Mel's Fantastical Insights

My sister and her family came all the way from Idaho to visit us. Naturally we had to take them to the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a typical July day, foggy, freezing, windy and crowded. We battled people on bikes and with strollers and the wind to walk onto the bridge. We had just made it to the first tower when we noticed a whale watching tour boat and joked about how cool it would be if there was suddenly a whale that came out of the water. About ten seconds later, A WHALE CAME OUT OF THE WATER! It didn't ever do the complete National Geographic flip over or show it's tail, but there was a Humpback Whale feeding, and it kept coming up to eat. It was amazing. AMAZING. We spent almost 40 minutes watching the whale, possibly whales at the time. There was one in particular that came over, right below us the kids could all see it, and it was so close we could see the barnacles on the mouth, and it rolled and was putting on quite the show for us. It was an amazing sigh

I used to love Sundays. I was raised Mormon, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and we Mormons go to church for three hours every Sunday. It has never been a chore to me, I have always enjoyed it. My children on the other hand, don't love it, and every Sunday there is an epic battle in my home to get dressed for church. Half of them don't want to go and try to finagle their way out of attending, the other half don't mind going but hate wearing anything but active wear. Needless to say I have to now gear up for Sundays. Today was different, and all because of one child. This child. Alice got dressed today 25 minutes before our normal getting dressed time, without me asking, without me pleading, without me begging and bargaining, and because she got dressed Esther got dressed, and then Daniel and Charlie was the only one who tried to finagle staying home (which is his normal and always has been) yet he chose to wear a vest with his shirt and

I'm sure I have blogged about all my sisters getting married, but lately the last one of us were married and here are some of my favorite pictures from the party. Happy Wedding Day Britt! All the kids loved the swings at Grandma's house. They also loved running in circles and eating all the things that looked like chocolate. At the end of a very long day, we remembered to snap a picture of Jason and I.

One of the things we all hope to find as genealogists is personal histories. Wouldn't it be fantastic if everyone could have written even a paragraph about themselves and it aaas preserved and findable? Unfortunately this is not the case. This is actually the reason I began looking into my ancestors about a year ago. I was determined after getting a BA in research aka history, that I could find more information than what we currently had available. I was right in my impulse. Our greatest source has been the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers. They have been collecting histories on the pioneers for a very long time, and luckily I have a lot of pioneer ancestors. My first stop at their archives revealed a lot of treasures but one of my favorites has been the personal history written by Mariah Taysom. Mariah Jaynes lived on the border of Wales and England in the Monmouth area. She met a Mormon missionary by the name of Charles Taysom and became converted to the Church of Jesu

Today's blog prompt for the Fearless Females was asking about a favorite recipe, or a recipe handed down through generations. I don't know if there are recipes that have made it through the years (mostly I come from a long line of recipe embellishers and non written recipes), but I would like to talk a little bit about the kitchen. My grandmother is remembered as always making something for somebody and always wearing her apron. Everyone I have talked to has said that Vonnie was the best cook. My mom says she never remembers Grandma cooking anything fancy but that everything tasted fantastic. Except for the liver and onions that she was fond of. One of the things that she made that she was definitely remembered for was her candy making. Grandma would make divinity for the holidays and piano recitals and a few other occasions. Apparently her divinity was famous because the few who have mentioned it to me get that look on their face like they are remembering the best thi

I am combining the prompts from the 4th and 5th. They ask if you have marriage certificates and then stories about how the people met and later became married. I have found a few citations of marriage records but have seen very few, while I am grateful for the indexers who put the information out there I can't wait until they get around to attaching images. Although I guess I can always pay for the actual documents but who wants to do that? Regardless, this is one of my favorite stories. My grandma, LaVon Taysom, was the oldest of a lot of kids. When she was a teenager her parents sent her and two of her sisters to live with their grandparents (Hammers) in Pleasant View, UT. While there, they would attend the local dances and she eventually met Marshall Maycock. Now being proper, as they dated, her sisters went with them as chaperones. Eventually LaVon and Marshall decided to get married. She was only 17 so on their marriage certificate her birthday says 10 Jul 1908!!