My FAVORITE Aunt and Sister

Will I look this good at age 89??
This is a picture of Aunt Billie that Carol took when she and Aunt Fran were in Oregon in October. Doesn't Billie resemble Gma Miers?

Jenn's Wedding Shower

Laura and Amy helped Melanie and Katie with a wedding showerfor Jenn. Laura ended up with conflicts, but she made lots of snacks and Amy came and helped put them together. It made us feel so loved and supported. It was one of my favorite parts of the day was to see Amy. It would have been a bonus to see baby Victor Jay, but he had a cold. I'll have to wait until the wedding.

To see more pictures see, the Vance and Diane blog link.

90th birthday picture

A special spiritual picture of my sweetheart on his 90th birthday at the Idaho Falls Temple. He is holding onto the iron rod, with the tree of life behind him and the Temple in the background and the tulips represent the resurrection as they come up every spring. He looks good for his age right?

An Idaho Thanksgiving

Grandma and Grandpa, Vance, Kirsten, Maureen, Blake and families had a marvelous Thanksgiving feast together. We all met at the church to enjoy. Well, let's just let the pictures say it all...

We came...

We talked...

We ate...

We cleaned...

We played and then rolled out...

Hi Family

Does anyone else have trouble getting into this blog sometimes besides me? Anyway, I came looking for Jen's engagement picture, but can't find it, so someone will either need to point me to where it is or Jen, you will have to post it if it's not here yet (please). I decided to post the Halloween picture of Emily's kids so everyone can see them and I don't know if Emily gets on here much. I think it is very cute. Oh, one question for Jen - if your wedding dinner is the night before, what time will we be setting up at the church? We love you all!
Love, Jay, Amy, and Victor Jay

Well well well, I am glad to see all of the fun thigs that are going on, Grandma I am glad that you were able to get to the Dr. and save you sight. I loved the pictures if the pumkins Uncle Vanee, David and Brother Snud! I have been having fun Catering for Football, and helping where I can with wedding plans. So exciting! I hope everyone is well and happy!

Happy Halloween

A late Happy Halloween! I would love to see pictures of everyone in their Halloween costumes - especially the kids - so post them to this blog so you can share with me!

Here is one of Victor Jay. He was an indian for Halloween. He had so much fun playing in the leaves that it was hard to get him to look up for a picture. We handed out candy at our church for the ward trick-or-treat then went trick-or-treating at the grandparents' homes. We had a good time; I was especially grateful the weather was warm this year.

Wedding Dinner

Okay...so since I am getting married in the afternoon of the 28th, I have decided to do the dinner the night before. YOU ARE ALL INVITED!!! I am having at BYU and it is being catered by BYU catering and let me tell ya, it is going to be yummy! I have no idea how many to plan for but let me tell you who is invited!

1) Anybody on my temple list
2) ALL My relatives: cousins, aunts uncles, first cousins once removed etc, grandparents, etc etc .
Would you mind emailing me and RSVPing on the dinner the night before so I can give a rough estimate to BYU catering??? My email is jennfager@gmail.com

THANKS!!!

Pumpkin Carving

It is a long standing tradition in the Vance Fager Family to carve pumpkins just before Halloween. The hunt for just the right pumpkin is the first step. It has to have a flat face and be able to stand upright without tipping over. Vance found the perfect ones at Sam's club this year.

Next is to select the desired pattern. (We do cheat and use a 1.99 kit.) I am one that usually goes for the easiest patterns. Vance, Ben and David like the moderate to difficult ones. Vance took my easy one so I could take pictures. Besides that, he is MUCH better than I am at carving.

Then the comes the cleaning out of the pumpkin. I must admit this is the least favorite and messy step for all of us. The cleaner and thinner the inside, the easier it is.

Making the dot-to-dot pattern and carving is next. This is the tricky part and it needs a patient and steady hand. It is too much like sewing for me - following a pattern and directions, plus I want it done in 15 minutes. We turned on church music (it was Sunday) and enjoyed the process. The boys completed their masterpieces in about 1 hour and 30 minutes start to finished. I was the cheerleader and cleaner.





The finished product! Vance carved "Boofus" , David "Prowler", and Ben "The Haunted House"

willing but not sure I am able>>>

I will see how NORMAL looks .. I should use large but will stay with this font for now.I am not sure what you really do but am willing to learn. I loved looking at the pictures and especially of baby Jay. UPDATE. Once again I am indebted to the Lord. On Tues. the 23rd I noticed I was not seeing well. Wed. Maureen asked me if I was going to see a Dr. Thurs. 25th after finding out I could not see the numbers to call for refills on the prescription bottles I immediately called Dr. Wallace who did some laser surgery on my right eye in Sept. Lois Cherry took me over around ten a m. Dr. W did the testing and immediately called Dr. Moffat my eye specialist who said to send me over at 1 PM. Lois took Bill & I to his office and stayed the whole 4 hours. What a lady and friend. Dr. M found bleeding and repeated more than once how grateful he was that I had gone to see Dr. W that morning as it would have been too late if I had not called that morning. They did the dye test in the vein where it takes 13 seconds for the dye to reach the eye and then they took 12 pictures. FINALLY Dr. M came and showed us the trouble spot and told me I needed to have an injection NOW. I have had 3 of the injections and felt fairly calm. It is uncomfortable when they deaden the eye, they rub the lower lid for quite awhile and it gets sore, but they put a ring in the eye to keep the lids out of the way. the needle is very fine and he injectes it right into the eyeball. You can sort of feel it but it doesn't hurt. My eye was and still is red; I had two bad days afterwards but today I can see well enought to type on the computer. Dr. M said "come back in 6 weeks, you will not be worse and could be better but if not better they will inject me again. So pray that it is better and that I don't have to be injected again. I was truly blessed again and I am very grateful. My sight has been saved twice now.Grandpa is doing ok. Days like that tend to make him confused but hopefully he will improve soon. Much love to all you dear people .

.we love you.. Grandpa and Grandma Fager

Homecoming Dance Idaho Falls 2007

New age experience

This will be fun if everyone is as patient with me as Diane has been.

The Liechty's

It's about time the Fager's had a blog! We are busy trying to keep up with all that needs to be done, especially with Jay's business. We are enjoying life and especially love to spend time playing with Victor Jay. Here are some fun videos and pictures. He is already six months old and has changed a lot in a small amount of time. We love you all!

Acapella Choir Concert

David had a concert last night and it was excellent. His group sang 5 songs and I recorded 2 of them until my memory card was full. He really likes singing in choir and has come a million miles in his ability to read and sing music. These are not easy songs and David knew his part well (he practiced them at home). He sings bass 1 which is the higher part, many times he is singing in tenor range. The men are often split into 4 or 5 parts. I loved seeing all the kids dressed in tuxedos and black formals. Sit back and enjoy the concert, I do zoom in on David so you can see him; video take about 2 minutes. (May have to click a couple of times to activate, but it works!)

First High School Dance

Everyone remembers the excitement of being asked to their first high school dance. Ben had heard rumors that he was going to be asked and was really hoping it would be someone exciting. Sure enough, during family home evening on Monday there was a knock on the door and this is what was there....

Ben left the following reply on her front lawn...

The Shunns

This is a fantastically FUN idea! Can I join??? We are doing really well. I will have more time to type later as the kids will be out of school soon and frankly my day ENDS at the exact moment the school bell rings. :0) I'll type more later!

Emily

Jenn and Laura

This is a cute picture that was taken of Jenn and Laura in Provo. Jenn loves to go to her house for a refuge. Cool!

Welcome to the Fager Family Blog

I have set up a site so that we can stay in better communication. Hopefully, I've secured the site so that only our family can view it. I've given a couple of examples to that you can see what to do. You don't need to add pictures you can just write notes (but pictures are always nice). They can be short or long. I promise if I can do this, ANYONE can, because I am not that computer literate. Is this something you would like to do? (you can let me know by adding a comment.) If there is interest, I'd be happy to keep building it.

This site will evolve over time. I think it would be fun to add a birthday calendar, a special events section, some family history stories and information. I'd love any ideas or input.

Sorry about my posting name, I am constantly learning how to do this and made a recipe blogsite, except I did it wrong. I didn't want to start over because I would lose the fagerfamily blog site; so whenever you see "FagerFavoriteFoods" you will know it is by Vance and Diane:-).

PS. You might want to check out the Recipe site and add your tried and true recipes.

Kirsten hits the Big 50 Milestone September 23

The Cheerleader

I don't know about you, but this is NOT what I envision when I think of a cheerleader.

















I tried to help the one on the left keep his arms down!

















Aaron was cheering for the junior-senior powder puff homecoming football game with some of his cohorts. I'm not sure which one of them was the worst looking, but it was a close contest.

















Check out these short videos:

Stake Conference Trauma-Drama (warning: long post - might get bored)

I know Trauma-Drama isn't a real word, but I feel like its the only way to describe an experience I had this past Stake Conference weekend. I also know that Stake Conference and either one of those words really shouldn't be in the same sentence, but hopefully after I explain, you won't blame me too much.And so it begins....A couple of weeks ago Dave and I attended a stake choir practice for the upcoming Stake Conference. When it was all over, I spent a few minutes taking to the stake music person, Maria. In the ensuing conversation she asked me if I would be willing to accompany a sister in the stake who Maria was trying to contact for a musical number to take place during the Adult Session Saturday night. She told me in the event that she got a hold of this sister, I would be receiving a phone call about what music I was to be playing. I readily agreed to help and thanked her for the opportunity to serve. Or so I thought...Nearly two weeks later I rememered the conversation we had, and realized nothing would be coming of it. That is, until I received a phone call that evening (Thursday night) around 8:00. It was a pleasant girl named Annie on the other line. She informed me she was the viola player I was to accompany that weekend. She brought the music over about a half an hour later and I promptly put it onto the piano to see what I had got myself into. The song of choice was Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. I LOVE this piece, but had never played it. On my first dry run I realized it was DIFFICULT. This arrangement was hard! At this point, I didn't know if I was going to learn the piece adequately by Saturday. I only had about ten minutes that evening before Dave and I had to go to his intramural volleyball game at 9:00, and then come back to quiet hours. Friday we were going to be gone all evening, and while Saturday was open, I had so many things I had to get gone I didn't know how to manage it all.I spent the next 48 hours finding sporadic pockets to pray and practice. After a near nervous breakdown or two, I finally felt like I could pull this off. At 4:00 on Saturday, Annie came over to practice. We went through it a number of times and it was a bit rough... we needed more practice together. When we were done I made a comment about going to the church to practice together sometime between 6:00 and 7:00 when the meeting was supposed to start. This is when Annie told me, "Oh, we don't play on Saturday, we play on Sunday!". I questioned it just a little because I thought I had heard Saturday, but she was confident Maria had told her it was for the Sunday session; this wasn't MY musical number after all, it was Annie's. We made plans to meet early and go through it a couple of times before the real deal on Sunday. She then told me that she was going to call Maria to make sure we had the right schedule figured out, and that I should plan on Sunday unless I heard from her in the next hour.When 6:40 rolled around, I was relieved to not be playing that evening, and left for the chapel. I asked Dave on the way out the door if I should grab my music to which he responded, "yeah, just in case".The meeting started and I was enjoying myself. Musical number, speaker, speaker, musical number, speaker, rest hymn. etc....President Clawson got up to announce the second half of the meeting; I heard some of what he had to say, but not all... "First, we will hear from so and so; President of the Sunday School, then we have a special musical number by Annie (something or other), and Melanie Crocker mprhg prgrhm, qrtsmmns, ghsbmuph, klscbth..." the rest was all mumbles. My head snapped up, my face started burning, I started sweating hot and cold, and my heart started pounding in my chest. "No!" I thought, "I'm not ready, I haven't practiced on this piano. I HAVE to practice on this paino!! The keyboard is lower, they keys are stickier, and I have to adjust to the sound!! We haven't practiced together here, and I don't even know is Annie is in attendance today!! I need to go through my solo's and the runs just a few more times. I need just a few minutes and then I can do it." Needless to say I was panicked! I hadn't even picked up on the fact that he called me Melanie Crocker as opposed to Melanie Crockett, one of my friends pointed that out later.I quickly stood up from my spot in the middle of the bench which was not-so-conveniently toward the front of the chapel and wiggled my way past the others sitting in my row with all the grace of a obese giraffe with music clutched in hand. I had spotted Maria when she came in earlier, so I went to her bench and rapidly explained the situation to her. She and her husband got up, left the chapel to try and race home, get Annie's number, call her, and get her to the chapel with her viola before the speaker said "Amen". The race was on. I spent the next ten minutes pacing the halls muttering incoherent things to myself, and praying they would move the number to the next day.My prayers were in vain; the next few minutes were kind of a blur, but somehow, right before the speaker sat down Annie, and her husband, and Maria and hers showed up and we gathered outside the door at the front of the chapel all leaning in to hear the end of this talk. Never before had I wanted a speaker to take more time; drag out his words, and inconvenience everyone. I wanted that now though; I wanted it really bad. Alas, the end came quickly, and we were only gathered for about a minute before we had to march in. Somehow I made it to the piano and managed to put the music up. Since Annie hadn't tuned her viola to that particular piano we spent a minute doing so which, I was grateful for. It gave me a minute to get my nervous bladder under control.We started... normally after about the first page my nerves would subside, and I could continue on with confidence. This was not the case; I was rattled to the point of shaky throughout the entire peice. Never before have I battled myself so fiercly; every note was hard fought for and every new line a seemingly insurmountable feat. My beautifully practiced piece did NOT turn out as I had so badly wanted and prepared for. In fact, I know I did much worse than anyone else probably realized, but nonetheless, we pulled it off. From what I hear we didn't do TOO bad, but I knew it wasn't too good either.It was over; I was a bag of nerves for the rest of the meeting, and gave up trying to listen to the last speaker.The next day I was so grateful to be singing in the stake choir amid multiple FABULOUS musicians and singers. In fact, I stood between two women with voices far superior to mine. What a relief!I do have to laugh when I think about the poor little family in our ward (whose name I won't mention) who accidently sent a fuzzy, neon/elmo red colored scripture case (with scriptures inside) flying off the balcony onto the congregation below. They were sitting toward the front where the speaker was, and 20-30 feet to fall is pretty far, so EVERYBODY saw it happen. Fortunately, next year, no one will remember who played or sang what at stake conference, but they will still be able to laugh at the fluffy red flying saucer. Thank you family; you probably didn't enjoy what happened (although the husband spent the next few minutes trying to supress his giggles), but I consider it a tender mercy!

About Vance and Diane

Vance and I are doing great. Here is a picture that was published in this month's issue of Modern Healthcare Fifteen years ago, Vance was selected as one of the nations "Up and Comers" of hospital administration/health care. They did a follow-up article about what Up and Comers are doing today. This picture was actually taken to be posted on the hall of fame at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center. He is on the hospital board. It is something he was invited to do for a 5-year term.
Life at Rosetta Homes is stabilizing. He almost has the company in the black, which is quite a feat considering they were losing hundreds of thousands 2 years ago. He is doing more traveling than I like, but not near what he use to.

His current calling is on the high council. He works with YM and YW presidencies and is on the farm committee. This best part about his assignment is he gets to come to our ward on Sundays and to girl's camp with me! He speaks once a month in various wards throughout the stake.

Here is a picture of Vance trimming dad's hair.

I know I don't look as good as Vance in his picture, but this will have to do. I am staying extremely busy with writing menus, my new callings, and doing the home making thing. I am finishing an 8-week new summer menu. therapuetic diets, and shopping lists for 2 multi-unit assisted living companies. To be honest it has been a pain, but I was asked to do it and it gives me another tool to be able to sell if I need to. Before I'm finished, I'll probably fix the old one I did 4 years ago to the same format I just developed. I get better each time as I learn more about the industry and what works and what doesn't.

I was released from my calling from Young Women's when the ward split a month or so ago. It's been a great thing and I enjoyed working with some pretty awesome girls, but I was ready after serving there 11 of the last 14 years. I am now one of three ward organists, which I thoroughly enjoy and a family history consultant, which I like even more and am having so much fun.

This summer I really enjoyed my flower and vegetable gardens. I took a couple of pictures, even though they are both past their prime. The more temperate summer weather (notice I said summer and NOT winter) makes for beautiful flower gardens. Here are my petunias, the boys tease me about how I feel about my flowers, but it's been fun babying them. It all started from just a couple of little plants.

Vance also made me a cage for my beans and peas, patterned after Mom and Dad's contraption. I never understood the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and the bean seed growing into the sky until I planted pole beans. If Vance had made the cage 12 feet high, the beans would have climbed up and produced even more. As you all know, I love green beans and it has been a great feast this summer.

A couple of favorites for me and then I am through. I love walking and I love catching up on what is happening in Jenn, Melanie, and Katie's lives while they are in Provo. So I combine the two. I plug in an earpiece (which is on the fritz, so I have to hold the phone, the earpiece, and my mouth just so for it to work) and walk and talk. You'd think we run out of things to talk about, but we never do.

About David

David is a senior and glad for the last year of high school. He is taking the typical senior schedule of Economics, American Government, and Senior English. Fun classes this trimester are acapella choir and weight lifting. Choir at IF is big and there are over 100 kids. They all wear tuxes and formals. The choir is quite good. David sings bass 1 or baritone although he has quite a good range. The first concert is a couple of weeks.

David really likes weight lifting and will have that class a couple trimesters. He has put on a few pounds since the beginning of school all in his upper body. I had to almost pull teeth to get this picture, you're lucky to see it. Speaking of teeth. After 3 and a half years, David will get his braces off hopefully in 2 months. We are holding off on senior pictures until spring, nicer weather and braceless teeth. David is also big into tennis. He will play in a tournament in a couple of weeks, I'll get some pictures and a video. He plays in the Men's 18-division which is a very competitive bracket. He did play in a few tournaments this summer and won consolation (3rd) in singles. That will make his USTA rating go up!

He worked for the city this summer on weed control (carrying a 30 lb pack all day and walking miles) and putting in a sprinkler system. He worked from 6 AM to 2 PM. My favorite picture of him this summer was with Katie at EFY. He wasn't in her company, but had a great time in spite of cryptosporidium. (He got that the day before he left and had to tough it out a few days.)

About Ben

Ben is FINALLY in high school (sophomore) after 4 years of middle school/junior high. He has also turned 16 and is enjoying the freedoms of driving at night and being able to hang out in "mixed company and even numbers." The only problem with turning 16 in late August and being the oldest in his class, is the girls are not yet 16.Meanwhile he is staying busy taking honors English and Math, Biology, and a couple of other time consuming classes.

He felt a little trauma when he did not make the varsity soccer team, only 2 sophomores did and one of them does not get much playing time. As it is, he is one of the captains on the JV team and rarely is pulled from a game since he plays sweeper (leader of the defense); soccer has worked out pretty good and he was pulled up to varisty for the upcoming state tournament.

Below are some pictures of a recent game.

Clearing the balls is what Ben does in the back row of the defense again , again , and again. (He is #6)

Ben in position to "head" the ball. He is notoriously good at it, perhaps because of a hard head.

After the game.....