Reunion Update

Hey, fam. I've posted the official Reunion flyer/invitation over at the Family Treehouse. I will be sending them out by mail as well. All Reunion updates will be posted there from now on.

HMA & Ethel Rose Reunion

When: July 2-4, 2009
Where: Orem, Utah
Would love to see as many as possible come, if you can make it work. Complete itinerary soon to be posted. I am hard at work on the scheduling. Behold this early morning (very early, as in I-woke-HB-up early) convo as evidence.

Hb: Hullo?

Me: What time is the golf tournament thingy?

Hb: (Groggily) What?

Me: (Impatiently) What time is the golf thingy?

Hb: (equally impatient) What golf thingy?

Me: You know, the golfing. What time will it be?

Hb: (alittle confused) What are you talking about? (Suddenly he gets it) Oh, you mean for the family reunion?

Me: Yeah. What time? 6 am, 7 am?

Hb: Are you kidding? Nobody is even up then. And it depends on how many let me know. I need to know how many are going to participate.

Me: Okay. (still pressing) Well, what time.

Hb: Well , it won’t be 6 am. Nobody is even up then.

Me: Well, 7 then?

Hb: Uh, possibly 8 am. I won’t know for sure until people sign up.

Me: Oh. Well, I need to know ‘cuz I’m typing up the itinerary right now. (Me sighing impatiently) I’ll just leave it blank for now then. Bye.

Hb: Hey! (dramatic pause) What time is it now?

Me: (I look at clock. I am now feeling sheepish.) I dunno.

Hb: Well…., the golfing won’t be this early.

Me: Okay. Bye.

So all menfolk who are planning on participating in 9 holes of male Arnett bonding need to email or phone him and let him know, so he can secure the tee time. And so I can type it up on the schedule:)

You're all coming, right?

may babes

Happy Birthday to all the lovely May gals. You are in a special club all by yourself:)

4th Wendy May
7th Chandell Fay
9th Penee Louise
13th Devry Gale
16th Grandma Ethel

I decided to do Birthday shout outs over on The Family Treehouse http://cs-thefamilytreehouse.blogspot.com/
This is a complete list of the HMA/Ethel Rose family birthdays. Look it over and let me know any corrections or updates.

as lovely as they come

The caption under the picture reads: Freshman in High School
And this from her Life History:
I, Ethel Rose Clifford Arnett, was born in the springtime of the year. I've often wondered if the Lord let us choose our season of the year to come to this planet, which was to be our home during this phase of mortal existence. I've always liked the spring season. Anyway, it was a Spring Morning about 7:00 a.m.,May 16, 1924 that I first made my appearance here on earth in a small tent by the San Pedro River in St.David, Arizona.

Happy Birthday, Mother.

I kid you not

The thing about joining Curves (Kody teases me and calls it Shapes) is that it’s not like any other Gym. And that’s good, if you’re my age. No spandex, lycra, no bare midriffs and buff bodies. No cute little gym bummies. Curves, well, it’s a different feel.

I walked in the first time and saw lumpy and frumpy gals (just like me) working out in baggy old t-shirts and double knit pants to the sound track of Mama Mia. The place was filled with smiling, cheerful women, mostly middle aged but quite a few in their 80’s, too.

I felt right at home.

So Monday morning my friend D and I are working hard when a cute little white haired lady starts her routine. D and I exchange looks. We suppress our laughter. Barely. Cute little old lady is doing her workout in a dress. With hose on, no less. Oh. My. I know, I know. Peels of laughter.

Give her credit though, she did have on sensible flat heeled shoes. And turns out it all makes perfect sense. I overheard said cute little old lady say when headed out the door that she was ‘off to do her visiting teaching.’

Hee hee hee hee. This just slays me. I came home and told Megs. We laughed it up good. Then Megs suddenly turns all serious.

“That’s totally something you would do, Mom”.

Yup. I would. Maybe. Remember that time I cut up an old sheet and made myself a robe/toga? I wore it all that summer until you secretly took it and threw it away. See, you are nice like that. I am banking on the fact that you and your sister will STOP ME should I ever get a notion to be in such serious Gym dress code violation. Tee hee hee. Chortle, chortle.

Sign.Up. Now.

Don't miss this opportunity to participate in Megs' Free Craft Giveaway. Come on and show some fam loyalty with some Linky Love. See http://megscraft.blogspot.com/ for more deets.

It's worth the effort people. She makes cool stuff.

lucky Mudder

Requirements for a wonderful Mothers Day: Having the hymn "Each Life that Touches Ours for Good" sung in Sacrament meeting; Chocolate in RS; having my girls plan, shop, cook and serve a fabulous dinner. Pink slushy lemonade, strawberries, Cafe Rio salad.

The table beautifully set, Meghan style, with poofy pink tissue balls and fresh roses. It was a floral, pastel, sentimental and sweet Mother's day, thanks to my gals. Love you so much.

And the cupcakes. Did I mention the cupcakes? Very yum.

Humble Pie has some more of the day's details. Take a peek:)

Mitochondrial DNA

Here's to Good Women...
May we know them
May we be them
May we raise them

Top left to right: Ann Wickes Taylor; Margaret Ann Taylor Goodman; Clara Grove Goodman Busby; Rose Mary Busby Clifford.
Bottom left to right: Ethel Rose Clifford Arnett; Candace Sue Arnett Walker; Meghan Candace Walker Staples & Mackenzie Sue Walker Arnold.

I put myself in their company only to illustrate our undeniably shared DNA. Remarkable women. To learn more about these ladies, visit my new genealogy blog The Family Treehouse. http://cs-thefamilytreehouse.blogspot.com/

Happy Mother's Day to all the good and heroic women in our fam.

my saturday share

I read this Deseret News article http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705298649/Universities-will-be-irrelevant.html a week or so ago and according to it, University classrooms will be obsolete by 2020. BYU professor David Wiley envisions a world where students listen to lectures on iPods, and those lectures are also available online to everyone anywhere for free. Course materials are shared between universities, science labs are virtual, and digital textbooks are free. He says, 'Higher education doesn't reflect the life that students are living ... today's colleges are typically tethered, isolated, generic, and closed.' In the world according to Wiley, universities would still make money, because they have a marketable commodity: to get college credits and a diploma, you'd have to be a paying customer.

An interesting article. Speaking of which, I have been enjoying this exceedingly (as my Dad would say) Yup, open and free college courses (though no college credit of course), from Yale, Notre Dame, and MIT no less. Yet another reason why I love the internet.
http://oyc.yale.edu/english/american-novel-since-1945/content/sessions.html

I particularly enjoyed Yale's Professor Hungerford’s lecture on the novel Everything is Illuminated (lectures #24 and #25) in light of Lacy’s recent recommendation. I had been getting her lectures off of Youtube so imagine my delight when I discovered the actual site that made them all readily available. Have a look around, scroll through the course lists, there is something for everyone.

http://oyc.yale.edu/
Open Yale Courses

http://ocw.nd.edu/
Notre Dame Open Course Ware

http://oedb.org/library/beginning-online-learning/200-free-online-classes-to-learn-anything
Online Education Database. Lists 200 free online classes to learn practically anything.

http://ocw.usu.edu/
Utah State Open Course Ware

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/courses/index.htm
MIT Open Course Ware

http://www.word2word.com/coursead.html
Free Online Language courses. I’ve been wanting to learn me some Cherokee.

http://ocw.umb.edu/
University of Mass Boston Open Course Ware

http://ce.byu.edu/is/site/courses/freecourses.cfm
BYU offers several free online courses

There are many others as well. Here’s a site that ranks Universities by their open course ware
http://degreedirectory.org/articles/25_Colleges_and_Universities_Ranked_by_Their_OpenCourseWare.html

Looks like the wave of the future.