Update by Gwen

Hey everyone!  I have loved reading the other updates and figured that now was my turn.  I will just talk about my summer so far and some of my plans for the rest of it.  Hopefully all of you will be a part of that at Christmas Meadows this August!

On May 17 I turned sixteen, which was fun.  My mom threw a surprise party for me, which was funny because she asked me in advance if I wanted one, even thought that kind of ruins the point.  She was still able to surprise me, though, which just goes to show what a great planner she is!  That was really fun, and a great way to start of this next year of my life.

Probably the most fruitful and rewarding thing that I have been involved in this recently has been my new fascination with ice cream making.  We have a small ice cream maker, and I have busied myself with trying new flavors of ice cream from this great book I have.  It's called The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz, and I highly recommend it.  I will even link to it here.  Of course, nothing beats strawberry ice cream made by Grandpa on the Fourth of July.  The most interesting flavors I have made so far have been lavender-honey and olive oil, which were delicious.  I am excited to make other unusual flavors like basil, parsley, goat cheese, roquefort-honey, and sweet potato with maple-glazed pecans.  I am especially excited about the basil one, and I just need our plants to grow a bit more before I will be able to harvest enough for the ice cream.  I figure that if I keep making ice cream, I will never be really lonely or want for friends, haha.  

 Some other things that I have done recently were getting my drivers license, which is nice and convenient, and starting a class at BYU for summer term, which started last Monday.  The class is called 2D Visual Design, and I like it a lot.  So far I have done two pieces, which are the following: 

This started as two negative space drawings that I did at the Monte L. Bean Life Science museum (or the "Dead Zoo;" I have heard it referred to both ways).  One was of some big-horned sheep, and the other was antlers.  I juxtaposed them on top of each other and did a contour line exercise in some of the shapes.  In this picture it isn't quite finished, but I have almost completed it now.  







This one is another negative space drawing of some chairs I stacked and put houseplants in.  I did values of india ink in the background.

Sorry for the horrible picture quality.

I am really excited to start working with color in this class, because as fun as india ink and micron pen are, color makes things so much more interesting.  I have also been doing a little bit of watercolor.







This most of my friends are far away for most of the summer (one in Japan, visiting her grandparents, and the other at Interlochen Music Camp in Michigan) or they have jobs, so it is really good that I have this class to keep me busy and out of trouble.  It's fun that I can drive to class now, too, even though parking by the HFAC can be a nightmare.  

Meri and I have also started sailing on Utah Lake with the Sea Scouts every Tuesday at six.  Last week my dad came too, but it was really boring because we were just putting patches on our shirts.  I never really would have envisioned myself joining Boy Scouts of America, but here I am.  Sailing is really fun, and I am excited to learn how to really do it myself.  In this picture, my friend (the other ponytail kid in the back), her older sister (the short one in yellow), and I are on the boat we sail on.  It is called the Carpe Diem, and as far as cheesy sailboat names go, it is way behind the rest that dock on Utah Lake (my personal favorite is "Unsinkable 2," which leaves one to wonder what happened to "Unsinkable 1"). Some of my friends have planned to charter a sailboat when we graduate from High School and sail around the San Juan Islands, where Orcas Island is.  Apparently the sailing there is exceptional.

Speaking of Orcas Island, our family is planning to go at the beginning of September.  I love the great memories I have of the trip we all went on there.  That was great, and I can't wait to go back.  


Well, Meri wants to play a computer game now and I have to go to the bank so I have to sign off, but I hope to hear about everyone else's summer plans!

Happy Father's Day, Dad/Grandpa!  We love you.

Thanks for being such a great father all these years--combining strength, reliability, sensitivity, caring, and humor.

A model for what men and father's can be.

Caitlin's Update

 

This doesn't have anything to do with anything, but at the moment Mom and I have tears streaming down our faces and our cheeks hurt. We've been laughing for minutes straight now, and it's starting to give Mom and asthma attack. Literally laughing so hard she could not breathe. So I just thought I'd share it and try to spread the laughter.

PS. I know this does not really count as my update.

An update and a flashback!

Hello, all! This morning I read the good news about Henry's mission call, wunderbar! He is following in the Davis family tradition of serving missions in German-speaking countries, and it's a good thing, too, because he's already so familiar with the language!

I am writing not only to congratulate Henry, but also because Grandma and Grandpa asked that we all give an update. So here is my update:


I turned 21 on May 24th, which was very exciting! Apparently it made people really nostalgic, and everyone was sending me great photos from my childhood. Grandma and Grandpa made a beautiful scrapbook for me, which included some great letters and drawings I had sent them. Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa!



Here's a musical young Annika, from the scrapbook.

















My mom also found these old photos:

I named this the "Old Stump Bear", for reasons still unknown.

Clearly, I've had an interest in fashion since I was very little.
















To return to the present, I have been traveling since I got out of school, right now I am visiting some friends in Los Angeles. LA is really cool, but really huge and really crowded. It takes so long to drive anywhere in this town! I've had some really great food, including the sandwich that changed my life: the cheesy mac n' rib from the grilled cheese truck! It was actually a grilled cheese sandwich with macaroni and cheese, smoked rib meat, and carmelized onions. So delicious. Food trucks and really popular in Los Angeles, you can basically get any food from a truck! Grilled cheese, tacos, even thai!

yummm.....






















We also went to the Renaissance Fair, (or I guess it would be "faire", with an e):

Chris and me with giant turkey legs!

















Besides eating food and exploring the city, I have also been hard at work on preliminary research for my senior thesis paper, which will be due at the end of this upcoming school year, my final year of college. I can't believe that I'm already so close to graduating! Luckily Los Angeles has a huge, beautiful public library, which has been a great resource. My paper is going to be about Aubrey Beardsley, a turn-of-the-century British artist. He made black and white ink drawings, often illustrations for plays and novels. He illustrated many works by Oscar Wilde, including his play Salome. I'll be studying how Beardsley's work was grotesque and shocking to his Victorian audience, and the ways in which it was influenced by 17th century Japanese woodblock prints. Those of you in Provo might remember that the BYU art museum had a wonderful show about Japanese woodblock prints a couple of years ago, which I was lucky enough to be in town to see!

The rest of my summer remains kind of up in the air, but I will probably be on Martha's Vineyard next month with my family. I am also really looking forward to Camp Cousins, which I hope to be able to attend! I miss and love all of you, and congratulations again to Henry!

--Annika

Henry's Mission Assignment

The big news in Provo is that Henry has received his mission call.   As most of you know, he is in Berlin right now, with the BYU Study Abroad Program (another tradition in the Davis Family).  The letter came to his home and Sarah "skyped" him, carefully opened the letter without looking (how's that for self-control!) and put the letter up against the computer screen for Henry to read.  Erik was down at Moab with a group of scouts and listened on his cell phone as Henry read outloud "Frankfurt, Germany."  He is very happy about that.  He has been studying German very hard at school and went on a short program to Meissen Germany with the high school program.  Maybe someone in Erik's family can add more details.

  This makes Henry our fourth grandson to serve as a missionary for the Church:  Chantry, Nate, Chase, and Henry. Fiona also served a six-month mission at the Family History Center in Cleveland.  We are proud of all four of them for taking time out of their lives to serve others.  We know it will be a great strength to them in whatever they choose to do. 

With this assignment, the Davises will have pretty much covered Germany with missionaries.  Bill served in the Hamburg Mission (which included Northern Germany and West Berlin at that time), Donnette served in the Munich Mission (which covered most of Southern Germany and Western Austria), we served in the Dresden Mission the first time, (covering all of East Germany from the North to the border of  the Czech Republic including East Berlin).  Our second mission started in Munich, covering all of Austria including Vienna and Southern Germany from the French border on the west, the Swiss border on the south and the Hungarian border on the east.  Then we were transferred back to the Berlin mission--covering pretty much the same area we had on our first mission.  Now Henry is covering the areas the rest of us have missed:  Central West Germany.  The new borders of the Frankfurt Mission take in some of the cities of the former East Germany mission including Weimar.

We just returned from visitying Betty and Art in Challis.  It was fun to be with them.  We even got in a couple of  rounds of golf.  Art continues to get weaker as the emphezema takes its toll.  He is pretty much tied to a walker and his oxygen tank if he goes out of the house.  Betty does most of the work around the place.  Garold was able to put a new wax ring under their leaking toilet and repair the air conditioner on their roof. It was hard for Art to watch him do all that and not be able to do it himself.   We're glad none of you smoke.  The doctor told Art that even though he had quit smoking over 40 years ago, the tar had gathered in his lungs and did its duty.

What has happened to everyone's interest in the Grandpa Garold Herald?  How is Annika getting along on Martha's Vineyard?  What is Mia doing this summer?  Caitlin hasn't posted her good news and told what Jason is doing this summer.  How are the newlyweds in Salt Lake City and in San Diego doing?  What is Chelsea doing this summer?  Gwen hasn't told all her good news.

 Memorial Day.  Includes friends Tom and Katy (Clark Taylor, Zoe Taylor and Katy's mother)






At Paula's place north of Challis showing her new house in progress.  Paula (Mike Bunce's wife)  Grandpa, Betty and Art.

Grandpa said to remind everyone about "Camp Cousins" August 13-18.  We know you won't all be able to come, but it would be great to have as many as can.

We love you all.

Henry in front of Tacheles art co-op on Oranienburger Strasse, Berlin-Mitte. We had lunch at a cafe I like, not far from the Goethe Institut.  Among other topics, we discussed our love for luke-warm mineral water, Henry's upcoming mission call, some of my mission experiences in Berlin back in the cold war days, and the fact that the expression "es gibt" requires the accusative case.