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.
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!
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!
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!
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 ...
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?
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!
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 ...
Piles of papers and memorabilia set aside for scanning in 2022 uncovered another Westra Newsletter ... this one from 1996. The border was added for the blog, the original was plain paper, but it looks like it was printed on a laser printer, instead of a dot-matrix, like some previous years.
Merry Christmas Memories ... always interesting to see what makes it into the annual recap.
We do have a Christmas 1996 post to showcase the holiday happenings at the Westra home.
