I have a new Niece

Hooray to Matt and Jen for giving us our first niece in a couple of years. Girls are few and far between in both of our families. On the Pierce side, there are only 4 girls out of 13 grandchildren, ages 12, 10, 5, and 3. On the Sims side Lily is the 8th girl of 22 grandchildren. The girls are 13, 3 age 12, 10, 9, Courtney would be 3 , and now Lily. Welcome Lily Grace Johnson born on June 17 weighing 7 pounds 3 ounces. Congrats you guys, she's BEAUTIFUL!!!.

Chronicles of Norway (Part 2) Museums and Operation "Save the Jellyfish"

Well it is hard to believe we have already spent two full days in Norway. Yesterday, being Sunday, we went to church. We only went to sacrament meeting since we woke up so late and the rest was definitley needed.

After church we decided to take a bit of a drive. We drove into Drammen and went through the Spiralen Tunnel. The spiralen Tunnel is an amazing tunneling project. The road actually spirals up inside the mountain to the view area on top. It is a total of 1650 meters long. From above there is a beautiful view of the city below.

Here is the entrance to the Spiralen Tunnel.

Here is a picture of all of us at the top of the Spiralen Tunnel.

This is the view from the top.

After Spiralen we toured the mission office where David and Bjorg spend their days and came back to the apartment for dinner.

We had a rough night with the kids. Jacob could not get to sleep until about midnight and Though Kyle went to bed well at about 8:30 he was then awake from about midnight til 4 am. Mike and I finally got to sleep around 4 and woke about 9:30.

Today we spent the day sightseeing. We started off at the Kon Tiki Museum which tells the story of a Norwegian that sailed from South America to Polynesia on a reed boat to prove that the polynesian people could possibly have originated in South America. It was a cool museum of boats and Easter Island exhibits.

This is a replica of the reed boat that was used to sail from South America to Polynesia.

When we went to leave the museum, it was POURING rain. So we decided to hit the museum across the street too. This was the Fram Museum. This was a museum dedicated to Norwegian explorers that explored Antartica. Here we were actually able to tour the boat on all levels. The kids thoroughly enjoyed this experience. After our museums we headed back to the apartment for lunch. Then we left again to see the world renowned Vigeland Statue Park. I don't know how many times the kids said the word "naked" while we walked through the park. (giggle giggle) But EVERY statue in this park was nude. There were some really great pieces and the park was beautiful. We also took the chance to play at the playground there which was AMAZING!!

I think this is what Mike must feel like when he is wrestling with our kids. HE HE!

After the park we went back home to get Grandma and Grandpa and then we went to the beach. It was only about 60 degrees outside but the kids were determined to play in the water. What a surprise it was when we got to the beach and found it covered with Jellyfish. A nice man who was there informed us that these jellyfish were not dangerous so the kids had a blast picking them up and putting them back in the water. We called it our operation "Save the Jellyfish." They had a great time playing in the water despite the cold. Then we came back and had a great dinner.

Even I got my feet wet.

This is us as we arrived in Norway. We look pretty good for having been traveling for 16 hours.
Allright I am off to bed. It is 11:00 PM and it is still completely light outside. I am amazed.

We have a fun day planned tomorrow with a trip down to Horten, a ferry ride across to Moss, perhaps a quick trip into Sweden, and then a drive in to Halden to visit with some family.

Chronicles of Norway (Part 1) Getting There

Well, we made it. It is now a beautiful rainy morning inNorway and I have just awaken from over 12 hours of sleep. Thank you mom and dad for letting us all sleep in. The children, bless them, are still out cold.

Our travels were long but for the most part the cildren traveled really well. We had a couple of them very nervous before embarking on to the plane as they had never flown before, however the fear quickly turned to excitement as the plane left the ground. It was Tiffany that said, "This isn't scary at all, it is AWESOME!!!"

Our flight from Denver to London was good. Kyle slept nearly the whole way and the others slep enough to not be a bother to anyone around us. When awake they quietly occipied themselves watching the seatback movies or TV the airlines had to offer. Or playing the Nintendo DS or MP3 players. As for Mike and I, sleep was a little bit harder to come by. MOst of the kids just curled right up in their seats, bbut that is a bit harder for a full grown adult to do.

Once we arrived in London it was noon London time, but about 4 am to our bodies. The kids were grumpy and not very happy to spend 4 1/2 hours sitting at the airport. I was amazed by how crowded the waiting area was there. We managed to find a block of seats all together and tried to occupy the kids for a while. We managed to chase away everyone sitting remotely close to us with the kids arguing, but we survived our wait time. When our flight was finally called, we very happily walked out to our gate and onto the plane.

This flight was only an hour and 50 minutes, but it was worse than the whole 8 and a half hours into London. Jake and Kyle could NOT sit still. I was the recipient of many evil stares and did all I could to keep them still. Mike was sitting a couple of rows back with Ryan so there wasn't much he could do to help.

Well, anyway we arrived safely and overall the trip was pretty good. We now feel like completely new people with a good night of sleep (12 uninterrupted hours) and showers behind us.

I will post pictures later. By the way, Norway is so green and beautiful!!! I can't wait to see more.

Off to Norway!!

Well, we are finally off to Norway. For those that don't know, my in-laws are on a mission for our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, in Norway. They have been gone for 16 months and will be there for about 5 or 6 more months. They are working in the mission office in Oslo helping to take care of the many missionaries that are serving in that area.

Norway is my mother-in-law's homeland. She lived there until she was about 20 years old. She then left everything she knew and loved including all of her family to come to the United States where church members were more abundant. She wanted to be married in the temple and there were not many members in Norway to help make that a possibility. So she moved to Salt Lake City, Utah.

My father-in-law served his mission in Norway and the two actually met during that time. Though from what I have heard, they didn't get along well at all. They met again in Salt Lake where my FIL lived and the rest is history.

They have enjoyed their service in the homeland but have missed their family so much they wanted all the family to come and visit them while they are there. Most of Mike's family has already taken the opportunity to go over. I think all that is left is our family and Mike's oldest brother's family who will be there shortly after we leave.

We are so excited for this chance to visit another country and to learn about the culture that Bjorg knows so well. Most of my children have never even been on a plane so this will be quite an experience for all of us. We take off tomorrow and will have 16 hours of travel time with a lengthy layover in London, England. We will then spend 10 days touring Norway, however we have not yet made any real plans about what to do and when to do it. YIKES! We plan to see the sights, but also to have somewhat of a relaxing trip so we have decided to plan one day at a time. We have a short list of things we want to be sure to see and will make sure we do those things.

I am so excited to see this beautiful place. I posted a couple of pictures below as a preview, but I will have lots more pictures after our trip. If I get a chance, maybe I will post a bit while we are there, but don't be surprised if my blog is neglected for the next week and a half.

Thank You David and Bjorg for making this trip possible for us. You are the best.

I Miss My Husband

Mike has been traveling a lot the last few weeks for work. This past week and a half he has been home just 2 nights. He is in Houston til Wednesday and I just wanted to say that I miss him when he is away.

The kids and I are doing okay with him being gone. We have adopted a great summer routine and schedule and they are doing a great job fulfilling their responsibilites. It hasn't been a terrible strain to have Mike away, but we all miss him bunches, and are so glad when he is here.

Relay for Life

This is long, but hopefully worth the read.

I took the opportunity this year to join with my great friend Eliza, who is a 2 year breast cancer survivor, and participate in Relay for Life. My reasons for participating were three fold: to be at the side of my friend as she celebrated her triumph over cancer, to remember my mother and her own fight with cancer, and to help in a small way to raise funds for the American Cancer Society.

I did not have any idea what to expect going into this event, but was surprised by how moved I was by the overall experience and how sore I was when I got home. I had the chance to visit with friends and hang out all night, I mean all night!! And I walked, and walked, and walked and talked. The event took place from 2:00 pm on Saturday afternoon until 8:00 am on Sunday morning. There were over 300 teams represented from Loveland and Ft. Colllins and over 3000 participants in this great event.


Each team had the responsibility of keeping at least one person on their team walking along the track at all times. They handed out pedomoters for each team to track their mileage. Our team logged 37.55 miles. We think that may be slightly off as we think the pedometer may have been inadvertantly reset at one point several hours into the day. Still 37 miles is a lot of walking and that only counts the one person at any given time who was wearing the pedometer. It was rare that a single person from our team was ever walking and most of the times at least 2 or 3 were walking together as it helped the time to pass. So our total miles logged should be a LOT higher than that.


One of the most imressive parts of the night was the Luminaria Ceremony even though technically it was a disater. (The music played was terrible, innappropriate and off and on during the show.) This was a chance for the group as a whole to remember those that have lost their battles to cancer and to honor those who have survived. There was a slide show during which names of those lost were projected onto the big screen. As each name played a luminary was lit for them along the track. Following this a second slide show was played for the suvivors and their luminaries were lit as well. The luminaries were purchased by those present at the event in honor of their loved ones.


I took the kids out with me in the afternoon on Saturday for a couple of ours and they walked with me for a couple of laps. We took the opportunity to purchase a luminary in my mom's name and I had each of the kids sign it. This allowed them to feel like they were personally involved.


During the Lumiaria Ceremony one of the survivors gave a wonderful speach about her survival story. It was inspiring and it made me think a lot of my mom. Even though my mom eventually lost her fight against cancer, she was a survivor. She was able to find in herself the spirit that helped her to fight her cancer for three very long, very hard years. As I lit up her luminaria, I was so grateful for those years that she gave us because she was willing and able to stand up and fight against cancer.


I was also reminded that my mom is not the only one who was taken from us too soon at the hands of cancer. My Grandma Pierce also died at a pretty young age due to brain cancer. I decided right there during the luminaria ceremony that this is a battle I want to help fight. I want to participate in Relay for Life every year. Despite the ache in my legs over the last 2 days, I know that it will all be worth it one day when a cure is found and cancer can never again take people from our lives.

Overall, I think I walked a total of about 6 hours, possibly somewhere between 15 and 20 miles, slept about an hour and a half, and thoroughly enjoyed visiting with the other women in our group. I went home very sore and very tired, but also feeling proud of myself for participating in such a worthwhile event.

Here are a few pictures:


This is the camp. Each team is assigned a campsite to decorate and hang out at.

This is just some of the girls from our team. Notice our great shirts. One of the girls on the team made them for us. They caught the eye of so many people while we were there. They are awesome. They have owls on them and it says "Save the Hooters" in honor of Eliza.
Here is a picture of me and Mel. These are obviously pics of the Luminaria for Mom. The top is when it is dark outside and lit up and the bottom is in the daylight.Here is a picture of our trooper Eliza and her Luminaria. She is truly an inspiration.

By the way, as luck would have it, it rained off and on all night. Go figure!!! I have a couple more pictures that Mel took. I will have to post them later after I get them from her.

Another New Nephew

I have a new Nephew. My sister had her baby boy a couple of weeks early yesterday. His name is Collin William Clayton. Despite some complications, they are both doing well. You can read her birth story and see some pictures here.

Now the boys in our family out number the girls by more than 3 to 1. Out of 13 grandchildren on my side of our family, there are only 4 girls.

Congrats Jaidi and Justin!!!