Nelsie's Farewell

Breaking News:
Nels' mission call has been changed. President Newman called to inform Nels that Mongolia is not granting visas to American missionaries. So he is now assigned to NEW HAMPSHIRE! Although it's not as exotic as Mongolia, we know that there are people there who need the gospel just as much, and Nels is very, very happy to be going there. We are proud of how well he has accepted the change and decided to serve the Lord wherever he is called.

Nels spoke in church today, and he spoke about how to prepare to preach the gospel. He shared three important aspects of the preparation process: study the gospel, live the gospel, love the gospel. He did a wonderful job speaking. After church, about 8 thousand of his friends came to our house to wish him well and to eat the food that mom and friends had prepared (Mom spent all Saturday getting everything ready with her trusty friends Asia Dutson and Connie Ericksen).





We are so happy that Nels is such a good young man, and that he got his new suit and sweater yesterday so he could look super sharp in front of everyone.
(We are also proud to announce that we were on time for the farewell and even had time to throw together a nice musical number, but this isn't about us. It's about Nels. Even so, please be aware of those facts).











We'd also like to spotlight the significant others who came to support Nels.

Heather . . .



Chris . . .





Kyle . . .



. . And Kristin



Oh. And Let's not forget TALON.



We also played some board games this afternoon, including Ticket To Ride and St. Petersburg.



In short, we just couldn't be happier for Nels, and we couldn't love him more. He enters the MTC this Wednesday, on March 17, and he's taking my luggage. Look out, you East coast vacationers. Proselytizing is about to get a kick in the pants, and that kick in the pants has a name: Wilford Nels Hansen III.

Dinner and the Huff

For those of you not familiar with Payson High School's annual musical competition "The Huff," You may think that I am alluding to some sort of feud that happened after dinner tonight. I am alluding to no such thing. They are two separate events.

Let's start with dinner tonight.

Amelie and Cody came by last night to bid Nels farewell. Mom made a scrumptious dinner, and the kiddos are still adorable.

Observe:





Thanks to BJ for staying for the pictures. It was a difficult thing, but he did it for the greater goood.

Here are pictures from the Huff competition. Rachel entered in 4 categories: Piano solo, bassoon solo, vocal solo, and vocal duet. We are so proud of our baby sister, who has too many talents to be contained in one category. Oh, and FYI, she just finished a bassoon scholarship audition at Utah State. What a musical genius. Get your autographs now, because you might not get another chance.

San Diego! More reasons to love it!

Dear Family,

We regret to inform you that we had the time of our lives in San Diego over Valentine's weekend. We means Dad, Mom, Maggie, and Melanie. The highlight of the trip was watching Chris be commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marines. We are so proud of him, and it was easy to see that his family was, too! Janelle Melear (Chris' mom) told us that this was the only time that both Chris and his dad would be in uniform together, and the sight was smashing.

The photographer was gracious enough to take a few shots for us.





Melanie got to help Chris' family pin his lieutenant bars on his shoulders. I'm sure there's a more technical term to describe this process, but to me, it was pinning bars.







The ceremony took place outside of the Dr. Seuss library (seriously, named after San Diego native Ted Geisel. I spy with my little eye . . . Dr. Seuss' leg in a picture)The Melears had a luncheon at California Pizza Kitchen, and we felt really lucky to be a part of eveything.





Chris goes to begin officer training in Virginia this October.








Cheers, Chris and Melanie!

6 months later . . .

It's time for another Hansen posting. Before fall semester began (September 09), Mom was doing a fantastic job of keeping our blog postings current. However, times have changed--and for a good cause. Mom has begun school at BYU again, taking prerequisites for the graduate program in psychology. Daily trips to BYU to TA and be in Women's Chorus, as well as the myriad of tasks at home, have caused our blog to fall by the wayside. Unfortuntately, it didn't dawn on me (Maggie) to keep it up myself until today. So here are some highlights of the last six months:

Mom got into Women's Chorus at BYU! She's a second soprano, and she's doing a great job as the secretary over devotionals. She's also in the middle of graduate school interviews, and hopefully we'll have some news about her educational pursuits soon.

Dad is still running in the mornings, despite rumors that a cougar and her cubs live around Wal-Mart. We'll watch out for shreds of Dad's warm-ups around the temple site if he doesn't come home in time for scriptures one day.

Which reminde me . . .
A temple has been announced in Payson, just a few blocks from our home! The site is next door to a ward building in our stake, and we are really looking forward to the changes it will bring. No more arduous treks to the temple in Provo in our car with a heater!

Mike and Vanessa welcomed Ella Noel into their family on October 25. Mom went out to visit the week after. Grandma and Grandpa Tensmeyer were able to be there for the blessing.

BJ has been called to be the elders quorum president in his ward. He is also working and going to school, as well as accruing an impressive collection of upscale band regalia. Amps, guitars--you name it, he's got them by the dozens. Pretty soon he'll have to rent out Ariel's undersea cavern for all of his whos-its and what's-its galore. And don't get me started on his thing-a-mabobs.

Amelie is doing a great job raising her kiddos. She and Cody purchased a '62 Toyota to fix up. It's gold. It has a Christian fish on the bumper. What a nice addition to their family. We went to Amelie's house for Thanksgiving, where there was a lot of food and a lot of target shooting out back.

I'm still in graduate school, working toward becoming a speech pathologist. This severly limits my discretionary time and my preferred topics of conversation. I generally turn any conversation into a lecture on dysarthria or auditory feedback loops with subtle verbal transitions such as "Did you know that . . ." or "Here's something for you. . . " I've been told that my stress level is contagious, so I should keep it to myself. I'll see what I can do about that. I find out about internship placements within the next month.

Melanie is surviving the onslaught of her last full semester at BYU (besides school in the summer time). She got home safely from her summer trip to Europe, spent Christmas in San Diego with her boyfriend Chris Melear, and is now preparing for her Senior recital on April Fool's day. Be sure to mark it on your calendars if you're in the area.

Nels got a letter from the first presidency in the mail last week. It was a mission call (Duh. The first sentence just seemed like a better transition into a paragraph about Nels), and he opened it at our stake center, with Mom, Dad, BJ, Mell, me, Rachel, Maggie Chu, and Meisha present. Mike and Amelie were on speaker phones. He's headed to Mongolia, Ulaanbataar, on March 17th. 6 weeks to prepare to leave the western hemisphere isn't very long. We're all really excited for him.


Rachel started (and is now finishing up) her senior year. She is in Chamber singers and wowing us all on the bassoon, getting ready to compete at the regional level. She also got accepted to Utah State and will be heading there in August. Now, I know she's not 3 anymore, but really, who told her she could grow up so fast? It wasn't me.

I didn't mean for this to end up sounding like a Christmas card catch-up, but that's what it's like. Given my potentially nebulous audience, I'm struggling to decide how much information needs to be put on here. And certainly each of us has had SOMEthing important happen to us in the last year. It needed to be delineated. Hopefully future posts will read better. Cheers!

Let's celebrate the Fourth -- Again!

Have you ever wanted to see first-hand how our nation's capital celebrates the Fourth of July?



Mike and Vanessa with Max and Addie spent the holiday weekend in Washington, D.C. Here they are in front of the white house!


In front the of J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building



Here they are at the Air & Space Museum





and in and around DC for the celebration. . .





Here's the Declaration of Independence in Chinese (!?)



And here they are at the D.C. Temple









And here are some photos from Max's T-ball team.






in other news. . .

BJ got highlights in his hair.

Maggie has some stories about Aubrey, Cooper and Sara.

Melanie has left Munich and is staying with Gittlers in Gleiszellen.

Nels got twenty stitches in his chin after a bicycle encounter with a huge decorative rock in somebody's yard.

Rachel and Nels have re-read all the Harry Potter books this week.

Bill and Lisa returned from a week in the Wind River Mountains with Ericksens and two llamas.

Promising pictures of lots of these lightly-sketched events in next Sunday's blog.

The way it was -- this week -- July 19, 2009

Nels' big news is that he got his haircut. For your pleasure, here are the before and after photos! Let's start with AFTER!

>

And Before!



So maybe you can't tell just how long his hair was getting. Anne cut off FIVE INCHES!

Pay no attention to the fact that on successive Sundays, Nels is napping on the Family Room couch. Pure coincidence.

BILL

Bill's 40th Skyview Reunion was last night. He renewed acquaintance with a couple dozen friends. One girl told me at the end of the night that Bill had been the talk of the class, because he joined them as a senior as a cute, smart California boy -- Bill said afterwards he'd never had the chance to talk to her before in his life! What you don't know people are saying about you!

RACHEL

Ray spent the weekend at a Youth Conference Mission, enjoying her immersion in all things New Zealand-ish and mission-ish. She wore one of Maggie's mission outfits, complete with worn-out shoes!

MIKE & VANESSA

Vanessa's going to help us capitalize on our own natures while being tolerant of our liabilities (and others' too!) through Carol Tuttle's book "It's Just My Nature." Vanessa was able to attend a Carol Tuttle workshop during her most recent Utah visit. We're going to get ourselves a copy of the book and get figuring ourselves out, but we'll be turning to Vanessa for help, you can bet! Here's the link to Carol Tuttle's info: http://www.caroltuttle.com/cmd.asp?af=1013381

BJ

BJ entertained Bill and Lisa (& Rachel) on Friday night at his most amazing and beautiful apartment complex. We swam and hot-tubbed and watched Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie up their sparring ante as Mr. and Mrs. Smith on the big screen in BJ's apartment. Family members are not likely to believe this, but I didn't fall asleep once during the movie! Rachel laughed at the end that she and I were the only ones awake. So, it was an anomaly. I love BJ's apartment complex. Part of me wants to shake off the huge house and its incessant demands and find a niche in his nice little Italian villa.

AMELIE

We're looking forward to Amelie's visit in Payson beginning Monday night. And we promise photos next blogging day.

MAGGIE

Maggie's enjoying her last month before graduate school begins again in unyielding earnest, promising no time to think about personal things or engage in personal activities (so she's been told). We've loved having Maggie live at home in this fast-vanishing interim. She's always up for a conversation about what's happening in this or that arena. Her witty incisive insights and even better questions make great conversation. I know I should illustrate rather than tell, but the quality of her wit exceeds the quantity of my memory.

MELANIE



Melanie is staying a few days with Serena and Roberto at a place on this lake (Como) in Italy.



Serena is the cutest expectant mom!

BILL

Every day Bill comes up with a new Chuck Norris joke emphasizing the intelligence, the ubiquitous presence (and violence) of Chuck. Recent dailies include: There is no chin under Chuck Norris' beard, just another fist. Another one. Chuck Norris once aced a calculus test by writing in the word "violence" as the answer to each question. Chuck Norris solves all problems with violence. OK, one more. Chuck Norris was the fourth wise man. To the baby Jesus, he gave the gift of beard, which Jesus wore proudly until the day he died. Today's edition: You probably didn't know that Chuck Norris discovered Mars. That's why there is no life on that planet.

MOM

This week I'm discovering the Community of Christ hymnbook. Each day a new hymn (or even better, a familiar melody with new words).

Hansens will have no blogging next Sunday cause Bill and I will be in the Uintahs battling either merciless sun or pounding rain, and loving every minute of being away from the 21st century (except for the extraordinarily wonderful sleeping bags and dehydrated food).

Pleasant dreams to you all!