How Your Income Stacks UP

Saw an article in Kiplinger by Kevin McCormally with this title. Here it is - the incomes that get you to the indicated place in all incomes in America according to the IRS in 2007. This is personal income but would still be somewhat applicable if you are looking at your family income:
Income Category 2007 AGI
Top 1% $410,096
Top 5% 160,041
Top 10% 113,018
Top 25% 66,532
Top 50% 32,878
Where was the poverty line? Well for a single person $11,201 and for a family of 4 it was $21,834.
Shoot - I remember making less than the poverty line as a principal with a family of 5! Shoot when I moved over to Riverdale and got my big raise to $20,000 we still would have been in poverty today! Very interesting.

My Topher Christmas Tie

If it is near Christmas it is time to wear my Topher Christmas tie. I got this tie several years ago and get to wear it each year at Christmas time. It usually draws all kinds of comments.

So Christopher (Topher) this post is dedicated to you and we wish you a happy birthday as yesterday was your 9th birthday. Next year you will be double digits! My how time flies.

Grandpa Birdie's Shiner

Unofficial Account of the Incident: Grandpa was out celebrating Pearl Harbor Day and got into an altercation with a retired Marine. Someone asked grandpa how the Marine was and he replied that he didn't know he was still in intensive care.

True version - He had a nasty fall in front of Bonnie's house. He has stitches, the black eye, he banged up his hand (better today) and had a big goose-egg above his eye but that too is better today.

Missionary Trainer's Office After a Day of Work

So how does a missionary trainer work. You know we actually have a computer room in our house but I hate working from there because it is like a cell - small, crowded and the one window looks out on the side fence - not much of a view and claustrophobic to me. Solution - Move out into the living room/dining room at the front of the house where I have a view out into the neighborhood and feel like I am in the world. This is much better for me but drives Barbara crazy because of all the mess. This was taken right after my last live lab with this group of missionaries. My tools: Two lap tops (one to teach from and one to view what the class looks like to others), boombox to play music on between the time the lab is opened on the web and we actually start the class proper. Speakers to plug into computer 2 to play the sound from a YouTube video I showed that lab - can't figure out how to get the sound into the lab directly. And then paper, paper, paper, binders, binders, binders. Yes, now that the labs are over it is cleaned up. And every Sunday it is cleaned for the family dinner. So most of the time when I am on line here is my home.

Maycee Eats(?) Soup

How does a 1 year old eat soup? Not easily that is for sure. Maycee the picky eater wasn't doing so well with ham so we decided to give her some of the chunky veggies from our soup since veggies are her favorite food. Well she loved them and obviously they loved her too.

Christmas Scenes from Around the House

The Christmas tree is all trimmed - lights, ornaments and tinsel it was an all week project.

The tree is in the regular Santa room.

In this room all the Santas are snowmen.

Meeting Sister Horton

Sister Horton is one of the missionaries that I trained with when I went into this mission. She lives in southern California - Covina - near the 210 freeway that we travel when going from San Diego to Fresno. This is neat to meet those you serve with. I have now met 6 different missionaries in the program. That is a rare occasion in this mission. The FHC that Sister Horton works at is a tri-stake one and really nice.

Disneyland for my Birthday

Disneyland for my birthday - great - wore the "Happy Birthday" badge and everyone said hi and have a happy birthday all day long. That was a blast. Darn I can never get the sword out of there - even with mom's help.
Mother met one of her old boyfriends there. You just never know who you are going to meet.

Grandpa Jim is 101 today

Well today would be grandpa's 101st birthday. He has been gone now over 25 years - my gosh a quarter of a century. I don't have a wealth of pictures of him but here are a few.

This is grandpa with his parents when he was about 6 years old.
This is a single of him taken at the same time.
This is grandpa on his honeymoon with grandma so he would be 33 at the time.
Have to have grandpa with a fish. This was taken in or around San Diego probably about a year or two after he married grandma.
This is still the best picture of Grandma and Grandpa together.
Happy 101st birthday!

I forgot to add this picture to my last post. It is a take off on the famous hands drawing by Escher. I just love this....what else can I say.

Pick Your Favorite Picture

Here are some interesting pictures I found on the web. Which is your favorite?

What does Maycee do with her first birthday cake?

Here is what a 1 year old does when she is presented with a cute, round, frosted thing. Do I look at it? Do I eat it? NO, I demolish it. Play time......

Maycee Givens has learned to walk!

In the couple of weeks prior to her first birthday, Maycee Givens has figured out how to walk. It is so much fun to see her walk like a drunken sailor as she kind of waddles from place to place. First a step or two and now as far as she wants to. Here she is walking at her first birthday party at grandma and grandpa's house:

Yes! Yes! Yes! The house is paid off.

Well after all these years we have finally done it. Thursday, July 10, 2009 was a red-letter day as we mailed off out last and final house payment. Soon we will be the owners of our first house. The whole world knows it since Mom Facebooked it last night but I have the proof right here. Before you lament our loss of a tax right off - Our interest expense this month was a whole $17. What do we get for this. Well we no longer will be paying $2100+ a month on our house. Our expense will drop to $300 (taxes + fire insurance). Yes, $200 a month in taxes - eat your heart out. Ha, ha. Anyway this is one our family goals met after all these years.

June Trip Day 7 - Our Trip Home

Our last day started with literally a bang. At 5:55 AM a terrible thunder rolled through our motel room and the heavens opened to a driving rain and lightning storm. Needless to say we were awake for the day. The storm passed shortly and the rest of the day was HOT and HUMID. It got up to 97 with a heat index of 110. Not nice weather. We drove to Des Moines and flew out in the afternoon reversing our trip out there and arrived home about 9:00 PM. Boy were we tired but it was an enjoyable trip.

June Trip Day 6 (Cont.) - Edson Barney Property

One last thing I wanted to do was locate the lands that our ancestor Edson Barney owned in the Nauvoo area. I got the help of Elder Eickbush, who is a retired surveyer. We took the map the land office provided and drove off into the farm land east of Nauvoo where the Barney family once lived. The maps showed all kinds of streets but they no longer exist so this was quite a guessing game. Before we actually knew we were right Elder Eickbush figured out this was the largest part of the Barney land. It is directly north of the Nauvoo cemetery and directly east of the old Joseph Smith farm. The Barneys owned the land between the road and the tree line in the background.
We then drove around looking for where the other properties were and stopped at a couple of farm houses. At the second one we met an old farmer who was just saying goodby to his family as they were leaving. He pulled out his county map and low and behold we were right were we needed to be. His driveway was the eastern boundary of the Barney land. The picture below shows the Barney land under cultivation. There was once an old Mormon cabin there made out of brick but it is long since gone. He had one on his property that dated from the same time (the early 1840's) and he gave me one of the home made bricks from that house.
After the trip to the Barney land we went by the temple and got this shot as the sun was setting.

The other new thing in town was this statue of Joseph and Hyrum on their last ride. It is quite impressive as the site overlooks the lower level of the town and the Mississippi River in the background.

June Trip Day 6 - Last day of the Reunion

We wished we had had the nice weather we had the prior day on this day. It was back to raining. We were to meet Charles at 9 AM but got off late and got off a little late. So by the time I reached the place on County Line Road where the others were parked there was no evidence of where the cousins were located. I hopped the fence where a gate was located where the cars were parked. This was a mistake as I then had to travel through undergrowth over a 100 yards eastward to where they were located at the little cemetery. It was an area about the size of a living room, completely over run with day lillies and weeds. It was surrounded by a pretty little wrought iron fence with a gate that faced the road which was down the road about 100 yards away. This first picture is the tombstone for Phillip Carter, John and Hannah Knight Libby Carter's son who stayed in Nauvoo when the Saints left. We all suspect that John might be buried here even though some think he is buried in the Fletcher Cemetery.Here are Charles, Layne and me in the cemetery with the Phillip Carter tombstone behind us.


If you look closely to the right of the tree at the very top of the light green weeds you can see the top of the Philip Carter tombstone.
After this we returned to the Nauvoo campground and had a chicken dinner cooked in a cast iron pot just like in the old days. Joining us were the Eickbushes. We had become acquained with them when Charles had gone to the Land Record Office to find out about our family lands and when he went to a computer our Dominicus Carter was up on the screen already. The people just before him had been looking for us too. Charles ran out in the parking lot and found a couple, the Eickbushes. Sister Eickbush is another cousin. They are in Nauvoo serving in the temple. With their help and Jeff Zeck we agreed to try as a family to do two things: 1) Restore the old Carter Cemetery and possibly place a stone there in memory of John Carter; and , 2) search for the original painting of Hannah Knight Libby Carter which was last located in the Nauvoo area in possession of Dora Carter Bolt, who died in 2002.

June Trip Day 5 - Reunion Day 2 - The Tour

We decided to travel the next day all around the Nauvoo area to visit historical and family related sites. We started by going to Carthage where the Prophet Joseph Smith was martyred along with his brother Hyrum. Here are those of us who went on the trip. In the back row was Jeff Zeck (a cousin who lived here locally and was our guide), Lance Carter and his wife Linzsay in front of him, Grandpa and Grandma in front, and finally Morgan Wise and his wife Cathy who is a Carter cousin. Not pictured were Jeff's mother, Charles Carter and his wife Jan, and Elder and Sister Eichbush. The Carthage Jail has a special spirit there. This picture below is of our guide Sister Picard pointing to the bullet hole in the door where the bullet that killed Hyrum Smith passed through the door.

Grandma wasn't behaving very well so we had to lock her up in the jail cell in the jail. Joseph and his group weren't in there the day he was murdered as it was too hot in there. We were grateful for the air conditioning, but especially Grandma who had to spend the day in the jail. (Just joking.)

From Carthage we visited several cemeteries who had cousins buried there and ended up in the area of Lima, Illinois. This was the site of Morley's Settlement. Our Carters - John and Hannah and William Furlsbury all settled here - near the woods at the back of the picture below. The historical marker mentions that Morleyville had between 400 and 500 Mormon settlers until September 1845 when up to 125 homes and outbuildings here were torched. Since our John Carter never joined the Church he stayed on here when the Saints left for the Rockies with his 3 children who also didn't join the Church. Isaac Morley, whom the settlement was named after, was sealed to John's wife Hannah Knight Libby Carter so she would have someone to look after her. One of the things we wanted to do here was find the Carter Family Cemetery which was located in the woods at the back of the picture.



Our little tour ended with a visit to the Hotel in Warsaw where the mobbers who took the life of Joseph Smith met to plan their deed. From there they traveled due east to Carthage. That route would have taken then right past the home of Alexander Wilkins who lived 3 miles to the west of Carthage. Grandma Wilkins actually heard the shots that killed the prophet and later witnessed mobbers riding past their home saying they had killed their ..... ..... Mormon Prophet. I have often wondered about this but it makes total sense once you see where the Wilkins lived and the route from Warsaw to Carthage.


After our little jaunt around the county we returned to Nauvoo. We had stopped at what we thought was the Carter property but couldn't find anyone home. We wanted to find the cemetery in the worse way.
We went to the Nauvoo Temple that afternoon and took in a session. Then we scrambled for a meal and then went to the visitor center and saw two outdoor shows - Sunset on the Mississippi and the BYU Ballroom Dancers. The skys threatened to open but we made it through the two shows with only a couple of sprinkles.
Jeff Zech and his mother had eaten dinner at the Nauvoo Hotel and found a man who knew where our Carter land was located so we agreed to meet the next morning and try again to find the cemetery.

June Trip Day 4 - On to Nauvoo While Dodging Twisters

Friday morning dawned with rain and lighting. In fact there was a tornado watch in the county just to the north of us. That storm was heading southeast right into the northern suburbs of Chicago, where we could have been. That part of Chicago never got a tornado but had terrible hail and heavy rain that flooded out highways, etc.
We took off to the southwest as we headed across the state to Nauvoo. We had off and on really heavy rain interspersed with cloudy but dry weather. We drove all the way to Keokuk, Iowa, where we stayed the night. No sooner than we got there than they had a tornado warning for Fort Madison just 15 miles north of us and across the Mississippi River from Nauvoo. In fact our cousins who were staying in the campgrounds at Nauvoo were evacuated to the men's restrooms at the campground. No tornado set down there but the path of the watch traveled the path we had driven just hours earlier.
That late afternoon we went over to Nauvoo to see my cousins and plan out what we wanted to do for the weekend.

June Trip Day 3 - To Elgin, Illinois

We spent half of the next day traveling from Cedar Rapids, Iowa across the northern part of Illinois to Geneva, IL. Geneva has a great genealogical society that works out of a closet sized room in the historical society. It is only open from 1 PM to 4 PM on Thursdays and Saturdays. Fortunately we were there on a Thursday. We wanted to go there because they have a huge local computerized genealogical data base you can only access there. Barb again had family from here and though she didn't find the ancestral connection she wanted, we did pick up quite a bit of collateral data and listings for obituaries that we picked up later that afternoon in Elgin. But Geneva is an adorable town which is a lot like Carmel, CA with little shops lining the street and tons of character. Too bad we didn't have time to explore here. (But the pocket book appreciated that fact - mine anyway.)

We went on to Elgin and hit the local library where they had all the local newspapers on microfilm and using the indexes we gathered in Galena we harvested quite a few news clippings - obits, birth and other records.
That night we stayed in Elgin and Barb was so sad as we were only 30 miles or so from her old stomping grounds in Chicago. As things turned out it was good we didn't go on into Chicago on this trip.

June Trip - Day 1 - 2 Des Moines - Amana - Cedar Rapids

We flew out of Fresno on June 16th to Dallas/Fort Worth and then on to Des Moines. We were supposed to get into Des Moines at 9:30 but our flight was delayed until almost 10:45 so we were shot by the time we got into our hotel. The next day we drove over to the Amana Colonies where Barbara has ancestral families. We first stopped off at the courthouse in Maringo and spent a couple of hours going through the birth, marriage and death records for the county and found so tidbits of information for Barb. We then went on to Amana and went to a play - Neil Simon's Odd Couple with Barbara's cousins - Bill and Barb Schreiver and Flo Shoemaker. They are pictured with Barb below outside the restaurant we ate at that evening.
Pictured L to R - Bill S, Barb G, Flo, and Barb S.

This was the store across the parking lot from the restaurant. Maddy Ward, our granddaughter, should like this.

That evening we went with the Schreivers to Cedar Rapids. Bill took us on a tour of the flooded out parts of Cedar Rapids. It looked horrible - block after block of totally ruined homes. They live within site of the Rock River but are high up on a hill where they were safe. We spent the night sharing genealogy as Bill is a genealogy nut too.

Who is Nathaniel Grigsby?

Well he isn't a relative of our, but even though he died 120 odd years ago he had the political situation scoped out. Who ever said genealogy is boring. Check out this guys tombstone:
http://www.geneamusings.com/2009/05/tombstone-tuesday-nathaniel-grigsby.html

Home Makeover Update

Here are some pictures of our Home Make over. I saw the following picture in Heidi's picture book and thought it w0uld make a good "Before" shot of our living room. This was taken probably shortly after we moved into the house (so maybe 14 years ago.)
Now here is essentially the same shot with our Home Makeover. We have gone from green and green plaid to red and black and white. Some change I would say.
Here is a view if the room from the other angle showing our new couch and love seat along with the shelves (ala Heidi)
Here is the family room with it's Make Over. Recycled furniture, shelves, new lighting, a film coating on the window (since the picture was taken to cut the light a little) along with the new carpet (thoughout the house).
What comes next? Well plans are on the way to get the bathrooms remodeled - so stay tuned.

Grandma Betty on her 92nd Birthday - Baby Pictures

I am a couple of days late honoring my mother on her 92nd birthday. The following pictures are a pictorial of her life from birth up to the time she went to Tucson, Arizona and met my father. The big missing picture will never be shown - one with her mother. Her mother died a couple of weeks after giving birth to Grandma and there were no pictures of the two of them together. Enjoy these pictures.
This is an extremely rare picture as Grandpa Hale took most of the pictures of Grandma when she was little. It is hard to find him in a picture with her.
This is a great picture.
A collection of baby pictures isn't complete unless you have one of these.

It isn't labeled but this is Grandma's first Christmas in her home in Bloomfield, New Jersey.
Not much hair to need a brush. Wishful thinking?

Grandma Betty - 1918 - Age 1

Carrie Lutz - later Grandma Henry after marrying Howard Henry - was in Grandma's life from an early age. Claude must have had a hard time trying to raise a baby and work after his wife died.
We don't have a marriage date between Carrie and Claude Hale but it was not that long after Grandma was born.
This is one of my all time favorite pictures.
I wonder if Grandma is laughing because the dollie has no clothes on?
I love the smile.