April 29

I think I already mentioned how we would just pull over somewhere and eat meals out of our van when we were traveling. I don't know where this particular picture was taken.


This is a view from the Alhambra, looking out onto Granada, actually the tour that I went on with Grandma Farrer and Daddy.


Dry fields


This slide is labeled as "downtown Cartagena, but I'm not sure if it's really Cartagena, or if it's a view of La Manga.


Dia de brujos. I remember that I was much too old and sophisticated to dress up for this holiday........ I was actually pretty sad. I do remember that it wasn't the same day as our Halloween, but I can't remember when it was. Mommy had to be pretty creative, considering the fact that we hadn't packed Halloween costumes. Jacob was a football player (Riley Nelson got a kick out of this picture, with the Hawaii team still being the Rainbows, since they're now the Warriors?, Elizabeth was a flapper, Mary was a flamenco dancer, Maggie was a baby, and Mark was a surfer, right? Did you guys go trick or treating? Or were there just school carnivals? Jenny

I was in a program of some sort at my school, and I danced the flamenco (or sevillana, or some watered-down version of something) with a blonde boy from my class. One of the teachers or someone gave me the dress to use, then agreed to let me keep it, since it looked so cute and would be a good recuerdo. She also gave me some little plastic castinets that I had for a while after coming home, but finally threw away because they were pretty useless. Mary

I don't remember having a school party for "Dia de Brujas" but I seem to remember a branch party. That is one thing I miss about overseas wards and branches, that they would think of any reason to get together and party, whereas here in the United States we have our quarterly ward parties and think that is enough socializing. Anyway, I remember that we wore the costumes to the church because I yelled at one of the Sister Missionaries for not dressing up in honor of the occasion and she pointed out that she was wearing her companion's name tag, and had come as the other sister.

Maggie

This is the view down the street Alfonso XIII (trece) from the school where Daddy worked. It was a couple of blocks from my school and every once in a while I would walk there and get a ride home from him. There was a kid in my class, Francisco, who took classes there and I could just walk with him. Daddy wasn't his teacher though. It was an English school, and the two memories I have of Daddy's job were that we went there once or twice and watched really old movies in English- The Sound of Music, I think, and something else. And also that he was trying for most of the year to compile a list of English sayings for his boss and the other teachers to use, so every once in a while one of us would come up with one and run to him saying, "What's good for the goose is good for the gander!" Except I don't think we all used that one......
Jenny

I remember going somewhere and watching movies in English. One of the movies that we watched was a mystery or something and it scared me for years afterwards, because one of the victims died with his eyes open. I didn't know that was possible. Mary


I do not know what this is. But it reminded me of the fact that buildings that obviously have some kind of history behind them were just scattered around in Europe. There would be old crumbly castles that it seemed no one paid attention to- where we thought they were the neatest thing. People just build houses and stores right next door and just lived with scenes like this in their backyards. Jenny


Daddy near hedge arch- I think this was on the trip with me and Grandma Farrer.


Jacob and Mary near hedges in the Alhambra gardens


Daddy and the kids on one of the beaches near Cartagena? I think it's one of the two that I always get confused, the Christmas tree one and the switchback one. There was also one where the missionaries once baptised someone, but this doesn't look like the right one. Jenny

Sorry, Jenny, I'm not remembering much this week. The picture of the four younger kids standing next to Daddy on the beach made me think about how Jenny and Mark did not really like to be in the pictures in Spain. They would either get out of being in the shot entirely or would make funny faces at the camera. Mommy would get mad and yell at them. I am guessing that Jenny and Mark were both there that day but did not want to be in the picture. I also think it was when we first got to Cartagena, since my hair had not been chopped off yet. I think Mommy took me to the barber a month or so into our stay and had them cut my hair short.

Maggie

April 22

This is the beautiful churches episode of the slide show, with a little "Maggie's concert" thrown in.


This is Maggie's concert. She'll need to do the remembering.

The program that I have in my scrapbook says that the choir was an all-school choir. I remember that my teacher was the director, so I had thought it was just for my class. Now that I think about it, it seems like he thought it would be a big coup to have an american singing in their choir, and talked me into joining it. The program also says it was sponsored by the "Concejalia de Educacion". Maggie

This is the front of the Ayuntamiento, or city hall.





I think this is in the south of France near the Spanish border. We saw in on our way to tour Italy and Switzerland in the furgoneta. Dad


View from the top of the Cathedral in Murcia.
You can see the rounded top of the facade in the background.

Dad






I think this is that building in Seville that I already mentioned Daddy told us that part of Lawrence of Arabia was filmed there.. Mary and Elizabeth are chasing the birds.




A scene along the highway in Andalucia when we went down there for the Christmas Holidays. Dad


I think this is in France near Chartres. Dad


Our completely home-decorated Christmas tree. This is taken from the middle of our living room. THis is where Mark would slide in on his stockinged feet as if possessed and assume the role of Dangerous Dan? Disco Dan? Whenever he heard the song "You Won't Go To The Ball" by Simply Red? The Communards? He would dance a smooth disco. (Jenny)

I seem to remember making sucker angels for the tree but I can't see them in the picture. Am I remembering a different year, or had we all eaten the suckers by the time the picture was taken?

Maggie

Christmas morning. My Christmas memory is that Mommy and Daddy told us that we wouldn't get very much for Christmas and that we could ask for one small thing. So there was a two-tape collection of all of the songs that had been popular that year that I thought would be great to have and bring home to show everyone the popular songs of Spain and I asked for that. And I remember we were on our last shopping trip and I kept reminding Mommy and Daddy and they kept saying that they just didn't know, it was probably a little too expensive... (about $12) and then Daddy ended up having to leave the rest of us to go look for Mark because we could find him and I had a really big meltdown crying about how it wasn't fair, that was the only thing I wanted, boo hoo, and finally Mommy got angry and said, "Oh for heaven's sake, we got you the tapes but we thought you would want to at least have a little surprise about it on Christmas morning, but no, now you know exactly what you're getting, are you happy?" And I wasn't. They were right. They always are. I would have rather been surprised but I ruined it myself with my whining. (Jenny)

I remember that I got a little basket sewing kit for Christmas. Mommy was always embroidering the pillowcases that she had taken with her and I was always asking to help so she got me my own sewing box and she let me cut up the underwear that the younger girls and I had outgrown and make clothes for the Barbie Dolls. She told me to be especially careful with the box, becuase it had cost more than she had budgeted to spend, and I had better appreciate it. I still have the box, it holds all my recuerdos from Spain, my S pin from high school and my Miss Spring City sash.

I also remember that Grandma sent us Multicultural Barbies for Christmas and the one she found for me was a Spanish Flamenco Dancer. Mommy would not let me play with it, since it was so nice looking and I remember being angry about that, but since I still have the doll, and it still looks nice and new, I have to agree with her.

Maggie

I got a mom and baby Barbie from Grandma and Grandpa Farrer. We took our presents to the branch Christmas party to put under the tree for decoration and one small portion of the paper from my present was scratched, so I also know that the box was baby blue with tiny pink hearts. I was a little upset that my Barbie was a mom, because I guess that didn't fit the image that I had of Barbie.

In the stairway picture, Maggie is wearing a purple jacket. Elizabeth and I had matching jackets, too, one pink and the other blue. Because of hand-me-downs, I had all three, so I can't remember whether my original jacket was pink or blue. Bizzie might remember which hers was.
Mary Jane






Cathedral in Murcia- at least that's what the slide said. No memories here, although I'm pretty sure that's me in the pinkish orange next to Mark in the yellow and Jacob in the blue and gray in front of the fountain. (Jenny)

Don't remember much about the churches. I do remember getting frustrated and mad at Mommy and Daddy that we had to stop and see EVERY single church in Europe (or so it seemed). Maggie

April 15

This is a view of the port of Cartagena from up on the atalaya.


Just an idea of how busy the port was.

It was always Jacob and my goal to walk all the way down to the dock. I bet we started out about twenty times thinking we would get there, only to get distracted by something interesting on the way. Finally, a month or two before we came home, Daddy walked with us and we walked all the way down. (Maggie)

These were the missionaries that were called from the branch while they were there. Ana Robles was really really nice and sweet. Ma Carmen was the one who gave us the Christmas tree. She was a really nice friend to me. She ended up marrying someone here in the US and we went to her wedding reception in Provo? Alfonso was really really nice to us too. One of the first weeks we were there he asked me "Que tal?" and I had no idea what he was asking me- What what? He had to explain to me what it meant and how you answered someone who said that. He's also one of the first people who tried to give me a besito and I thought- "Woah!" I think he had to explain that to me too, because his English was pretty good. Poor Alfonso. All my memories of him are of confusion. He and Ma Carmen were dating before they went on their missions. Ana Granados, if I remember correctly, was in the Primary and had a strong personality. (Jenny)

I remember going to Mari Carmen's wedding in Provo, and that we went to Sizzler as a family afterwards. We didn't go out to eat much, so that was a pretty big deal. We were all in our dresses, so Mommy didn't want to take us to McDonald's. I vaguely remember the reception itself and that I was excited to see Mari Carmen, but I don't really have any memories from Spain of her. (MJ)




A front view of our house. The kids are in Mommy and Daddy's bedroom window. The other window is that of the living room. You entered a long hallway before getting to the living room. There was a living room and a family room, and kitchen, a garage, and a patio and a really big bathroom/laundry room on the first floor. On the second floor there was another bathroom and four bedrooms. Also, on the second floor, but accessible from the patio, was a terrace. We used to always know when the landlord was visiting because of the special way he rang the doorbell, which was actually out on the gate and not on the house- he would push it four or five times in a row and we would all panic and start cleaning like crazy! He liked to visit us occasionally because he couldn't believe that a family with six kids was actually going to leave his house intact. In fact, I think the story goes that when he found out there were six of us, he raised the rent. The mailman was also kind of funny- he wouldn't ring at all, he'd just open our front door and yell "Correo!" and throw our mail into our front hallway. We loved receiving mail, especially the magazines that Grandma Farrer sent us. She would sent Newsweek (or maybe we just subscribed to the International edition?) and Sports Illustrated, and then Bishop Sorenson, who was our Spring City postman at the time, would bundle up the church magazines and send them. Grandma used to go through the magazines and cut out the pages that were just advertisements so that it wouldn't weigh as much, and she would stick envelopes of Kool Aid and Ranch dressing mix in instead. We read everything in those magazines. We read everything we could in English. We even, eventually, read _Ishi, Last of His People_. I would probably like that book now, but for years it has been a metaphor for how desperate I was for English reading material that I would read _Ishi, Last of His People_. (Jenny)


I shared a room with Maggie, but at that point I still wet the bed often enough that after a while I stopped getting turns on the bed. I remember one distinct time that Elizabeth and I were playing in "her" room and we snuck around because we knew Jenny would freak out if she knew we were in there. I remember it being small with a bed against the wall and a largeish vanity.

When we watched TV in the family room, (which was in the back of the house?) seating was scarce, so once we got a seat in a chair or on the couch, if we had to get up and use the bathroom or get a drink, we always saved our place and no one else could take it while we were gone.
MJ

I know I was a gypsy of sorts when it came to which room I slept in. I was assigned to share with Jenny, but that didn't go over very well. For one, I remember our room was very small. Plus, for someone in high school to have to share a room with a six year-old... I often slept on the floor in MJ and Maggie's room on a mat that was red on one side and yellow on the other (I think). I remember one night that I couldn't get to sleep and Mommy told me to count to a thousand and I can clearly remember laying there on the mat counting for what seemed like ages. I eventually fell asleep.

Maggie referred to my run-in with the cactus on a previous post. I think I was sleeping in the boys' room because they had a black mosquito repeller that plugged into the wall (and I got so many mosquito bites it became a joke to count them...80, 81, 82...). While rolling over in my sleep I knocked over the cactus that was on their nightstand and subsequently rolled over on it. Mommy said I should be nicknamed "Dolores" and be wrapped up in cotton for how accident-prone I was.

Jenny used to paint her fingernails in very fancy ways, including having a different country flag painted on each fingernail.

The lower part of the back terrace had roses that smelled so lovely. Although I can't remember much from Spain, I can always remember that wonderful smell. It seems like there was a hose out there that we used to spray ourselves when it got too hot. I had a Barbie doll whose swimsuit matched mine, so when we would lay out on the upper terrace to dry off I put her next to me on my towel. Elizabeth

The balcony was off of the girls' room. I was supposed to share the room at the end of the hall, but I threw a stink and one of the little girls had to move in with the other two. I seem to remember that this all happened when Grandma and Grandpa Farrer were visiting us and I was in my room grumping and someone, either Grandma or Grandpa, felt sorry for me and slipped a chocolate bar under my door while I was crying. But it could have been one of the other numberous times that I was grumpy and weepy..... (Jenny)

I remember that Elizabeth had to move in with Mary Jane and me in our front bedroom. There was only room on the bed for two of us so we would take turns sleeping on the floor.

Once Elizabeth got tired of sleeping on our floor and decided to camp out on the boys floor and rolled into a cactus they had on their dresser and got prickles all over her skin.

Maggie

The historic hill in the middle of Cartagena that still had some Roman structures and mosaics and things as seen from the port of Cartagena.

I remember going down to the dock. I remember that there was a submarine or something that was on display in the middle of a park. (MJ)


This was our chapel. Some memories- the Spanish version of "I Stand All Amazed" had the melody in the left hand and the members had a hard time singing along, so Mommy started penciling in the melody in the right hand, but the hymn was incredibly popular and they sang it all the time and whenever we noticed we were singing it, Mommy would have us scramble around the chapel and try to find one of the hymn books that she had already written in. If we couldn't, she hurried and tried to write it in. Oh, yah, Mommy had to play the piano. (Jenny)

I may be way off on this, but I think the picture of the chapel is connected with the picture of the cake on the previous page. There was a woman named Pilar (I think her last name was Sanchez) and she had gone away. I don't think it was on a mission, maybe she went away to school. Anyway, she came back and the ward threw a party to welcome her home. Thus the Pilonga poster. She is the one holding the cake in the other picture. (Maggie)

I remember the stairway up to the chapel. Was there an elevator? That might be a different memory, but I vaguely remember that occasionally we got to ride up in the elevator, and that someone special had a key?

MJ



I'm pretty sure that this is a view of La Manga, Mar Menor and all of its hotels as you approached it from Cartagena.



The van next to a beach somewhere.


The van and us in a field, probably having a picnic. Actually, this may be southern France or Italy or Spain.

April 8

This is probably us sitting in the van by the side of the road somewhere, I'm not even sure it's Spain, but we're eating while sitting in the van, or while running around on the sides of the road. We did this all the time. Just bought supplies at a grocery store and then when it was noon, whatever road trip we were on, we just stopped and pulled out the picnic. Jenny

I'm pretty sure that the first picture was taken shortly after my attempted escape from the van as it careened down the road. I remember it seemed like everyone else was taking up all the space, so I was trying to find somewhere to sit. In my sulking, I leaned up against the door of the van and fell out. Mommy tells me that it was just after a rest stop or something so we weren't going very fast yet. Mark was listening to some headphones and he grabbed my arm so that my foot just barely dragged on the road for a few seconds. I had three little circles on my inner toe knuckles where the skin had rubbed off. I was so scared that Mommy let me sit in her lap for a while during the rest of the trip. I vaguely remember that we couldn't find a bandaid for my foot, but I may be wrong. I'm also thinking that it was on our way from Madrid to Cartegena the first time, but I don't know if that's right, either. I tried to show off the wound to some of my friends later, but it healed nicely, so I didn't have much to tell.(Mary)

I remember the handle of the sliding door for the van went down and forward, so we were just pulling out from stop and turning, and Mary was walking between the two seats and was thrown against the door, down and forward, so that opened the door and she fell out. Mark was a pretty big hero. We kept asking him to relive the moment when he knew Mary was in trouble..... From then on, Mommy and Daddy would lock that door while we were driving. I also remember that the first thing that someone said after we stopped the van, I could swear it was Mommy, was "Don't ANYBODY tell Grandpa Farrer about this!!" Jenny




This is the road that we lived on- Travesía de Larra. Jacob is posed stylishly on the road and you can see Mark? on the balcony and the other three girls are in the shadows. Jenny is probably sulking in her room. The plaza would be in back of this photo, to the right, and the elementary school was up the road to the right, and Mary's school to the left through a field. This was a really nice neighborhood with nice homes. Almost no one used their garage as a garage, so that's why the cars are parked out on the roads. Some converted them into stores, some just into other rooms. Our neighbors to the left, I went to school with their daughter Maria Dolores, had even closed in their patio to make more rooms. Daddy planted tomatoes in our little front garden and they did really well and Ma Dolores' dad always walked by and, if he didn't see anyone looking, he would inspect Daddy's plants and mutter under his breath about how on earth could he get them to grow so well? Jenny

As I looked at the picture of our street and read your commentary, I actually did remember the plaza where Elizabeth got her injury and the little tienda across the street. I also remember that Daddy and I had to cross a really busy street on the way to my school, and that there were always lots of snails oozing across the paths in the field beyond the street. (Mary)

I remember that there was a pomegranate tree in that field on the way to your school, too, and we were so amazed. We actually picked one off of the tree and ate it and told our friends about it excitedly and they were not really impressed.... it was probably like someone coming and bragging to us that they had just picked an apricot off the tree and eaten it. Right- we had a tienda across the street and a bakery at the top of the street. Which was, of course, supplemented by the bread guy who drove his van down and honked the horn and yelled through the blowhorn. There was also a little kiosko across the street on the way to Mary's school where we bought "polos", basically otter pops. My favorite flavor was "coco". And remember the story about how the Elders tried to come and visit us a month or two after we got there and they hired a taxi and got a little lost, so the taxi driver stopped a couple of streets over from ours and asked someone how to find Travesia de Larra and the person looked in the car and saw the American elders and said, "oh, you must be looking for the American family.." and he/she directed the taxi to right where we lived. Jenny

The thing I remember most about the Travesilla de Lara park is that the boys would alwasy be there playing futbol and that the benches surrounding the park would have piles and piles of "pipa" shells underneath them.
I remember that we had to cross a very busy street to get to school and Elizabeth was afraid to cross it by herself and one day we all assumed that someone else had walked home with Elizabeth and she was alone and wouldn't cross the street and a boy in my class finally noticed her and walked her home. I think another time when Grandpa Farrer was there he would go out and wait for us and cross the street with us, expecially Elizabeth.

Maggie

A cake that someone made for President Marmol. I only recognize Presidente Marmol and Pedro? in the greenish shirt at the very top left. Pedro married a sister missionary that had been there while we were there and I think everyone but me went up to their wedding a few years later. Jenny

I don't know. A building.

I can make out President Marmol on the left and maybe the Primary President, don't remember her name, in the center right? And Primary kids. Jenny

I think this is a photo of Mark's or Jacob's excursion. One of their classmates?

A family in our branch.

Another family in our branch- this is the girl, in the pink, who was never very nice to me. She and her best friend were very exclusive. They all had red hair and she used to tell us that that was much better than black or even blonde hair. Jenny

More branch beach activities with our furgoneta in the background.