September 24th - A Very Special Clemmer Family Day

S e p t e m b e r   2 4 t h  is a very special day that we celebrate each year.  It is our  family anniversary.  You see, the wonderful day Cory came to our family after a very long four year wait for him was September 24, 1993, at the tender age of eight months.  Here are a few pictures of him two days later later when we went to church for the first time with him.  What a wonderfully memorable day that was, one we had been awaiting for a very long time!

Four years later to the exact day, thankfully with only a few month's wait, Christopher came to our family, on September 24, 1997, at the age of three and a half YEARS.  What are the odds that our second son would come to our family the same day of the year as our first son?  (you knew I'd tell you right?  1/365 = .00274).  Such a very small number! 

As is tradition, we took special pictures on our first Sunday together after church:

Sitting on the hearth in our St. George home with his special red blanket nearby:

Their first of many baths together.  Aren't they the cutest?

Christopher loved to ride in the swing in our backyard peach tree.  This is the outfit he wore when he came to live with us:

Well, the special family anniversaries are not over yet . . .

Then on September 24, 1999, we returned to St. George, Utah (after having moved to Corona in April, 1999) to finalize Christopher's adoption and to have him sealed to our family in the St. George Temple. I won't even try to figure the odds of all three milestone events occuring on the same day!

He and Cory wore matching white tuxedos and looked so cute together.

And here we are as a family:

So, today, September 24th, is a very special day that has a lot of heartfelt memories for us all as you can easily see! 

Normally, we do something special to celebrate.  Usually we go out to a family dinner and occasionally we go somewhere special, like Disneyland.  Today will be different.  I decided to surprise the boys with a gift of service.  I'm washing their bedding down to the bed frame and then making their beds back for them.  Usually they wash their own sheets.  And I may even clean their rooms a little.  Yikes.  I'm not sure I dare with Cory's.  And I'm going to get a cute balloon for each of them and attach a $20 bill at the bottom.  I think they would prefer this gift now that they are always wanting cash for fun teenager type activities.

These special pictures are above "Maga's antique" which sits in our family room and are a constant reminder of how our family came to be.  They show the professional picture Chris and I had taken in 1989 that was placed in the adoption matching book at LDS Social Services to use to match prospective adoptive couples with infants being placed for adoption.  The other two are the boy's first professional pictures after they arrived in our family.  Cory's was taken in November, 1993, at the age of 10 months at Olan Mills in Vista, and Christopher's was taken at his preschool in St. George, Utah right, in February 1998, the month before he turned 4 years old.

Our family has had a lot of fun times and have lived in many places over the years.  We've had many milestones:  In Vista, CA (where Cory came to live with us) and St. George, UT (where Christopher came to live with us).  We also lived in Danbury, CT and Evanston (Chicago), IL when Chris and I were working with Barbara and Sergei on the HFC acquisition.  Now we've been in Corona, CA for the past 10 years, a very long time for us!

We are also a family who loves to travel and go on vacations.   It is so fun to stay at different hotels, eat yummy food and not have to cook or clean up!  We've traveled a lot of fun places over the years: 

• Throughout Utah - Zion's Park, Bryce Canyon, Provo, Salt Lake City and surrounding areas from 1994 through 1999;
• Weekend trips through parts of Connecticut (Mystic Seaport was so much fun) and Massachusetts (Boston was the best) in 1998 while we were living in Danbury, CT and working in Brewster, NY;
• Taking the subway to New York City and visiting Central Park, Times Square, the Statue of Liberty and other historical sites in 1998 (and living through crazy drives in NYC taxicabs);
• Driving through New York in 1998, visiting Cooperstown, the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame and Palmyra for LDS Church History sites;
• Driving through the Appalachian Mountains to New York in 1998, stopping at Niagara Falls - wow;
• Through the southern province of Ontario, Canada in 1998 where Christopher surprised us by reading signs at the age of 4 (we didn't realize he could read yet!) and through Michigan to our new home in Evanston, Illinois, along Lake Michigan;
• To Indiana on a genealogy trip in 1999 to visit my cousin Shirley Hannaford with whom I had corresponded since 1978 but never met;
  
• To Carthage and Nauvoo, Illinois, on a church history vacation in 1999;
• To Las Vegas to celebrate the finalization of Christopher's adoption and his sealing to us in the St. George Temple;
• To Disneyland Hotel for a week long vacation on our family anniversary in 2001, only 20 minutes from our house but a world away that week;
  
• On a family vacation to Little River in Northern California in 2003 where Chris used to vacation as a child, biking through many state parks and visiting San Francisco, Yosemite and Hearst Castle as well;
  
• To Washington DC Temple for Brittany's wedding in 2004, and visiting the Smithsonian Musems and other DC sites and staying in Bethesda, Maryland, where I was born (first visit back);
  
• Traveling through Virginia to Radford to visit Jaime and family while attending Brittany's reception in Blacksburg in 2004;
  
• Cory and Christopher flying to Washington State alone in 2005 to be with Auntie Barbara and Uncle Iggy while Chris and I went to Europe for 3 weeks for our 20th wedding anniversary;
  
• Flying to Washington State in 2006 as a family after Barbara and Sergei moved there;
  
• Family vacation in Las Vegas, Nevada in July, 2008 - a week in the MGM Signature during the Summer Olympics.  What a blast watching the Olympics each night from our bedroom or bathroom tub and playing in the fantastic pool with a meandering river all day.

We're so thankful Cory and Christopher are part of our lives.  They are wonderful sons.  And while we're not a perfect family and have had many ups and downs, the most important thing is that we are a family, through thick and thin, and that we love each other.