2014 Family Highlights

We wish you all a merry Christmas and hope you enjoy reading about our family as much as we enjoy reading about yours.

Our family took up a new sport last March during spring break.  We took the family snow skiing for the first time.  The kids all loved it and Nathan has spent some time outfitting the family for the new season.

Robyn and Nathan --- Nathan started the year with back pain and decided to have the surgery to remove a herniated disc.  To celebrate their 20^th anniversary Nathan surprised Robyn with a hot air balloon ride in the morning and a white water raft trip in the afternoon.  They helped plan Robyn’s parent’s 50^th anniversary celebration and family retreat this summer, making sure all nine kids and their families could attend.  Nathan continues to work at Intel and as the ward clerk.  Robyn continues to read too much, drive kids around and will be training her 4^th partner as wolf den leader.

Collin (17) --- This year Collin finally got his driver’s license, his first job and completed his Eagle Scout project.  For his Eagle project he improved part of a trail at a local natural area.  As a senior Collin has been busy filling out college applications and preparing for life after high school.  He played tennis with the school team.  He has enjoyed playing his trombone with the band throughout high school and plans to join the band on a performing tour in Europe this coming March.

Randy (soon to be 16) --- Randy got his driving learner’s permit this year and has been begging to drive everywhere we go.  Randy had a great time working at the Boy Scout camp this summer as both a counselor-in-training and dishwasher.  Randy enjoys attending the charter high school but struggles with the heavy work load.  Randy plays the cello with the school orchestra.  He also enjoyed playing tennis with Collin and some of his friends on the local high school team.

Owen (12) --- When Owen became a deacon this summer we realized we had a member of the family in every quorum of the ward.  Owen has no fear and really took to the slopes and enjoys skiing with the family.  Owen plays the violin at school and is taking piano lessons at home.  He is a typical boy and loves to play computer games like Minecraft.

Sydney (10) --- Sydney started karate and plans to follow Collin, Randy, and Nathan and earn a black belt (they earned theirs in 2013).  She loves singing in the choir at school and also takes piano lessons.  Sydney and Owen got to go on their first horseback ride while we stayed at the YMCA last spring break.

Cora (5) --- Cora’s big adventure this year was when she got locked in the bathroom at the local park.  She has even asked Nathan how to say, “I got locked in the bathroom,” in Spanish.  She now knows not to go in alone especially at dusk.  She has discovered how much fun it is to have “neighbors next to us,” that she can play with practically every day.  She loves going to preschool and we have many interesting conversations along the way.  For example one day she asked if I knew everything. I told her I knew some things and she replied, “Well, can you tell me?!”  "Tell you what?"  "Everything you know!"

In the Trenches in 2013

This was definitely an in-the-trenches-year for us. We worked on several continuing projects and fought a few fires too. Our kids span all age groups. With so much going on, we shelved most of our plans for big vacations. This was a year to finish things we already started.

Collin and Randy, after many years of training, successfully tested for their junior black belts in February.

In August, Nathan followed suit and successfully tested for his black belt. 

 During the summer, the family finished our Mormon Trail project. Nathan and Collin bicycled the last 150 miles from Granger (near Little America) to This is the Place Monument in Salt Lake City. 

 And on the home front, we finished a landscaping project that was seven years in the making.

The most peculiar aspect of our daily routine is the fact that each of the five children attend a different school. Cora attends a mother-run preschool twice a week. She can spend hours with her dolls and coloring books. Sydney is our only child in elementary (4th grade). She loves being part of musical productions. She also started karate this year. Owen is in middle school (6th grade). Owen took up both the piano and violin this year. Randy attends Liberty Common High School, a charter school. We are impressed with how much he is learning there. Collin is a junior at Fort Collins High School and has become interested in math and engineering. His dad has started taking him on college visits. 

We had some unanticipated challenges too. Collin started driving this year and had his first fender bender. We were late to understand that he must have a learner's permit for 12 months and get 50 hours of driving practice. He won't be able to get a driver's license until he is 17. Nathan neglected his back health and learned a hard lesson by getting a herniated disc. He has been dealing with ups and downs for several months. This year, after some early warning signs, we also decided to reorient our family for better scholastic performance. We have extra tutoring for some of the kids and a stricter afterschool routine. Gone are the days when we could sit down for a T.V. show on a school night. Nathan has invested in various "screen time" control measures (which don't always work).

In terms of recreation, the highlight of our year was visiting our relatives in Utah. We made the trip three times. We had a blast with Nathan's family in a Park City cabin. We visited Robyn's family for Thanksgiving. Our kids had so much fun with their extended family that they all voted to return to Utah for Christmas in order to spend more time with their cousins and grandparents.

A photo essay of our year in 25 pictures

How My Peirce Ancestors Became Mormons

This is a repost of an blog entry I posted in 2007 while we were on a four week vacation to the Eastern states.  The popular term Mormon refers to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

"I found one!" Collin yelled at about 7 PM last night behind the the Concord Society of Friends Meeting house in Pennsylvania. "It's a Peirce!" I walked up to an old grave stone under an overgrown tree. It read "My Husband, Thomas J. Peirce, 7th 8th 1811, 12th 26th 1888"

After scraping away two inches of soil from adjacent grave stones, we identified several more Peirce family names: Thomas' wife Martha Ann; Caleb Peirce and his wife Mary May. These were the immediate kinfolk of my great great great grandfather Robert Peirce who moved west with the Mormons in 1847. Caleb and Thomas were Robert's younger brothers! (I verified the dates against a PAF file my Dad gave me) Did Robert also worship in this same building?!!

The Peirce story began over three hundred years ago when George and Ann Pearce immigrated to William Penn's new colony in the year 1684. George seems to have spelled his name all three ways (Pearce, Pierce, and Peirce). They settled about 50 miles west of Philadelphia in Thornbury Township. In fact, the township was named after Ann's hometown of Thornbury, England. George's seventh child, Caleb, is my ancestor. Caleb and his children would continue to live in Thornbury for at least 150 years.

Not all of the Peirce's stayed in Thornbury. In 1700 George (Caleb's father) purchased 402 acres of land in nearby East Marlborough Township for Caleb's older sister Betty and older brother Joshua. George eventually moved to Joshua's property and died there in 1733. This Marlborough property would eventually became the world renown Longwood Botanical Gardens.

Even though Caleb did not live at Longwood (a name given to it later by Pierre Dupont) I can still claim it as an ancestral home land through his father George! So we spent a whole day there taking in the beautiful gardens and water fountain shows. I could imagine George walking the fields before Longwood was built. I imagined Caleb and his descendants stopping over for tea at the Peirce-DuPont house which still stands today, well preserved by Longwood as an historical landmark.

Caleb and his descendants down to Robert Peirce continued to live in the Thornbury and Concord areas. So I drove the family all around these parts looking for cemeteries. We found zero Peirces in Thornbury. I found two behind a Quaker meeting house in East Marlborough Township. I found two at an Episcopal Church in Concord. Later I would find about ten Peirces in Unionville. But they all seemed to be cousins of my ancestors. No direct lines.

But when Collin found the graves of Robert's two brothers and their wives at the Concord Meetinghouse, my imagination went wild. Did Robert come to church at this very building? Indeed, the meeting house has been there since 1728...even the original George Peirce could have attended there! (P.S. a Longwood historian confirmed that George attended Concord Meeting, but it may have been prior to the construction of the building.) Did Robert's brothers Thomas J and Caleb listen to the Mormon Elders when they came to town? I wanted to experience the church that made Robert so ready to hear the Restored Gospel. After all, the Quakers seem to have paved the way for Mormonism in so many ways. Quakers believe in personal revelation and a lay ministry! In fact, wasn't Pennsylvania a kind of colonial version of Utah? (Quakers are to Pennsylvania as Mormons are to Utah.)

So I decided to attend a Quaker meeting. (As a side benefit, I could ask around about cemetery records!) This part of the story began this morning. I wanted Collin and Randy to learn about other religions to so I brought them along. First we went to the Marlborough Meeting for First Day School (the non-pagan term for Sunday School). We showed up at the advertised time of 10:00 AM. Nobody showed up. I was a little worried at seeing the dilapidated paint and weathered wood trim. A new wheelchair ramp and clean swept coffee room assured me that the meetinghouse was still in use. I suppose the congregation (or "meeting" as they say) wasn't large enough to provide a consistent First Day School.

Next we went to Concord Meeting. It was to begin at 11:15 AM. We arrived just in time. There was one car in the parking lot. I was relieved. At least there is somebody here! Besides, maybe they operate on Quaker Standard Time and more will show up. A nice man let us in, and sure enough a few more people came later. But I was told that the meeting has dwindled greatly in size. New families aren't joining and young families have moved out. I felt sorry for them. It is so hard to keep up an organization that is shrinking. I've done that in a Toastmasters Club. And who's going to keep up the graves of my Peirce relatives out back?!!

We sat in silence, for forty five minutes, pondering and listening to the Spirit. Nobody was prompted to speak this time. Then it was over. Fascinating. Afterward I took photos of the very pews that Robert Peirce may have nodded to sleep on!

But the best part was going to the Downingtown Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the afternoon. Here the congregation was younger, vibrant, and growing. Ironically, there too, we all sat in silence waiting for people to be inspired to get up and speak. But hardly a minute would pass before somebody got up. I got up. The Spirit did come to me and drove me out of my seat. Afterward, the Bishop said, "So you're a descendant of the Mormon Hollow Saints!" "I am?" I had never heard the story of Mormon Hollow!

Here is a link to the story of Edward Hunter and the Mormon Hollow Saints.

http://www.lds.org/ensign/2004/07/edward-hunter-generous-pioneer-presiding-bishop?lang=eng

Robert Peirce would have known Edward Hunter. He may even have been at Hunter's Nantmeal Seminary when Joseph Smith taught there and organized the Brandywine Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

So we had to see Nantmeal too! After church we drove about 20 miles north of the Downingtown Ward building to see the Edward Hunter home which still stands today and is a private residence. The owner was outside and let me take a photo.

The photo at the top of this article shows the path to the Nantmeal Seminary where the first Mormon Elders taught, sending shock waves down through Peirce posterity.

Below is a picture of Collin and Randy at the Concord Meeting House where Robert Peirce likely attended before becoming a Mormon.
(This article was originally written 08/05/2007)

A busy, fun, hard, and adventurous year

Our big vacation was a visit to San Diego to celebrate my parents' 50th

Our clan has survived another year and we'd like to give you a short summary.  Consistent with past years, we stayed busy with work, scouting, karate, reading, board games, video games, and church activity.  But we also had several new developments in 2011 that combined to suck up every last minute of our collective free time. Collin entered high school and began seminary.  Cora became a curious toddler.  We finished two big home improvement projects.  Nathan got into adventure cycling. Sydney and Owen took after-school Spanish.  Randy played tennis and became a deacon.  To top it off, Robyn signed us up for a summer exchange student.  Nils came to us from Germany for five fun and informative weeks.

Nathan remains with Intel and Robyn is a full time mom.  Our kids Collin, Randy, Owen, Sydney, and Cora are  14, 12, 9, 7, and 2 respectively.  We feel blessed to have this group of children.  They each bring something different to the family.  Dad has to fight dirty rooms and mom has to fight homework procrastination, but for the most part they are good kids.  These photos show a little of what we've been doing.

Randy (right) was ordained a deacon

Owen wins pinewood derby

Sydney learns to ride a bike

Brian, Sherman, Nathan, Randy, Collin, Nils, and Robyn (behind camera) ride the Jordan River Trail 

Nathan and Collin at Fort Laramie Historic Site during a 100 mile cycling trip

Nathan at Ayers Natural Bridge, WY after a solo cycling trip

Cora, so cute we had to include it.

The funniest photo of 2011

This is intended to be short and sweet.  But if you want to know more, you can indulge our vanity by viewing a more detailed picture story of our year in this album.  

YouTube Fun

By Randy

Recently I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube on my new IPod and I like it a lot. On YouTube I am capable of watching episodes of shows that I am not capable of watching on TV. Also recently my family has watched a lot of home videos. We watched a funny home video when I am play sword fighting my older brother with some new toy swords we got. Collin is doing it sort of unwillingly but I’m really into it. We edited the video and we are going to put it on YouTube. The clip is called Sword points.

Baby Wonders

By Randy

Before Christmas my baby sister who had just turned 2 in October started to talk really well and my family could nearly understand every sentence she said. Also she started being capable of recognizing us. On top of our entertainment center we have a picture of mostly everyone in our family. Sometimes we will pick up Cora (my baby sister), point at one of our pictures and ask who it is. She is very capable of saying our names. She can’t say our names really well but she is really good for a two year old. For example my name is Randy and my name is very similar to mommy so when Cora says my name it sounds like mommy. My older brother Collin is very tall so when Cora says his name it sounds like Tollin. But Cora is not all that good because she used to say my sister Sydney’s name as Just “eee!” Cora has gotten a little better at saying Sydney’s name but it’s still not the best. But Cora seems pretty good at saying Owen’s name.

Christmas Surprise

By Randy

Last year for Christmas I got my first I pod touch ever! When I opened up my present I thought it was going to be clothes of some kind especially sense it was in a box that I usually get clothes in and it weighed like clothes. But when I opened the box and saw the new black 8 gig I pod still in its plastic store case along with a new nice looking black normal case and around 4 screen protectors my face brightened with astonishment and surprise. My older brother got really jealous that he had not gotten an I pod and I had. But he still had one more present he picked it up in hopes that it would weigh like an I pod but then his smile seemed to fade when he said kind of unhappily that it was too heavy to be an I pod. When he opened the present he was expecting it to be something not very cool but when he opened it he had the same astonishment and surprise as when I had opened my I pod because what he got wasn’t an I pod but something better, a Smart Phone!