Journal: When we Were Kids

I've decided that since I don't journal or scrapbook

that maybe I should do some memory recording here on my blog.

You may be interested in this or not, I'm mostly doing this for me.

We will start at the beginning:

This is me, Rachael.

 I was born and lived my entire childhood in the Salt Lake Valley.

Here are my mom and dad.

I really love the old pictures from the 70's don't you?

They met when my dad's sister set them up on a blind date.

My dad was just starting a career drafting steel, and my mom was a student at BYU.

They got married in the summer of 1978.

I was born in June of 1979.

I was born two weeks early and there were complications with my birth

which resulted in me staying in the hospital for 10 days.

I am the oldest of four, I have a brother and two sisters.

I remember being so excited that my mom let me wear

her pink faux pearl necklace for this family picture.

I was a girly girl.

I spent much of my youth wearing various leotards and dreaming of being a ballerina.

But as it turns out, I am way too uncoordinated for such ventures.

Here I am in 1st grade.

I always hated my hair.

I wanted long flowing tresses like Sleeping Beauty,

but it was not to be, my hair was fine and unmanageable.

We spent a lot of time visiting family in California.

I learned to swim at my Great Grandma Maxine's pool.

This is one of my dads favorite pictures of me, sleeping on the couch.

We also went on a lot of trips to Lake Powell.

It still is one of my favorite places.

When I was a little older my parents bought a share in a houseboat,

and a few jet ski's and we went down there 3 or 4 times each summer.

This is my husband, Chad

He was born January, 1977 in Ackron Ohio.

Here's Ma and Pa.

They met in high school. Pa was on the wrestling team.

(My mother-in-law still says that with a girlish grin on her face).

When they got married he was working on his Doctorate in Chemistry,

and she was working on becoming an RN.

Chad is the fourth of seven children.

Six boys and one girl.

So I really shouldn't be surprised that I had four boys should I.

This picture was taken a few years ago,

and I must say that I married into a very good looking family.

Chad is on the right of his sister.

Chad lived in Ohio and Texas for a little while when he was a kid.

He and his brothers were best friends... and worst enemies.

Chad is on the left aiming his plastic gun at his mother, who I assume is taking the picture.

Here he is at his gangly awkward stage burying his little brother in sand.

(He's the kid on the right)

When he was about 7 his family moved to Salt Lake City.

They built a log cabin up in the mountains at the south end of the valley

which is the home my husband grew up in.

When I first met him, his family reminded a lot of the Pontipee Family in the movie

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

We are both blessed with great families, who we are still close to.

And that is our youth in a nutshell.

*To the Family* I scaled these pictures down quite a bit so it

would be difficult for anyone to copy them.

If you want good quality copies of these let me know and I will email them to you.