THE NEW MOVIE AVITAR

I am not usually a fan of Science Fiction and I usually do not endorse trendy pictures. However, I did enjoy Avitar and was facinated by the computer graphics and amazed at the scenery. Then I realized at the end of the movie that my facination with the scenery might have had a feeling of familiarity to me because a lot of it was shot in New Zealand, one of the most beautiful countries in the world, and you all know my love of the Land of Arohanui. I can see why they won Acadamy Awards. I think we will probably see more of these "people" in a sequel.

MISS MATILDA MAE SMYLIE ARRIVES

In case the Merrill family did not get a chance to see the latest on the Jake and Sarah Smylie branch, who are now resident in Utah, this is the latest addition to the Smylie Clan, Miss Matilda Mae Smylie, nearly 10 lb in weight and full head of black hair. This is Sarah and Jake's 4th little girl. Their names are Grace, Rosie, Lillie and now lovely Matilda. I love all these names. I just wanted to have a place for her in my blog as well as my heart.

MISS LIZZY BROUGHT US ALL TOGETHER

On May 15, 2010 Miss Lizzy entered the waters of baptism. This is her posing in her beautiful dress. When I arrived at Rachel's house on 14th, she explained to me that she had wanted to have an heirloom dress to pass from girl to girl and that she had bought the material and cut out the dress and that she was hoping to sew it as a surprise for Lizzy. (A white dress on a kitchen table with five small children under foot! You could never say Rachel is not ambitious!) So while the children slept she and I sewed the dress and kept it a surprise from Lizzy until she had to try it on just before putting the zip in the back.

Now the zip is a story in itself. Rachel had bought an invisible zip, then she found out you had to have a special foot for your machine to put it in. So she bought the foot and worked out how to fit it to her machine. She then had to work out how to put the zip in. Lots of study and measuring and in goes the zip at about 2:00 a.m. Anyway, we were good to go! Sunday on goes the beautiful dress and before we leave for church I took all these lovely photos of Lizzy in her dress for posterity.

Now back to the zip... Lizzy goes up to the front of the chapel and is introduced by the Bishop and lookes angelic in her lovely new dress. She then returns to her seat and bends over to pick up a toy for Oliver and THERE GOES THE ZIP! The teeth opened and would not go back in line together. Finally Jeff had to take Lizzy home to change.

Rachel says she will fix the dress "sometime before Bella is baptized!"

This is Lizzy right after her baptizm and that is her cousin Janae standing beside her. The pink dress she is wearing was sewn for her by her Grandma "Suebrown" who is such a great Grandma to have close by.

SASSY AND DAN

Who would ever guess that these two just love being together?

NUMBER ONE DAUGHTER AND FAMILY

Number one daughter, Rachel, is married to Jeff and they have the joy of Elijah, Lizzy, Bella, Anna and the latest tumbling bundle - Oliver.

Rachel is an accomplished person in her own right, being able to play the piano, is college eduated, able to sew and cook very well, as well as serve a mission in Arizona. However, her greatest joy is written on her face in this photo, she loves her familiy. She will tirelessly wash, clean, nurse, bath, polish, garden, teach and guide and quite often, all at the same time (no kidding!). I had the privilege of staying in her noisy, joy-filled home this weekend and you honestly could never get bored around such large spirits in such little bodies. I love them dearly and cherish the value of family when I am with them and long for them when I am not.

Oliver does have a birth defect which is called Dysgenesis Corpus Colosum - (DCC) which means one side of his brain has trouble communicating with the other side of his brain. This can affect his motor skills, slow his learning skills and cause other problems. Right now he is very interactive and can certainly "tell" you how he is feeling, but he is slower in his motor skills. Having said that, he has worked out a way to get around, he has not connected all the skills involved in crawling yet, but he realizes that if he wants something he can throw his hips from one side to the other, roll over and "Bob's Your Uncle!" get anywhere he wants to. So although his mile markers cannot be measures as other children's are, (you know doing this by this age and this by this age), Olie, I think will work these things out in his own time. He has been placed in the right family who love him and will get him all the things he needs. The truth is, we really do not know what Olie may or may not accomplish in his lifetime. We just know that he is the sweetest, lovingest litte guy who has come to bless our family.
The children in order ....Elijah, Lizzy, Bella, Anna, and Oliver .

SHE DUN GRAD'YATED WITH HIGH HONORS

Back when Sariah was in high school she expressed a wish to go to College, and I, of course, said I did not have the money but would help her any way I could. She graduated from high school with a 3.8 in the top 10 of her class and won a scholarship to Edison Community College in Piqua, Ohio. After two years of hard work there, she graduated with an Associates Degree on May 14th, 2010 with high honors, meaning she had a grade point of higher than 3.7. These are the before and after pictures. She will go on to BYU this fall to pursue a BA in the arts field. The man in the picture is her friend Kaisa.

A personal note to Sassy...

Your family are so proud of you for your hard work and dedication and continued pursuit of higher learning and the things that are right and good in life. I love you dearly and wish you only continued success as you strive to do what is right.

You GO girl!!!!! love, Mum xoxxo

Happy Mother's Day

She was 15 when she met this handsome friend of her brother's when Dave Smylie stopped by to show Uncle Jim his new bike. They played cards and got to know each other and Dave fancied her. Dave was 21, it was his birthday! They began dating and then Dave realized she was only 15 and nearly died, but he went on seeing her and eventually they married when she was just short of her 18th birthday and the rest is history as they say!!!!! Here are some of my fond thoughts on this Mother's Day...
24 years old she meets the missionaries, cannot stop smoking and has a special blessing just prior to going into the waters of baptism and never felt the urge to smoke again. Talk about faith!
29 years old, she is the mother of 5 children and with her David takes off on an adventure to Australia that turned into a life time of generous living. Nothing doubting huh?
30 years of age, is a good story... She is living with Dave in one room of another family home, (The dear Patrick family from Whyalla) but wanted a home for her kids and Dave so she sees an old home on Darling Terrace. Says she to the Housing Trust man, "Sir, can I rent that house on Darling Terrace?" Says he, "No it is condemed!" Says She "If we clean it up and keep the yard up can we live there just until you get the houses on Norrie Avenue finished"... Now you notice she did not put a date on that, just when he had the houses finished. Smart woman...It was another 2 years before he had the houses on Norrie Avenue ready for migrant families and so we lived at 5 Darling Terrace for 2 years. The Whyalla Hotel was across the road and because there was no hot water in the house, an outside toilet we had, but no shower or bath inside the house, the hotel owner allowed us to go across the street to the hotel for a bath every Saturday night so that on Sunday we could all look good for Church. Dad was Branch President. We washed on other days in a large galvanized tub in the kitchen. But we were a family, together, living and learning the principles of the gospel.
In 1964 she gave birth to the last of her biological children, (Mrs Sharon (Smylie) Scarlet to be) and helped David take her and the family and all the other Whyalla branch members who would travel with them to the Temple in New Zealand where she was sealed to her David and in order of age...Christina, Dinah, Andrew, Stephen, Shelley, Geraldine, and wee Sharon for time and all eternity.
Well says you..."Is that the end of the story?".... "No", says I, but we do not have time to go into all the things that make up her life. But suffice to say that if there was one word that describes your Granny, it is the word

GENEROUS...
She had no sooner come home from the Temple with "all those children" when she opened her home to a wee five year old David Zajkovic Smylie and I might add, continued to open her home to those in need until she was in her 68th year when she was still fostering children who had no homes to go to.
She is your original pioneer, a lover of books and good learning, clean living and generous giving. She will fight you when she thinks she is right (which seems like most of the time) but will be the first one there if you should need her help.
Thank you Mum, for all the love, I only hope I am half as well thought of in my lifetime. Happy Mother's Day.

MOTHERS DAY AND BIRTHDAYS

On Mother's Day in 1977 (May 8th) to be exact, I had just come home from church and lay down for a rest. I gets off the bed and WHAM! Contraction City! No lead up, no niggles, no "I am on my way!" Just WHAM! First contraction was transition! Oh boy! The hospital was half an hour away. Says I, "I'll just have a wee bath to relax me and maybe this will stop!" I was a bit naive don't you think :) ! So Ken gets the car out and we race down the road with the baby almost crowning. Now we have to go through many streets in Denver on the way to the hospital and there are many stop signs and lights and I am trying to breath naturally and not look like some mad women as I pass other cars on te road, all the while saying "Its coming Ken, I know it is coming!" and Ken hyperventilating on the way...Well we got there and the Doc came and I held on. Good strong membranes I can tell you, for the only thing holding that baby in place was the sac! So he came...Mr. Benjamin Perehama Merrill. He has been a delight to me ever since. He is a gentle, quiet spoken man, who lives the gospel and searched all his life for his Julie, who was born 2 years 2 days earlier than him. He was attracted to her but there were hitches. (There are always hitches at the big decision crossroads in life!) However, he waited and bided his time until Julie was ready. I could not be prouder of either of them. Benjamin (and his Julie) are the best Mother's Day present I could have been given. I love you both. Have a very Happy Birthday both of you two!!! xoxox

Treasure Island at sunset

I was having fish and chips at Caddy's at the Treasure Island Beach on the east side of St. Petersburg and the sun is going down and I just took this shot. Sariah and I love to swim in this water. Donna and Steve stayed at Madiera beach which is up the coast a little from Treasure Island. If you travel from the north Madiera beach then along the coast you come to John's Pass Beach and then Treasure Island, and then on down to St. Petersburg Beach. You think you are going along a continuous line of coast as you take the Gulf Blvd from one beach to the other, but you really are traveling through a lot of outer islands that are joined with bridges and causeways and you never even know that you are going from one to the other. A map is really the only way you can tell you are passing from one to the other. Hence the different names for each beach, because originally you would have boated from one beach to the other along the coast. Have no idea who the man is, but I wanted to get the color of the water for some painting I am doing and the sand really is quite white though looks a little gray in this picture, but that is just the lighting from the sun in the background.

St. Petersburg Primary

My friend Jan Fleck and I wanted to make a quilt for Tara (2nd counc in primary presidency - Jan is President - I am the Sunbeam teacher). Anyway I had the children print their hands on strips that Jan had planned out. Jan put the quilt together and I did some hand quilting and some tying off. We had a picture of the primary children in the middle of the quilt. On Sunday we took a picture of Tara and the children with the quilt. The three little ones in the front who look like they are statues are my little ones in Sunbeams. Caleb is the boy on the right and Emmy is in pink and Angelina is in yellow. They are so adorable and will not say a word in the big primary, but never stop talking in our little classroom. The other children are in the back. They are the Valiants as we have no CTR's in between right now, but in Primary the motto is "Just wait until tomorrow. It will all change again." That is Tara in the picture. She is gorgeous and so dainty as a pregnant mother. I remembered that I always seemed to look like two women in one body, I would get so big, but Tara just has this little bump in front. Our Primary is very small as we are mostly a ward of older people. But though small in size we are mightly in heart!!!