Grandma Sorensen

On May 1st Grandma Velva Sorensen passed away. I would like to write a tribute to her but my cousin, AmiJo Comeford, wrote a wonderful obituary and I would not be able to top that. Therefore, I am posting what AmiJo wrote on my blog.

Our loving mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, Velva Atkin Sorensen, passed away at the age of 87 on May 1, 2007 in Cedar City, Utah. She was the second child of William and Lula Atkin of St. George, Utah. She began her sojourn in St. George, Utah and like the desert that was to become her home, she blossomed as a beautiful rose. Velva was raised in St. George with summers spent in Colorado and on the Arizona strip at the sheep ranch. She graduated from Dixie High School and then attended Dixie College. Velva then fell in love with and married Lowell Sorensen on October 25, 1941 in the St. George Temple. They are the parents of six children. Velva was known as a gifted seamstress, and taught not only her own daughters to sew through the 4-H program, but many others in Cedar City and St. George. In addition to making beautiful clothes and quilts, Velva also created exquisite embroidery work. She was an active member of the Latter-Day Saint Church and served in diverse capacities, including many years as the Relief Society president of the Cedar City Sixth Ward. Her service to others did not end with a release from her calling. Velva continued to care lovingly for the widows in her ward and served many children as an instructional/reading assistant at Enoch Elementary School, as well as ever gently fulfilling the eternal calling of mother and grandmother. All who knew Velva remember her dainty and graceful demeanor, and each friend, family member, acquaintance, and stranger alike was blessed by her quick, fun smile. Though Velva has continued her sojourn into another sphere, her friends and family will forever love and miss her. We will always remember Velva as one who taught us to be better families, friends, and servants of the Lord. Velva, may your eternal journey be a joyful one until we embrace again, never to be separated more. Velva was preceded in death by her parents, Lula and William Atkin; her husband, Lowell Sorensen; her sister, Sylva Tanner; and her great-granddaughter, Tiffany Peterson. Velva is survived by six children: Darwin (LaDawn) Sorensen of Riverton, Utah; Dee (Ellen) , Brent (Vickie), Julie (Wendell) Beck, all from Cedar City; Geraldine (Robert) Comeford of Washington, Utah; and Bonnie (Scott) Smith of Murray, Utah, brother, Floyd (Ellen) Atkin of St. George; and sisters Luen (Gordon) Flammer of West Jordon, Utah and Beth (John B.) Cox of St. George. Funeral services will be held on Monday, May 7, 2007 at 11:00 a.m. at the Cedar City Fourth Ward Chapel located at 400 North and 500 West in Cedar City, Utah. Friends and family may pay their love and respect to Velva at the Southern Utah Mortuary in Cedar City at 190 North 300 West on Sunday, May 6, 2007 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. and at the Fourth Ward Chapel from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. on Monday morning, May 7th. The family gratefully expresses their tremendous thanks and appreciation to the Kolob Regional Care Center for their loving care of Velva. On-line condolences can be sent to our website at http://www.southernutahmortuary.com/.

We had the very good fortune of being able to attend the funeral even though the expense to get there was high. That is one of the downsides of living such a long distance away from family. It was a bitter-sweet experience. It was sad to have Grandma Sorensen pass away but it was really nice to see some of our family members that we have not seen in a very long time again. Below are some of our pictures from the trip to Utah for the funeral.

Jared and Conner passing time at the viewing.

Nicholas and Ryan at the viewing. Ryan is doing his grumpy face for the camera.

Tracee and AmiJo at the viewing. Tracee just graduated from college and AmiJo has her Ph.D. and taught a year at BYU. We are all very proud of them.

This is a picture of Henry, David (Megan's husband), Landry, Rollins (Megan's boys), Megan and Haley. I had not ever met Megan's husband before and I have not seen any of them for about 10 years. They came in a group and I did not recognize Henry at all and since I had never met Megan's husband, I thought Henry must be her husband. I introduced myself to Henry and everyone got a big laugh about that. But, I have not seen Henry since he was about Brett's age. He has changed a little since then.

Nicholas, Ryan and Landry. Landry told us that he was done being three and so now he is four. He is quite a character. I think he gets it from his mother.

This is Brett Sorensen holding Brett Sorensen. Brett the younger is Max's son.

The children before the funeral. This is Aunt Julie, Uncle Wendell, Darwin (my dad), LaDawn (my mom), Uncle Dee and Aunt Ellen.

More of the kids before the funeral. This is Uncle Brent, Aunt Vickie, Uncle Scott and Aunt Bonnie. I missed Aunt Deane and Uncle Bob, but they will be in later pictures.

This is at the cemetery. All of the grandsons that were there served as Pall Bearers. Those that were there were Robby, me, Mark, Jeff, Troy, Henry, Richard, Max and Lowell. David could not be there because of his job and Cody is still serving his mission in the Houston area. Cody is only about an hour away from where we live but we cannot go see him.

Aunt Julie, Aunt Bonnie, Aunt Deane, Uncle Wendall and Uncle Bob at the cemetery.

Ryan and Nicholas doing their best to stay out of trouble at the cemetery. Ryan slept through most of the funeral. I guess he thought it was like Sacrament Meeting so he crashed on my lap.

Uncle Bob, Aunt Deane, Aunt Luen's daughter, Elaine (my Dad's Cousin) AmiJo, Jimmy (Hollie's Husband), Hollie, Tracee, Gracie (Hollie's Daughter) and Robbie.

Brazos Bend State Park II

Continued from the previous post ...

This is me demonstrating the art of tree climbing. The picture does not provide the proper perspective of how high in the tree I am, but the kids were impressed. It is nice to have kids that are still young enough to impress.

Jared, Brett and Ryan under a dead tree branch. I have to be in the picture again to hold Ryan so he does not fall off the log. Right before the picture was taken Ryan fell down and hurt himself while we were walking and we did not want him to fall again.

Due to the wind and cold weather, the alligator sightings were rare. We did see a couple swimming, but none were sunning themselves on the bank where we could get a good look at them. Following our hike, we went to the Visitors Center and the place was packed. They were having an Earth Day Celebration and there were booths and activities for the kids to do. Even though we did not get to see very many alligators, we had the chance to pet a baby alligator. This is Brett and Jared doing just that.

In addition to petting the baby alligator, we had the chance to pet a corn snake. I really do not like snakes very much.

In addition to the snakes and the alligators, the kids had a chance to hold a turtle.

This is Jared putting the turtle back.


They had a rock climbing wall set-up so the kids had the chance to try it out. This is Jared and Ryan getting ready to do some climbing.

This is an action shot of the kids climbing the wall. I am mostly pushing Ryan up the wall, but he was having fun.

Brazos Bend State Park I

Several weeks ago (April 14th to be exact) we made a trip to Brazos Bend State Park to go on a hike. The weather was cool and windy and I have to admit that standing in the wind it even got cold. We have adjusted to the warmer climate so it may be that we just get cold easier now than we used to, but it was quite chilly that Saturday. The kids were driving us crazy so we decided to go on a hike to get some of their energy out and to take some pictures. We packed a lunch so Brett could pass-off a Cub Scout requirement and headed out. Below are some of the pictures we took on that trip.

Brett, Ryan and Jared on a tree stump on the trail. The tree stump is not visible in this picture but it is in the picture below.

Brett, Jared and Ryan on a tree stump.

A picture of us on a low tree branch. I had to be in the picture to hold the kids on the branch so nobody would fall off. Jared is struggling to stay on even though I am holding him.

I was able to wrestle the camera out of Lori's hands and get a picture of her with the kids. This is a rare one these days. It is great that Lori takes so many pictures but the downside is I am in so many of them.

Jared alone on the tree limb.

George Historical Ranch

Today we went to visit the George Ranch Historical Park. Unfortunately, we were unable to see it all but we did have a great time. You can click on the link above to find out more about the ranch.

We had a great time. Below are some of the pictures we took. Lori took some good ones and so I got a little bit crazy with the postings so forgive me that I have minimized my comments on each picture. It is late and I am getting tired but I wanted to get these posted.

We could not go to the cowboy ranch without our cowboy hats. We had to buy one there for Ryan as well as the George Ranch bandannas. I love the shorts and sandals/tennis shoe look with the cowboy hats and bandannas.

Here we have the cowboys waiting for the roping demonstration to begin.

Ryan at the roping demonstration.

Jared with his serious cowboy look. You cannot let the cows get the best of you!

The boys were fascinated with the roping.

Brett holding a Texas Long Horn.

Brett in the tree house.

Brett, Ryan and Jared in the tree house.

Another picture of Brett, Jared and Ryan in the tree house.

Jared, Brett and Ryan on the tree that holds the tree house.

Brett, Jared and Ryan sitting with the Georges.

Jared somewhere at the ranch.

Brett and Jared riding the tram (a wagon pulled by a tractor).

Ryan at the ranch.

Share croppers out in front of their house.

Brett with the sharecropper pig.

Brett out by the Texas Longhorns

Ryan Brett and Jared out by the field with the big Texas Longhorn cows. You can barely see them in the background.

Ryan looking at the Texas Longhorns.

Playing on the Trampoline

We had to spend a Saturday and get our yard into shape for the summer so we spent the morning doing yard work. This was our yard in Texas (the rented yard). We have to go back to Illinois and get that yard in shape for summer too. We worked on cutting all the dead leaves from the banana tree, which was a nasty job. Once we finished with the yard, we took the afternoon off and the kids jumped on the trampoline with the sprinkler on. They had a ball.

This is Jared showing how it is done.

Ryan, Brett and Jared cooling off after a hard day's work in the yard.

Jared & Ryan

Jared had a sick day at home and in the afternoon when he started feeling better Lori thought she should have sent him to school. Jared and Ryan were goofing around and instead of letting it get to her; she got her camera out and took some pictures. This is one of those pictures.

While we were in San Antonio and the weather was cold we went to the Bass Pro Shop. That is a great store, similar to Cabelas. They have a shooting range among other things. While there we found some crossbows that I have been looking for since last October when we were at a Halloween Party. They had a game set-up with the crossbows and we all loved them. So, we bought 4 of them. When we got home and opened the packages the first thing out of Lori’s mouth was “We do not shoot at people.” I responded that we surly do shoot at people, which is why we bought 4 of them, and I intended to shoot at the kids! The have their own so they can shoot back. We play war around the house and it is great fun! This is a picture of Jared showing how they work. The swimming goggles look great.

Easter

The kids had Good Friday off from school and it was a holiday for me so I did not have to work, so we took advantage of the time off and headed for San Antonio. Our plan was to go to Sea World and Friday and Saturday, but a cold front came in on Saturday and it was too cold and rainy to go to Sea World that day. It even snowed in Dallas that weekend. We certainly were not prepared for that cold of weather. We could have really used some of the Goracle’s global warming Easter Weekend.

We met with some of our friends from Illinois who live in San Antonio and we went to Sea World with them. Everyone will have to wait for any of the pictures of Sea World because we used the compact digital camera and we have lost the cord to it so we cannot download them yet. Our friends invited us to stay over at their house Saturday night and it was a good thing they did or we would have had to go home on Saturday because the hotel messed-up our reservations so we did not have a room that night. We had a great time in spite of the weather. Below are pictures from Easter morning at the Anderson’s house.

Brett, Jared and Ryan inspecting their Easter Baskets to see what the Easter Bunny brought them.

Ryan showing an egg he found during the Easter Egg Hunt.

Sarah doing a thorough job searching for any eggs that might be in a high spot.

Sarah, Ryan, Brett and Jared in their Easter Clothes.

The kids dressed and ready for Church.

We got home from San Antonio Sunday evening. Since we did not have time to color Easter Eggs earlier, we did it Sunday evening. Better late than never.

Global Warming Crowd is Nuts!

Now that Sheryl Crow has weighed in on global warming it must be true. Although, I think her proposed solution is really crappy. A book titled “Shut-up and Sing” comes to mind about now.

ConocoPhillips has recently caved to the global warming politically correct crowd and has jumped on the global warming bandwagon. In this news release they have apparently decided it is the politically correct thing to do. I was disappointed to see another oil company jump into this but it looks like they are going to try and capitalize on joining the green crowd. Shortly there after ConocopPhillips announced that they would be joining with Tyson to start producing diesel from pig and other animal fat. In trying to please a part of the left wing wackos and derive fuel from a renewable source that would otherwise go to waste, they have ticked off the PETA crowd. It just goes to show that no matter what you do, you are going to make some group on the left mad. You just cannot win with this crowd, which reminds me of a quote by C.S. Lewis.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

I am pretty sure we will all be tyrannized by the left until we all do exactly what they want us to do. We need to stop using toilet paper, stop driving our cars, become vegetarians (organically grown only within a 50 mile radius of our house so no gasoline is used in transportation) and basically go back to living in the dark ages. It all seems pretty stupid to me. The burning question I have is: Will the freeways smell like bacon once the pig-fat diesel goes into production? I sure hope so; I love bacon!

The Goracle

I found a few more articles on global warming and the Goracle that I think everyone should read. The first on is by Ann Coulter. She is great to tell it like it is. The other is an article by Deroy Murdock that shows what kind of people these global warming enthusiasts really are. They do not want to debate the issue; they resort to name calling and profanity to intimate anyone that disagrees with them. I would like to quote from another article by Roy W. Spencer, a principal research scientist at the Global Hydrology and Climate Center of the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, Ala. He says the following which I think is insightful.

“Only in a country as technologically advanced, yet as scientifically and economically illiterate, as the United States do we find such mindless hypocrisy masquerading as “environmental awareness” and “eco-justice.” Devoting column inches to an environmental version of Dante’s Hell containing, among others, George W. Bush might help sell more copies of Vanity Fair, but it is not much more than thinly disguised tabloid propaganda.”

The entire article is worth reading and you can go here to read it.

I think that one of the principal problems is most people do not have any idea where the things they use daily come from. Who are really the big polluters, those rotten “Big Oil” companies that make the gasoline and diesel or those that use the energy to drive their cars? Is it the nasty power companies spewing all that carbon dioxide into the atmosphere or all the normal people running their heaters and air conditioners, computers, lights and electronics? I think that the general public needs to have a better understanding of where their standard of living comes from so they will not be so stupid and buy into all of this global warming garbage.