Kim, Heather, and Sarah Reynolds

Entries from November 2002

November 29, 2002

Post-Thanksgiving Synopsis
posted by Heather at 07:09 AM |

Thanks to all of you who provided ideas for our Thanksgiving discussions. We received some others by e-mail & phone - I’ll try to get those posted in the next few days so that we’ve got them handy when we need them again (beware of when 2 or 3 of these groups are gathered together …).

Anyway, thought I’d give you the report of things, as it’s some fun family history. You’ll probably all chuckle at the varied results we got:

1. What was Thanksgiving like when you were 5? (Served with the ginger-carrot soup from a jar by Walnut Acres)

This really turned into a discussion of what life was like when folks were 5, as no one could specifically remember Thanksgiving.

Vel: When Vel was 5, they were living on the farm. She was the baby of the family, so this was probably one of the last years all her siblings were still at home. When Vel was 5, Ruby was 10, Ed was 15, and Art was 18 or so. Vel’s mom probably cooked the entire dinner, including pumpkin pie from scratch, probably something with apples (it being eastern Washington), and turkey. The turkey might have been one they raised, but she wasn’t sure.

Jo: They were living in Marietta and we determined Aunt Ruth would have been about 2.

Heather: Our family would have just moved into the house on Fullerton. David would have been about a year old and I suspect we went to Hamilton to have Thanksgiving with Grandma & Grandpa McCreath.

Kim: They were living in Bay Park, an area not far from where Vel now lives. This was the first house they had in the San Diego area. Greg would have been 8 and Candy would have been 6. Vel and Kim agreed they probably went to Costa Mesa to have Thanksgiving at Keith & Flo’s - Keith was one of Kim’s dad’s older brothers. Kim remembers always having fun at their house. He recalls Keith was good at slight-of-hand magic, so was always pulling coins out of your ear or pulling kleenex through your ears. They also remembered that Flo & Keith were huge LA Rams fans.

2. What was the funniest thing that ever happened on Thanksgiving? (Mixed greens salad with mandarin oranges & sliced almonds, sourdough dinner rolls)

Vel & Jo both said nothing funny ever happened - it was always just a nice occasion.

Kim couldn’t remember anything, so I had to trot out the Brian and punky pie story (accompanied by groans from Kim). Sarah enjoyed the story, though :). I also recalled the Thanksgiving weekend when Mom & Dad visited us in Birmingham and we raked up 78 bags of leaves and pine needles.

3. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? (Herb-roasted turkey breast, fresh cranberry sauce from Whole Foods, red rice from Trader Joe’s, boiled new potatoes with basil, squash and sweet potato rings (you need the recipe for this!!))

Sarah: Texas to see the cowboys and then to Denver to see her buddies

Vel: Alaska

Jo: No answer, as she hadn’t had time to think about it

Kim: Incan ruins in South America (it seems like he suggested another place, too, but I can’t remember!)

Heather: Incan ruins and St. Petersburg Russia (where the Hermitage is)

4. Who is the relative you remember who was the most older than you? (Homemade pumpkin pie and punky pie (Cool Whip))

Sarah: Grandma Jo (she was really plowing through her second piece of pie by the time we got to her, so I answered for her)

Vel: Her dad’s parents, who we figured out must have been born in the 1840s.

Jo: Unclear, but perhaps Grandpa’s parents? We figured they’d been born in the 1890s. We also determined that Grandma remembered parts of WW I and remembered knowing about Woodrow Wilson. However, when Kim asked what her parents thought of him, she said she would never have thought to ask them.

Kim: His maternal grandparents, although his paternal uncles were also much older than his dad.

Heather: My great-grandmother Stalder (Grandma Jo’s mother)

We think this is a fascinating question, because you only have to go back 3 generations or so to have someone who would remember parts of the Civil War and one further generation to have folks who remember the Revolutionary War. Now there’s an American history lesson for you!

We hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving, regardless of whether you ate at home or out and whether you prepared the food or not. It was a beautiful SoCal day (high around 80) and we had a table nicely decorated with placecards from Sarah (did the spelling herself, except for help with “Vel”) and flowers from Aunt Jean and Mom (many thanks!). We are so grateful for all we have, but we are particularly grateful to have all of you in our lives.

post a comment | 4 comment(s)

November 24, 2002

Getting back on track
posted by Heather at 08:38 AM |

Life seems to be settling down, so time to catch up with the rest of you and get hooked into this system. We’ve so enjoyed reading all the postings from you all. I’ve also shared some of them with Grandma. I thought she was gonig to pop a blood vessel when she was reading about David’s almost-van, she was laughing so hard.

We are comfortably into the rhythm of life here. We enjoy the house (although we haven’t done much work on it yet). There are sidewalks all over and many businesses within walking distance, so a big contrast from our past couple of houses. I’m still enchanted by the fact that things are growing in our yard that we can eat without much caretaking from us.

We have just begun to scratch the surface of things to see and do. We’ve been camping a couple of times and are planning to go to Joshua Tree in a couple of weeks. We’ve been to the Tar Pits and the Autry museum, as well as Santa Monica and the Pier. Daily life, though, is plenty fascinating!

Kim enjoys his new position. There is a good set of colleagues for him at USC. Beginning in February, he’s put together 4 grant proposals. A small one was funded and gotten good reviews on a couple of others, so that bodes well for future work. This fall, he taught lower division undergraduates for the first time (Survey of Health Promotion). He’s enjoyed it, but been fascinated by how some of them are still just big kids.

Sarah has embraced life here with gusto. She is attending San Marino Montessori this year and we are all happy with the choice. She was ready for some academic challenge and is doing very well. She is now reading, writing pretty well, and doing some basic math. Her class is a pretty cohesive group, so she is making some friends. As part of the regular curriculum, she has Spanish (daily); voice, recorder, and keyboard (1-2 times/week for each); and dance (2-3 times/week). There are also some after-school programs offered, so she’s tried gymnastics (wants to do it again) and ballet (LOVES it). She’s also taking swimming lessons at the Y and is becoming a little fish.

It has been difficult for her to make friends in the neighborhood. Kids don’t play in front yards much and everyone heads out to different schools, so that link is not there. The 11-yr-old boy next door tolerates her periodically, but we recently discovered (when trick-or-treating!) that one of her friends from school lives in the next block. The girls have gotten together a couple of times and I foresee many more.

Zoni is doing well but showing her age. She’d much rather poke around in the front yard these days than go for a walk. She’s found all the sun spots in the house and rotates through them during the day.

I’ve had to become an early bird. I need to work 6am-3pm to be on the same hours as the office in Central time, so I’ve actually been getting up at 5 to work a couple of hours before getting Sarah ready for school. Being done in the middle of the afternoon is great, though! There were a lot of changes at UAB in the past year, but things are somewhat steady now. Both large studies I work with are submitting renewals in January, so that is very exciting.

I’ll stop here and get more info up in a couple of days. We’ll have Kim’s mom and Grandma here for Thanksgiving, so should be interesting!