10 Things About Me You Should Know

This post is part of iHomeschoolNetwork.com Top 10 in 10 Blog Hop.

All righty then, let's get up close and personal. Most of these things aren't at all important but I'm willing to share a few personal things about myself. I'm not sure they are things you 'should' know about me, but if you continue to read, you'll know them nonetheless :)

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First, I'm going to give you 10 quick facts about me and then tell you 10 other things along with short stories. 

1. I drink a Coke Zero almost everyday. I won't buy it and keep it in the house but I love it and it's my treat when I go out and run errands :)
2. I LOVE to read but have no time it seems. So I'm addicted to Audible.com. I get much more done around the house that way too.
3. I secretly want to know how to sew everything but can only sew a straight line. But that makes for some really cute rag quilts.
4. I have a maid... I don't know why this makes me feel bad. I guess I just feel like I can't keep up with everything and my husband allows me to have one come in to do the heavy cleaning.
5. I'm not a morning person or a night owl. I love sleep. But the older I get the later I'm up and the later 'want' to sleep in. I'm usually up by 7am though.
6. I'm a certified scuba diver and we go on at least one dive trip a year. We're going to Belize in 3 weeks with friends. We usually go with about 30 good friends.
7. I'm very ADD (not officially diagnosed or anything) and it makes me crazy. I feel like my thoughts are all over the place. It doesn't help that my husband is (unofficially) ADHD. Details drive us crazy.
8. Our house burned down in Dec. '07, my husbands parents home burned down about 15 years earlier, and my grandparents died in a house fire in '76... yeah, lots of fires.
9. You'll read about the size of my family growing up below but as a teen I would run about 7-8 miles every night just to have some time to myself.
10. We've had hundreds of pets over our married life. Yes, hundreds! The funny thing is, I never wanted pets at all.
11. I just have to add one more thing :) My husband and I met on a Friday the 13th and were married 6 months later to the day, on a Friday the 13th!

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Here's 10 more things about me in more detail.

{1}

My side of the family... my parents posterity!

I'm the 4th of 9 kids. My parents have been married for 51+ years. I have 5 brothers and 3 sisters: Steve, Cathy, Dave, Betsy (me), Debbie, Danny, Jenny, Bob, and Mike.  At my parents 50th wedding anniversary, Christmas '10, we had all but 2 members of the family come and there where 47 of us there (I believe), the youngest was only about 1 week old. Since then, there has been a couple additions to the family. My husband is also one of 9 children - the oldest. They also have 5 boys and 4 girls.

My awesome parents

{2} 

I'm not sure if this was my senior year,
but it was the scariest pic of myself
 I could find from that time! :)

Towards the end of my senior year in high school my dad told me he wasn't going to pay for my college education. Because he had paid for my older siblings, I assumed he'd pay for mine and it came as quite a shock to me. I had been excepted to both BYU and BYU Hawaii. I later learned from him it was because he didn't want me to leave home (yeah, a little selfish on his part, but I still love him - they relied on me a lot. I was the 4th but I was the oldest at home from the time I was 13). By the time I had enough money to attend BYU, I met my husband, put all my money towards his education, and was only able to take a few classes at our local community college before we got married. So no college degree for me. It was a huge sacrifice for me because I wanted it so badly but looking back now I wouldn't change a thing. My husband graduated from Chiropractic school at 23 and we purchased our practice when he was 26-27. Yes, we were very young when we married... he was 18 and I was 20.  But, we were able to get ahead sooner rather than later and that was a great benefit for our family. I know God had a plan for us and the money I had saved was much needed for my husband's education.  I'm planning to start school soon though. Why not? I have a lot more time on my hands with only 2 kids at home.

{3}

Grand Canyon about 2001, I'm guessing

Because I had very little college education, I felt I wasn't qualified to teach my children at home. My husband said I didn't have to teach them anything but how to be good Christians. Well, of course that wasn't going to work for me but I understood what he was saying. We've been homeschooling for 16 years and our 5 oldest have all attended college to some point. (More on that below) And, they are good Christian kids :)

{4}

Jon's the one wearing the yellow wooden shoes.

My daughter with one of the daughter's
of a family she was teaching. 

I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) or Mormon. Two of our kids are serving full-time missions. Our oldest daughter is serving in Leeds, England, teaching in Slovakian, and the young man we raised is serving in The Netherlands and Belgium, teaching in Dutch. Young Women serve for 18 months and can go when they are 21 and Young Men serve for 24 months and can go when they are 19. We are only allowed to talk to them on Mother's Day and Christmas during the time they are gone and only for about one hour each time.  Ali, my daughter, will be home February 14, 2013 and Jon will be home October 25 of this year. They email home one day a week and for both the kids that's Monday. I wake up at 3am every Monday morning so I can email back and forth with them for about an hour each. It's worth the lack of sleep to chat with the kids. Jon doesn't chat every week, but Ali and I do. It's a special thing for both of us. Because my kids serve missions, they put school on hold until they return. After Ali returns, she only has one semester before she'll receive her Bachelors in History. Jon has his generals plus a few additional classes completed.

{5}

As a member of the LDS church we do not have paid clergy. For this reason, we all work together as a congregation to give sermons to the congregation, teach Sunday school classes and other responsibilities. My 'callings', as we call them in our church, are teaching the 16-17 year old girls (we call this group the Laurels) and I'm also the sewing specialist, haha. I love teaching the girls! It's one of my favorite things to do at church. But, I don't REALLY sew, so that one is tricky for me. I'm learning though and that's good.

{6}

Just a random pic from my childhood. I'm the one on the left in the white shirt. When this was taken
my two oldest siblings were moved out. 

My real name is not Betsy... it's Elizabeth. Growing up, when my mother was angry with us she would call us by our full names. I guess I was a pretty good kid because I didn't know my full name until I was about 7 or 8 years old and my mom called me by my full name. I didn't know she was talking to me and just continued to do whatever it was she was not happy about (I believe I was chasing one of my younger siblings with a large bug). I was shocked to find out my real name was Elizabeth. Sometimes I can hardly believe that one myself, but it's true! My middle name is Louise and I always hated it but my oldest daughter's middle name is also Louise, so I got over it and she loves it :)

{7}

I've broken both my clavicle bones twice each. The first time I was about 3 and I was asleep against the car door and my little sister was asleep against me. My older brother opened the door and I fell out. I guess it was late at night, we were on vacation and my parents left it until morning. Of course, I don't remember this at all. The next time I was about 8 and I was swinging and jumped from the swing and landed on my shoulder. Six weeks later, when I was able to take that brace off, I rolled down a hill and broke the other side after a stick jammed into it. The last time I was 12. The same older brother that opened the car door broke another one but this time it was a little more intentional. My parents required each of us kids have paper routes growing up. My parents were out of town and the chain on my brother's bike was broken. He was 4 years older then me and he wanted to take my bike first and then I'd take it when he came back. I wasn't interested in that plan and like the loving brother he was at the time he pushed me on the ground and punched me on my shoulder. My then 18 year old sister didn't think there was anything wrong with me and made me do my route and my chores for the next 2 days while my parents were out of town. Let's just say a couple kids in the family were grounded after my parents returned home. :)

{8}

Speaking of paper routes, my dad started going through Chiropractic school when I was 8. He attended Palmer East in Davenport, Iowa. When we arrived he picked up a few paper routes and told the news paper that if any more came up in area, he'd take them. Well, in no time we had 20+ paper routes in two states. We would get up at about 4am and pass until about 7am. He had to drive us because the back of the car was literally stuffed full of papers and only one kid could go with him at a time but he'd wake up all the older kids to fold papers before we left.  I remember 2 different times that really stand out in my mind regarding passing the papers. The first is when my dad threw a paper through someone's window. He yelled at me and told me if I had done it he would have been really angry with me... okay, I thought! The second time we had had a little tornado come through town and there was a tree down in the road and it was huge. My dad expected me to get out (at age 10 mind you) and move that tree! I did try, I have to admit. My dad was a little stressed all the time going through school with, I don't know how many jobs, and 9 kids. Yeah, lots of fond memories passing newspapers!

{9}

Newspapers weren't our only source of income during that time. We also cleaned car dealerships after they closed. In those days, they closed around 9pm and we were allowed in about 10pm. So our schedule was very... well, not ordinary. After we passed papers for 3 hours in the morning we'd go to school and come home and take a nap for a couple hours. We'd wake up and do homework and have dinner and then sleep a couple more hours. We'd go clean until about midnight and then get up at 4am to fold papers and every other day I would pass with my dad... rain or snow but always in the dark. Some people wanted their papers in the strangest places which meant I had to get out of the car, in the dark, avoiding dogs and shadows to put that paper in their 'specially requested place'. Anyway, even though we worked really hard during those years, I actually do look back on it all with fondness. We truly worked together as a family to get my dad through school. And if we passed papers on Saturdays, dad would take us for a donut! When it was all said and done and he was making decent money he bought us all roller skates as a big thank you for all our help! Haha, I love my parents! 

{10}

Our family on vacation before Jon left for
his mission. With all the kids leaving
at some point, we knew this was most
likely our last vacation together
for a while. We love traveling!

Last by not least, I have the most amazing husband of 24 years and the most special children in the world. I've never in my life known a harder working man. He grow up well under the poverty level and has made so much of himself and provides so well for our family. HE DID BUILD HIS OWN BUSINESS!! (Getting a little political there, sorry) Anyway, he is so wonderful and my match in every way. I always encourage my kids to marry someone not only with the same moral values but someone who will teach them to be a better person and my husband has done that tenfold for me. As for my kids, I couldn't be more proud of who they are, how they live their beliefs and honor their word. The are all so talented in so many ways and sometimes I'm just amazed at who they are and that they're MY kids! They seem so much stronger than I was at their ages. They certainly have taught me more than I could have ever imagined. I know homeschooling them all definitely helped with that and also made us a closer family. I'm so proud of all of them. I'm an extremely blessed wife and mother to a loving family. I love my family with all my heart.

My husband and I earlier this Summer
during a trip to England.

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Like I mentioned above, I'm not sure these are things you NEED to know about me, but it's who I am and some of the stories made me who I am today. I could obviously tell many more stories and write about my family all day long. I look forward to reading about others experiences.

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This post is linked up at Top Ten Tuesday