This last Saturday was Ann's Memorial service at the church. It was everything I hoped it would be. It was well attended with many friends from school, lots of church people, and family, including her three kids. Anton gave a wonderful eulogy, concentrating on her early years. He is so well spoken. Janie and I also spoke. We shared some stories about Ann and her life here in Westminster. The Bishop ended with some words about the plan of salvation. And I directed the ward choir in two songs. They sounded great, but I couldn't look in the tenor section. This was the first time I've directed without Ann singing. I really miss her.
I wanted to share a couple of my favorite stories about Ann.
While we were in Switzerland, we went to Zermott to see
the Matterhorn. We stayed in a little,
old hotel. We took an ancient elevator
up to the second floor, grateful that we made it. As we entered our room, Ann said, “Oh look!”
and at the same time, I said, “Oh look!”
We looked at each other and realized she was in awe because she was
looking at the wonderful view, including the Matterhorn. I was in awe because of the amazing claw foot
tub sitting in the bathroom! We certainly
got excited over different things.
While camping at Big Sur one summer, a bear came
wandering through camp just as people were fixing dinner. He didn’t cause problems, just walked on
through. But it drove home the point of
bear boxes. After we were finished with
dinner, we dutifully locked our food in the bear box. A while later, we made dump cake in the dutch
oven. It grew dark as we sat beside the
fire, waiting for the cake to get done.
Pretty soon, we could smell the cake and commented on how good it smelled. And then we both looked at each other and
realized how stupid we were. If we could
smell the cake, so could the bear! We
hurriedly ate a little, put the rest in the bear box, and had cold dump cake
for breakfast the next morning.
We traveled to Washington DC a few times. On one of our trips, we took the metro to
Arlington Cemetery. After watching the
changing of the guard, we wandered around, looking for the Kennedy graves and
the space shuttle memorial. We then
decided to walk to the end of the cemetery to get to the Iwo Jima
Memorial. After quite a walk, we ended
up at a very tall wall separating the cemetery from the outside world. It was hard, but we were able to scale the
wall. As I was sitting on top of it,
just before I was ready to jump down, Ann said to stop while she took my
picture. I thought that it would be a
pretty cool picture, me on top of that huge wall. When we got home and developed the pictures,
there I was, but no wall. She got a close-up
of me! You'll need to use your imagination to see that big wall that I'm on top of!
Some fun things we have done
- Having “high tea” at the Empress Hotel in
British Vancouver
- Attending the Nauvoo temple on its opening day
- Flying kites at the beach
- Being in Hannibal for Mark Twain Days
- Watching 4th of July fireworks from a
paddle wheeler on the Mississippi
- Getting stamps in our National Parks passport
- Attending many plays, musicials, concerts, and ballets
- Cross Country skiing--but really making the snow angles was more fun
- Hiking the Narrows at Zion
- Flying to San Francisco for lunch and walking across the Golden Gate Bridge
- Renting a convertible
I remember running low on gas and money and going in for $.25 worth of gas.
While we were in Switzerland, we went to Zermott to see
the Matterhorn. We stayed in a little,
old hotel. We took an ancient elevator
up to the second floor, grateful that we made it. As we entered our room, Ann said, “Oh look!”
and at the same time, I said, “Oh look!”
We looked at each other and realized she was in awe because she was
looking at the wonderful view, including the Matterhorn. I was in awe because of the amazing claw foot
tub sitting in the bathroom! We certainly
got excited over different things.
