Super heroes don't feel well

This week at school the kids are learning about fairy tales, fables, and nursery rhymes. Today was a dress up day and the kids were supposed to be super heroes, princesses, or anything else they wanted to be.  Molly was "Belle with a Dentist Cape" and Jack was Superman.

I got a call from Miss Sarah after school got out to say that Molly had woken up from her nap and couldn't open her eyes. They were goobery and pink.  Great!  

I called and got her an appointment with the doctor and on the way she kept saying her ear hurt, too.  Great!

As it turns out, she has an ear infection and infected eyes.  The doctor didn't say conclusively that it was pink eye, but just that it was an infection in both her eyes and ears.

She perked up quite a bit in the evening and with plenty of antibiotics and other drugs in her, she seemed fine and would be ok to go to school the next day. Unfortunately, Jack woke up in the middle of the night with the same goobery eyes.  Great!  (not to mention that he was at Kids Care on Sunday night with an ear infection, also).

On top of that, I have felt super crappy for about a week or more and haven't been able to kick the crud I've had.  So today we took a sick day.  Both kids seem to be doing better as long as I keep the drugs pumped in them.  They are both (all three of us, actually) super grouchy so it has been a long morning.  

We needed to get out of the house after lunch and both munchkins fell asleep so now I am just trying to stay awake and get some work done.  Let's hope everyone feels a little better tomorrow.

Mission report

Elder William Karl Petersen was called clear back in September to serve in the Baltic States Mission, assigned to Lithuania.  He finally had his opportunity to go. 

On Sunday, February 23rd, he gave his farewell talk to an huge crowd at the Hunter 1st Ward.  He gave and excellent talk that showed he was a little nervous, a little bit of a boob, and a little bit of a dork, but a well-prepared young man, ready to serve.  His talk was about faith, hope, and charity and also included some kind of basketball analogy (which honestly lost me, but that's ok).  Embarrassingly, my Jack walked up on the stand during the talk.  He's not usually permitted to wander during church, but had been going back and forth between us, Grandma & Grandpa Binggeli, and Annie's family.  I thought he was with Annie when we realized he was on the stand.  Sorry - bad parenting moment.

One of the best parts of the meeting was to see a whole group of Willie's non-member friends attend the meeting. They looked pretty sharp in white shirts and ties.  Also, I didn't see them, but there were a couple of inactive families in the ward who decided to come for the occasion and that was pretty cool, too.  Don't forget Allen and Chunky, also non-members and Willie's neighborhood friends since we moved into that neighborhood. They came too, all dressed up, and sat with my mom.  It was a great experience.

Most of the packed church house descended on my parents house afterwards.  I have never seen so much food consumed in such a short amount of time.  The Petersen's and the Huber's both know how to throw parties with plenty and we thought we were ready, but I don't think we could have ever prepared for the crowd that there was.  The food was gone pretty quickly.  My mom began emptying out her pantry with bags of chips and chips & salsa, we found some apples and an extra cantaloupe that we cut up.  It was just crazy.

Saturday night preparations

Sunday morning, before the masses descended 

On Monday night we had a final family farewell feast at Crown Burgers. It was delicious, of course.

On Tuesday night, Willie was set apart as a missionary by President Hunt, his stake president.  He gave a very nice blessing to Willie, even though my kids (tired and sensing everyone's emotions) were not very well-behaved.  It was a good experience and there were a few tears shed, but the saddest part was poor Elliott.  Once the setting apart was finished, he was just inconsolable with tears.  I think the reality of his favorite Uncle Willie leaving had set in and he just didn't know what to do with all the emotion.  He was ok, though.  We went back to my mom's after for a quick donut before saying our goodbyes.

On Wednesday morning, I got the kids to school and then headed to my parents around 9:00 to hang out with them and Willie at their house until it was time to drop him off at the MTC.  

The bags were packed.

We played UNO and Willie played a few more songs on his ukulele.

Last photo in front of the house.

We made a quick pit stop at Annie's house to say final goodbyes toe the boys and Annie, there.  

And then we were off to Provo.  Once we got out of Orem and into Provo, Willie said he started to itch.  Oh well.  I guess he'll just have to itch for 6 weeks.  We made a last stop to Wendy's for french fries and a fruit punch.  Mother Judy made us stop and another building so Willie could go to the bathroom (just in case there wasn't a bathroom in the MTC).  

Itching

Waiting for french fries.

We still had some time to spare so we stopped in front of the Provo Temple for another photo shoot.  There were only 8000 other missionary families with the same idea.  We were just counting down the minutes until it was time for the drop off.  Mother Judy wanted to yell to everyone in the parking lot that her son was going on a mission, but she resisted since they probably all had missionaries out, too.

Finally it was time.  He was ready.  We drove to the gate of the MTC, they told us what direction to go.  We parked.  My dad got the suitcases out of the car.  We met Elder Sonik (who leaves next week for Brazil) who was going to be Willie's registration escort.  We took one final picture and then that was it.  He was gone.  He had a huge grin on his face and we got in the car (sad) and drove away.

Until we meet again in 2 years . . . 

Things Molly says

Handing Jack pretend food, "you're gonna love it - it's perfect"

At the natural history museum grabbing the map, "mom, I got a nap. "

"Mom, the piscetti string!" When driving towards the spaghetti bowl at 2100 south and I-15.

"Dad, I love planets!" After a quick trip to the planetarium.

Banging on the door frantically while I was in the shower, molly yelled, "moooooooooom, Jesse on the radio!!" Jesse's girl was on the radio.

Holding her broom in the air, "look at my Olympic porch."

Driving behind the Rings of an audi, "an Olympic car!"

And he's gone . . .

"Barking up the wrong tree"

So back to family history . . .

My grandpa called me last night to ask me what I new about Mary Dwyer.  I said, "not much" and promised I wasn't hiding any kind of secret information from him.  My aunt Lori has done lots of research on Mary Dwyer and I have read some of what she's found, but that's it.

I spent an hour or more last night and then some time today seeing what I could find (even though he did call Lori and got copies of what he was looking for).  I showed him what I found and, honestly, it did bring up a few new thoughts that I need to run by Lori (about Mary Dwyer and some other Huber ancestors).  I took notes while we talked.  I will follow up.

During our conversation, though, Grandpa stopped and said, "maybe we are just barking up the wrong tree."  Huh?  From the look on my face, he sort of laughed and said, "you know, maybe we're looking in the wrong place or looking for the wrong things."  He then recalled one time when he went to visit his aunt Helen and asked her about Mary Dwyer (who would have been the mother to her half brothers) and she got a little upset and said she wanted nothing to with Mary Dwyer.  Without Mary Dwyer, my great grandpa Huber and therefore my Grandpa Huber would not exist.  He agreed that we need to keep looking and wasn't implying that we're doing something wrong.  I don't really know what he meant, though.  At least I have a new phrase to use . . . "barking up the wrong tree."

*********

So, for the record, what do we know about Mary and Clara Dwyer?

• Mary is of Irish descent and lived in Chicago.  She came to Utah shortly after Clara was born.  Conflicting sources say that Clara was her niece or her daughter.
• Mary met and married my great-great-grandpa Albert Huber around 1900 and they had 3 sons - Albert, Edward and Harvey Dwyer (Dee)
• Mary died in 1906 and shortly thereafter Albert married Lenora (Nora) Peterson and they had 2 daughters - Gladys and Helen.
• Mary is buried at Salt Lake City Cemetery.  Albert and Nora are buried in Bluffdale.  Clara is buried at Mount Olivet.  
• There are no records of Mary Dwyer anywhere.  The only way we know her parent's names are because my Grandma Ethel Huber had an old Bible that she had written a sort of pedigree in and on that chart had written the names of Mary's parents.
• What we do have is a couple of newspaper clippings (that Lori found) which stated that a wealthy doctor in Salt Lake had hired Mary as his housekeeper and had made her neice, Clara, his ward.  Upon his death, Clara recieved $2000.  Mary married Albert shortly after this doctor died.  His funeral was a big to do at the Masonic Temple on South Temple.
• No one knows who Clara's father was.  No one knows if Mary was her mother or not, though we think she probably was.  Mine and my grandpa's theory is that she told the doctor that Clara was her niece because having an illegitimate child may have been unmentionable and could have compromised her job.  Clara referred to Mary as her mother.
• Once before she died (in 1962), my Grandpa took Clara home from something and remembers her saying that Mary had red hair the color of my Aunt Cindy's.
• Albert was a bartender, a miner, prospector, gambler.  He was such a small man that he always carried a pistol on his belt for protection.  There were stories that he would chase guys out of the bar by shooting at their feet all the way out and up the street.
• Clara was married twice - first to Frank Leonard and then to Ilet B. (I.B.) Powell.  She's buried next to I.B. at Mount Olivet.  There is a census record as well as a newspaper article) that indicates a third man - Fred Hoffer - was also living with Clara (while she was married to Frank and to I.B.).  Who is this guy?  No one knows.  He's listed on the census as a brother-in-law, but there is about a 40 year age gap that debunks that story as well as not ideas about who the sister or sister-in-law may have been.

So, the biggest mysteries are that we have absolutely no information about Mary's line.  Though we have what we think are her parent's names, it stops there.  Second of all, who was Clara?  Was she really a niece or was she a daughter and who was her father and who in the world is Fred Hoffer (this guy, my grandpa does vaguely remember as a white-haired guy who lived with Clara and I.B.  He also remembers Ethel searching for his grave at City Cemetery and not being able to find it.  Lori and my grandpa did find it on this last Memorial Day.