MY TRIP TO EUROPE WITH MY MOTHER

This will mostly be a lot of reading on your part because the pictures we took were not very clear and it gives the impression Europe is a dark and dreary place which is not true, so just bear with me, over the next 2 or 3 days and I will tell you all about a month in 12 different countries, and we only got lost from each other 1 time.

It all started out in May of 1982 when I went with Mom to her "Daughters of the Utah Pioneers" meeting, where she was giving the history of her grandfather Mads C. Anderson, which I had written for her. After the meeting was over a lady came up and told her "how she had enjoyed her history and how her own mother had always wanted to go to Denmark and visit with her relatives that she had never met, but she had died, and how she and her sister had taken the insurance money her mother had left and made a trip to Denmark. They had really enjoyed the trip and had met these same relatives."

She said more but it is not important. I went home fuming! I was so angry because it wasn't she and her sister that had wanted to go to Denmark, it was her mother that wanted to go and all she got to do was pay for their trip. Anyway I think Kent just got tired of my complaining and fuming because he said "I'll tell you what, tell your brothers and sister to be a little generous with gifts to your mother, and make them cash and I'll pay for her and your plane trips over and back next year."

The next Sunday, Gary & Gwen, Dennis & Milly, Pat and Kent & I were all out to Mom and Dads for dinner and I posed this same thing to all of them. Gary and Dennis both said they would pay 1/2 of her Eurail Pass and Pat said she would give her $1,000.00 (she had just sold her mobile home and got that amount over what she had expected), so why did we have to wait until next year? Why couldn't we go as soon as we could get our passports? The very next day we went down town to fill out the applicatiions for our passports and go to Murdock Travel Bureau to make arrangements for our trip which was going to be within the next couple of months. Mont and Mike each gave her some cash and she had a little bit saved so we had plenty of money for moderate hotel rooms and meals if we kept to a budget.

On about July 20, 1982 we enplaned for Europe with Dennis shaking his head and saying "you girls are going to get lost" and my replying "you can't be lost if you don't know where you are going". The country we went into 1st was Bergen, Norway, and this is where we learned our most valuable lesson of all time in traveling. We went from the airport to the train station and there was some people from somewhere in the U.S.A. that told us of this neat plan. NEVER TAKE YOUR LUGGAGE OUT OF THE TRAIN DEPOT until the day you are going back home and have to transfer it from the train station to the airport. have a backpack or a couple of cloth carry on bags you can carry all the time, put a couple of changes of clothes in there and transfer all your bags a couple or three days down the line. Since we could see our luggage as a big big problem we decided to try it. We just transfered our luggage to Copenhagen, Denmark after taking 2 days worth of clothing and 4 days of underwear out and putting in our little carry ons. We decided we could just wash out our blouses at night and get several days wear out of them. We just needed a small bottle of laundry detergent which we picked up a local market. We ended up doing this all the way to Frankfurt, Germany and it worked just great. We would just get to the train station, take out our luggage, put in our dirty clothes and any thing we had bought along the way take out clean clothes and ship them on to the next destination 3 or 4 days hence.

Right up front I will tell you that food was very expensive over there, and we even had a way of saving something there. We always checked into hotels that had breakfast served with the room, I suppose they were the typical bed and breakfast inns. All but a very few had very sufficient breakfasts and we would just keep our great big hard rolls and some cheese and put in our carry on bags and eat for lunch and then all we had to do was buy our dinner.

The countries we traveled through and usually spent at least one night was Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Luxemborg, France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, many we spent 2 or 3 nights and flew back out of Frankfurt, Germany. Stay with me until tomorrow and I will take you on some experiences we had in Europe.

GREAT GRAND CHILDREN ALL

Tyler Butehorn - Youngest picture I have of him

Kyle Litton Priest Youngest picture I have of him

Kody Litton Priest Youngest picture I have of him

Taylor Priest- Birth

Aspen Priest - Blessing

Molly Jan Broadhead - Blessing

Ryley Jade Hudson Birth

Carter Matthew Priest - Birth

GREAT GRAND CHILD #5

Aspen Priest was born March 14, 2004, to Brooke and Matthew Priest at Salt Lake City. (Brooke is a daughter to Charles Burnside). Aspen is the active one of the girls of their family, she loves to be out running around and playing and being active more than sitting down and looking at books or anything.

GREAT GRAND CHILD #4

Taylor Priest was born September 11, 2002 to Brooke and Matthew Priest at Salt Lake City, Utah. (Brooke is the daughter of Charles Burnside). She truly is her mommy's little helper, anything that Brooke is doing, Taylor is right there to help her. She is the designated helper for her little brother Carter, and sister Aspen. She loves nice things like princess' and ladies in waiting would want. She loves pretty clothes and looking like a princess herself.

GREAT GRAND CHILD #3

Kody Litton Priest born April 29, 2000, to Brooke and Shaun Litton at Salt Lake City, Utah. (Brooke is the daughter of Charles Burnside). He is the tough and tumble guy, likes all aspects of everything rough, like war heros, football, baseball, fake guns, getting down and wrestling with anyone that will wrestle with him. Absoluetly loves water fights.

GREAT GRAND CHILD #2

Kyle Litton Priest born June 11, 1998, to Brooke and Shaun Litton at Salt Lake City, Utah. (Brooke is the daughter of Charles Burnside). He loves dinosaurs, star war figurines, and all aspects of nature. Of course with his age growth now, he has probably gotten into a lot of things that I do not know about. He has reached that age when they don't like the older women to kiss and hug them any more. He still has to hug me when he sees me though, which is real nice and I hope continues for at least a little while longer. He is very protective of his little brothers and sisters as he should be.

GREAT GRAND CHILD #1

Tyler Butehorn, born 22 of September, son of Shane and Amanda Butehorn (Amanda is the daughter of Bret Burnside), they are now living in Draper, Utah.

I do not know a lot about Tyler as I do not see him that often but I do know that he is a very nice, well behaved boy, and fun to be around. I understand he travels from Draper to Alpine to attend School each day

MESSAGE TO JOED

I really enjoyed your waterfalls in Kentucky yesterday, you should do more of that sort of thing. You know there are a lot of us that will never get to those parts of the country that you are going through and seeing some pictures or hearing of your trips is something we enjoy. Do more of them for us! Love ( but not necessarily more then KayCee), (but not necessarily less than KayCee) Grandma

Me with my oxygen tank, taken at Chuck-O-Rama in Orem

YUP, THIS IS THE ONE! Kent Broadhead

This picture was taken at JorJa & Jacob's wedding, it probably is the closest thing to a professional picture we have had taken in years, at least we both look pretty good on it. Don't we? Kent is retired so we just stay at home and do the little mundane things around the house like reading, working on the computers, go to doctors, don't get up very early in the mornings, eat "easy to fix meals", don't worry too much about a little dust on the furniture. We can't travel very much because of my Oxygen thing 24/7. I do make tank covers for the UGLY, DIRTY tanks I get. I've made about 24 for myself plus given a few away to other people the same reason. (If you get lemons, make lemonade). I'll put a picture of me with my oxygen on just to show you but I hate having my picture taken with it on.

Pajama Party

I wore these pajamas to two different things on many different occasions. The first was to our pajama parties, we would meet at a restuarant at about 9:30 a.m. and have a brunch which would have been set up ahead of time, one of the places we went was to Marie Calanders and they had a nice brunch. Number two was to the fashion show we used to participate in. We would just walk across the stage or room and there would be an announcer telling all about us. About me in my pajamas she would say, "Connie would call Betty in the middle of the night and say we have to go for ice cream, I can't sleep, I'll be there in two minutes. Well, Betty had to be ready to go at a minutes notice so this is how she slept as there would be no bedraggled pajamas going out of this house.

VICTORIAN TEA

This was held at "Hansen House" in Sandy, Utah and it was especially nice. I attended 2 years in a row, 2006 & 2007. It was set up where there were only 12 people invited, this is all the room they have, it is held in a museum that I had no idea even existed and yet I passed every day of my life when I lived out there. In addition to serving dinner and it was nice, the lady in charge gave us a history of the house and its owners and told of their journey to the valley, their marriage and family, and finally how the house became a museum.

I am more like these two old red hatters, shopping till they dropped.

I love "Betty Boop" in her red hat. Don't you?

EASTER BONNET

This was the assigned "Easter Bonnet" project for April 2007, make an Easter Bonnet from a lamp shade and be prepared to wear it to a restuarant the day after Easter. Since it was in April, my birthday month, when you are supposed to wear purple hats and red clothing on your birthday month, I went over to the D.I. and looked for a small lamp shade, this one was an ugly black one that I got for 25 cents. I came home and wound some purple clothe around it, glued some red stuff around the top and some beads around the bottom, bought a bunch of purple flowers to put in the middle and tied a purple bow on to keep it on my head. Some of those ladies had some really spectacular hats on, I think they should go into the hat making business. When I was coming out of the restuarant the wind was blowing so hard it was blowing the hat off so I took it off and the flowers went blowing down the road, well I was not going to go running after them so it is now topless.

They were having a Birthday Party for the Red Hatters out at Gardner Village and they could only accomadate 250 ladies from the whole state. I didn't get my money paid in early enough so I just plain missed out. Then a couple of weeks before the party I was told a lady from Ogden wasn't going to be able to come and I could have her ticket if I wanted it. Well Naturally, I wanted it so I had to hurry and get me a costume rigged up. The theme was going to be "The 50's" so I looked on the internet and decided on the poodle skirt and saddle shoes, so then I ordered them all on the internet and waited and waited. Nothing came and no word. I got very nervous. Finally I called the company I had ordered them from and they couldn't find the order so they would have to call me back, to make a long story short, they found the order and was going to ship it that day which would take at least 3 days. Well, I finally got the order and the crinolyn slip needed to be pressed as well as the skirt and the slip took me 2 full days to iron. Boy was I right down to the wire. Anyway I went to the party and had a nice time. They served hamburgers and french fries and coke in bottles and had chocolate cake for dessert. There was an Elvis impersonator and they had a twist contest and several other thing that was popular in the 50's.

The (Witches Tea) was held for Halloween 2006, it was held at the Senior Center and it was a pot luck, we invited another group of ladies called the "M & M's" they are from Majestic Meadows. Everyone that had on a costume paraded around the room and the judges told who the 5 were to go around again and then the winner was named. My goodness, it was me! Please note that my tank is also decorated like a witch. The prize was a witch riding on a broom that you hang on your light switch or door knob or whatever.

This is my red hat entry into the parade at Scofield. I just went up prepared to be in the ugly hat contest, but when they all saw me they wanted to make a float out of the little cart that they take the garbage to the garbage dump in. They decorated it with flags and banners and had a name on both sides that said "Miss 4th of July" and it was pulled by a 4x4 driven by Karen Daniels (Mike's wife) and had a helper (Pat Daniels). We just cruized along throwing candy and waving (I learned how to do the queen's wave in a parade) to the spectators. I got a lot of hand clapping and even a few whistles. The only problem with being in the parade was, we were directly behind the horses, well guess what? This is not a good place to be! I didn't win any prizes in the parade but got the distinction of being in my first parade, ever.

WARNING

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple, with a red hat which doesn't go and doesn't suit me, and I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves, and satin sandals, and say we have no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired, and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells, and run my stick along the public railings, and make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain, and pick flowers in other peoples gardens,and learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat, and eat three pounds of sausage at a go, or only bread and pickles for a week, and hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry, and pay our rent and not swear in the street, and set a good example for the children.

We will have friends to dinner and read the papers, but maybe I ought to practice a little now? So people who know me are not so surprised, when I start to wear purple.

This was the first of many of my red hat days. You can see even my tank has a red hat on, also I want to mention the other lady in the picture sitting behind me is 102 years old. The outing that first day was a picnic in the park and we all brought "pot-luck". It's amazing how you can have a pot-luck and get a variety of things you need, seldom are you ever disapointed.

The way this whole thing started, was I was invited over to Joyce Pollack's home for dinner one night, it was for Teri Sheppard's birthday. Teri is my Visiting Teacher, she also is the wife of our current bishop. Well, we were just sitting there eating and talking and Connie Edholm said "Betty I see you know how to get your food from your dish to your mouth so that makes you eligible to be in the Red Hat Society". I then said "I'm what"?

I was then told what the Red Hat Society was, ladies OVER 50 YEARS OF AGE going out and enjoying themselves, having fun, doing things they might not have gotten away with 10 years ago, eating dessert first if that's what you want to do, wearing clothes just not accepted like red and purple together. We go to luncheons at affordable restuarants, go to movies over at the Senior Center (where the meetings are held), go on outings such as to the museums or do carriage rides, have pajama parties (meet at a restuarant at about 9:30 a.m. in our pajamas for brunch), or be in parades. Just plain doing fun things. I will find the official poem for the Society and post it later.

WHAT ARE MY BLESSINGS?

My family are "MY BLESSINGS" but do you know what, I don't want to just have my family in here. SO:

These are the latest of my many blessings, they are the ones that happened last year for all intent (2007). I will be adding something about each of my grandchildren and great grandchildren as time goes on, but right now I just wanted to do the latest ones. I have a bunch to report on, I think there are 30 members in our immediate family right now.

All of you must remember I am not young and frisky, I am old and decrepit, I just WISH I was young and frisky. So maybe I will put some pictures of my Red Hat Activities in next. maybe some of you will get a kick out of some of them.

Molly Jan Broadhead, born Oct 26, 2007 at St. George, Utah. She was 21 inches long and weighed 7 lb. 13 oz. and was born to Clint and Brielle Broadhead (Clint is the son of Craig Broadhead). If you would like to see a day to day growth of her, call me and I will give you their blog name. It is very interesting and there are are some real cute pictures. She is about 4 months old on this picture.

Betty's Blessings

Carter Matthew Priest was born on February 6, 2007 at Salt Lake City, Utah, to Matt and Brooke Priest. Brooke is the daughter of Charles Burnside. Carter weighed 7 lbs.12 oz. when he was born. He is about 10 months of age on this picture. I will be adding more about the other grandchildren and great grandchildren later.

Riley, her father Chad and his mother.

Another Great Grandchild

Riley Jade Hudson was born to

Kelly Ann Burnside and Chad Hudson on February 20, 2007 at Las Vegas, Nevada. She weighed 7 pounds 5 ounces and was 20 inches long. Kelly is the daughter of Bret Burnside. This picture was taken when Riley was about 10 months old

Latest Additions

JORJA & JACOB
JorJa Burnside (Charlie's daughter) and Jacob Mattson were married on December 29, 2006 at the Timpanogas Temple. He is from Vernal, Utah. They met while attending some of the same classes at the University of Utah. She is currently a senior in Civil Engineering (taking after her grandfather Kent)and will graduate in May. He is a junior in Electrical Engineering. He claims "she is a lot more intelligent than he" but I doubt that because they both get excellent grades on their tests. They really are meant for each other, they both like to do the same things, like bike riding, snow and water sking, camping, hiking, all the things that you do when you love the outdoors.