Janet's Blog

It was an exciting day when Dad brought the dinosaur home from the Sinclair station across the street. It was a bright green dinosaur, the kind you blow into to inflate. The gas station owner, who worked across the street from the Oxnard Hotel in Norfolk, had given it to Dad just for us! Back then, we didn't have too much stuff. Most of our toys, Dan's and Laura's, and mine, fit into one old, metal, brown trunk that we called the toy box. We had trikes, and then bikes, but they were kept outside. My treasured Barbie doll and the clothes Mom sewed for it at the front desk when she worked in the evenings, after we were asleep, were kept in a shoe box in the bedroom I shared with Dan. Most of our books were borrowed from the public library, although a few were purchased at school, for a quarter, from the Scholastic Book Club. We also had a full set of Collier's Encyclopedias, which Dan read from cover to cover before he finished grade school, and a well-loved, acc...

Every Christmas, beginning when I was a very little girl, my family had a brightly painted, plaster, nativity set sitting on top of the TV. At first, our set consisted of only Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus, lying in a manger. But each year, until I was out of grade school, Mom, Dan, and I, and Laura, when she finally entered the picture, would walk to the dime store, first in Norfolk, then in Fairbury, to buy one or two more pieces for our nativity set. I remember standing in front of Hested's display table, gazing at each possible addition to our set, and discussing which ones we should buy that year. The figurines didn't cost much, certainly less than a dollar apiece, but each one was still a significant purchase for our family. We added shepherds and sheep first. It was a banner year when we were able to afford the cardboard stable. The wise men and camels were added two pieces at a time. After we had all of the most essential characters, we added an angel, a cow and do...

As I was growing up, I never expected to be married before I turned twenty. Bill and I met In January of 1974, when I was a freshman at Concordia College, and he was working toward a degree in electronic engineering at Milford Tech. Ours was a whirlwind romance. By the end of January, we were spending every evening together, and talking on the phone daily. Bill's biggest concern then, besides passing his classes, was scraping together enough money to afford gas for his Camaro, so he could drive the twelve miles to Seward and back to Milford every day. We were engaged by May, and married in December. When we announced our engagement, my dad's first question was, "Where's the ring?" It was a logical question, I guess, even though we considered ourselves engaged without that enduring symbol of our approaching marriage. We looked at rings in Lincoln that summer, but we waited until we made a trip to Gering in August, for Bill's sister's wedding, t...

We are so blessed to have all of our children and grandchildren living close by. And, I must say, our family seems to be growing by leaps and bounds. We were pleased, but not really surprised, late last winter, when Erin called to let us know that Reed had proposed and they were planning to be married. The wedding, on November 4th, was a small, mostly family wedding, at an art gallery in Denver, with a string quartet consisting of cellos and guitars (!) that played tastefully appropriate Beetles music. The reception had a more traditional DJ, but Erin and Reed chose all of the music, because music is a big part of both of their lives. They are living in Cheyenne with their black Pugapoo, Bowie, for the time being, where Dr. Erin heads up the instrumental music department at Laramie County Community College. Reed commutes to Laramie, where he is a finance manager for a large group of orthopedic surgeons. Meagan and Andy's family is growing. It's hard to believe tha...