1997 Recap

 

1997 ... it was the year Pokemon was introduced, Dolly the sheep was cloned, Titanic opened and set box office records, and Princess Diana was killed in a car crash. This was the year most of the family started using EMAIL ... remember dial-up internet and Juno for a free service provider? While the annual Christmas Newsletter gives a quick rundown of what everyone was up to this year, here is a longer list of the family information and activities from this year ...

Ages -

• LaMar turned 60 on May 28, 1997. Margie turned 55 on Nov. 7, 1997
• Scott turned 34 on Dec. 16, 1997. Amy: 29. McKenna 4, Alyssa 2, Kellen 1.
• Chris turned 31 on Sept. 5, 1997. Sandy: 30. Conner: 5, Kadan 3, Corin 0.
• Wendy turned 29 on April 29, 1997. Rick 30. Janika 2, Jase 0.
• Jeni turned 27 on Nov. 10, 1997. Grayson: 28. Landon 2.
• Shane turned 21 years old on May 3, 1997, while he was on his mission. 
• Derek turned 15 years old on May 5, 1997.

Activities - 

• 0118 – Surprise party for Lorrie’s 50th at the Lion House
• 0126 – Clayton Blackham farewell. Mom/Dad, Rick/Wendy attended. Jen sang/Wendy accompanied on the piano.
• 0209 – Merrill and Lorrie's house for Anderson’s birthday. Grandma Norman didn’t make it as she’d fallen and twisted her ankle.
• 0309 -Mom/Dad host birthday dinner for Aunt Diane (her two kids). Adults only.
• 0504 – Family party (Wendy/Shane/Derek birthdays) at Blackham’s house.
• 0517 - Fayette Family Party. Derek and Dad went in the truck, and Margie and Wendy and Janika came in another vehicle (Rick had to work). Jen and Gray and Landon came also but Scott and Amy couldn’t make it as McKenna had a recital.
• May. Grandpa Norman had back surgery
• 0606 - Corin Born
• 0625- Shane returns home from his mission.
• 0628- Scott and Amy hosted a big barbecue. It was the first time we had everyone together since Shane left on his mission two years before.
• 0629- Shane's Homecoming. Jen sang, Wendy signed.
• 0630- Wendy and Rick move to Ivins, Utah 
• 0708- New computer (Star West, installed by Shane)
• 0810- Corin's blessing in Fayette. Marge/Lamar, Scott and Jen and their families.
• 0907- Birthday party for Landon at Blackham’s house
• 10/20- Mom/Dad/Derek, Jen/Landon to St. George to visit Jensens. (Gray and Jen had also gone in July). 
• 1109 - Birthday dinner for Mom at Old Salt City Jail (Grandparents, Merrill&Lorrie, Scott&Amy, Wendy, Jen&Gray). Gray "went to the bathroom" and Grandpa was so confused when the waitress said the bill had been taken care of. Gray never admitted to paying ...
• 1127- Thanksgiving hosted by Scott and Amy (Jen&Gray had a "day after" Thanksgiving for the folks/Shane/Derek too)
• 1202- Jase Jensen born
• 1228-Jase Blessing Day

1997 Christmas Letter

MERRY CHRISTMAS 1997

DEAR FAMILY AND FRIENDS,

 This past year, 1997,  has been a good year here at the Westra household.  Here’s a short update on our family members:

• SCOTT: and his wife Amy and their family are enjoying their new home in Draper. McKenna will be 5 in Feb., Alyssa will be 3 in Feb., and little Kellen just turned 1 this past October. 
• CHRISTOPHER: and his wife Sandy and their 3 boys are still living in Fayette, Utah. Conner will be 6 in May, Kadan will be 4 in June, and they were blessed with a new baby boy, Corin, this past June. 
• WENDY: and her husband Rick (Jensen) have experienced some changes this past year. Rick was hired as a full-time Seminary teacher and was assigned to St. George. He is teaching at Pineview High School in Washington and loves it. Wendy is teaching sign-language at Dixie College 2 evenings a week, plus doing some free-lance interpreting. They just had a new little baby boy on Dec. 2. They are naming him Jase. Big sister Janika just turned 2 years old on Dec. 8. 
• JENI: and her husband Grayson (Blackham) are enjoying their new home in West Jordan. Grayson is still very busy building homes and Jeni uses her creativity in filling a booth at the Quilted Bear Boutique. Their little boy Landon turned 2 years old in Sept. 
• SHANE: returned home from his mission to Belem, Brazil, the end of June. He has been working hard trying to finish part of our basement for us. He returned to school at the U. of Utah in Sept. He is in the architectural program. He is the Webelos leader in our ward and a computer specialist for the stake Family History program. He is busy dating too, of course! 
• DEREK: is 15 and a sophomore at Cottonwood High School. He is very much looking forward to his 16th birthday in May, so that he may DRIVE and DATE!!!!!! 

LAMAR is still working at Unisys and is the Stake Family Search Leader. MARGIE is a ward Family History Consultant and does volunteer work in the Surgical Center at Cottonwood Hospital. We just bought a new computer system this summer and are enjoying learning e-mail and the internet. You can drop us a line at : westra2@juno.com We hope this year has been a good one for all of you also and that 1998 will be even better! We wish you blessings of health and happiness. 

Love, The WESTRAS

Christmas 1997

 

1997 ... Corin and Jase were a new additions, and Shane was back from his mission. Wendy and Rick moved to St. George, but came back for Christmas, although they were with the Jensen family for Christmas Eve. Based on a journal entry, the party was shifted a bit earlier this year as Chris's crew needed time to get back to Fayette to celebrate Christmas morning there. There was the Christmas Day gathering at Merrill and Lorrie's on Christmas Day, and Jensens were able to make that, and so the cousins got to meet baby Jase for the first time.

Here's a bit of video ... Jen starts it off, then Dad/Lamar takes over. Dad mentions that their camcorder died, so this one was taken on Jen's machine. The Christmas Tree wasn't captured on camera, but it's there in the video tour. Another Home Depot tree ($17).  A look at the lights and the opening of gifts.

https://youtu.be/EUNthxgR8qU

... and a few more photos from the holiday season.

Video Interview of Grandma Zada and Grandpa Rex Norman

Rick and I "interviewed" Grandma and Grandpa Norman in December of 1997. We had so much fun doing this and learned so much about them! Scroll down to click on the youtube links!

(Intro)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g20g_A2yv-0&t=2s

(How we met) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQpPwKTxz94

(wedding bells) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7RBNwtkP2U&t=61s

(wedding) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNbIniZuTrM&t=4s

(honeymoon) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ahZLgKyDgA

(proud moments) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csIHH8M8sF4

(qualities) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pZju0hlIf4

(religion) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn3iHliKeME

(advice) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLxemsTEiOU&t=18s

(family) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkLfLXXqiy0

(family comes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W58vVDCNd80&t=37s

(fish stories) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=engGCakI-08&t=1s

(fishing) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLkM8a5Appc

(hard times) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1YMyfK22WU

(romance and hard times) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_igOVJiksMg

Note: I think there are some duplicates and overlap between some of these. Rick added music to some of them, which is a nice touch, but it is a little too loud in a couple of them and makes it difficult to hear the dialogue. I don't know if that can be fixed or not. It would be nice to add captions (and/or a transcript) some time. There are some lines and squares through some of them because they were on our hard-drive that crashed several years ago. We ended up having to send the hard-drive to a specialty place and they were able to recover most of the data from the hard-drive -- for a hefty price! We are grateful it was successful though!

Cousins, Costumes and Cookies

 

After Landon was born and Jen was a stay-at-home mom, she started sewing. A lot. So when Halloween rolled around, she made a little Pooh costume for Landon. Then she made another. And a Piglet costume too. Cute cousins dressed up. Lyssa and Landon as the Pooh Bears. Both Kellen and Janika tried on the Piglet costume. Landon wore his Pooh for Halloween, not sure if the cousins did, or if it was just dressing up at the time. The cousins looked "beary" cute though! It was Pooh x 2!

Scott and Amy's family also went out to Jen and Gray's house for some cookie decorating. 

SO MUCH candy ended up on those cookies!

Cousins, costumes and cookies ... Happy Halloween!

He's Home ~ Shane is Back!

(This will be backdated to June 1997)

Shane had left on his mission to Brazil on July 19, 1995. He returned June 25, 1997. Family went to greet him at the airport to welcome him back. Not a lot of photos, but some film footage was found capturing the event ...

https://youtu.be/tNsjs3OtD9Q

 Here's an excerpt from Dad/Lamar's Journal

25 June 1997  "I took another vacation day, we left about 3:00 for the airport to see Shane's arrival. He was scheduled to arrive at 3:58 pm on United Flight 385 from Denver, but the plane didn't arrive until 4:30. The twins and their buddies, Nate and Wendy arrived, then Scott and Amy and kids, and Rick and Wendy and Janika and Landon. Jen was having back problems and Rick and Wendy were tending Landon. It was quite a crowd there at the gate, with lots of missionaries arriving home. Shane looked great, albiet a little close cropped in the coiffure. We drove home and had a nice evening at home, hosting lots of visitors, and had a nice lasagna dinner.

Mom has mentioned the funny memory of Derek coming downstairs laughing and telling her "Shane has been talking to me in Portuguese for the last fifteen minutes and he doesn't even realize it!"  

A few days before at the Blackham home ...

From Jen's Journal: Monday, June 23 ... Rick called with the idea of getting all the grandkids together to make welcome home signs for Shane. We hosted, and they brought some posterboard and paint. 

A few days after the airport, there was a big Westra gathering held in Scott&Amy's backyard (Hello/Goodbye) ... the first time EVERYONE had been together in a couple of years. A family photo was taken. We welcomed Shane home from his mission, and bid Jensen's good luck in their new home in St. George.

Shane's homecoming was Sunday, June 29. Jen sang and Wendy signed. 

There was a luncheon back at the Westra Backyard after the church meeting. 

There is a little video from that gathering too ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnqCDP6L41c

Check out the Pre-Mission Photoshoot/Mission Call Memories for how it all began ...

Hello ... Goodbye

This picture was taken in June, so looking back I assumed it was a Father's Day gathering, but it wasn't. Wendy has kept a journal for YEARS, and was able to note that this was a group gathering, welcoming back Shane from his mission (June 25) and a farewell before Wendy and her family moved to St. George (June 28, 1997, even though we would still see them often). So this was at Scott and Amy's Rosewood Park house in Draper.   Here's a peek at Wendy's memories ...

June 27: Tonight Scott and Amy had a BBQ at their house for Shane's return and our departure! It was a lot of fun and Chris and Sandy were able to come with their three boys and so that was nice. We finally got to see their little baby Corin. He is a little cutie. We had a wonderful meal and I stuffed myself. The kids then went swimming in the kiddie pool. Jani loved every minute of it. We showed our family pictures of our new house that are on our laptop.

I believe all these photos are from Jen's camera ... 

but Scott and Wendy have cameras in the picture above ... are there more photos somewhere?

Found some video - live action of the event!

https://youtu.be/dBVN-wON9ig

June 28: I wrote a few paragraphs about moving out of our condo and how we stayed overnight at Jen and Gray's. I wrote: "We forgot to pack Jani's nightgown and so she borrowed a little white onesie from Landon and they looked so cute in their twinner onesies. They ran around and had a great time." (We have a few pictures of them in their matching onesies!) We all went to Shane's homecoming on Sunday June 29th. I wrote: "Today was Shane's homecoming. He did a great job on his talk and we were very proud of him. Jeni sang a song and I signed it and it went well. We enjoyed food and company over at Mom and Dad's afterwards." We then slept at the Blackhams again and headed out Monday morning for our new home in Ivins!

Said matching onsie picture ...

Easter 1997

 

Easter fell on March 30 in 1997. Jen was keeping a journal at this time, but I guess the Westra Easter party didn't get a mention (oops). Without having a timely written account of the even, what can we glean from the pictures?

• It doesn't look like Chris's crew or Jensens joined this year (Jensen's were still in Salt Lake at this time, but they moved to St. George later this year). Shane was on his mission.
• It was held at Scott and Amy's house (404 East Rosewood Park, Draper).
• I believe it was on Sunday (future Westra Easters were often held the day before on Saturday) as that is Landon's "Sunday" outfit when he was that age. Darling matching dresses on McKenna and Alyssa.  
• There is probably another angle of the group shot, as everyone seems to be looking at a different camera than the one shown here. I'm betting it was Scott behind that camera (all these pictures are from Jen's camera). 

Be sure to note the green plastic basket (that Grayson is holding) ... originally introduced in 1971 with additional appearances in the years to come. Check out all the EASTERS ...