Photo from Feb 2017 Story

 

Story for a Photo of Mine from February 2017

Over a four-year period, our Holmquist family in Frenchtown hosted three international youth exchange students from three different parts of the world —Brazil, Spain and Thailand—who all were boys who roomed with Anders. During their school year stay with us, all three boys celebrated birthdays and this photo features the boy from Spain, Alvaro Vila.

Here we are, celebrating when Alvaro turned 16, complete with a cake and candles and evidently helium balloons, judging by the strings. Our little party included the Holmquist and Tabor families with Alvaro. He seemed to be pleased with our efforts—which were low key for a sweet sixteen celebration, if movies are to be believed.

It was February in Montana, and no doubt freezing cold outside, so the festivities were also limited to the confines of our house since no one wanted to party in the ice and snow.

A picture is worth a ten thousand words...so let’s get busy! Just kidding. You can try coming up with all those words yourself....

—Cary Holmquist, 28 February 2021, Frenchtown, Montana.

February 7, 2017 Cary and I were in Salt Lake City attending the RootsTech genealogy conference. Every time we go we return to some of our favorite haunts from “when we was first married.” One of those is the Iceberg drive in Holliday, Utah only blocks from our first apartment.

This place is renowned in the SL valley for its more than 50 flavors of thick and tall! shakes. As you can tell from this picture one is more than a meal!! I’m pretty sure the one I had was almond fudge because that was my favorite then and still. Cary added coconut to his.

They do serve food. But as I tell Cary you can make a meal out of dessert.

Colleen Holmquist

THE BASEBALL GLOVE

Daren Flynn 02/28/21

In my junior year in high school, I needed a new baseball glove for the up coming baseball season. I found an Early Wynn signature glove and bought it. The glove (pictured) served me well for many years. Two years of high school, two years of College, try outs with the Lewiston Broncs, a summer of softball on a team with my Dad.
The first season of the glove was cut short by a nasty bout of the mumps. It was only used in two or three games, and come out the winner in all of them.

The glove's second season was successful and I was glad to have had it. My dad watched every game, sitting directly behind home plate, and critiqued each of those games later at home. Coach Dad helped the glove to a no loss season, including back to back shutouts (5-0 two hitter and 10-0 no hitter). The Early Wynn glove was just one of a whole team of gloves and guys who used them. They were all instruments in winning the league title in 1955.

For two seasons at Northwest Nazarene College the glove performed well and contributed to twice as many wins as losses. And it again was part of the reason the team won the ICAC (Inter-mountain CollegiateAthletic Conference) crown in 1957.

During the summer between my Freshman and Sophomore years in college, my glove and I were privileged to play town league on my Dad's team. That was a great experience. Dad pitched. He was terrific! The glove and I got to hold down the third base duties. It was really great to play ball with the man who taught me all I knew about baseball.

The glove was also involved in a couple of try outs for professional clubs. Unsuccessful, but fun.

Over the years since the glove's retirement from active duty, it has had the privilege of playing catch with my kids (boys and girls) as well as grandchildren, including one season of assistant coaching Javin's summer league team.

It is well used and worn out, but patched up and still usable and anxious to be involved in playing catch or even a game of pepper. Anyone want to play?

(Grammie chose Feb 2019)

OUTDOOR TO INDOOR

On February 19th 2019 a mini blizzard blew through Ephrata. The wind gust piled drifts up to about 4 foot deep in our back porch/patio. It took a couple of hours to dig the snow out of the area. 
Your Grumpa and Grammie, aka Daren and Myrna, decided that we did not want to contend with a snowed in patio again. What stated out to be a 2 foot wall around the front kept growing until it became an outdoor-indoor room.

The only cost to build it was the windows, which we found at Habitat for Humanity for $65, paint, nails and screening. Your dad used pallet boards for the short wall. It also has a place to display the bottles we found when bottle hunting with my dad, Grampa Sam.

It is a nice, pleasant place to enjoy being outside without being plagued by bees and mosquitoes. The only drawback is during the summer days, it becomes to hot to be comfortable. Mornings and evenings are great though, to sit out and read a book or to visit with family or friends. So, my invitation to you, is come and visit and enjoy it with us. (we can even have a BBQ.)

By: Myrna Flynn

One evening in February 2017, a young man of 12.5 years old undertook to make something. But wait, let’s take a look at this photo and see what all is going on....It would appear someone was making hot coco or herbal tea. Can you read his shirt? It says: “Does this face look like it cares?” Who buys these sassy shirts, anyway? 

OK, OK, back to the story. The young man, Scott, saw that you can make single serve treats in a mug. He found a recipe for a churro in a cup and just had to have it! He printed off the recipe, collected all of the ingredients: Flour, sugar, milk, oil, baking powder and cinnamon. Measured each with precision, mixed well and placed the cup in the microwave for 45 to 60 seconds.

When the timer dinged, he had  a yummy treat. Thus it is important to teach children to read a recipe and how to measure ingredients, so that when they are hungry for a treat they can make it themselves.  He has gone on to create his own cookie recipe that is delicious. Scott can make anything he sets his mind to and therefore will not starve from lack of knowledge. As can all of his siblings, they may not want to cook or bake, but they can. One of the important life skills is how to cook and bake.  

By: Carrie Keiser

Newness -

Running around, so excited to see each new thing.

Empty rooms, but nearly bursting with potential.

Almost finished, almost done, nearly there.

The kids are excited too.

By: Aaron Leavitt

“Let’s go to the store sweetie-heart!” Leyla said to Jemma. So they told their mommy that they needed some diapers and applesauce and candy. Their mommy said, “Yes diapers, yes applesauce, no candy.” Applesauce is almost as good as candy to a 3-year-old and a 1 ½-year-old, so they were good little girls and vamoosed it out to the car. Leyla always let Mommy drive the car, but when they got to Daddy’s store Leyla insisted she got to drive the cart in the store. Jemma preferred to ride on the bottom of the cart, rather than the basket. Leyla pushed her sweetie-heart all around the store, never mind that she couldn’t see over the handle of the cart. Much to the girls’ dismay all mommy actually bought that day was tooth flossers.

By: Ryanne Leavitt

    I went back to my planner to find the details and discovered that over the years of owning this type of planner, I have gotten better at putting it to multiple uses, including journaling.  The regular days that don’t have a big event can get lost in the mists of the mind and I have found that I don’t want that to happen.  I want my kids and people down the road to be able to see what my daily life was like. True there is not a hit movie in the making here, but there are the day to day struggles that help others see that life is life and we trust the Lord and move on!

Ok, so I may have cheesed out a bit on this one!  I picked February 8, 2017, Javin’s 11th birthday.  What is easier to recall than a child’s birthday!  

February in central Washington is a strange beast.  All winter long (usually) it hardly acts like it is winter, then BOOM February comes along and the snow and sleet and ice and wind and freezing rain come along to remind you that yes, it is actually winter.  That is what happened for Javin’s birthday.

We had a fairly large birthday dinner planned...’cause the boy does love a crowd...and with more people usually comes more presents...ya see, he is a thinker that one.  Only, with the 4 inches of snow that fell over night and then the freezing rain that decided to come on top of that we had to cancel the big gathering.  We just went small. We had a small dinner and a blue cake with rainbow sprinkles (without Megan there to help me make, and by help I mean make a cool cake, well it just didn’t happen).  That topped with the  fact that I was babysitting full time for Marisa and David meant there wasn’t much time left for such things.  The only “guests” there were Orissa, Aaron, Me, Draco, Skya, mum and Da ...they only got to come ‘cause they were living in the side yard, which I truly miss every day, so don’t even get me started(;.

The small todo wasn’t exactly what he had wanted or planned for, but getting to open his new phone made up for the lack of people, and it did hurt that the teacher/principle of our school decided to make it a school holiday (one can do that sort of thing when is all those things and mom)yay homeschool!  

There you have it, that day in our lives brought to you by a picture of a boy, his da, and grandparents with a yummy if not cool looking cake!