52 Week Challenge: Question 16

What foods do you like? What foods do you dislike? Do you have any food or medical allergies?

I haven't done one of these 52 week challenges in forever! It's time for another one.

As far as food goes...I would say that I am an adventurous eater. There is nothing that I won't try once. I grew up eating out at diverse restaurants a lot and at a young age I loved things like sushi and escargot. They are still two of my very favorite foods. My brother Kirk and I are probably the most adventurous eaters in our extended family. We are looking forward to our trip to San Francisco and we are already planning what we will eat. Kirk has a list of all kinds of weird dishes and places for us to hit. Can't wait.

Tyler grew up eating a fairly conservative diet. Very meat and potatoes. Very Utah Mormon food. (Yes, that is a thing.) When we started dating he didn't eat seafood or sushi or even mustard. (What?!) But he has since developed a much more sophisticated palate and there isn't anything he won't try. Now he is often the one pushing me to try weird foods. I love it!

Out of our four kids...Kameron is our most adventurous eater with Bryn right behind him. When we were in Portland they wanted to eat jelly fish and rabbit and all kinds of things that were on the "wild side" of the menu at the Chinese restaurant that we went to. That fills me with great joy! Ailey is our least experimental eater. She likes about four things and that is it. She is the pickiest of picky eaters. Reilly is fairly picky too. For Reilly it is no seafood, no sushi, no mushrooms, no onions. Good grief. Tyler and I never cater to our picky eaters. Reilly is a bit easier because she will just work around her dislikes. She will eat cucumber rolls and things like that when we go out for sushi... which is a lot... and she just quietly deals with her dislikes but Ailey throws a huge fit. Trying to get that kid to eat as a toddler was one of my greatest tests of patience as a parent!! It still is. Sometimes when we go out for dinner she just orders white rice or buttered noodles. Seriously. Where did this kid come from?!

It is hard to say what my favorite foods are because I like so many things! I would say that sushi, seafood, Thai food, Japanese food, and Korean food are at the top of my list!!

There are however certain foods that I dislike:

1.) Fast Food

I cannot think of one fast food place that I like or can even order something from. Gross.

2.) Mayonnaise

This is hated across the board by me and my siblings. Too many school lunch bologna sandwiches with clear mayonnaise. There were no lunch box ice packs back in our day. It's amazing that we didn't all get salmonella.

3.) Milk

Also universally despised by all of the McClellan kids. One day on St. Patrick's Day our mom turned our milk green with food coloring to be festive. The milk must have been going south before that since I *hear* that food coloring won't sour milk (allegedly) but that was all it took. Some green sour milk and now none of us can drink it. *Shivers*

4.) Pears

I hate the gritty texture of pears. My mom also used to make a very disgusting side dish for our dinners back in the 80s which was half a pear, a blob of mayo on top of it, and sprinkled with cheddar cheese. This was beloved by none of us. My Grandma Ellersick used to take a wedge of iceberg lettuce and put a blob of mayo on top of that and call it *salad*. Also not beloved by the McClellan kids... I feel sick just typing that.

5.) Raisins

I used to like them as a kid. I have memories of being little and eating them out of the little red boxes and enjoying them. Perhaps I enjoyed them too much? Now I cannot eat even one. So gross. Do NOT even THINK about putting those in a cookie at our house!!

6.) Apple Sauce

Same reason as Pears. Gritty texture. I like apples...just not in a sauce or in a pie. Because apple pie is just basically applesauce pie.

7.) Melon

I hate all melon. Every.single.one. But cantaloupe is literally the worst food known to man.

8.) Cucumbers

Nope. Disgusting. This is literally the only thing that I have to pick out of food. I can get down most things that I am served but cucumbers are a NO. Although I do like tzakiki sauce a lot. I make it quite often but I always very very finely shred the cucumbers.

9.) Pizza

This is the greatest sorrow of my children's lives. I think we have had the pizza delivery guy come maybe 5 times in their entire lives. Believe me...they let me know how sad this is for them all.the.time. Whenever I go out of town it is pizza for days at our house.

10.) Marinara Sauce

See above. It makes me not enjoy other things like lasagna and certain pastas and of course pizza.

When I think back to the meals that my mom made growing up...

My very favorite meal was my mom's finger steaks dipped in homemade ranch dressing (add bottled ranch dressing to my list of inedible foods) with homemade mashed potatoes (no potato buds...gross). This was only made on special occasions...like birthdays... and was one of my Grandma Ellersick's better recipes. I still request that Tyler make this for me on my birthday and I wash it all down with my Grandma's green punch too. Delicious!!

Other meals that my mom made that I loved growing up:

Tacos
Taco Salad
Enchilada Casserole (Tyler requests this every year as his birthday dinner.)
Meatloaf
Homemade Clam Chowder (My mom's recipe is the best!)
Fried Rice (My Aunt Margaret's recipe)
Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup (My Grandma Ellersick's recipe)
Stroganoff
Pot Roast
Chili
Steak Soup

If I came home and saw that we were having any of the above for dinner I was STOKED!

BUT... if I came home and saw that we were having any of the foods listed below... I would invite myself over to a friend's house for dinner.

My Mom's worst meals:

1.) Salmon Loaf

This is BY FAR the most loathed meal in my house growing up. Liked by NO ONE but my mother. This gem was also a recipe from my Grandma Ellersick and it is straight up the most disgusting thing you will ever eat.

Let me paint you a picture... you open up a can of...yes CAN of pink salmon. It looks like cat food. You mix it with things like celery and crushed up saltines. You mush it into a loaf pan and bake it. Then you slice it and cover it in the most vile sauce of made of milk and boiled eggs. You might as well just vomit now. It is HORRID!!

Right behind Salmon Loaf was....

2.) Liver and Onions

Enough said!

Tyler's favorite meals growing up were:

1.) His Mom's Roast Chicken Sunday Dinner (or Pot Roast)

This was what they had almost every Sunday after church: Roast chicken or beef with potatoes and veggies and homemade rolls and Crystal Light to drink. Tyler still loves himself some Crystal Light! He drinks it every day at work.

2.) Canned Fruit and Peanut Butter Toast

This is a meal that he speaks of with such joy and love. Just ask our kids!! LOL. Whenever it was a busy night and his mom didn't have time to cook dinner; (His dad never cooked...can you imagine???) she would have everyone in the family go into their food storage and pick out whatever homemade jar of canned fruit they wanted to eat...no sharing with anyone else...everyone got their own jar. (Tyler always picked cherries or pears.) This was then accompanied by peanut butter toast. He mentions this meal all.the.time. I told him to learn to can fruit! I am sure that his mother would be SHOCKED by how fondly her *quick* meal is remembered.

3.) Lasagna

Tyler makes this for himself because ...see above...I don't like marinara sauce. I will make him a delicious butternut squash lasagna with a basil cream sauce which he likes but sometimes he just wants his mom's lasagna made with cottage cheese. :)

 4.) Lefse

This was a Norwegian flat bread made from potatoes that Tyler's family would make at Christmas time. It is delicious. Not all lefse is alike. Tyler makes a darn good lefse!

5.) Ground Beef Stuffed Crescent Rolls

Ground beef, Lipton Onion Soup Mix, and cheddar cheese were all combined and baked inside a crescent roll. Tyler's eyes still light up at the mention of this!

6.) Friday Night Pizza and Pop

On Friday nights when Tyler was a kid... his family had the tradition of going to Sounds Easy Pizza in Orem, UT every Friday night and getting a bunch of pizzas and then heading over to the Gas N' Go to fill up their refillable giant mugs with pop. He married the WRONG person. Poor guy.

Foods that Tyler hates:

1.) Oysters

2.) Sardines

3.) Salmon

4.) Liver

5.) Pigs Feet (He had to eat these on his mission in North Carolina.)


If you ask my kids...and I did...what their favorite meals are they include:

Broccoli Divan (This is our typical Sunday Dinner)
Pecan Patties with Mashed Potatoes
Street Tacos
Pad Thai
Stroganoff
Hawaiian Haystacks
Salad Bar
Taco Salad
Granny's Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup
Pasta Alfresca
The Dieter's Plate

The Dieter's Plate was a creation out of desperation one night and totally helps satiate Tyler's cravings for his canned fruit and peanut butter toast. One night we had literally no groceries and no time to go to the store. I rummaged in the fridge and pulled out random items. A little bit of leftover cottage cheese, some olives, carrot sticks, crackers, canned fruit (not homemade), a couple of boiled eggs, some pickles, and some cheese that I sliced. I made everyone plates with cottage cheese in the middle and all of the other stuff radiating out from it. I called it the dieter's plate because it looked just like the meals my Grandma McKinnon used to order at restaurants in the 80s because she was always on a diet. MY FAMILY LOVED IT!! They ask for it all the time!! Ha ha!

As far as food allergies go...we don't have any life threatening ones. Thank goodness. Tyler is allergic to pistachios which is terrible because he loves them and Reilly is allergic to kiwi.

I could do multiple posts on food and family. Maybe I will. It is a much more interesting topic (to me) than some of the other topics on this challenge!! :)

52 Week Challenge: 14

52 Week Challenge: Question 14

Where did you go to Junior High or Middle School? What was it like for you?

Junior high was a mixed bag for me. Some parts were good, some parts were bad, and some parts were just okay. I went to two different junior high schools in Orem, Utah. The first one sucked and the second one was a lot of fun.

Junior High:

I had a little bit of the same situation that occurred in 6th grade. A new junior high was being built and while it was being built the school district crammed everyone into Orem Junior High. The next year when the new junior high was complete...half of the kids stayed at Orem Junior High and the other half (me included) went to Canyon View Junior High. They were two very different schools and I had two very different experiences at them.

Orem Junior High

In 7th grade I attended Orem Junior High. The transition from elementary school to junior high was a difficult one for me. I had a crappy schedule and the wrong lunch...all of my friends from elementary school had a different lunch than I did that entire year. I had to make a whole new set of friends and I quickly learned that making friends in junior high was very different from making friends in elementary school. The cliques!! They were awful and unlike in elementary school people didn't just automatically want to be my friend. They already had friends. I can be a fairly reserved and shy person until you get to know me and then I am very out going but in a new school and at the age of twelve I was not out going. I had to really put myself out there to get to know people.

Luckily on the first day of school, in my history class, when the teacher was calling the roll I heard the name of Britney (the best friend of my friends in Springville ...the one who had moved away when I moved in) called. I literally froze. What?! She's in this class!! When my name was called I saw her head whip around and we stared at each other in horror. That was the class right before lunch and it turned out that none of her friends were in our lunch either. I remember her coming up to me and begrudgingly saying hi and begrudgingly asking me if I wanted to eat with her and I begrudgingly said okay. The rest is history folks! A great friendship was formed. We were two little newbies finding our way in 7th grade and we became best friends in the process.

I had a particularly rough start that year because I had broken my arm right before school started playing "Olympics" on the monkey bars in the dell and I had a cast on my right hand so I couldn't open my lockers (hall or gym) and I could barely write. It was a nightmare. I was also mortified to have to take a shower in PE. Yes, we actually had to shower and come and show our gym teacher that we were wet and then she would put a check by our name and we could go get dressed. I was always late to class and getting stuck behind slow movers. The school was extremely over crowded and my teachers didn't seem to care about that and I got many tardy slips. My grades went down because I was so overwhelmed. I was also forced by my mom to take band and to play the french horn. Ugh...I hated it so much and I was terrible. My mom had been in band when she was in school and she loved it and so it was forced upon me. I was extra annoyed because I was already taking piano lessons which I loved. So I was already playing an instrument!! But she was VERY insistent. (It's so funny that after saying that my kids will NEVER have to be in band...I have a son who absolutely LOVES BAND and is super talented!!)

I really hated going to school that year. I remember thinking that I literally hated every single class that I had with one exception...Honors English. That particular class and teacher I loved. The first book that we were assigned to read was The Outsiders and since I had been reading and rereading that book since the 4th grade I was an expert. :) My teacher, Mr. Christensen, was super nice and thought that I was really smart...due to my extensive Outsiders knowledge. Ha ha! His confidence in me gave me the boost that I needed to get through the first part of 7th grade. I was also lucky enough to have Mr. C for 8th grade Honors English too. (I ran into Mr. Christensen at the mall when I was in college once and it was really nice to be able to tell him how much I appreciated him as a teacher!)

Despite a rather rough start to 7th grade I eventually found my way and ended the year on a pretty good note. Britney and I became great friends and our circle began to expand. Also, not only did I have school friends, I also had fantastic friends in Springdell, and good grades.

Canyon View Junior High

In 8th grade the new junior high was completed and I attended Canyon View Junior High also in Orem, Utah. I loved it! 8th grade was a really fun year! Britney and I were best friends and we had a big group of guys and girls that we hung out with. I felt like I was hitting my stride in 8th grade. I had great grades and good friends...both at school and at home. Britney and I both liked boys that were in high school and we both had older friends so we spent quite a bit of time at Orem High hanging out with them. I liked most of my classes with the exception of PE, Math and Band. Yes, I was still being forced to play the french horn and I still hated it and was still terrible. My favorite classes were my Honors English (Mythology!) and foreign language. I was in my second year of German in 8th grade. I remember being really happy. Such a welcome relief! The year that Canyon View Junior High opened, the school district decided to have 9th grade remain in junior high. I was very disappointed because I was really looking forward to going to Orem High with my friends from the dell in 9th grade.

For 9th grade I spent the first part of the year at Canyon View Junior High and loving life. The second half of my 9th grade year was spent at Center High School in Kansas City, Missouri and it was sheer hell. I will comment on that in my post about high school.

The first part of 9th grade was amazing! I had great grades, a great social life, amazing friends, a cute older boyfriend, Rex, (who was also my next door neighbor). I felt like I was on top of the world!! My very best friends have always been my friends from the dell... Naomi, Kyle, Chris, Rex, Matthew. I am not going to go into detail here about all of them because I have talked about them in great detail on the blog already. I am going to focus mainly on school and school friends in this post. Because we lived up the canyon we were pretty isolated from the kids that lived in town. When the weekends rolled around we always just hung out with each other. Then we had school friends that we hung out with during the week. But I think all of us would agree that we wanted to and would rather hang out with the kids from the dell than with anyone else but sometimes school friends mixed in and hung out with our dell group and it was extra fun. That year because most of my older friends could drive and so we had a bigger combined group of dell kids and school friends. Britney often hung out with all of us and we had an absolute blast!! My social life was going great! I had gone on my first date! I went to see Pretty in Pink with Rex. No waiting until I was 16 for me!!  I was counting down the minutes until high school!!

I finally got to quit playing the french horn...hallelujah!! I also got to work in the school office as an aid (I had extra room in my schedule because I didn't go to seminary) and I loved bustling around in the office, answering the phone, running errands, and taking attendance. (I used to have to walk to the seminary building to get the attendance and would feel so sorry for all the little Mormon kids who not only had to go to school but also had to go to church during the day!! Ha ha!!)

Then my parents dropped the bomb that we were moving to Kansas City and life as I knew it was over. It took me years to recover from the blow. High school was rough...certainly not the glory days that many people experience. You couldn't pay me a million dollars to experience high school again for even one day. Those three and half years were very tough...at school and at home. It was a difficult time for me.

52 Week Challenge: 13

52 Week Challenge: Question 13

Where did you go to elementary school? What was school like for you? 

Obviously this is NOT a 52 Week Challenge!! I think I am on year three. Oh well...I am still plugging along and it will take as long as it takes, right? I still think these are important questions to answer.

Elementary School:

I went to multiple elementary schools. I went to Kindergarten at Washington Elementary in Rexburg, Idaho. I went to 1st and 2nd grade at Sharon Elementary in Orem, Utah. I went to 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade at Sage Creek Elementary in Springville, Utah. I went to 6th grade at Orchard Elementary in Orem, Utah.

Despite attending quite a few elementary schools I really enjoyed school and made friends easily. I always had a good group of friends. I loved to read and was a good student. I was organized, a hard-worker, and a people pleaser. I loved parent teacher conference because I loved to hear all of the good things that my teachers would say about me. Usually the only critique was that "Kristin can be a bit chatty."

My teachers were:

Kindergarten...Miss Cheryl
1st Grade...Mrs. Beal
2nd Grade...Mrs. Neubert
3rd Grade...Mr. Jacobson
4th Grade...Mr. Whiting
5th Grade...Mr. Strong
6th Grade...Mr. Barlow

I particularly liked going to school at Sharon Elementary and at Sage Creek Elementary. No surprise there since I was at those schools for the longest amount of time. Sage Creek was my absolute favorite and whenever elementary school is mentioned that is where my mind instantly returns.

I was in afternoon kindergarten which I always thought was so superior to morning kindergarten. (Reilly and Kameron were in afternoon kindergarten too.) In my mind, my school and classroom looked exactly like the school and classroom in the book Ramona the Pest. I remember thinking that when I was in Kindergarten and that book was being read to us and it has stuck with me for all of these years. We had naps on little rugs and the person who was the quietest got to be the wake up fairy with a wand. I LOVED being the wake up fairy!! We had cubbies and the smell that I associate with kindergarten is the smell of rubber gum erasers.

I can smell those right now just looking at the picture! Whenever I am at an arts supply store or an office supply store that has these particular erasers you can find me sniffing them and thinking...Aaahh... the smell of Kindergarten.

I loved Kindergarten. My best friend's name was Heidi. Her parents were building a house by themselves and only the basement was done and they lived in the basement. I thought that was pretty cool. My boyfriend was a boy named Anthony who was a 4th grader who used to get into his mom's jewelry box and steal jewelry and give it to me. My mom was always having to return these *gifts* to his mother!! There was also a boy in my carpool whose name was Stanley. Stanley used to lick all around his mouth as a nervous habit so he always had a red chappy ring all around his mouth. If my mom ever saw us so much as lick our lips she would say, "Don't be a Stanley!!" I have used this phrase with my own children!! Poor Stanley. I am sure he turned out to be a wonderful person.

Sharon Elementary in Orem, Utah

In first grade we moved back to Utah and I went to Sharon Elementary. I loved my teacher Mrs. Beal. She took a special interest in me...probably because my mom was a single mother. I remember her being especially kind and getting to know my mom and little sisters. (I love that Bryn's 1st grade teacher's name was Mrs. Beal too.) One thing that always amazed me was that whenever she talked about her husband she always referred to him as "Mr. Beal" never Jim or whatever his name was or "my husband". It was always..."When Mr. Beal got home last night...blah blah..." I always thought that was so weird. She wrote me letters through out the summer and for a couple of years later. She once sent me an intricate paper cutting when she was on a trip to Hong Kong and in one of her letters she said that she and "Mr. Beal" had bought a cabin in the mountains that was shaped like an A.  I especially loved Mrs. Beal because she taught me how to read. The first word that I remember reading was the word "Clean". I distinctly remember when everything clicked for me with reading. I was in the car with my mom and sisters and we were driving down State Street in Orem.  I was looking at all of the signs when they suddenly came into focus and I understood what they all said. I remember screaming, "I can read! I can read all the signs!!"

I accidentally found Mrs. Beal a few years ago on Facebook through a mutual Utah friend. She had stopped teaching when she had children...in fact our class was the only class that she ever taught full time. She even had a picture of our class on her FB page. I sent her a message and she was as charming and delightful as I remembered her.

My 2nd grade teacher's name was Mrs. Neubert. She was awesome and loved parties. When she was my teacher one of her sons was on a mission to Hawaii. We used to hear all about his experiences and adventures. Once we had a big Hawaiian Luau. We got leis and ate pineapple and poi. We even got to crack open coconuts. I remember thinking that it was the greatest party ever!! We had big birthday parties with punch and cupcakes...even the kids who had birthdays in the summer like me were assigned a time to celebrate during the school year! We celebrated every holiday in a big way. We went on amazing field trips...the zoo, the Monte L. Bean Museum, Liberty Park, BYU, and even a beaver farm off of Geneva Road!! That beaver farm still remains a highlight!! Tyler and I were just talking about that place last week. I was late for school that day and the school bus had already left for the field trip without me. (I was a latch key kid and a dawdler.) I called my Grandma McKinnon from the office and she immediately came to get me and drove like a bat out of !@#$ trying to catch up with the school bus. Which she did!! She was not going to have her "little sweetheart" miss out on seeing that beaver farm!!  We also learned about Egypt and I thought that it was fascinating and terrifying. That was the year the King Tutankhamen exhibit came to Utah. I also attribute my love of audiobooks to Mrs.Neubert. Whenever we did art we got to listen to a book on record. Our class particularly loved all of the Francis books...Bread and Jam for Francis and Best Friends for Francis etc. I still adore those books and have shared them with my kids who also loved them. I had a blue plastic Snoopy lunch box and whenever I think of 1st and 2nd grade I always think of the smell of a fresh box of crayons (still a favorite smell) and the smell of my blue Snoopy lunch box which was NOT a favorite smell. My best friends were Lori and Renee. The boys I liked were Richard and Teddy. My favorite thing to play a recess was kissing tag... with tether ball a close second!! Ha ha!

This looks just like the smelly lunch box that I had!! I found a picture on Ebay!

When I was in college I worked at the front desk of the Howard Johnson Hotel. One of my co-workers was one of Mrs. Neubert's sons. I was so excited when I made the connection...and even more excited when she came into work one day to say hello!

Sage Creek Elementary School in Springville, Utah

In third grade we moved to Springville, Utah...not to be confused with Springdell. I loved Sage Creek Elementary so much! It is really where all of my best elementary school memories were made. In 3rd grade my teacher was Mr. Jacobson. When I found out that I was getting a "boy" teacher...he was more like a 60 year old man...I cried my eyes out!! I did not want a "boy" teacher and went into hysterics. What a waste of tears! Mr. Jacobson was the kindest teacher that I ever had. I loved him. When I think of him I always see him leaning up against the radiators during recess and lunch and talking with his best friend Mr. Whiting (my 4th grade teacher). In Mr. Jacobson's class we learned our times tables aka multiplication facts. I remember having to go up to his desk and reciting them to him so that I could pass them off and our class could have a pizza party. We also used to get fluoride treatments in there. Once a week the secretary Mrs. Crandall would come in with a tray of little Dixie cups with our mouth wash in it and we would swish our mouths out and spit it into the sink. This was also the year that our school caught on fire and our classroom burned. We had to move all of our things into the library and the library got moved into one end of the lunchroom/gym. We were in the library for several months while our classroom was repaired. When we finally moved back into our classroom the burnt smell lingered all year. (Tyler's house caught on fire and burned down when he was in college. He lost most of the things from his childhood and mission. The few things that were salvaged are singed and have that same awful and sad burnt smell...the exact smell of 3rd grade.)

My best friends in third grade were Lori and Amy (and my neighbor Christine who went to another school.) At the time that I moved in one of their best friends had just moved away...Britney...I heard over and over how amazing she was and how they all missed her so much and I hated her! She once came to Lori's birthday slumber party and I was right...I didn't like her at all and she didn't like me! Later in 7th grade... Britney and I would become best friends and would stay that way all through jr. high and high school until I moved to Kansas City. So crazy!!

In third grade I was obsessed with wearing knickers and zip up riding boots. It was hilarious when those riding boots came back into style. Lori and I loved the movie Grease and got satin jackets to wear. We also loved the movie Xanadu and we each got the record and would sing all of the songs. I loved roller skating and slumber parties. I liked to play kickball at recess. We had mini-courses at school every few weeks. That meant we could sign up for different classes like computers (this was even before floppy disks...we inserted a cassette tape into the computer drive!), macrame, pottery, gymnastics, basketball...and things like that. It was really fun! Our auditorium/lunchroom/gym was the same big room and during lunch we would sneak onto the stage and go back behind the heavy big curtain where there was a trampoline and we would jump on the trampoline in the dark all lunch recess.

This was also the year that I got bullied a lot for not being active in the LDS church. Utah in the 70s was rough for inactive kids. My mom had stopped going to church and my step-dad moved in with us. The girls in my class were okay...but I remember the boys being pretty mean when they realized that I was supposed to be in their ward but didn't ever come to church. The worst was the boy I liked the most...my neighbor, classmate, and crush Brad...who is now a dear family friend all of these years later but he could be a real jerk and a bully at times...and yet I still loved him. He was also my next door neighbor.

In 4th grade I had my very favorite elementary school teacher, Mr. Whiting. He was an absolute character!! He was funny and liked to tease. He had twinkly eyes and a big grin. His name was Juan and I thought that was so exotic for 60+ year old man from Springville who didn't seem to have any exotic ethnicity. Mr. Whiting loved animals and basketball!! We learned so much about animals that year and played a TON of basketball. We had a snake in our classroom that I loved to hold. We did reports on snakes...mine was on the Black Mamba! I can still regale you with all kinds of facts!! We read books about animals... Where the Red Fern Grows, Summer of the Monkeys, Brighty and the Grand Canyon, and Island of the Blue Dolphins to name a few! My very favorite book that Mr. Whiting read to us was The White Falcon. I thought it was the best book ever!!

It was in 4th grade that my friend Dayna moved in and that was when all of the usual girl drama seemed to kick in. I don't really remember it before 4th grade. Dayna was cool and lived in a big house. Everyone wanted to be her best friend. She had feathered hair and wore Nike tennis shoes. She was pretty cool. It seemed that whole year Lori and I took turns being best friends with Dayna and then also being left out. By the end of the year Dayna and I were consistent best friends. She lived up the street from me and we would walk to and from school together every day. We used to beg our moms to take us to Fashion Gal, a clothing store in Orem, and buy us matching clothes to wear on the same day. We loved Dittos clothing! I also begged my mom for a pair of Nikes just like Dayna's. We loved to be twins and would call each other the night before to plan our outfits for the next day. In class we were pretty chatty and we didn't often get to sit by one another so we learned sign language from a Boy Scout manual that we checked out from the library so that we could talk to each other across the room. The boys quickly tried to learn it too so that they could understand what we were saying. Ha ha! I also liked a boy named Peter in 4th grade...mainly hoping to make Brad jealous which never happened. :) But Peter and I used to have long phone chats and would spend hours trying to call K-96, a radio station, to *dedicate* songs to each other!!

One of my VERY FAVORITE things in elementary school was the SRA Reading Kits. I loved it so much when this box was brought out! It was full of files with stories that represented your reading level. You would read the stories in a particular color and then take a test on the reading material. If you passed you got to move up to the next level. The goal was to read your way through the rainbow and be the top reader in your class. My other love was the Book Fair!! That was paradise to a bookish girl like me!!

This was also the year that we could work in the lunchroom and be a lunch helper. I thought this was so fun...if...and only if...I didn't have to touch the milk cartons. (Your hands smelled like sour milk all day) or be a tray washer. I can gag just thinking about that!! I loved helping with everything else and getting leftovers...cinnamon rolls, cookies, second helpings etc. My favorite lunches were Tacos, Chili (because we always got a sugared donut), and  my very favorite was the fish sticks meal. We had really good buttery potatoes with this meal and we also got a chocolate peanut butter bar!!  Tyler and I found a recipe for Lunch Lady Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars about 6 years ago and got on a real kick. Apparently we made them one too many times because not one of our kids will touch one now!!

In 4th grade Dayna and I would get dropped off at the mall. We used to walk around for hours and take crazy pictures in the photo booth and buy lip gloss and eat at the food court. We thought we were so cool! We also used to walk to the swimming pool and swim for hours almost every day in the summer all by ourselves. We perfected our underwater somersaults and flips in the lap lanes. We would buy Fanta Red Cream Soda and Moon Pies from the vending machines for our walk home. Also her dad was a doctor and one of the most exciting things that we were allowed to do was spend the night at the hospital in the physicians lounge. We would eat at the Pink shop (the coffee shop) or in the cafeteria and then would watch TV and eat Whatchamacallit candy bars all night in the lounge. It was the best! My mom also worked at the hospital, as the Director of Nursing, so she would let us go look at all the new babies in the nursery!! We also used to ride our bikes down to the Sage Creek Store which we called the candy store and would buy our favorite Dinosour Eggs...I still miss those! They were like giant gobstoppers.

And ... Jolly Rancher sticks. They could last for days in your desk at school!!

Dayna's mom, Carol, also made one of my very favorite meals. It was so delicious that I asked her for the recipe...the first time that I ever did that! It was for Hawaiian Haystacks!! I still make it to this day and it is one of Kameron's very favorite meals.

This is also the year that I went from reading Roald Dahl to reading grown-up books. The Outsiders was the gateway book. My babysitter, Andy, introduced me to that book and I never looked back. By the end of 4th grade I had read The Thornbirds!! It was a mini-series that was on at the time and I wasn't allowed to watch it. I tried to hide and watch it while my parents were watching but I always got caught. I heard that it was based on a book so I rode my bike down to the Springville Public Library and checked it out. I read it and hid it under my bed. Mind blown... I couldn't go back to the Bobbsey Twins after that!! (Side note... I cannot even imagine Bryn who is currently in 4th grade reading The Outsiders...much less THE THORNBIRDS!!) Both books are still favorites and are on my bookshelf today!

I loved that we could ride our bikes all over town back then. We used to head off on our bikes with the Ropers in the morning and not come back home until dinner time! It was the best!

My teacher in 5th grade was Mr. Strong. He loved history and was very patriotic. His full name was Robert E. Lee Strong. I have a memory of him often wearing a buckskin jacket and a bolo tie. He made us memorize all of the Presidents and learn to play the harmonica and sing in a class choir (which I hated). I learned so much about American History in Mr. Strong's class.I loved that! I remember having some very interesting discussions as we would sit on little benches in the back of the room and he would talk to us. He gave us reading challenges and would tally all of the books we read on the wall. He also posted our class rankings. Hence my status of "Kristin McClellan 3rd smartest girl" which I still quote sometimes. We were always ranked with a boy of the same academic status: 

1.) Jonathan and Lori

2.) Peter and Amy

3.) Brad and Kristin

We also got to make and launch rockets in that class which I thought was a lot of fun. We played a lot of sports...and picked teams old school style. Was I often picked first? Never. I was terrible at sports (except for basketball) and Mr. Strong always chose two boys as the team captains. Ugh... This was the year that we got to earn "gold certificates" and then buy things at an auction and have businesses and earn more "gold certificates" to spend at the auction. For my business I made homemade suckers (my mom HATED this unit and dealing with sucker making) and toothpicks dipped in Binaca...mint and cinnamon. (This was my own idea and secret merchandise...and best seller.) Chewing on a flavored tooth pick was quite the thing in 1982. This was also the year of square dancing!! I loved it! Brad picked me as his partner and I was beside myself with joy! There are several pictures of us square dancing and they continue to appear regularly on social media thanks to his sisters!!!! This was also my greatest disappointment...when I choked (figuratively...not literally) at the tryouts for the Christmas Program. Brad was trying out for Joseph and he told me to try out for Mary so that we could be a couple. I got so nervous and did terrible. All my friends got big parts...I still recall it being a very cool Christmas program...and I was relegated to the chorus. Brad was furious...he didn't like the girl who got the part of Mary...a poor picked on girl who actually really needed a win in her life...and I cried my eyes out. 

This was the year that there was the most social/girl drama. Two sets of twins moved in...Nephi and Helen and Britni and Brandi. This completely disrupted our class social structure. I remember that everyone wanted to be best friends with Britni and Brandi...who were super cute and all the boys wanted them as their girlfriends too. Best friend groups kept forming and then breaking up and reforming. The boys all took turns "going with" them. Brad and Brandi were quite the couple and I felt like I was always being left out of the girl group. I remember crying a lot in the bathroom at school in 5th grade.

To this day... I am still friends with Dayna. Her best friend from high school lives in Spokane and is a friend of mine. Brad and all of his sisters are dear dear friends. Brad and I even went out a couple of times in college. Lori, Dayna, Britney, and I all reconnected in college. Lori used to live near me at BYU. She and I went to Britney's wedding reception together and cried tears of joy for our mutual beloved friend! I am FB friends with Lori, Dayna, and Amy and I enjoy following them on social media. Amy has a fantastic blog and is an amazing writer.

Orchard Elementary School in Orem, Utah

The summer after 5th grade my parents bought our house up Provo Canyon in Springdell. We were bussed down the canyon to school in Orem. They were building a new elementary when I moved and when school started it wasn't ready yet. We had to *share* a school with another elementary school which meant that two schools attended Northridge Elementary. One school (Northridge) met early in the morning until noon and then our school (Orchard) started at 12:30 and went until 6pm. It was crazy. We had a big snack time in the lunchroom at 3 pm. That year will always remind me of the drink Proffessor Pooles Trio Orange Drink. This was the first year in my elementary school career that we got a choice of beverage instead of just milk (which I hated) before that the orange drink was only for the kids who were allergic to milk. 

This was also the time that they were widening the road up the canyon and were blasting away part of the mountain. This created a huge nightmare for the people who lived up the canyon. Sometimes we would get stuck either up the canyon or at the mouth of the canyon for up to two hours. It made getting to work and school very difficult. Sometimes we were super late to school because our bus would be stuck or we would get home very late from school and when school ended at 6pm that meant that sometimes we wouldn't get home until 7 or 8 pm. It was crazy! Luckily sharing a school only lasted for a few months and then we had a beautiful new school to attend. The canyon construction continued on until 9th grade and the "Canyon Kids" continued to be late to school on a regular basis which we loved!!

One thing that was kind of fun was that several of my friends from Sharon Elementary now attended Orchard Elementary and we were reunited. My 1st grade and 2nd grade best friend Lori now went to Orchard as did my 1st and 2nd grade crushes...Richard and Teddy...and so did several other people from our class. It was fun and it made moving to a new school much easier.

My 6th grade teacher's name was Mr. Barlow and I was not a fan of him...nor were my parents. He had a very odd personality. That winter he got into a skiing accident and ended up seriously injured so we had a substitute for basically the rest of the year. He came back the last month or so and was in a wheelchair. I think he broke his back and both of his legs...anyway... he didn't have the nicest disposition to begin with and it wasn't improved upon after his accident. Let's just say we really missed our substitute. My friends and I used to skip school during lunch and run to Stratton's Fruit Stand and buy candy. That was the joy of my life until I was spotted and ratted on by one of my neighbors!! We also learned to play the ukulele that year.

My best friends in 6th grade were Jenny, Holly, and Kimby. They were a lot of fun and the girl drama seemed a bit less this year. The boy I liked at school's name was Cory. Holly liked his best friend Garrit. We would meet them at the mall and go to the record store and hang out. They loved Motley Crue and ZZ Top. Holly and I weren't into that kind of music...we liked Michael Jackson... but we were into them!! My first tape was ZZ Top Eliminator given to me by Cory. He was super cute with dark hair and wore graphic t-shirts, skinny jeans, and checker board Vans! It's so funny how fashion cycles around. I just described Kameron's current every day outfit!! In the dell I had another boy that I liked... Mike. He went to my elementary school too but wasn't in my class and understood that he was strictly an *at home* boyfriend. Ha Ha!  I graduated from elementary school very excited to head to Jr.High. My friends in the dell were all older than me and I was super excited to leave childhood behind and get to explore the mysterious world of being a teenager. :)

52 Week Challenge: Question 10

52 Week Challenge: Question 10

What were some of the family and holiday traditions that you remember? Ways of celebrating?

Kristin:

I grew up with a lot of traditions. As I have mentioned many times on this blog, my mom is very festive. We celebrated all of the holidays and my mom would decorate for each of them. Just like we all do now. Here are some of the main ones:

New Years: My parents usually threw a big New Years Eve party at our house with their friends. We would get to hang out in their bedroom and watch movies and eat good food. The next morning we would get to eat all the leftovers from their big bash. I used to invite friends over to help us eat all the gourmet food. New Years Day was always the day that we would take down our Christmas tree and all of our Christmas decorations. My mom always would make a big pot of her famous steak soup on New Years Day.

Valentine's Day: When we would get up in the morning on Valentine's Day and would come down for breakfast, my mom would always have cute little gift bags for us with candy and a little surprise. When we lived in the dell everyone there would ding-dong-ditch Valentines and treats at your door. It was always super fun to take all your valentines around and then run home to wait for everyone dropping off your valentines and trying to *catch* them before they could run off.

St. Patrick's Day: My mom would always dye some of our food green. She famously did this once with our milk and some how turned it sour and caused all of us to hate milk from then on. As we got older she would do corned beef and cabbage, beer bread, and some kind of green dessert.

Easter: We weren't a religious family so Easter was all about bunnies, eggs, and chocolate. My mom would always have our house decorated for Easter and would do an elaborate tablescape and Easter lunch. We always got beautiful Easter baskets filled with candy and little gifts. We always dyed eggs and had an Easter egg hunt. Our Easter meal was usually ham, potato salad, baked beans and other sides and a special dessert.

I remember being so excited when I got that Strawberry Shortcake purse in my Easter basket. We are standing in front of our least practical family car. Kelley had to ride on the hump in the back seat and that hump got hot!

Mother's Day: We would always go out for a fancy brunch. Usually at a fancy hotel or ski resort. My siblings and I especially loved the crepe station and the dessert table.

Birthdays: My mom would always cook our favorite dinner and fix whatever we wanted as our *cake*. Sometimes that was pie or dirt and worms pudding. My birthday dinner was always finger steaks with buttermilk ranch dressing, mashed potatoes, and a salad also with ranch dressing. I always wanted my grandma's green punch as my drink (back then my mom and grandma would make it into a slush... I am too lazy to do that now) and I had a brownie mocha torte every year. Sometimes we had birthday parties or slumber parties and sometimes we had family parties and just went to do something fun. My birthday is in June so I had quite a few birthday parties at a park which was fun or even better at the lake!!

Stacey, Kirk, and me with my very favorite brownie mocha torte. I picked it every year!!

Fourth of July: This was always a big holiday in our family. My mom would decorate for this too. We always wore red white and blue coordinating outfits, attended the parade, had a big BBQ, and went to the fireworks. We always took popcorn, buttered cheerios, cherries, and grape crush to enjoy while we watched the fireworks.

Fourth of July Texas Style!! Me, Mom, and Kelley

Halloween: My mom always decorated our house festively. My parents usually had a big costume party with their friends at our house the weekend before Halloween. We were all farmed out to spend the night with friends for that event. Picking out what we wanted to be for Halloween was always a highlight. We would plan our costumes out months in advance and Mom would sew for all of us. She would always make dinner in a pumpkin for Halloween night usually it was a beef stroganoff type dish that she would bake in a huge pumpkin, I loved it! We always went trick-or-treating. My mom wasn't big on us eating much candy so we could usually eat whatever we wanted Halloween night (after she inspected it of course or took it to the hospital to get it x-rayed...yes, she really did that) and then we had to hand it back over to her. She would dole out a piece a night until we forgot about it or Christmas arrived. Once we hit high school she gave up. I don't think Kirk and Jordi had their candy rationed like we did. Maybe that was why I never had a cavity until I was around 37. :)

Kristin as Princess Leia, Stacey as the Easter Bunny, and Kelley as a clown.

(Me as a '50s girl, Kelley as cheetah, and Stacey as Peter Pan all in costumes made by my mom)

Thanksgiving: My mom always got up very early to start making the feast. We always got up to watch the Macey's Day Parade and the Westminster Dog Show. (My kids still do that.) When we were younger we used to eat in the afternoon. Once we were all in college we started eating after dark and we all prefer Thanksgiving dinner by candlelight. My mom always makes an elaborate menu (now we all help) with all of the traditional dishes that we MUST have and sets a beautiful tablescape. It is always fancy and lovely. Thanksgiving dinner is the one menu that we don't mess with; we stick with what we love and eat it year after year. You forget to bring my great-grandma's homemade southern noodles to eat on top of your mashed potatoes with gravy and you are in big trouble. Someone forgets the brussel sprouts...cancel Thanksgiving!! This was the one holiday that we would sometimes travel to the lake to spend it with family.

Christmas: This has always been our biggest and most festive holiday. My family would buy the most enormous fresh cut tree and my mom would always decorate the day after Thanksgiving. My mom goes ALL OUT at Christmas. The whole house is always decorated...even the bathrooms are festive. The whole month was always spent doing fun things, baking, taking treats to our neighbors, and going to Christmas parties and programs. We never lived by much family so we usually did our own thing at Christmas. We used to always go out for a fancy lunch on Christmas Eve. When we lived in Utah we would always drive to SLC to go eat at The Heather. We loved it. On Christmas Eve we usually liked to eat all kinds of fancy appetizers and holiday treats. We always put out lumber jack socks as our stockings for Santa to fill. This is a tradition that dates back to when my Grandpa was a boy and his family was in the lumber industry. My kids use lumber jack socks too!! My mom always made us Christmas pajamas and we got to open them on Christmas Eve along with our yearly ornament. (My kids do that too.) Christmas morning we always opened up our gifts and had a big deluxe breakfast. Our Christmas dinner varied each year...sometimes it was ham, sometimes seafood, sometimes turkey, once we even had a Christmas goose (it was disgusting.) We always shake things up with the menu for Christmas dinner but Thanksgiving is the one meal that we are sticklers about!! Although we pretty traditionally eat seafood, escargot, mom's pate, and brie along with other things.

Decorating Christmas Cookies. My mom is famous for her amazing soft sour cream cut out Christmas cookies with homemade buttercream frosting. The grandkids are her biggest fans and we look pretty excited in this picture too!!

Vacations: We usually went to the lake, some times other places, but mainly the lake. That was the place that we always wanted to get to as fast as we could once school got out for the summer. My parents used to drive us up to Rexburg, Idaho to my Aunt Marji's house and drop us off and we would meet my Grandma and Grandpa Ellersick there and they would take us back to the lake where we would stay for a month during the summer. It was the best! Our parents would drive up at the end of the month, spend a week, and bring us home. Our cousin Tania who lived in Spokane would come out and stay with us too. On rainy days we would come in to Spokane and go to the Garland Theater and Riverfront Park. We thought it was so awesome. It is so funny that I live here now and those are regular activities for my kids.

Riding ponies at Riverfront Park in Spokane while visiting my Grandma and Grandpa Ellersick.

Labor Day, Memorial Day, Spring Break: For these holidays we used to always go somewhere fun. Jackson Hole, Yellowstone, Moab, Arches, Zion, Lake Powell, or Flaming Gorge. Sometimes to Southern Idaho to visit aunts and uncles. We always got to do super fun things on these trips like go river rafting, horseback riding, hiking, and once we went for a helicopter ride. So fun!! Spring break was always spent skiing.

As far as other traditions go...the tooth fairy always came. If we got shots at the doctor's office we always got ice cream afterward. (We do that with our kids too). We always took pictures by our front door on the first day of school. We always got ice cream on the last day of school. My mom for years dressed me and my sisters in a particular color that became our signature color. She would buy three of most things and give each of us the item in our color: I am red, Stacey is green, and Kelley is blue. Somehow Kirk and Jordin escaped this color branding. I am trying to remember what our other traditions were. I know that there were many more but that is all I can think of right now.

Here we are in our signature colors!!

Tyler:

New Years: My family always had particular foods that we would eat on New Years Eve. We would drink sherbet frappe punch and eat special meat filled crescent rolls that my mom would make. We used to always have a movie marathon.

Valentine's Day: We didn't do that much. My mom would always have us make homemade valentines to take to school, never store bought, and we would have our school parties and that was about it.

St. Patrick's Day: The only thing that we would do was wear green that day.

Easter: We always had Easter baskets in the morning and then would attend church. That afternoon we would gather with extended family on my mom's side. We would usually go to my Grandma and Grandpa Kofford's house and all my aunts, uncles, and cousins would come over for a big Easter egg hunt and dinner.

Tyler, Lori, and what is clearly the world's creepiest Easter Bunny.

Fourth of July: We would always attend the Provo Freedom Festival. We would go to the parade and then to the fireworks that night. Some years I was involved in the Stadium of Fire program at BYU with the scouts.

Halloween: I always enjoyed the school Halloween parties. We always dressed up, sometimes our costumes were store bought and sometimes they were homemade. We always went trick-or-treating. Sometimes there were church parties with cake walks and fishponds which were always fun.

Lori, Tyler and Brett

Thanksgiving: We usually gathered with all our Kofford extended family at my Grandma and Grandpa Kofford's house (my mom's parents). My Grandma was famous for her Parker House Rolls. We all loved them. I still make them on Thanksgiving for my family.

Christmas: We always had family parties and gift exchanges with both sides of the family, both the Johnsons and the Koffords, in the month of December. We always had two Christmas trees growing up. A big white flocked tree that was our "fancy" tree that was upstairs in the living room. My mom decorated that tree in all blue. Blue lights and blue ornaments. Downstairs in our family room we always had an artificial green tree that had multi-colored lights and a mix of ornaments. On Christmas Eve we would always bring my Grandma Johnson traditional Norwegian food that she loved. My dad would make lefse and rosettes. We always brought her her favorite lutefisk which is a white gelatinous fish dried in lye and Near Beer. Lutefisk is absolutely disgusting. I don't know how she could eat it; that was probably what the beer was for, to chase it down. After she joined the church it was Near Beer of course. Then it was back to our house to open our Christmas pajamas and one gift of our choosing from under the tree. My mom always made her traditional lemon bread and gumdrop bread. Kris makes my mom's lemon bread for our family now and some years I make gumdrop bread but I am the only one who really likes it. Gumdrop bread is like fruit cake but instead of candied fruit my mom would add gum drops. On Christmas day we would usually visit family or family would come to our house.

Tyler's Mom, Lori, Tyler's Dad, and Tyler in their Christmas Jammies.

Tyler, Lori, and Brett

Birthdays: Our main birthday tradition was using special birthday candles. Our parents bought these birthday candles when we were born and each year we would burn the candle down to the next year. My dad was always having to go and dig them out of storage but we loved them. Sometimes we had friend birthday parties and sometimes we had family parties. My mom always made me my favorite meal for my birthday which was lasagna and ice cream cake. My mom would make what she called her "special ice cream cake"for us. She would crush strawberry and chocolate wafer cookies and put them in the bottom of a big bowl. Then she would layer a few different flavors of softened ice cream into the bowl and refreeze. Then she would thaw it for a bit and remove the ice cream dome from the bowl and that was our ice cream cake.

Tyler, Brett, and Lori and Tyler's infamous birthday candle.

Friday nights: Friday nights were always family pizza and movie nights. We loved it. We would call our order in to Little Caesars Pizza in Orem, go to Sounds Easy video store and get our movies, on our way back home we would swing by the gas-and-go with our refillable mugs and load up on pop and then head home for a night of movies and pizza. It was the best. We always looked forward to Friday nights when we were kids.

Sunday dinners: Sunday dinners were a big tradition growing up. My mom usually made some kind of roast that would cook while we were at church so that when we came home the house smelled delicious. She most often made baked chicken, roasted potatoes, and homemade rolls. One of our favorite traditions was that, sometimes on a busy Sunday, if we had a bunch of extras meetings or something we would get to go to our food storage and each of us would get to pick out our own bottle of canned fruit. Growing up in Orem with all the orchards we always had a lot of bottled fruit to choose from. Getting your very own jar was a real treat. My favorites were always the pear sauce or peaches. Then we would get to eat our favorite fruit with peanut butter toast. We loved this.

Vacations: We used to go to the Oregon Coast quite a lot when we were kids. That was where my dad was from and we always enjoyed the beach, exploring tide pools, going crabbing and clamming. We also used to go to Kanab, Utah quite a bit when we were younger because my grandparents owned a hotel there before they moved to American Fork, Utah. We used love to spend the night there and go swimming. We went to Disneyland a lot especially when we lived in California. Big family reunions in the summer were also regular traditions and we would travel to wherever they were being held. Our family loved to camp and we would take our tent trailer and head out into the mountains as often as we could for as long as we could. My Dad loved the National Parks especially Yellowstone so that was often a regular trip.

Lori and Tyler at Disneyland