Holland's Favorite Part of Grandma's "Flip"

The Mailslot

July 24th Party

It was July 24th last week, which marked our annual 'Burn down the neighborhood' party at Alan's. What you see in the video is about $200 in fountains going off while everyone is enjoying themsevles. What you don't see is the near catastrophe we avoided after putting out a fire across the street. Overall, a great time was had by all. Thanks TNT!

Bungalow Boogie

I hope you can get an idea of what the house looks like, post flip. It truly turned out lovely and I am thankful to Jason, Sara, Dad and even Jenna for sacrificing so much time and effort into making it look so gorgeous. The Open House was yesterday and it went very well. We had about 40 people come, besides the 50-60 people that came during renovation. Dad's good friend manages O'Dells so they offered to stage the living room and dining room and it truly added a lot. I got cookies from Broulim's and had pop and I think we did fairly well even though we were competing with the dance team parade and street vendors. (freakin dancers) We had two people actually say they would get an offer ready. So we are filled with faith, but a prayer or two could not be harmful from anyone either.

Jenna and the kids are spending their last week here, the time has gone too fast! Dad had his preschool retreat at Island Park last week, so that means summer is waning. Jeff is almost done with fireworks and Ashleigh got a new job working with a podiatrist as a reception. Congrats Ashy, hope it goes well. Bert & Tara recruited dad to help with the tiling job in their bathroom this weekend, so he will be spending the weekend there. I am leaving for Phoenix again this Sunday for another week of school. I can't wait and I need a definite break from all of the chaos here. Work is so, so busy. I must hire someone and yet am dreading turning my precious customers over to a stranger who doesn't do things the way I do them. I c-a-n-t- g-i-v-e u-p c-o-n-t-r-o-l!

Brandon & Anna apparently have been very busy showing Grant every museum, play place, zoo and children's extravaganza in Indy. My, they are busy and Grant is getting a very good education for his young age. Of course you all know by now that Jase & Sara are having a little girl, everyone needs to volunteer favorite names to them! They need advice from everyone! (Ha, Ha) Now what are Brett & Tara having? That remains to be seen. . .

My dad was out to supper tonight and is doing fairly well. Jeff volunteered to help him paint his fence and I'm sure Jeff thought Grandpa K would forget about that off the cuff mark, but oh no. Festivities begin on Aug 4 or thereabouts, ya'll come! I'll be in Phoenix, dang it!

The weather has been so hot for so long, it seems. I sweat continuously during my work so I've lost 10 pounds! I'll never catch up to Tara & Anna, but I'm trying. So that is about all. . .,

the whole house thing has been a very interesting chapter in our lives. I hope we sell quickly, for near our asking price. Love ya all, Ma Shirley

Latest pics

I got to go back to the white sands of New Mexico... Did you know that the longest tram in the world is in Albuquerque? I got to ride it! Jake actually stayed awake for most of the trip this year...

Ice Road truckers? Try white sands truckers...

Alan's new purchase? A side car motorcycle...

We rode off into the sunset...

Happy Birthday Conner!

Local 'family history nut' nabs 300th post

In a stunning turn of events, 'Wailin Gaylen' Shirley stepped into Jeff's limelight and stole the 300th post trophy right out from under him. Fresh off his Blog MVP press conference, Jeff decided to celebrate by leaving town, leaving the trophy up for grabs. Dad quickly swooped in, posting a remarkable 8 straight posts, leaving Jeff scratching his head as to how he allowed this to happen. "I'm speechless," remarked Jeff (holder of the 100th and 200th post trophies), who added, "I'd been watching the post count for weeks, and knew the trophy was mine for the taking. Dad surprised me, I never knew he had it in him. Hats off to Dad, I guess, he deserved it." Dad, clad in his 'Jesus is Lord' t-shirt, was remarkably humble during his award ceremony, saying, "Well, I'd like to thank our Lord, first of all, for giving me the knowledge, power, typing ability, patience, and perseverance to spend hours putting these posts together." Meanwhile, Jeff was dumbfounded at his latest gaffe, saying, "I blew it. Right now, I feel like Malone must have felt in the '98 Finals. I completely cost myself the trophy and let myself down." While Jeff is left feeling the sorrow of a title lost, Dad and his genealogy binder will continue to cherish their moment in the sun.

"Grammar" & Grandpa

Grandpa taught school for a few years before going to California to work for Lockheed. We often had our English grammar corrected, but always in a humorous way. We often commented on the strange ways we heard the King's English degraded by the common folk. One of Dad's favorite stories was about a guy in Salem who worked at the temple with Dad. He mentioned to the guy that they had tried to contact him about going to the temple and wanted him to go with them. He said, "If I'd a knowed I coulda rode, I woulda went." That always brought a laugh to Dad.

When he taught school he always went out at recess and played marbles with the kids. He would win all their marbles one day and let them win them back the next. When Dad was in his eighties a former student introduced himself and said, "I don't remember what you taught me, but I remember playing marbles with you during recess." I have tried to do the same thing in my career, and believe me, it works. You can teach more on the playground than you can in the classroom.

The following is Dad's own story about his school years:

My elementary years were a real chore. I'd get up in the morning, milk cows, go to school, and then come home and milk cows again. I'd never get done. Whenever they would send assignments home, I never had time for that. I did chores until late every night. I'd sit in school and hope they didn't call on me. I didn't enjoy grade school too much. When I was about a freshman in high school I had to drop out. Since Dad died when I was twelve years old, I was the designated farm boy. Favorite Subjects Athletics were my favorite things to do. The main things I was interested in were football, basketball and track. When I went to Ricks it was the same thing. It was said in my Ricks yearbook that, "Ross Shirley likes going to college, no he enjoys going to college because he likes athletics so much.." It indicated that I didn't like college as much as I liked playing around. When I was in high school we used to play Idaho Falls. That was when they only had one big high school. So, they were state champions in football and basketball. Every time we would play them we would get tromped. That is when they were one of the biggest schools in the state. We were a little dinky school in Sugar City competing against them. When I went to Ricks, all the guys from Idaho Falls were there trying out for Ricks. Those guys were highly recruited, being state champs and all. Guys from little schools like Sugar, well, they hardly knew who we were. Even if you play on main string in high school, if your team doesn't win, they don't pay much attention to you. I used to play end when I was in high school. When I went to Ricks, the word got out that they were going to go to Hawaii. Kids from all up and down the valley came to try out. So, we'd go out for scrimmage every night after school, they started me out on about the second or third team out of about four. There were scrimmages going on all over the place. After about a month of that I figured there was no sense in going out because of all the guys ahead of me, so I quit going. One day I saw Packer, one of the coaches, who said he didn't see me out for football the other night. I said there was not much use in going out and he asked me why. I told him he had all the ends he could use, and then some, no use in trying to outdo all those guys. He asked me what I thought about being running guard. I told him I would play anywhere in order to get to play. He said to think about it, that he would like to see me come out. So, I started coming out again, and pretty soon a game came up with Idaho State, who we used to play. The coach said he wanted to start me as guard. I thought, "Wow. " He said some of the regular guys had become ineligible due to low grades. After that I started playing with the A team. The following week we went to play Montana and I got to play about half of that game. I weighed about 175 lbs. Most of the guys I played against weighed well over 200 lbs. We won the championship that year, so we went to Hawaii, because they would play whoever was champion. The next year the word got out that we would go again, so even more guys came out. Those scrimmages were tough. They would try to kill you. I only went to Hawaii the one year. School Friends Floyd Mortensen lived across the fence from me, he was one of my best friends. He and I were born on the same day. We were also baptized the same day out in the ditch. We chased together all the time. My brother Rod was a little younger, but we always let him go with us. We spent a lot of time down on the river, fishing and swimming, and we used to let Rod come along. Extra-Curricular Activities When I got into high school I did better than grade school. I was student body president at Sugar-Salem. I was captain of the football team and co-captain of the basketball team. I also ran track, so I had a lot of fun in high school. Problems to Overcome I had to drop out of high school for about two years and work on the farm. Sometimes I would drop out for only a quarter or so. My biggest problem growing up was trying to find something to eat. It was right in the height of the depression. My senior year, when I was student body president, they used to charge all the kids so much for a yearbook. It only amounted to a few dollars. They put the money in the bank, in the stone building across from the high school. One day the bank went broke. They wouldn't even let us in. They shut the doors and you couldn't even get in to talk to them. That was the year I was a senior. It was along in the winter time and we were just ordering the yearbooks and we didn't have any money. The bank had it all. Money was scarce. It was about 1932. I was a senior, student body president, doing well in athletics, and we didn't even have a yearbook. I hardly have anything from my high school days. Dating I dated a little in high school, nothing serious.