Update on the Texas Johansons

Hi everyone! I hope all is well for everyone! Congratulations Sara on your engagement! We wish that we could come for your wedding, but being in grad school we do not have the time off. We hope you have a beautiful day and we will be thinking of you!
We have had a lot of fun things happening this past month, but I don't really have time to write them all down again so please visit our blog at http://beccamikey2002.blogspot.com for lots of fun pictures and an update on us.
WE love you all!
Love,
Becca, Michael, Aaron, Nathan and Rachelle

It's official!!

As I'm sure most of you already know, I'm getting married this summer! But it became official this Saturday when Will asked me to marry him. We went up to Kaysville to spend conference weekend with his family. After the afternoon session on Saturday we went for a walk - he took me to a beautiful area near his house that is part of the Utah botanical gardens. We sat and talked for quite awhile and then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I said yes! (suprise suprise) He's pretty sneaky - I guess he showed my mom the ring on Friday night while she was visiting - I had no idea. He's an amazing man and I'm excited for all of you to meet him. Save the date - we're getting married in the Seattle temple on August 8th! This is a picture of the two of us in his parent's backyard. I know I'm squinting - we were facing the sun. Oh well.

Ramona with Kirby Larson, author of Hattie Big Sky

On Saturday March 7, Lance and I attended Literary Lions, a gala for the King County Library System. They have Northwest authors who rotate among the tables for the salad, main course and dessert portions of the meal. When I saw the list of authors, I wanted to have the author of Hattie Big Sky (2007 Newbery Honor book) visit our table. Since there were approximately 30 authors, I knew there was a slim chance that she would visit our table. Imagine my surprise when I looked across the table and saw that she was our visiting author for the first course of the evening! It was fun to visit with her and talk about historical fiction, genre focus for the 2nd trimester in my classroom.

We Grow 'Em Big in Oklahoma . . .

Last weekend, James was home for the weekend. Shawnee went to Memphis with her Mom to see her sister. So, James said he wanted to come home for the weekend, so we could spoil him like we do Kara (It sounds like Kara's been talking). Anyway, we had a great weekend with him and enjoyed getting to "spoil" him -- although he's not nearly as easy to spoil as Kara. When we tried to buy him things, unlike his Sister, he'd say no he didn't need it or whatever.

So for lunch on Saturday we took him to Roseanna's Italian Restaurant. After a little coaxing from his Mom and I, he ordered Lamb Fries. This one was so big that he took a picture of it with his cell phone. So, I thought I'd share the photo with you.

Yep, we grow our bulls really big in Oklahoma!!!

Happy February everyone!

Well, Kara's told you all about my recent honor. I thought I'd share this closeup of my award with you. It does look really nice on my desk at work.

Needless to say, it was an exciting evening. I was really perplexed when James, Shawnee, and Kara showed up at the Chamber Banquet. They told me some story about being in Tulsa and just deciding to run on down to McAlester and see us.

Of course, after the evening was over, I was so glad that they could be here and share in this event.

I have lots of really nice compliments since that evening, but one of the best occurred last Monday evening. Kathy and I went to the Boys & Girls Club to see Devin Chin play basketball. (Devin is the chinese boy that our friends Buddy and Jeneice are raising. He's 6 years old) When we got to the game, it had already started, so we sat down and began watching the game. Well, as soon as Devin saw us, he ran over to the edge of the court, pointed at me and said, "Man of the Year". I told everyone that he really made my day.

Kara mentioned the video that I recorded. It was used to announce that I was the winner. I'm getting a copy of it, so I'll share with all of you at the Reunion. You know, kind of like home movies.

It's been a busy month (as they all are -- it seems.) Kathy and I are already looking forward to Spring Break in just two weeks. Maybe I can get caught up on some of my paperwork. Well, it's getting late and I want to get this posted before midnight, so I can have it submitted in the month of February. We love you all and hope everyone is doing ok. Have a great March!

Hey! This is Kara! We had such an exciting thing happen a couple weeks ago and I thought I'd share it on the blog.

About a month ago, I got a text message from my mom and she said to hurry and call her because she had some exciting news about dad she wanted to tell me. As soon as I got out of class, because my curiousity was killing me, I gave her a call. She told me that Dad had been selected as McAlester's Man of the Year. It's too bad I didn't wait to call her when I got to my car, because my immediate reaction was bursting into tears. I was so, so proud of him and couldn't wait to be part of the surprise. (She went on to tell me that he wasn't going to know until the banquet so I had to keep it a secret for a little while.)

James, Shawnee and I drove down the day of the banquet to surprise Dad, then watch him be surprised again when he received the honor. When we got to the banquet, we were quickly met at the door by people hurrying us along and hiding us and telling us that he could not see us just yet. So we hid out in the hallway for about 45 minutes. When we walked into the banquet as Mom and Dad were sitting down the look on my Dad's face when he saw his three kids was priceless. (And a little teary-eyed.) I thought, uh-oh, wait until he finds out he's been selected as Man of the Year.

The Banquet was the McAlester Chamber of Commerce banquet. They gave out four awards that night. Each award was announced by showing a video of the winner talking a little about themselves, what they are involved in, and why they love McAlester. When Dad saw the second video, he knew something was up because he had been interviewed and asked the same questions. He was excited and his video was great! He started it off by talking about Mom and his kiddos. Then he talked about all the different things he's involved in in McAlester. Then he talked about his pride and love for McAlester-and boy does he love it!

It was a fantastic evening! James, Shawnee, and I are so glad we were able to drive down for a short little trip and be part of Dad's special evening. I knew my dad was Man of the Year, without him getting a beautiful plaque to remind us. When we got in the car, I said "Wow, Dad, you were involved in so much last year -and you took really good care of your injured daughter on top of everything else!" See, I already knew he was Man of the Year. But it was awesome that he was recognized for all of the time and service he gives to our community!

I guess while I'm here I can talk a little bit about myself. I'm doing great! I'm really busy with school but I remind myself how nice it is to be busy in contrast with life last semester. I have had a fun year so far. I'm taking a Children's Literacy class and I tutor a student once a week in reading for that. I'm also taking a primary math class - I am learning about teaching mathematics to the primary grades. I'm also taking a visual art class. Besides learning about teaching art to children, we have a lab once a week where we actually are learning drawing and how to paint with watercolors and more. It's a great place to relax and let some of my creativity come out. I enjoy that class. My favorite class is my Middle Level class- we observe a classroom in a middle school once a week. I am really enjoying this class because I am wanting to teach middle school. Ask me again at the end of the semester! I went to the middle school dance for extra credit a couple weeks ago, and a fight almost broke out on my watch. Yikes! I'm also taking a geometry class. If all continues to work as planned-I know life does not always agree with plans-I will graduate May of next year with my degree in Elementary Education. I am so excited about the coming year and finishing my college career.

In between school, work, and church I try to save time to have a little fun, play a few board games, or see a movie every now and then. I work in the Interlibrary Services office at the OSU library. I have worked here for two years. This semester at work we decided to have a weight loss challenge. I joined-hoping to have some good motivation to work off a few extra pounds as a result of my accident last semester. My school newspaper ended up doing a story about our weight loss challenge and my picture, along with three coworkers, made the front page. Talk about putting myself out there! I never thought I would make the front page of the paper- and especially not for wanting to lose weight! But it's been fun. A few early mornings a week at the gym, some sessions with a trainer, and eating better is already showing some results! I feel better too. Even though I have been healed for four months now, I have still felt very weak and old-lady like for the past few months. Working out has changed everything and I'm finally starting to feel like myself again.

Looking forward to spring break in a couple weeks and some warmer weather to start creeping its way into Oklahoma! Hope all is well with you all! I'm also counting down the days to the reunion!

Love you all!
Kara

Good day everyone. Welcome Aunt Jan, it was good to read your blog. The Beechgrovians are doing well. We took our first out of town trip in about 6 years last week. We went to Oxford Mississippi to visit some friends, the Lifferths. It was about a 6 hour trip. About 100 miles were spent on the Natchez Trace. It is a beautiful drive. For the first time in my life I really took the time to enjoy the drive. I think it is a symptom of getting older. I'll have to see the doctor about that. Of course that visit will be my first visit to a doctor in about 6 years. But I digress... In Oxford we visited Henry David Thoreau's home, took a tour of the Ole Miss campus, and hiked around a beautiful lake.

Other McKee news; Sarah was baptized two weeks ago. We had a very nice meeting for her. Papa spoke on the Holy Ghost and Grandma (Jenny's mom) spoke on baptism.

Sam is playing his first season of basketball with the YMCA league. He loves it. He is doing great at school.

Erin has been working hard to save up money for her 6th grade trip to Fall Creek Falls. They have a 3 day trip planned the end of May. The next week we are going to Disneyland. She is doing extra cleaning around the house to save up. Erin has many talents. One of these days, I'm going to post a book that she wrote. She did pictures and all. Her latest work has been a comic strip type story. She uses pictures to depict a conversation two girls are having.

Jenny is doing great. My work is as busy as it's ever been. Ever since the beginning of the year I have been busier than at any other time. We are in the beginning stages of being purchased by another company. I don't foresee any layoffs for me or my teams as a result. If anything, I think things will be better.

Until next time...