First Apartment - Bedroom, Living Room, Dining Room

Janice and I were married on December 21, 1973. For the winter semester, we rented a small one room apartment (2 room if you count the bathroom). the next two posts show that apartment.

This was the bedroom, living room and dining room. The sofa turned into our bed. This must have been taken when we were first moving in or moving out. Janice thinks it was when we moved out and went to Canada for the summer.

Our First Apartment - Kitchen

This is the kitchen of our one room apartment. We felt that we were lucky to not have a basement apartment, although this was really small.

Our First Apartment - Winter Semester 1974

This shows the front of our first apartment building after we were married. We lived upstairs in a one room apartment. Janice is standing by our car.

Spring Snow in Canada-1974 (Janice)

I came across this picture and some others that I thought were interesting. This was the first part of May, 1974 in Cardston, Alberta. I had gone out to the farm with Joe Pitcher to help feed the cows. This storm came and dumped 3-4 feet of snow plus huge snow drifts. I never made it back to town for several days (I think 3 days).

Janice is on the front porch of the house. The car to the left was a ?1968? Dodge that Mom and Dad had purchased when I was on my mission. I drove it many time to Utah during the previous summer to see Janice.

Spring Snow in Canada-1974

This is a picture of our car in front of Grandma and Grandpa Hough's house in Cardston, after I returned from the Pitcher farm. The snow was so deep on the farm that Joe and I had to drive a tractor with a trailer out to the fields to feed the cows.

This was me on a mountain overlooking Barcelona.

The picture below was preparing an apartment to become a Chapel. We spent a lot of time and effort searching for chapels and preparing them. Elder Johnson (lower right) was in his 40's when he served in Spain.

I am scanning my mission slides so I thought that I would share some with all of you. I arrived in Spain in October 1970. I was cold from the day that I arrived. My first district was in Barcelona. Shortly after arriving there, the branch went on an excursion up in the mountains north of the city. I was freezing, especially as I only had my overcoat, that wasn't all that warm. I was awfully fond of Spanish boots, although these weren't the customs ones that I had made later for $18.

Video Answering Myths about Mormons

An updated video from the Church answering the many myths about the Church. I thought that it was interesting and I wanted to see if I could place it on the blog.

Christmas 2007

Twelve drummers drumming at the Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert.

We had a great Christmas this year. Grandpa and Grandma Hough had a chance to get a ride down with Pitchers. They came down just in time to go to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert with us. It was a great concert. Greg and Melinda and kids came down just in time to go to the Beckstrand Christmas party. On Christmas Eve, Missy and Ryan and kids, Jason and Alisynn and kids joined us for a Christmas Eve dinner. It was nice to see everyone again. We had a big storm on Christmas Eve with a sunny, white Christmas day.

Melinda, Brenden, and Miles

Brenden opening his present on Christmas Eve

Reading the Christmas story from Luke on Christmas Eve. Chris and Adam thought that was longest story on earth when they were younger because they had to wait until it was finished before they could open a present.

Tatum and Cody at our house on Christmas Eve.

Jason and Alisynn at our home on Christmas Eve. Exciting time, eh?

Missy Sharpe on Christmas Eve at our house. Greg must have gotten this picture when Missy was not looking.

The picture above was taken with Adam helping Miles unwrap his present on Christmas Eve. Adam told me how much he enjoyed playing with his nephews. They are really great kids.

Grandma and Grandpa Hough left on the 26th to return home. This was a day earlier than planned, but they made it safely home.

It was fun to see the grandkids. Christmas is always more fun with little kids around.

Some of you may remember the one big screw up that I had with Janice in our 34 years of marriage. In my many travels around the world, Janice had never asked me to bring back anything. However, in 2000, I was in Israel a couple of times around Christmas and Janice asked me get her an olive wood nativity scene. I looked at them, but decided that Janice wouldn't want me to spend that much money. I was wrong!! However, I was able to redeem myself this year. A friend of mine at work went to Israel the first part of December. I had him pick me up a nativity scene and ship it back here. Janice really liked it and I think that I have now redeemed myself.