Share Your Stories #7 Chores and Vacations

What did you talk about at dinner?

We talked about what we had done that day and plans for the future. Mom and Dad always made sure to talk to each of us. We always ate together for dinner, even when we had tons of things going on.

Was there a chore you hated doing as a child?

Our chores were organized with one daily chore and one room to clean. There were 2 daily chores I didn’t like; Trash and “Pots and Pans”. I didn’t like doing the trash because sometimes you had to do it more than one time per day, of course there were also occasional days that it didn’t need to be taken out at all, but that didn’t seem to matter. I didn’t like washing the pots and pans because it took forever. I remember my forearms getting sore on the edge of the counter because I was washing dishes for so long. Looking back I realize that if I had washed the dishes everyday instead of waiting until there wasn’t room for any more on the counter and stove that it would have taken MUCH less time. Part of why it would have taken less time is because there would have been less to do, and part of why is that the food left on the pans wouldn’t have had time to dry so it would have cleaned off much easier. I also didn’t like emptying the drainer, it took a long time to do as well.

The room I disliked cleaning the most was the kitchen. The counters were always covered with stuff and I had to figure out where it all went. When I was really young I could just move it onto Mom and Dad’s bed, but as I got older I couldn’t get away with that anymore. The floors were hard to clean too. It was hard to use such a big broom and mop while I was little, and people were always walking through and leaving footprints on the clean floor that I had to clean up. The floors got much easier when Chet taught me to use the lines in the linoleum to separate the floor and clean it one section at a time.

On Saturdays we had a had a chore chart drawn on the whiteboard and each person had to do everything next to their name before they could play, and preferably have them done before noon. It usually included our bedroom, the trash in our room, putting away our clean clothes, cleaning our assigned room and one EXTRA. We always hated that because Mom could assign us whatever she felt needed to be done.

What appliances did you have (or not have) in your home?

In the kitchen we had the normal appliances; fridge, stove, toaster & blender. I remember being really excited when we got our microwave, and I loved using the Kitchenaid to make cookies and grate cheese. The only appliance we didn’t have that I always wanted was an electric can opener. We had a can opener hooked to the wall and it worked really well, but I thought an electric one would have been nice. Later I used one and hated it, Dad felt the same way, which is part of why we didn’t have one. We also had a dishwasher, which was really nice with how big our family was, it would have been a pain to wash all those dishes by hand.

Did you have any favorite uncles or aunts growing up? Who were they, and what did you admire most about them?

I thought all my uncles and aunts were great. Aunt Alice and Uncle Wix came to visit almost every summer with their kids. I thought it was amazing that Uncle Wix didn’t have to work in the summer, (since he was a teacher, but I didn’t realize that then). Aunt Alice had beautiful long hair that she always wore in a braid down her back. Uncle Lyman knew how to build houses and how to river-raft. Aunt Ruth Ann and Uncle Earl always sent really cool birthday presents. And Uncle Randy was a doctor and Aunt Ruth Ann decorated their house really well.
On my Dad’s side I only had one uncle. Uncle Jerry was a game warden. It’s funny to me now that that is what I remember of them when I was really young.


Where did your family go on vacation? What are your favorite memories of the trips you took together?

Each summer we took at least 1 vacation. There are 4 summer trips that really stick out in my mind. One year we went to visit the Jespersens in Texas, the thing I remember most is getting a really bad sunburn at the beach and being in pain the whole way home.
Another year we all sat down as a family and discussed where we wanted to go on vacation. Someone suggested Disneyland and someone else suggested Paris. Mom and Dad pretended to consult with each other and then said that after careful consideration they had decided that we wouldn’t go to Paris. So we went to Disneyland and the beach.
The summer before my Senior Year of High School we went on a vacation East. We went all over the place and were gone for 6 weeks, that trip was only Mom and Dad and Von and I. The summer after I graduated from Ricks that same group of 4 went to visit Mike and Niki and their family in Germany. While there we also went to neighboring countries, while in France we went to Euro-disneyland, which happens to be in Paris.