Mall of America, Cool People

Today we had a fantastic time with Kelly's sister Teresa & her husband Jan. Teresa came to Minneapolis to pick us up at our hotel, then we did a lap around the Mall of America. We stopped into the Apple Store and the man helping us looked at me and said "where are you from?" me "Salt Lake City" him "I asked because your accent is exactly like my mom's and her family immigrated to Utah, first to Springville and later to Kaysville." He comes from the Tanners. What a small world. And on another note, I have an accent?



After lunch we bit the bullet and let Izzy start driving the Civic. It was a pretty slow start. I think it took 20 minutes to go 4 blocks. After many starts and stops we ended up in the parking lot of a park. Another extremely frustrating hour before I got behind the wheel and started describing exactly what I was doing, she started feeling the clutch and gas. We took the back roads out of River Falls, WI until we met up with I-94 and Izzy successfully merged and drove on the Freeway. She did a great job and only stalled on a couple of red lights. We made it to Madison just a little after 10. She logged a good 3 1/2 hours of freeway driving today. Another hour or more of parking lot driving.



Stop at Moosejaw in The Wisconsin Dells


Finally, at our hotel in Madison.

Benjamin Baker

My mom is big into family history. I appreciate all the work she does, I love hearing all the stories she has discovered, the new relatives she has discovered.

This year has been an adventure in family history. Condensed version of this is that our ancestor, Benjamin Baker, having lost his wife, had a pregnant daughter who died in childbirth. The child lived and was given in trust to a family who had just lost twin babies. The present day ancestors of this baby started searching for the family of Benjamin Baker and were reunited with them (us) this year. As a joint effort the new cousins came together to get a headstone on the previously unmarked grave of Benjamin Baker. We had the unique and wonderful opportunity to attend to celebration and dedication of this location.

As I came away from this small ceremony, I feel dedicated to listening and recording the histories of the living. Wouldn't it be amazing if we could capture everyone's history while they were still living? If we could all appreciate each other so much to take time to appreciate each others lives?

Yes, our ancestors will search for clues and wish they had more pictures, letters, writings. I want to help them out by capturing and celebrating the lives of the living.

Thank you Mom, for giving me this love of stories and of people.


I miss my grandparents so much.


My darlings.


Mom & long lost cousins.