Funny Leah

Well as usual Leah is a great source of entertainment for us. She's way more fun than Direct TV. Today I asked Leah if she wanted to swim and as usual she shook her head no. She always says no even though she enjoys herself once she's in the pool. I was planning on swimming myself after finishing some other household tasks so I got Leah's swimsuit out and laid it on my bed figuring I'd take her in with me when I went in. I'm minding my own business messing with the laundry when I hear Emily shout out "Leah's naked". Sure enough naked as a jay bird and carrying around her swimsuit just looking for someone to help her get the thing on. I hurriedly dressed her in the laundry room and out she went to get in the pool. Silly girl. Since this is a family site there is no picture posted with this for obvious reasons...

table play

The boys love to play with these little tables that we got for them. They ahve to stand themselves up to play with them and they love the wheels and spinny things and bells that go off when they do it. They can play with them for long enough for me to get the dishes in the dishwasher, so that's a bonus!

I'd like to introduce myself and say Hello. This is my first blog entry, so Hello everyone out there in Blogger land. If it had not been for Ian we probably would have never met and his Mother Louise who was kind enough to put out an invitation for anyone in the family to share. Thank You, Ian and Louise.


Now to business, as I understand it, this is the place for family history, and I want to share.

Part 1

Yesterday we took a trip to Haigler,Ne. from there we went south to the Northwestern corner of Kansas to meet Russell Moore, who answered a lot of family history questions.

The first image is the Haigler Nebraska Cementery, looking at the West entrance. I am taking this from the grave maker of Mr. Charles Edward Cotterell. The information on his full name from Ethel (Chase) Davis's Obituary. Although the maker only says Edward Cotterell. The dates and the place match.

Just at that moment I snap the 2nd image, Cliff my husband yells out "Be careful for rattle snakes!" I look up and spy this strange long thing coming from a hole. It wasn't moving so I decided to check it out, the 3rd image in my series is what I saw, a long, large snake skin. Enough for me, I was back in the truck, quick.

More to come...

I'm Home

Hey Everyone. I don't think i have ever really posted anything on this cool Family Blog. So I just wanted to say hello and see how everyone is doing!
For those of you who don't know, I passed my Utah Cosmetology License test last month. And I am now home to take my California license test, since this is the state I will be practicing in. I got my first job at an Aveda salon in San Diego, it's called Gila Rut. It is the owners Hebrew name...kind of weird....but she likes me because of my jewish hair. HA
I cut it ALL off on my birthday, (Tuesday the 19th) it is about 2-3 inches all over. Still getting used to it.
Anyway, just thought I would post whats going on for me now a days.
Love you all, keep me updated with you.

Family Reunion

This is so cool and I'm having loads of fun posting stuff here. Anyway as you should all know we are having a family reunion the weekend of July 13 & 14. Ian has compiled family names for us to do the temple work for (hence the picture of the Sacramento Temple). I have scheduled family baptism time for Saturday July 7th at 7:00pm and again on Friday July 13th at 3:00pm. For the baptism session we need to provide our own priesthood so let me know which times work best for you. I scheduled two times so that everyone could have a chance to do some baptisms. We can do the initiatory work without an appointment so hopefully that can get done during the week of July 10 thru 13. I scheduled endowment sessions for Saturday July 14 as follows: 7:00am - 6 reservations; 8:30am - 10 reservations; 10:00am - 10 reservations; break for lunch and fun at the Hulewsky house; 6:30pm - 10 reservations; 8:00pm - 10 reservations. Our pool is functional so we can swim and eat and there will be someone at the house at all times to babysit for those with young children. The plan is to do the temple work and then at lunch share stories about the names that have been extracted and any other stories you might like to share. It should be great fun to catch up and see everyone. Let me know what times you will be available so I can kind of organize things. I'll let you all know regarding food assignments via this website (I'm determined to get you all to check this site regularly and to start posting your own stuff so we can keep in touch). We were thinking it would be fun to incorporate some traditional Jewish foods into the lunch theme since a portion of our ancestors are Jewish so if you have any recipes or ideas please post them here or call me. If you have any questions regarding the plans so far let me know. Start planning now so this will be a big success.

Email Me

I just noticed that Rachel responded to one of the posts. If any of you are viewing this blog and would like to be added as a contributor (that means you can post stuff too) send me an email and I'll "invite" you to be one of the bloggers. This isn't just for some of us it's supposed to be for the whole extended family. I sent invites to those of you that I had email addresses for but I would love for everyone to be able to put up their pictures and write stuff from time to time so if you're a family member email me at: lhulewsky@hotmail.com

Cap and Gown

I did it!!!!!!!! I am totally not savvy when it comes to this picture stuff. I've wasted a lot of time here at work. I'll have to make it up later. I think I will purchase a digital camera of my very own. Any input from those of you in the know would be greatly appreciated. Well here she is in all her glory with the cap and gown. I had to go pick up the other kids and take Gabe to an appointment so Anatole stayed with Leah for the refreshments. He then took her on a long afternoon of tagging along to his appointments. By the time the picture was taken she had destroyed her lei of orchids but she still looks cute as can be. Oh it also looks like he cap is on backwards. Oh well it was still her big day.

Graduation Day

Well after lots of fooling around I figured out how to post at least this one picture. Leah "graduated" from high school yesterday. Here she is in her graduation dress. I'll try to post the picture of her in her cap and gown once I'm home. After a little mocking on my part (I thought it was sort of silly to have a graduation ceremony for Leah) I have to admit the ceremony was very sweet. I even cried. They had these 40 year old down syndrome adults signing (not singing but actually using sign language) a couple of songs which was really touching. With all the intensity of a young child they performed their part in the ceremony. It was really refreshing to see the tolerance and patience of the staff and other families in attendance. The graduation was quite noisy but no irritated stares or comments from anyone. Even Nik commented on that. Leah was so proud. She was the lowest functioner in the group but that didn't matter. One girl in the audience kept calling Leah's name and finally someone brought her up so she could sit behind Leah. It was really sweet to see Leah turn around and pat the other girl on the arm and smile at her. It was nice to see our little Leah who can be so irritating at times, in her own element. Like I said, it made me cry more than once and Nik was sweet enough to not make fun of me and put his arm around me instead. At one point all I could think was I didn't have on my waterproof mascara. What a goof. Well anyway that's my post for the day. We really are blessed to have Leah in our family. It has made me a better person. Not on everyday but on more and more days with each passing year.

Moving is crazy!!

We finally moved everybody! We will send you our new address- come and visit! We should have enough room for you if we ever finish unpacking our boxes!
just kidding ;)