Family is Important

     "I wanted to talk about some more of my children’s activities and also some to the family trips we’ve taken together. Amy went to a soccer camp at BYU with some girls from the ward, had a great time, and she was also able to go to OYA Outdoor Youth Adventure up at BYUI  That was a great, great experience for her. She loved it, – she really didn’t want to do EFY, she felt it was a little too structured and she didn’t want to have to put on a dress and go to a dance. She was very happy to do OYA which was sports and horseback riding and canoeing and whitewater rafting – just the adventure type stuff. She enjoyed that immensely. 

     "Kristy was also able to do OYA twice and she also went to the University of Utah the summer before her senior year and go to EFY and that was an amazing experience for her. She had a great spiritual experience there that was wonderful. 

     "Eric was able to go to OYA two different times and he also enjoyed that immensely, it was good for him – he also did not want to go to EFY and have to dress up and sit in classes and hear lectures. So OYA was a good fit for him, then he also went to BYU for a Ballroom Dance camp he really enjoyed that a lot it was a really good experience for him. 

      "Kylie was able to go to the International Folk Dance Camp at BYU  --- it was the time that Eric was up at Utah State doing Engineering State which was an Engineering Camp for a few days. Kylie had a great time at BYU she was with some of her first cousins once removed and had a blast. They would drop them off everyday and do their dancing and then pick them up and bring them home at night and they would have sleepovers and just great times slumber parties with cousins so that was a great experience for her.

Johansen Family Reunion

  

       "For years we go to Waterton Park which is in Southern Alberta for the Johansen Family Reunion. Ralph’s mom was a Johansen and that is where she was raised there in a little town which was named Willford, it’s just right outside of Cardston. In honor of that heritage the family has planned reunions once every three years. We’ve been able to attend them all. It’s been a great experience to go up there – and it is a bit of a journey because you can’t just fly into – you have to drive to get there. 

      "So we take several days to drive there and sometimes we’ve done things on the way there and on the way back we’ve gone to Yellowstone Park one year. One year we went to Golden in British Columbia and stayed at a place there – Ralph had found a place where they had a teepee that we could stay in, so we had two teepee that we stayed in. There was a little lake there with canoe that the kids could paddle around. That was a really fun, there was also horseback riding. 

     "One time we went up through Baniff and other places up near Calgary and we able to see that. A couple of times we driven up through Seattle to see some friends up there as well as my brother Randall and his family. So every three years we make that journey to Waterton Park. We’re there for four days and it’s a blast running around with everybody who is a cousin. It could be a second cousin once removed whatever, everybody is cousins and that has been a very enjoyable experience for our family.  

     "We look forward to going to Canada every few years and participating there with the family Olympics. Team games at night, the family dinners and several times we’ve had church together that’s been a great experience. That’s something we always forward to doing, it’s a tradition that we’ve had in our family and we continue to do that – Go to Canada go to Waterton Park every three years. It’s a small town so the kids can run around and you feel like it’s pretty safe.  There’s a lot of activities to do. Lots of hiking, there’s boating, there’s lots of family to visit and hang out with, there’s little shops you can go and look in, every once in awhile we’ve seen the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, it’s just a great experience, it’s really fun.

      "Some other trips we’ve gone on as a family – one year – 2005 right before I was diagnosed with cancer – that year we went to Martin’s Cove to do a Pioneer re-enactment with my brother and his wife and his kids, we had a great time, it was really, really hot, but we did it. It sure gave us a greater appreciation for those handcart companies and what they did. And since we were far enough East we decided to just go on over to South Dakota and visit all the things that are there in the Southwest Corner and we had a really fun experience there, that was great. 

     "The year Amy graduated from High School right before she went off to college, we took three days and went as a family down to Monterey. We had a blast!  We spent one day doing whale watching, we went out on a boat – and boy we saw whales! It was so cool! Poor Ralph was so sick! We saw lots of dolphins, lots of birds, it was very fun. Another day we went kayaking in the bay – what we did was rent 3 double kayaks and there was also a young man who went out on his kayak and gave us a little tour. We all paired up, a younger person with an older person, a more experienced paddler with a less experienced paddler and we went kayaking and it was great! The third day we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and had a great time, I mean we were there when it opened and they kicked us out when it closed. We had a great time and it was a very, very fun family vacation.

     "Most of the time – I’ve commented on the fact that – very often we don’t go vacationing per se that we spend our – we are always doing trips to see family because family is very important to us. We don’t live close to any family – it used to be we had Ralph’s brother in Fresno then several years ago they retired and moved to the Utah area and so we don’t have any family here in California. And so we drive to see family every year, we want to make sure our children know who their grandparents are, and who their aunts, uncles, and cousins are. I can’t say we are super close to any of them but we try and make the effort to get there so they can spend time with us.