21st Anniversary Murder Party

With everything going on in May, we didn't really have much time to celebrate our anniversary this year (a lot - I mean, we did honor each other and the day, but we never got to the Big Thing). Some years ago we got Joy a murder mystery social game, but we never ended up putting it together. This year she wanted to finally get to that. Pity we couldn't find it! So we bought another one, a murder in fairy tale land. Once Elder Watson was off in Pennsylvania and we finally finished sending our kids to church youth camps, we had a few brain cells to put on a big party on July 18.

Joy: Thank you for making it happen, Derrill!
You are very welcome, my love.

Short version: We had the Dummars, Heiers, Van Valkenburgs, and Johnstons over as the other guests. Each of us played a role from a fairy tale setting with very thinly veiled name changes (Ice White is Snow White; Rumble Milton is Rumplestiltskin….). It was really, really fun handing out the first clues a week in advance because everyone was so excited about the game and talking about getting their costumes together. It felt like a right proper party!

Joy: I felt like we were getting together a masquerade with how much detail everyone was putting into their costumes.
We did put in the invitations that folks could dress up as much or as little as they felt comfortable and fun, and I think we picked the right crowd for this.

Mike and Mollie Van Valkenburg as the Warlock of Osland and Ice White
Joe and Chelle Dummar as the Knave of Hearts and Queen Black
Sue and Jim Johnston as Scarlet Cloak and Magnifico
Joy and Derrill Watson as Pandella and Prince Edward Jon
and Shelby and Eric Heier as Bella and Rumple Milton

Early summer pictures

April 11 - Joy and I went on a walk around town along the Bosque River Trail and found a mural we hadn't seen before. We took a pic near a little fairy reading a book, just like our Nia.

April 20 - Nia on a giant trampoline doing backflips and 360s and scaring her poor father to death when she lands on her head. No damage done, bouncing up again laughing gleefully. Mom, thankfully, never saw it. JT sits tall and proud.

 

May 11 - Joy has taken up woodburning. Nia liked the idea and tried it out as well. She has some real artistic talent! Left: a dragon for Grandma. Right: a girl reading a book under a tree for our cutting board.

May 26 - Nia discovers Tofu and spinach

May 29 - Hyrum takes missionary pictures

May 31 - Mini golf. Joy hit Lovey's ball in for a hole in one!

June 4,5,6 - Hyrum's driver's license arrives! 

Elder Watson's missionary name tag arrives too!

And then we spend the day at Six Flags!

Only after taking the picture did Bugs discover we were dressed for the "wrong" park

We stayed overnight at a hotel and then spent the next day at the temple

June 9 - Nia enjoyed her strawberry ice cream smoothie with sprinkles in a Buddha head cup. She also enjoyed going to For the Strength of Youth (FSY) as Hyrum was about to become ... Elder Watson!

Throwback Thursday - longstitch

 As a kid, I had a hard time sitting still and quiet. (Not unusual, I think.) Once I was old enough, my mother taught me to do longstitch, needlepoint, crochet, and eventually crossstitch. I still enjoy them and am halfway through two projects, one of a dragon and one of our Savior. Nia works on various creative projects now, as you may have seen. For preservations' sake, here are some of my early projects.

I made this at BYU, leaving her hair blank until
I met Joy and knew what color to put in.

I made this one for Joy because of her love of lighthouses

One of my first projects

My grandmother was big into southwest native scenes.
It was my least favorite project I finished. Combining threads of
different colors was a hassle. Never did get it framed.

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!

Christmas memories, Dec 20-28

Our Stephenville ward Christmas program was held a week earlier than usual, so we got to participate. Nia sang a solo verse of Angels We Have Heard on High in French, and she and Joy were part of a lovely quartet. She and "John-Thomas" were credits to the tenor section, Joy sang soprano, and I accompanied and sang bass. I also had a solo called Joseph's Song, where he reassures Mary that she can rest while he protects and cares for her and Jesus.

Hyrum flew to Pop and Grandma's in California a few days before we did. We drove up Sat evening - an uneventful trip - and the next morning all three children joined the tenor section for my home ward's Christmas program. Hyrum has developed a much stronger voice this year, so his siblings could rely on him for support. Joy was in the soprano section, and I joined Pop in the bass section except to accompany the Hallelujah Chorus.

Pop arranged for 4/5 of us to stay at a hotel, while the last one stayed at their house with my brother and his family. Usually it was Nia there so she could be with her cousins and Hyrum could be with JT, but we sometimes switched it up. Hy and I enjoyed using the hotel weight room together. I've got one buff-looking son!

A few headlines

• My parents' jaccuzzi was just upgraded this year, so the kids enjoyed much soaking in it.
• I tried to fix a problem in the curio cabinet when a glass shelf fell and broke on my head. I did finally get the one problem fixed at least!
• Pop figured L (4) was finally old enough for us to read through the entire Christmas Scroll Grandma caligraphied in college, and she was. Joy: I was glad we could read the whole scroll. I don't think I'd realized we had been shortening it.
• Pop and Grandma also shared some special books they had made to help L be reverent during church and a song to remind all the grandchildren that someone was always thinking about them, loving them, and waiting for their return home.
• We did several buffet style meals. Joy particularly enjoyed the kringla.
• Hyrum would pull L in her little red wagon, while JT shot at him with whatever missile they were playing with that day, like a Paw Patrol pool ball. JT says, "Playing with Hyrum was the big part of that week." 
• Joy: I was most happy to be with everyone, and to see Hyrum again.

Nia and I assembled a new clothes organizer together for Grandma
Joy: I really enjoyed seeing how happy Nia was
with helping Grandma upstairs

Nia: I successfully had a 'terrific' tumble in which I thankfully didn't fracture anything, but I got like at least two different sprains in my foot and ankle. I didn't even know spraining your foot was possible! The doctor said I tore a couple ligaments. I am grateful that my foot no longer wishes quite as much to be a chameleon.

???

Nia: My joke has been that my foot saw a chameleon when it fell, and it decided it wanted to be like, so it changed colors and grew! Playing with L was fun. We made up a new game. Because I couldn't walk around, I was watching A (14) play games and one of the bad guys was a piggy. At one point, the piggy was made of marshmallow, so everytime L said "Piggy marshmallow piggy," I tickled her. And she really liked that! 

Nia: I did not know that Grandma is good at hair cutting, but apparently she's done some before with Aunt Emilee and on her mission. So I got a haircut from my grandma and will be keeping some of my new look!

Christmas Eve night was really special. The fire alarm at the hotel went off at 2am. The hotel evacuated, then we waited in the pouring rain (Santa Barbara had enough rain in 3 days to make up a full year's worth!!) until someone finally announced that it was a false alarm and we could return to bed.

A few favorite pictures of the opening of presents below the fold...

What makes us who we are

I was reminded today of a traumatic experience from long ago that has been a great blessing to my family, only it took this long to see it.

When I was a teenager, I had a young PhD student for my Sunday School teacher at church. I will spare you the details, but I considered the class an unmitigated disaster. More than half of my youth group stopped attending Sunday School altogether that year, some went largely inactive, and I blamed him. I never once felt the Holy Spirit in his class. I tried to get the adults to intervene, but they would simply excuse him, explaining to me that a PhD program is very difficult and probably took all his time and he meant well. From my position today, I wonder just how much of a terror I must have been to him as well.

I swore to myself that if that was what getting a PhD meant, then I would NEVER get one.

...

I was a missionary in Germany when I realized I loved to teach and that was what I wanted to do for a living. I asked myself who I would teach. I couldn't imagine grade school, teaching that 3+2=5 year in and year out. I didn't want to go back to junior high or high school. That meant I would be a college professor, and that meant I needed a PhD. (I hadn't yet worked out what I would teach, just where.)

That gave me more than a moment of pause. I worried and fretted. I did NOT want to become another Brother Suchandso. So I made a set of promises to myself, about what I would and would not do, and importantly how I would not speak about my field (whatever it was).

...

I started my PhD program, met Joy, and we started dating. One of our early dates was to a church activity in her ward. She sat me down with a group of men and then wandered off to visit with some sisters. I introduced myself and we had a nice time together.

When Joy returned, she asked if I had been regaling them with economics. They said, no. He did tell us he was studying economics, but then we had a pleasant conversation. That was when she said, "That's because he's my well-behaved economist."

To me, the most important word in that sentence was "MY". I smile still to think of it.

...

I told my children this story today after the thing that reminded me of all this. Joy rejoiced at the great benefit that Sunday School teacher was to our family. If I had spoken like many PhD students, or PhD-havers, she would not have been at all interested in me. We never would have dated, let alone got married.

How blessed I am to have had such a terrible experience at church for 10 months! It made me a better teacher, happier in my profession and at church, and brought me Joy. Who knew that's what God was cooking!

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.

Four religion teachers who meant a lot to me

While attending BYU, I had a great opportunity to attend some outstanding religion courses. Though the details have changed over the years, students at BYU are expected to take a certain number of religion courses in addition to the standard general education requirements of science, math, humanities, and so forth. While we were revisiting my old stomping grounds to prepare Hyrum to join the Y, we found a set of posters recognizing some of the great religion teachers who have worked there.

Jerome Perkins taught me the second half of the Doctrine and Covenants, and I think we had one other course together though it's escaping me just now. I felt that walking into his classroom was walking onto holy ground, and maybe I should remove the shoes from off my feet. I wrote copious notes in my scriptures, which I have copied over into new copies since. I loved how he opened my eyes to the crescendo of Joseph Smith's teachings from the revelation on the three degrees of glory, through the Kirtland Temple and the Missouri and Nauvoo eras.

Alan Parrish was a friend and a great teacher. He was Tall and had Big, Big hands that would engulf you when you shook hands. He invited his classes to his house each semester for a barbecue. I can't remember why he and I decided to call me Orson, after Orson Pratt, but that was my nickname for three delightful semesters: two semesters of Book of Mormon and one on the Pearl of Great Price. His is one of the very few gospel teachers whose voices I can still remember as he taught particular lessons, such as caring for the poor as King Benjamin taught or Alma's warnings of the weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth of the wicked. He teased regularly and let me tease him right back. He got people thinking about what the scriptures truly mean.

Victor Ludlow taught me about Isaiah and Judaism. Every four years as we study the Old Testament, I pull the textbook he wrote off the bookshelf to teach my children how to recognize parallelism and chiasmus in the scriptures and appreciate the beauty of Hebrew poetry. He held a Passover seder at BYU, and I think it would be fair to blame him for much of my interest in honoring Passover every Easter. His courses were the most scholarly rigorous religion courses I had.

Gaye Strathearn taught me to love the writing of Paul. I would have a lot more to say about her, but ... there was this girl. It was a crazy summer, taking calculus, New Testament, and something like 5 hours of dance practice a day while falling in love with someone I shared New Testament class with. It was an amazing time, but the fact that I came away with not just a love of a girl, but a love for Paul says something pretty special about her teaching. Like my D&C, my paper New Testament still contains and honors her notes and teaching.

2025 - other goings on

  This has been a year to punch holes in our walls. I've mentioned the fun with our plumbing. We've also been concerned about a crack from the house resettling (because of the plumbing issues, in part). A friend from church came over to replaster and to fix the worst of it. Another friend from church came over to put the sheetrock in after the plumber made all of his holes.

I did a lot of stagecrafts when I was in high school. So I'm good with wood and paint and such. I understand intellectually that sheetrock is a simple thing, and after watching some more experienced guys go at it, I agree it's something I could probably manage. They sure did it better and faster than I could've!

Jim Gentry has been my good friend and partner in professional development practically since we moved to Tarleton. This year he moved from being in charge of some faculty development to being a department head. This picture wasn't necessarily a going away party - our Scholarship of Teaching and Learning cohort was doing a poster session for their projects - but this would be his last shindig in his old role. Sure have missed working with him!

Family game night and fun at Six Flags. The boys love each other.