasons, but made it this year.

To prepare, we went back to the very beginning, Snow White, and watched all the animated Disney movies up to around the 1980s before the trip happened. This was a project we spent many months on because we watch movies so infrequently.

Joy: We also watched Youtube videos about some of the rides. The kids enjoyed that. They made a list of rides they wanted to go on at each park. We also prepared our Disney points

By spending money on our Disney credit card to get Disney dollars back

Joy: So we could spend them at the parks.

Since we had also managed a trip to DisneyLand in the summer of 21 when Aunt Virginia died, that also helped the kids, and JT especially, get ready for the larger park and get some of our favorites done in the same year at least. My brother's family joined us for the trip to Disneyland, but couldn't come for Disney World.

Superstar had been to Disneyworld and Disneyland as a toddler, but had no memory. Princess had also been to one but didn't remember. So these trips were the "first" times going to Disney for all the kids!

Pop, Emie with baby Lucy, Steve, Princess and A
JT, Grandma, Joy, Superstar, and Derrill

Falliage

 We enjoyed driving through the Stephenville foliage after church. No, it's not upstate New York foliage, but it's nice in its own way. One of our favorite trees was ours. Here are pictures of each of us trying to climb our tree. Happy autumn!

An Unexpected Journey, part 3 - Speaker for the Dead

Aunt Coralee offered to host a picnic get-together before the funeral. We decided that having the kids run around at a park before time to be reverent was not the best strategy, so we sent Joy by herself as a family rep.

Joy: "My sister Fran offered to take me so that I could leave the car behind. I'm glad that she decided to come with me. She even stayed for a little while. It was great to see some of my mom's family. My mom's family always used to get together for Thanksgiving and a family reunion in the summer, but after my grandma died it's mostly been for funerals and maybe special birthdays. So it was really sweet to have Coralee invite people to get together, like old times.

"My aunt Carla was there with Jackie and her daughter, . Brent and Howard were there and Howard's daughter that's Christine's friend. My uncle Dennis and his wife and her daughter were there. My aunt Wendy and my uncle Blair came. I haven't seen either one of them since they got married, or nearly so. It was really nice to seem them. I had felt really close to them as a kid. I had hardly recognized Aunt Wendy. Actually, I saw Aunt Wendy on my way out to Pennsylvania; I stayed overnight in her house in Ohio."

"My aunt Carla passed out family group sheets and she visited my mom every week in Ogden before Covid happened. She had told me that she felt like she was standing in the place of my mom's Mom, who would visit her that regularly if she could. It was always on Sunday. My aunt Rose came. I've always really loved my aunt Rose. Her husband is not doing well, and stays in their home all year long. I got to hear about that because I told her to remember to tell him to behave and be nice to her because he always used to tease her in public."

"My aunt Nonie was there with her new husband. It was nice to meet him - seems calm and reserved. I'm sure that's why they suit each other. Nonie's kind of quiet. But anytime I tried to talk to him, he was very eager to talk to me."

Sounds like me!

"And of course Dustin and Christine came with their children. Christine expressed a desire, quite persistently, that she wanted them to come and visit us in Texas. That just made me so happy! She even talked about doing so this year. :)   I'm going to need to follow up. I really had a good time visiting with the people I love in my mom's family."

DeWayne, Doug, and Dustin - sons
Christopher, Jude, Superstar, Sammy, and Anna - grandchildren

Superstar ~ I got to be a pall bearer for the funeral, which was very exciting. ~

"Jake and Amy came for the funeral" even though they are on your dad's side of the family. "I think though it has to do with Doug making such close friends with people. He had some friends there from high school!

There was a canopy set up outside at the gravesite. It was a hot day, so most people either congregated inside the canopy or in the shade of the trees around. It was quite a good turnout, with maybe 10-20% wearing masks for Covid.

Uncle DeWayne conducted the service. It was recorded on a webcam and is preserved for posterity here*****. Uncle Doug gave the official talk about life. He took Orson Scott Card's "Speaker for the Dead" as an inspiration, trying to tell a deeper truth about life and Mom - not glossing over the hard times and human foibles, but still in an attempt to honor their mother. I was particularly impressed with the rhetorical flourish near the end, when he shared something along the lines of 'She didn't teach us responsibility, but she taught us independence. She didn't give us _this___, but she gave us __that_____.' It was very poetic.

Dustin, Fran, Joy, Doug, DeWayne

His talk gave others permission to also be honest yet kind. He and they mentioned the poverty she always lived in. We heard about how the family didn't have food some days, about needing to move from place to place often, about the judgment they faced from others in the community. And yet despite it all, she was loving and kind and forgiving; she held firm to her love of Jesus and the gospel.

John-Thomas # I liked the broom talk. That was really fun. Like, "Ahhhh! I'm coming for you with the broom!"#

Uncle Doug told a favorite story of his mother. He, DeWayne, and Joy were sharing a room in the attic. DeWayne and Joy were asleep, but Doug was running and jumping around until his mother called upstairs to get him to stop. He didn't. She warned that she was going to come upstairs with a broom. Li'l Dougie poked his head around the corner and saw her marching up the stairs with a broom.

Uhoh! Quickly he jumped into bed and pretended to be asleep. His mom entered the room, looked around at three "sleeping" forms and announced, "Alright! Who's really sleeping and who's just pretending?!" Then she took the broom and WHAPPED DeWayne multiple times. Doug laid in bed, silently laughing to himself. Until his mother left the room and DeWayne returned the favor, that is.

JT #That one was funny.#

They had some time for anyone who wanted to to come up and share thoughts and feelings and memories about Grandma Joy. Superstar and Princess both did.

S ~ I spoke about how we went to Grandma Joy's nursing home and they had some of the yummiest hot chocolate there. I always looked forward to going there to have the hot chocolate because I was 8 the last time I had seen her. At the end I got to place the pall-bearer flower from my shirt on the casket. ~

In his closing remarks, DeWayne mentioned that mom was not very good with the Rules of the gospel, but she taught her children to Love the gospel.

J: "Mom always took us to church. Some people who get excommunicated don't come to church anymore, but my mom never stopped going."

For those who don't know, Mom did come back into full fellowship and died in the faith. Many people praised her acceptance and non-judgmental attitude. I had thought of sharing about how she accepted me with open arms, but Mari and Amy gave very similar accounts of how welcoming she was already, and I wanted to leave more time for people actually related to her.

Sister Paige, who led music and was a close family friend, was there and shared some very interesting family experiences "in a big white van." Aunt Coralee accompanied the congregation on the mandolin, singing "You Are My Sunshine" and "I Often Go Walking". So overall it was an interesting graveside service. My favorite line was one of her brothers saying, "Elona always loved men" and describing how as a toddler she would follow just about any male around. She would get into strange men's cars without them knowing about it. She was too young to know her address, and so the folks just took her to the police station. The police would give her a cookie and call her folks to say Elona was there again. "She thought that was a great time." We've occasionally had one of our kids wander off, but never for more than 15-30 minutes. We can't even imagine how much we would freak out if, Princess say, decided to wander into strangers' cars. "Eek!" Some people will say that life is different today, but I tend to think that people haven't actually changed that much - most people are decent. We just hear a lot more about the scary things. Anyway.

J: "DeWayne ended by talking about forgiveness. That week I decided to practice forgiving at a deeper level as well."