Kids
My little grandniece, Elliott Stevens has been very busy lately. On June 24, 2022, Elliott had a life-changing event occur in her life, when she became big sister to Maya Stevens. Elliott was always a happy girl, and really, very comfortable in her life. I don’t think she even minded being an only child, but then she really didn’t know anything else, so I suppose it doesn’t really count. Now, however, Elliott has a little sister, and that have made her life even better than before. Elliott loves helping her parents, Kayla and Garrett Stevens with Maya, and she and Maya are fast becoming best friends, as well as sisters. You can see the love that shows on their faces every time they are together. Elliott has other activities too, so holding her baby sister isn’t something she can do all the time, although she would if she could. Elliott is getting to be very capable at holding her sister, and loves to make her smile, and help with her care in any way she can. Maya, looking lovingly at 
her big sister and knows that before long she will get to play with her too. It’s baby sister love for big sister.
Elliott can’t take care of her sister all the time, because she has a number of fun activities, she is involved in. She takes swimming lessons, as well as, gymnastics, and she goes to daycare, where she has lots of friends that she enjoys spending time with. Elliott is also her daddy’s best little helper. Maya will become a good helper too, but she too little right now. Elliott and her daddy build things together and paint things too, like the playhouse her and her daddy built for her. Elliott works very hard, and I know her daddy appreciates all her help. She also loves going to the park with her parents, and now her baby sister too. She loves the swings and slides the best, I think. Now that her grandpa, Mike Stevens is retired, he and Elliott’s grandma, Alena Stevens 
can go to Sheridan for visits more often. Elliott’s other grandparents, Lynette and Wes Smiley live in Sheridan, so she gets to see them lots too.
Elliott is a girly girl. She loves makeup, princess clothes, and of course…heels. She even has her own play makeup, and she loves putting it on, even if she isn’t perfect at it just yet…but then what girl starts out putting on her makeup perfectly. We all have to experiment until we find our perfect look. Elliot also loves to spend time with her cousins, Brooklyn and Jaxxon Killinger. They like to go swimming, to the park…or just hang out. It’s a good life, and Elliott is enjoying every minute of it. Today is Eliott’s 4th birthday. Happy birthday Elliott!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
My dad’s mom, Anna Spencer was such a strong woman. My grandfather, Allen Spencer worked on the Great Northern Railway, and so Grandma was in charge of the kids, including her two rambunctious boys, my Uncle Bill and my dad, Allen. Now that doesn’t say that her two girls weren’t a handful too, but my Aunt Laura and my Aunt Ruth, likely caused her a little bit less trouble than her mischievous boys…especially when it came to their use of dynamite. Being farm boys, they used dynamite to remove tree stumps, for their wake-up call on Independence Day, as well as the occasional gatepost (which then had to be raised two inches before their mom came home from town). Nevertheless, Grandma was loved and respected by her children.
Grandma and the kids ran the farm, and that meant putting the hay up into stacks by hand, taking care of the animals and the garden. When they were working, Grandma was all business, but that didn’t mean the kids followed suit. My Aunt Ruth loved horses and dogs too, and goofing off for my Uncle Bill, so he could take a picture of her. Somehow, it once caught my grandma in the picture looking at her mischievous children, goofing off instead of working. Somehow, she was not very amused, but while Grandma didn’t think it was funny, the picture is one that always makes me laugh. I don’t know if my Aunt Ruth got in trouble for “shirking” her responsibilities or not, but I’ll bet she at least heard about it. Grandma was not really a pushover, after all. In those days, when it was time to work, the kids had better toe the line.
During the time when my grandma was raising kids, the country was going through the Great Depression years, and time were tough anyway, so the people also had to be tough. The men were often working somewhere also, and the women had to take on the role of both parents, and even businesswomen. My grandmother ran a hotel for a time, and my Aunt Laura, who was just ten years old when my Uncle Bill was 
born, was responsible for his day-to-day care. My Uncle Bill actually remembered that time fondly. He and his big sister were very close at that time. I’m sure it was not the ideal situation for my grandmother, who must have felt like she was missing out on the baby years, but she persevered, and the family did well. Grandma was a tough lady, because she had to be, and the family needed her to be. I’m very proud of the strong woman she was. Today, Grandma is in Heaven, but this is the 135th anniversary of that great lady’s birth. Happy birthday in Heaven, Grandma. We love and miss you very much.
My nephew, Sean Mortenson is what you would most likely call an extreme sports fanatic. Sean loves pretty much any kind of sports, but he really shines when it comes to the extreme snow sports. Sean has absolutely no fear, and he will plunge his snow machine into the snow and come out with a smile on his face…almost a gleeful smile, for lack of a better word. Don’t get me wrong when I mention extreme sports, because Sean isn’t stupid about his stunts, just good!! Nevertheless, the things he does are extreme, and he has the videos to prove it.
About a year ago, Sean opened his own business called Triangle Heating and Air LLC. Of course, it is an HVAC company, and it is doing quite well. In fact, they have been so busy that Sean had to hire help. He asked his father-in-law, Mike Reed, who had just retired. I’m sure you can imagine how that went. Hahaha!! 
Nevertheless, the business is thriving, and that is always a good thing, especially in these times, and especially when the business is just getting started. We are very happy for him in this new venture.
Sean is about to embark on another new venture…or maybe experience. He and my niece, Amanda Reed are about to become empty nesters, as their daughter, Jadyn Mortensen heads off to college in the fall. She won’t be so very far away, since she is going to the University of Wyoming, but for this close family, it is a bittersweet time. They are happy for their daughter and excited for her future schooling, but it will most likely mean that things in their home will never be that same again, and that is the bitter part. Sean and Amanda have spent the last 19 years building a 
beautiful life for them and their daughter, and they are very happy as a couple and as parents, so this change in their lives is a bit of a painful transition. Of course, it won’t be forever, but after several years of college, Jadyn will likely be ready to go out and start her own life, so in that way, it will likely never be the same. Still, it is time now for Sean and Amanda to begin a new chapter in their lives, and I know that this new chapter will be an exciting time, and it will be a rewarding time too. Today is Sean’s birthday. Happy birthday Sean!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
My grandniece, Zoey Iverson is a mature seven-year-old girl. It’s not a matter of seven going on thirty or anything, but rather a girl who has known all her life that those people she loves need her help, and she is ready, willing, and able to give that needed help. Zoey is one of the best “mommy’s helpers” around. When Zoey came into her mommy, Cassie Franklin’s life, Cassie was mommy to Lucas, a Down Syndrome baby, and while Lucas was doing well, he had so many things to learn, and that can be exhausting for a parent. Zoey instinctively saw that her mommy and brother needed a helper, and she knew that she was just the girl for the job. So, Zoey became her mommy’s assistant teacher and helper, and it is a role she continues to this day. To Lucas, she is assistant physical therapist, teacher, playmate, best friend, and the best form of encouragement. And with that Lucas thrived. Where he couldn’t walk before, he does now, and so many other skills have improved as well. Where some little girls are instinctively the “little mommy,” Zoey is so much more. It’s just a big part of her personality.
While Zoey is a great help to her mommy, she has other interests too. These days she is into tap dancing and had a performance recently at the fair in Powell. She and her classmates did awesome. I wasn’t able to be there, but thankfully her mommy is a photographer, and she takes great videos, so I got to watch. Zoey is a petite little girl, and so dance suits her perfectly. She is a natural dancer. Zoey always loved dancing around the house, and it makes her brother smile.
Zoey has been the little sister all her life, but the big news is that pretty soon she will also be the big sister. Zoey’s mommy, Cassie and her partner, Wesley Burr are having a baby soon, and in fact, they get to find out 
what they are having in about six weeks. I’m sure Zoey and Lucas are very excited to find out if they are getting a brother or a sister…as are the rest of us. I know that while her life is already busy these days, Zoey will be a great help with her newest sibling. She has aways had that natural instinct, and to have a new baby to hold and help care for will be just awesome. I am so excited for the whole family, and this new precious little life that is on the way. Things are sure getting exciting for Miss Zoey. Today is Zoey’s 7th birthday. Happy birthday Zoey!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
My grandniece, Raelynn Masterson is very smart, but she, like so many other people, is also timid and shy. Once she gets to know people, she does great, but it takes a little while to get comfortable with people. In the past, she wasn’t aways confident in her abilities, or in herself, but she is working on that. For one thing, Raelynn was never really good at cooking, but these days she is not only spending time in the kitchen with her mom, Dustie Masterson, learning to cook, but she is learning about nutrition, and how to better take care of her own body and health, which of course includes exercise and fresh air too.
Raelynn has also been stepping outside of her comfort zone to make so new friends and hang out with them. The social aspect of things hasn’t always been easy for her, and like many people, when Covid hit, being on lockdown made the social interactions hard, and many people just started leading online lives. Stepping back 
out, or stepping out for the first time, is not easy, and I’m very proud of Raelynn for pushing herself to be more of a joiner.
Raelynn likes to write stories and develop characters for her stories. The friends she has made have similar interests, and they like to bounce ideas off of each other concerning their stories and characters. Sometimes it’s a big help to brainstorm together about what you want to do with a story or character. Also, every character needs a backstory. They need to have come from somewhere, and that isn’t always easy to develop or to make interesting. Raelynn is also into art and uses her drawings to illustrate her stories. Raelynn says that using her drawings in her stories “makes it easier for me to visualize that character and what they would do so I draw them at least once and then maybe later in a scene I wrote them in.” She doesn’t necessarily think she is very good, but I think that she is doing very well, and as with any skill, practice makes perfect. She knows that too. She is ok with the progress she has made. She obviously hasn’t seen anything I can draw, or she would really understand that she is leaps and bounds ahead of my skill level.
Raelynn may have held herself back in her earlier years, with shyness and a lack of confidence, but she is breaking out of that shell now, and like with any caterpillar, we are seeing the beautiful butterfly emerging. Raelynn has always been a beautiful girl, whether she knew it or now, but as she becomes more and more social, more people are able to see what we all saw…just how beautiful she is, inside and out. Today is Raelynn’s 19th birthday. Happy birthday Raelynn!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
On July 26, 2022, my nephew, Riley Birky and his partner, Sierah Martin welcomed their new little son, Ryder Scott Birky into the world. Already the parents of Sierah’s son Jace, they now have a new addition to their little family. Jace is so excited to have a baby brother, and he can’t wait for Ryder to be old enough to play with him. Jace has been an only child for a while now, so having a full-time friend is a really big deal, and Jace is determined to be the best big brother ever.
Little Ryder was born at 9:48pm and weighed 7 pounds exactly. He is 18 inches long. His daddy, Riley was there to assist in his natural delivery, and his mommy, Sierah was a champion throughout the whole process. Sierah and Riley are already experienced parents, and good ones too. Having a second child is the next logical step in their lives, and they have been excitedly awaiting the glorious day, when their precious new addition would make his appearance. Ryder is a sweet natured little boy, just like his mommy. Sierah doesn’t let things get to her much. She has a calming effect on her whole family, and I think that is probably what drew Riley to her in the very beginning…along with the fact that she is a beautiful girl.
Riley’s mom, Rachel Schulenberg passed away January 19, 2021, and I am sad that she did not live to see her new grandson, but I know that she is in Heaven, and I know that she is rejoicing over this new family that her 
son, Riley has gained. I know that she has always loved her son very much, and that she is filled with joy over the direction his life is going. I can actually hear her excited voice saying, “Look at my son!! He’s a daddy now!! And look at my brand-new grandson, his mommy, and big brother!! Isn’t he just beautiful!!” I know that Rachel is already in love with little Ryder. She is one proud mom and grandma. Congratulations to Sierah, Riley, and Jace, on your wonderful new son and brother, Ryder!! We love him already!!
My grandniece, Siara Olsen met Chris Kirk in early September of 2021, when she boldly went up to him in the local Loaf and Jug convenience store in Casper, and told him that she liked his freckles. She started calling him her “Loaf and Jug Boyfriend” that very day. How could he resist that?? The year prior had been the hardest year Siara had ever faced, and when she met Chris, her joy returned. She once again became the happy girl we had always known and missed very much. I won’t go into the sadness of the prior year, because this story has a happy ending, and I will focus on that. Chris has the ability to put a smile on my grandniece’s face, and in my book that makes him a great guy. Chris fits well into Siara’s family, and she fits well into his. Theirs is going to be a wonderful and exciting future.
Siara and Chris have so much in common. They are both very athletic, and love doing te same activities. The 
first pictures I saw of them together, believe it or not, they were doing a couple’s workout, and it was obvious that they were “head over heels” in love with each other. You never saw a picture of them where they weren’t smiling…unless they were making a face for the camera. They love to joke around, and their happiness just flows out of both of them.
Siara has long been a fitness buff, and Chris either is too, or he has become one since meeting her. They like to go hiking with Siara’s brother, Jake Harman, his wife, Melanie, and their kids, Alice, Izabella, and Jax. A favorite spot is the Bridle Trail on Casper Mountain. I like to say that families should work toward staying fit together, because it makes for a long and happy life. Hiking and hanging out with her brother’s family also gave everyone a chance to get to know Chris, and they all liked him too. Siara is close to her brother and his family, so that was important.
Chris surprised Siara when she had her back to him and he dropped to one knee, just as she turned around. His proposal was sweet and beautiful, and Siara was swept off her feet. I couldn’t say it better than she did, in her own words, “Turning around to you down on one knee asking me if I trust you with my life and my heart it was so easily a yes, but you asking me if I would marry you was the easiest yes of all! Our souls are so deeply connected through God already, but this makes it mean so much more. I love you more than anything, Chris Kirk!” It makes everyone in Siara’s family so happy to see these two tie the knot today. I wish you both all the love and happiness in the world. Congratulations Siara and Chris!! We love you both!!
My grandnephew, Dylan Herr who is owner operator of the local Red Wing Shoe store, as well as several in Colorado. Recently, he posted a really cool video showing how work shoe soles are attached to the shoe. I thought the video was quite interesting, and we had a short conversation about it, in which he further explained the process and the fact that while the needle is pretty strong, the needle must be replaced every three days to a week. Then he added that the time frame depends on how good the operator is. I figure they would have to replace the needle several times a day, if they made the mistake of letting me try it, hahahaha!!
While Dylan’s business is work shoes, he also likes to play golf. In fact, golf is Dylan’s passion, and he is teaching their 
two-year-old son, Max how to play. Dylan’s wife, my grandniece, Katy Herr tells me that Max is getting pretty good, and in fact, Max already has a better swing than she does! Well, I can tell you that Max’s swing would be better than my swing too, because the people behind me are the ones in danger when I try to play golf, hahaha!! Dylan, however, is really good, and he has been playing in a lot of golf tournaments this summer. Dylan has also joined a basketball league this summer through the YMCA. He has really enjoyed that.
Dylan and Katy bought a house a while back, and Dylan has been busy taking care of the yard and making their home beautiful. He stained the fence the other day and fixed their garage door that randomly broke the other day! Ahh, the joys of home ownership!! Dylan doesn’t 
mind the work to make their home nice, because he is a dedicated husband and dad. Dylan loves to take his family out exploring the area, and of course, his son Max is his exploring buddy. They go everywhere together…shopping for home improvement supplies, checking out the rocks near a creek, seeing the beautiful colors of Wyoming, or just hanging out on the front porch. Dylan is also a great husband to Katy. They are so in love and so happy. I love seeing the smiles on their faces. They are a perfect couple…soulmates for sure, and that makes their families very happy too. Today is Dylan’s birthday. Happy birthday Dylan!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
When my parents got married, it was not uncommon for there to be a number of years difference in ages. My mom’s parents were sixteen years different in age, and my parents were twelve years different in age. The first time Mom met Dad, she was a starry-eyed girl looking at a very handsome man for the first time, but somehow, she knew that he would be the one, and so he was. Of course, it would be a number of years later that they would actually marry, because she had some growing up to do. Nevertheless, she was just 17 years old when they did get married.
They took a honeymoon that took them to their new home in Superior, Wisconsin, and just ten months later they were new parents to Cheryl. Life was good. Mom was making new friends in her new home, mostly Dad’s family, which was fine, because she was a bit shy. In fact, her family has always been her friends, along with a couple of close girlfriends. She liked it that way. Better to have a close circle of friends and family, than a world of acquaintances. The years that followed brought four more daughters, Caryn (me), Caryl, Alena, and Allyn…in fairly close succession. The years also brought a move back to Mom’s hometown of Casper, Wyoming, because she really missed her family…Mom had six sisters (Evelyn 
Hushman, Virginia Beadle, Delores Johnson, Bonnie McDaniels, Dixie Richards, and Sandy Pattan), and two brothers (Larry Byer and Wayne Byer). Being used to a big family with lots of activities and comradery, Mom had really missed her childhood home, but she also, always missed the family and friends she left behind in Superior, Wisconsin too. Dad missed his family too, but he knew that his bride needed to be close to her family, so he brought her home.
My parents’ story is a true love story, filled with respect for each other, and working toward a common goal. Their favorite place to be, was together. While they loved to travel, it really didn’t matter where they were, as long as they were together. Their life was their family, kids and grandkids. They rejoiced over each and every one of us. When the grandchildren, great grandchildren, and even great great grandchildren began to arrive they were reminded that these were the rewards of long life, and they knew that they were very blessed. They always taught their family to love the Lord, and to have faith in Him, no matter what the circumstances looked like. They taught us that God could always make a way, even when there seemed to be no way. They gave us 
strength to go on, even when things seemed to be falling apart…not that our lives fell apart much. We really did lead blessed lives, and I think it was the teachings of our parents that made that possible. I am so grateful for the parents that God blessed me with. While there is no marriage in Heaven, I know that they are celebrating the children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great great grandchildren that were born into their earthly marriage and having a blessed day.
