More From Guatemala

Sleeping quarters were tight. They stayed in the home of the village leader, who moved his family out for the visitors. The home is one room and slept the group in tight quarters.

Jan's brother, who drew Jan's name for Christmas, asked him what he wanted, and was told bubbles and jump ropes. Jan took a suitcase full of these items to Guatemala for the kids to play with. The third picture shows the boys playing with the bubbles.

On the last night in the village there was a group party. You can see how they hang their sleeping babies. When I told Nita about this (Hunsaker's Philippine nanny) she said they do it the same way in the Philippines.

Jan and Will go to Guatemala

Jan and Will went on a humanitarian trip to Guatemala between Christmas and New Year's. They stayed in a small Indian village where they helped dig the foundation for a Community Center. This village is an off shoot from a larger village nearby, where they even have a church for their small branch to meet in. The village leader is a young, married man who is a member of the Church.

Will said he spent most of his time playing with the kids. He gave them rides in a wheel barrow until has back ached.

Participants are encouraged to connect with the people. Jan enjoyed visiting their homes. The people spoke Kekchi (not Spanish), but there were one or two who Jan could speak with. (Jan graduated with a double major, with Spanish, as well as Engineering. He does very well with his Spanish and is easily understood. On some of their excursions, someone would translate from Kekchi to Spanish, and then Jan translated for the group from Spanish to English.)

This little girl was having a hard time reaching the clothes line, so Will helped her out.

These people cook over an open fire in their huts, without ventilation for the smoke. Someone from Choice Humanitarian in Mexico came on this trip to teach them how to make Lorena Stoves from clay, so they can have ventilation. Will is digging a bag full of clay to make a Lorena Stove.

Graduation

One more thing - we just found out Ryan got nominated as the class speaker for graduation this year! So that means he will be speaking at Carnegie Hall - pretty exciting! My mom says one of our Young ancestors used to teach classes at Carnegie Hall. Aunt LeJeune informs me that the relative who had a sudio at Carnegie Hall for 40 years was her Uncle Walter Stenhouse Young. He was her father's older half-brother. His father was Joseph A. Young and Walter was a grandson of Brigham Young. He taught singing and speech there.

Wisconsin

Well, following in the footsteps of the Hayes missionaries, Ryan has just matched in Wisconsin for his intern year next year. So it will only be one year then, and then on to Miami for three years. I think my body will go into shock after trying to adapt to all those weather extremes! We had a huge snow storm over the weekend, but unfortunately it was ok by Sunday - just kidding, but we do crack up how often we've had church cancelled here due to weather - that would NEVER happen in Utah. Anyway, thanks to Matt for finally posting a picture of Scott and his fiance so I can finally see her! Ah, the good old trips to visit the 5 eggs. Great blogging everyone! We should see who else we can get to contribute.

Nate enjoyed his time at Oregon State University. They set up a spot on campus and passed out literature. He has since been transferred to Medford, but last Wednesday was transfers again and we haven't heard if he is still there or not!

Jane

It's been ages since we've posted our little Janey. Here she is wearing the sweater her grandma knit for her. We are really enjoying having her live right with us!

Joshua and Bethany

Angela says she feeds Joshua every two hours. At just four weeks, one can hardly tell!

Hurrah for the Renaissance

Hurrah for the rennaissance of the Young Family Blog! Thanks for the great contributions. It's so fun to get on there and see that something has happened since the last time you checked. Thanks, everyone!
Susie

I'm A LIVE!

So I just thought I'd note that I re-programmed my website and then had a real programmer fix all the bugss so you can all check it out at www.dingbatpress.com. I'm doing the Thanksgiving POint show this weekend so just the main elements are up but the whole site will go live May 1. So keep checking and it'll make me feel good that someone is looking at my website. It's really too late for this now so I better get of to bed. Love you all and miss you terribly.

Adri

I left my BART in San Francisco . . . .

Good gravy, I'm glad that Mimi showed me we have a family blog! This is my first blogging experience, so here goes.

I just spent the last Wednesday and Thursday in San Francisco (strictly on business of course) after which I got to spend some quality time with the Eggertsens. I had a blast. We covered pretty much all the bases: everything from the Bushman on Fisherman's Wharf to some quality high school basketball @ St. Mary's. I met Scott's fiancee Melissa, and had my first oysters. Yum. But what turned out to be the best part (quite unexpectedly as a matter of fact) was that I got to spend some one-on-one time with each of the 5 Eggs (minus Katie, she doesn't count as she's in Utah). I took plenty of pictures, and even put some videos on YouTube. I'll post some stuff here to test it out.

Great Hosts!

These two shots are taken at the zoo with the Hunsaker boys. What good sports they were to show two old ladies around town. (If you click on the pictures they'll enlarge.)

Happy Birthday Dear Grandma . . .

Carolyn celebrated her 67th birthday with her grandsons in Tokyo. Perhaps it is the first birthday she has celebrated with her Hunsaker grandsons! Morgan was sick with what we later learned was strep. Nita made the cake and Greyson decorated it. It was delicious!

Japanese Garden at the Imperial Palace

Did you know there are five elements to a Japanese garden? They are water, green, lantern, bridge, and waterfull. A garden must have all five things to be called a Japanese garden. The green is more important than colorful flowers, and can be anywhere. (Note how green the water is!) The lantern is the stone structure off to the the left. The waterfall is just right of Susie. The bridge is out of sight. We enjoyed visiting the Imperial Palace.

The Hunsaker boys took pictures for us at the zoo. We have many great animal shots! When we turned the camera on them, however, it was a different story. Here we have Jack, on his way to school.

Trip to Tokyo

Way to go, Adrienne! I am so happy to see your beautiful Evelyn. Thanks for posting.

Greetings to our Tokyo relatives! Have you been checking the blog and wondering what is taking me so long to post? I've heard you've all had strep. So sorry to hear it. I hope you're feeling better now.

Carolyn and I had a wonderful time visiting her grandchildren. Morgan took us on the subway to the zoo and a museum of Western art, and Jackson took us to the Mori Tower Museum. These guys know their way around. We'd like to post lots of darling pictures of them, but they were rather camera shy. I was only able to get this picture by begging Greyson not to smile, as it would totally ruin the picture. You can see the results.

okay new at this...

I've never done this b/c I wan't sure about Mac capability, so we'll see...but seeing that I might not ever get out a baby announcement I better post something. Evelyn Marie Berry was born on New Years Day 2007 and we love the new addition. Dave often likes to pull her socks off, stick his fingers in her mouth and when she cries he likes to notify me that either "baby hungee", "baby poops, piper (diaper) mama" or the newest is, "baby be QUIET, SHHH!" Evelyn really is perfect, I can't complain. I don't know how a 2 month old can sleep through the night but regularly she'll sleep from midnight to 8 am. Luxury. So I'm just waiting for something to happen, I feel too lucky. She was born at 2:35 am, 6lbs, 8oz and 20.5" long. Labor was intense and very fast. We live an hour from the hospital I deliver at and lets just say we left the house at midnight new years eve, checked into the hospital and had the baby within the first hour of being there. All I have to say is, Ange and all the other natural women in the family, you are AMAZING! I am one that likes the drugs, but almost didn't get them. At an 8, my body was shaking so bad I thought I'd die (with Dave I requested an epidural at a 3, yeah I'm a wimp). Needless to say, I survived the quick labor and prefer that much more than a 2 day labor 5 day hospital stay. We are happy and healthy and look forward to seeing you all at Scott's wedding!

As formy current status, Dave is running around the house madly calling me sharkbait. So kudos to you all and have a happy st patricks!

Love, Adri aka Sharkbait

Farkle

Ever since grandma taught us how to play farkle we've played it every day.

posted by Jackson

Well here I am trying to post a blog from Japan and all the instructions are in Japanese! It's a good thing I've done this before!

We are eating lunch at a soba restaurant sitting on the floor! Morgan, who does very well in Japanese, ordered for us and knew exactly what he was doing. We don't like to go anywhere without him. You can imagine how much he would enjoy taking a couple of old ladies around town. He has been a good sport. Tomorrow they're off to school and we are on our own. . . ah.h.h. some shopping . . . .!

Recognize any of these people? Julie was one of the lucky 75 winners!

Dawson's baptism

Cory was home today to help me figure out the changes on this blog. So guess what? I'm still in and maybe it won't take me quite as long to update now!

Welcome to the newest family member

We are grateful to announce the safe arrival of Joshua Nathan Ure, born February 15th at 6:20 p.m. and weighing 9 lbs. 9 oz. He is 21 1/2 inches long. Mother and baby (and dad and big sister) are doing well.

Blog update

So the blog made me switch it to the new version, which means you now have to have a google account to sign in. It's free - you just have to go to google.com and then I clicked on sign in and followed the prompts to create an account. I don't know why it made me do it, but I fear that the already scarcely updated blog will now scare even the few faithfuls away! If so, it was fun while it lasted for the few of us who kept in touch. Ryan has matched in Miami for his residency program, but that will start in June 2008. We're not sure where we'll be for the next year. Possibly Wisconsin.