Henry Update

Hello family!  I feel like it is high time that I write something on here, seeing as many other family members whom I love and respect and admire have done so with the result of great enjoyment and satisfaction on my part.

Something I picked up at Amoeba

I am doing very very well back in my P-town home.  I'm at BYU, and I have decided to double major in Sociology and German.  School is going wonderfully, and I am loving all of my classes (surprisingly).  I had a bit of apprehension before coming to BYU that I would be surrounded by closed-mindedness and bigotry, but I have been pleasantly surprised, and I am glad to report that BYU seems to be at least a marginally open-minded community of students and faculty.  There are some very good and very intelligent people here, and I am not drowned out by a wave of conservative opinions in my classes.  My favorite class right now is probably my HONRS American Government and Society class.  It is taught by a humanities professor named Dr. Karl Sederholm, and he is an amazing professor.  He has such an incredible passion for the material he teaches, and we can always have a wonderful laugh over early Puritan literature together.  His specialty in his research is actually horror literature and film and heavy metal music.  And he's a devout and open-minded Mormon.  Suffice it to say, we have a lot in common, and I went on a little class field trip to American Fork's "Haunted Forest" with him and enjoyed it immensely.  He knew every reference to every horror film in the place, and it was awesome.

This baby will be coming in the mail in a few days!

Aside from school, I am doing some other fun things.  One new hobby of mine (which has sufficiently freaked out my parents) is online shopping!  So far I have bought a kilt, a latex ape mask, a bunch of throwing knives, some CDs, some shoes, and some musical instruments (worth every penny).  When I'm getting paid like $6,000/semester to go to school, I don't see why I shouldn't buy wonderful things like kilts and guitars...  Ah well, my parents are smart about these things, I suppose, but I have absolutely zero regrets so far.
My return from my mission has stopped weighing so heavily on my mind (which should be a huge relief to anyone who had to endure that time in Alaska with me...)  By the way, I apologize that I was horribly anti-social and depressed on that trip... I was just kind of overwhelmed, and now things are going a lot better.  My medication is pretty good, and after a slight hypo-manic episode (still on-going, and it's wonderful!) I'm back in the driver's seat.

The Homeless Boys at Velour (I'm the kilted monkey...)

I will be going on study abroad to Berlin this summer (with Gwen and Peter Everett and his family).  The study abroad is for visual art, so I will be learning some painting and drawing skills to boot!  I'm incredibly excited for this, and some of my good friends may be coming as well.  I also hope that I can see some friends who are serving missions in Berlin and possibly some of the people I met and taught on my mission who are great friends of mine.
I have also started a punk/hard blues/jam band with my friend Timmy (bongo and djembe drums), Skratch (a 61-year-old, homeless instrumentalist and vocalist) and myself (bass, occasional vocals and occasional guitar, and very occasional keyboards (not yet)).  We have played two open mic shows at Provo's Velour Live Music Gallery, and we will be competing in Muse Music's battle of the bands which starts on Will's birthday (Oct. 24th) with a show at Muse at 8 o'clock.  I am getting a good friend of mine, Noah Jackson, to paint us a flyer that we will be distributing to advertise the show, and it's going to be a lot of fun (especially after we have won!!  Although some sucky, adorable indie band will certainly beat us out...  C'est la vie in Provo...)
Anyway, my life is going great!  I don't have a job, but I am earning some gold going to school; I have no girlfriend, and I went through a wonderful mutually agreeing break-up with Mimi with no resulting hurt feelings!  Miracle possibly...  I'm going on awesome dates and listening to a lot of music.  Last weekend I took a road trip with four friends to Los Angeles to see Philip Glass' famous minimalist opera, "Einstein on the Beach," and it was marvelous.  I then spent upwards of $320 at Amoeba Music in LA (not a penny of which I regret).  I'm also planning on doing a research project to earn a $1500 for Berlin, and I will be researching German punk music through Christian Asplund of the music faculty.  I also plan on learning first-year Arabic and then starting to learn Turkish next fall, and I can get an amazing scholarship from the government for that (full tuition+$5000/semester!!)
Life is good; I love Jesus; I hope you are all doing so well

Love, Peace, and Joy from this strange land of milk and honey, Provo, UT...
--Henry (Hal)

I'm going to use this for a Magical Mystery Tour

P.S. I thought about getting a job as an actor at a haunted house in Orem called Castle of Chaos, but they weren't going to pay anything so I decided against it...
P.P.S. My parents finally caved in to their lustful desires and bought a sky blue, manual transmission '88 BMW 325i  for $4000.  I haven't driven it yet, but it will soon become the mega-date-machine.
P.P.S. (I know this is gratuitous... Sorry) You should all like my band's FB page, "The Homeless Boys," and I would also love it if you followed our blog!  Thanks!  It is almost always I that does the typing on our FB and blog haha.  I'm the publicity guy :).
http://thehomelessboys.blogspot.com/

Joyous July 2013

July 2013 will always be special in our memories. Tops, of course, was our family reunion in Alaska.  Then, a week after we returned from that trip, Grandpa and I were on the road again. This time we were in our own car and going to Ashland, Oregon for my 60th High School Class reunion.  We dreaded the drive through the desert from Salt Lake, to Wendover, to Winnemucca and across more desert to southern Oregon before coming into the beautiful Cascade Mountains. However, we found the desert had a beauty of its own.  We also had downloaded several novels onto my new phone and could listen to them as we drove along. (We are getting much better at using our phones)

The high school reunion in Ashland was wonderful.  We had four days of fun and food with long-time friends.  Everyone liked the reunion book I put together, which was a relief.  We had a chance to look around Ashland and went to see the house Grandpa Garold's parents, Jo and Bill, designed and built.  It has been beautifully restored.  We were invited in to see the house and were shown a "history" of the house, which just happens to have been written by Grandpa Garold several years ago. Here is the house:

 

 

Best of all was the final day of the reunion with a brunch on Sunday morning at the home of one of our classmates, Ray Ashcraft.  He designed and constructed a beautiful home in the hills above Medford, a neighboring town.  It looks like a mountain lodge, and has a broad view of Rogue River Valley from the deck.  He also paints, does wood carving and has played guitar professionally.  Some of the women made a wonderful brunch, we talked, listened to Ray play the guitar, ate and had a great time. 

Here I am listening to Ray play.  You can get an idea of what his house looks like.

Here is a part of the selections for the brunch.

And here is a picture of some of the group.  We are on the big deck I told you about.
 
The message of July 2013:  The greatest treasures one can have on this earth is a good family and great friends.  We can only say "our cup runneth over"!
 
Now we are in August, and before the month is out many of you will be back in school. Three will be high school seniors--Mia, Gwen and Chelsea.  I hope you are forming friendships that will last for 60 years. 

Thanks again for coming to Alaska.  Thanks for being such great people.  Grandpa and I love you all very, very much.

 

Group photo from the Alaska reunion

It was so wonderful to be with ALL of you in Alaska.  It would be hard to say what was the highlight of that time together.  We are still learning how to use our new smart phones, but Grandpa is attempting to send a message via his.  I am going back to the good old Grandpa Garold Herald.

One way or the other, you should get this.

Happy rest of the summer!
Grandma

Update from Gwen

I am so excited to see you all in a few days, but in the meantime I thought I would put some pictures of my trip to Germany on the good old family blog.  I took off with a group of 28 other German students from my school, my German teacher, and two parent chaperons on May 30th.  We spent two days in Berlin, took a train to Meissen where we lived with host families for two weeks, and then went back to Berlin for three more days before flying back to the U. S. of A.   In the meantime I had a lot of great adventures and met a ton of interesting people!

Our first two days in Berlin were incredibly wet.

A Davis family classic, being honored in a modern art museum in Berlin! In another room of the same museum the 'All You Need is Love' scene was playing on repeat.

Conquering the Subconscious by Pierre Alechinsky. I think.

This is part of the view of Meissen from the top of a hill near my host's house.  

Moritzburg Schloss after climbing around in a ropes course/Kletternpark in a forest. 

Some funny museum of old German lifestyle in the Spreewald

Paddling in the Spreewald

Hiking in the Sächsische Schweiz with my host family

This beverage was my Lebensblut for two weeks.

My host, Marie, and I at the top of some part of the Sächsische Schweiz. Tired but happy.  Also, you could see Czechien from here.  

These are my host parents.  They found my fascination with all the moss there hilarious.

Altstadt Dresden

The Elbe flooded really horribly while I was in Germany.  This picture is of the third day in Sachsen, which I spent mostly in Dresden.  THIS IS NOT NORMAL, and very sad.  

Some more flood wreckage.  This is the street below my host's house, where ground water came up and destroyed a garden center.  Luckily, my host's house was completely fine, with no flooding or damage at all. 

My host and her step dad in Kaufland, the local grocery store.  This is an entire wall of Sauergurken.  

One of my friends in a Doener Kebab store in Meissen.  The wegetarians ate falafel.

More of Dresden.  By this time, the river had gone down a lot, but was still far too high.

A monument to the flood in 2002.

Dresden with my school group

This was part of a street festival in the Neustadt of Dresden.

Neustadt street festival

This was also the street festival in the Neustadt.  It was supposed to be a multicultural celebration.  

Sunset on the Altstadt and flood

My host family wanted to see the temple in Freiberg, so we took a day trip there.  We also met up with the Bartsch family, some friends of Grandma and Grandpa's, there.  Later I went to church with the Bartsch and Menzel families in Dresden.  Denise Bartsch and I also walked around the shopping district of Dresden one day.  

'Wir sind das Volk' mural in Leipzig

Bach statue in Leipzig. 

A happy cat at the Felix Mendelssohn House (also in Leipzig). 

Part of the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.  This time we were there, it was on average 95 degrees and very humid.  

This trip was a lot of fun, and my German improved tenfold while I was there.  I'm still thinking just a little bit in Denglisch.

AK, ho!

Since we're all thinking more than usual about Alaska right now, I thought I'd post a link to an op-ed piece that my friend, Callan Chythlook-Sifsof, wrote for the New York Times about the proposed Pebble Mine. Definitely worth reading.

Kia and I are excited to see everyone soon. Love, love, love.

Nora is totally boss

Nora has been working on the campaign for Ed Fitzgerald, who is challenging the current governor of Ohio in 2014.  She is in charge of an office full of interns, which I find pretty impressive for a 21-year-old.  She is certainly getting managerial experience at a much younger age than I did!  (Meanwhile, she is also in school full-time...)  She has had a couple of nice posts out there in the universe of popular networking sites, but I know that some people in our family don't use any of those sites, so I am pasting a couple of them in here.  I'm very proud of this woman!

Updates From Annika (and Mia)

Hello, family! As many of you know, I'm sure, it's an exciting time in my life. I just finished my last college class ever yesterday, I picked up my cap and gown today, and I'm all set to graduate on the 20th! Lucky for me, grandma, grandpa, and Caitlin are coming to visit and will be here for my commencement ceremony. In fact, Caitlin arrives this evening!

I presented my thesis a few weeks ago, and it went very well. I was incredibly nervous to get up and speak about all the work that I'd been doing this year (condensed to just 15 minutes) in front of my professors and peers, but I kept my cool! It was great to finally get to see what all the other Art History majors had been working on, too.

I also performed a concert with the classical guitar ensemble that I've been a part of this year. Here is a short video of one of the (less exciting, sorry) songs that we played:

At the end of this month I will be moving to Boston to start my new, post-college, "grown up" life. I have a job at a small animation studio in Cambridge. It's certainly going to be very new, and very exciting!

In other family news, Mia was elected student body president of her high school! We got to go to a cool inauguration ceremony a few days ago, where she was sworn in and received her official presidential sash.

This isn't a great quality photo, but here she is being sworn in!

She also attended prom, which, because of her position in student council she had to completely plan and set up. She is involved in so many things at her school, and she also works and babysits. She is so busy all the time! I don't know if any of you have seen the movie Rushmore, but I always tease Mia that she is like the main character (he is involved in about 50 different clubs and activities at his school).

Mia and her friends looking beautiful (especially Mia) in their prom dresses!

That's about all for now, we love you all very much and hope that you're well! Also, Facebook tells me that it's Meri's birthday today. Happy Birthday, Meri!