Dear Kids,
I was thinking Sharon’s baby would be the next great-grandchild in my family, but who knew there would be three others born in the last four days? Charles and Julie had Lillian Rachel Allen, born on the 17th. Yesterday, Michelle was induced, and gave birth to Elijah David Findlay. A few hours later, Russell and Kristyn Allen had Steven Andrew Allen, born in Sacramento. I won’t give all the details of times and birth weights and sizes. You can see there’s an avalanche. Andy said his grandson is probably #198 in the family. There is supposed to be a big prize for #200. Too bad if Sharon and Seth were upstaged by all these other births, and still come out as #199, and don’t win the prize. Of course, when you’re ready to have a baby, you just want to get it done. Heck on the prize.
Dad and I had a great weekend trip to Idaho. We received a phone call from the Harpers late Thursday night saying that Connie would be married Saturday afternoon in the Rexburg temple. She and her fiancee, Paolo, have been trying to arrange it for a long time. He’s an Italian, in the Italian army, in special forces, most recently deployed to Afghanistan. He got a couple of weeks’ leave, but he had trouble getting into the country because he wore an Afghan headdress and fatigues, had a beard, looked like a terrorist, and joked around with the airport security people in Boston. I think he was detained for a whole day. He finally arrived in Rexburg on Thursday, and that’s when the Harpers made their phone calls. Of course we wouldn’t have missed it for anything. We left Friday afternoon and stayed overnight with Vanessa and Trent, which was really fun. Saturday we drove on up to Rexburg, and met all the Harpers at the temple. Afterwards, we had dinner with Chris and Bruce and some of Bruce’s brothers. And we found out more about Paolo. He’s been shot several times, but they keep patching him up and sending him back out. (No purple hearts and early discharges, like here.) His father was in special forces, and was killed five years ago. Connie’s going to live in Italy, so they can be together when he’s on leave. The whole thing is so un-Connie, un-Rexburg, it’s absolutely fascinating.
I’m leaving for Michigan Tuesday afternoon, and I’m looking forward to a wonderful week there. It will be fun to play with Charlie and Matthew, and well as seeing our new little granddaughter. Of course she’ll look exactly like Sharon!
I’ll be fixing Sunday dinner on February 7th. Be there or be square!
Lots of love, Mom
P.S. I just received the following by e-mail from Andy:
1) From the time Mom & Dad got married (Dec 1943) to the time of their last child, or #13 in the family, (Mark born June 1966) was 22.5 years.
2) From #13 to #25 (Renae married Andy in Feb 1976) the family size doubled in 9 years and 8 months.
3) From #25 to #50 (Jeannie married Richard in Aug 1983) the family size doubled in 7 years and 6 months.
4) From #50 to #100 (Amanda married Dan in May 2001) the family size doubled in 7 years and 9 months.
5) From #100 to #200 (Bekah's baby in Feb 2010) the family size doubled in 8 years and 9 months.
I have fit a least-squares regression exponential curve fit to the numbers. See enclosed EXCEL file. The model predicts about 350 family members by the year 2020.
