The smallest Loertscher in our family, Elizabeth, or “The Bun,” is a delight to all, complete with a very strong personality, and a very well developed sense of fashion. Our first girl with brown eyes! Recently turned 21 months old, it is amazing to see how someone so small can find her place in such a large family so easily. She manhandles her older brothers (ages 4 and 6) with ease—pushing them off chairs, stealing their toys, controlling their unwelcome movements with screams of disdain and fury. Her older sisters (ages 9, 11, and 13), she convinces to carry her about at will by applying the ever-useful “Koala” move (think Koala on a eucalyptus tree—clinging desperately to your every limb with all fours—and you get the drift). Her oldest brother she alternately loves or hates, depending on her mood, and whether or not he is playing a computer game she likes. He most often receives the “Celery” move (ramrod stiff body, arms in air, fingers wiggling, screams reverberating). Our Bun has not learned to say more than ten words so far, but she is very smart, as evidenced by her constant use of tools to get what she wants. Mother’s supply of sugar-free gum and Burt’s Bees lip balm are never safe with Bun awake.
Bathroom stools, food storage buckets, and dining chairs are all fair game for the intrepid Bun. Our darling baby, when not keeping mother constantly busy wondering where she is and what she is doing, loves to look at books and be read to. She also loves all babies and all animals.
Our youngest son, John, is now 4 ½ and growing up fast. His obsession with vehicles from the movie “Cars” is waning, but not completely extinguished. Father and mother used to never go to bed at night without moving a Mater or paint-chipped “Kachow,” but it is fortunately becoming less and less frequent. John also loves to look at books (unfortunately, “Calvin and Hobbes” is a big draw).
Amazingly, after a few short phonics lessons from mother, John taught himself to read simple words last spring. He and mother work do “school work” a few times a week, where John is learning to read more words. He loves numbers, and taught himself to count to one hundred this fall. Mother was especially amazed at her little “genius” for a few weeks when he rattled off his +2, doubles, and double +1 math facts—but it turned out he was just able to see the answer on the other side as the light showed through the card. 
Mother is much smarter now, and drills children with the math facts flat on the table. John also loves puzzles and playdoh, and constantly informing the family when their media choices are “inappropriate”—a word he can hardly pronounce—because they have love or kissing in them.
Bryan, 6 ½, is a constant surprise to his family, mostly because of his comments during sharing time in Primary. All of the 2010 additions to the Loertscher-Family-Bad-Word-Repertoire have been put there because of our darling boy: “I’m bored!” and “Nobody loves me!” Bryan loves math, science, inventions, and reading.
He is truly gifted in many ways, but constantly reminds us of his maturity level at the dinner table, where he seems to feel like Oliver Twist with a bit of watery gruel when presented with hot, healthy, balanced meals three times a day (we guess at least one kid out of seven have to be picky, right?). 
Our favorite recent Bryan story is his report of a Primary class, where a somewhat unprepared teacher decided to play hangman with the class of first graders (hint for unprepared primary teachers: first graders can’t spell). On Bryan’s turn, his choice of word was “Mesopotamia”—and why not? Sadly, none of his classmates could spell it, read it, or knew what it meant; but at least the process took up a lot of class time.
Lauren just turned nine, and is in third grade. 2010 was an important year for her, as she got baptized on Valentine’s Day.
She is growing up quickly and maturing in many ways. She enjoys cooking, listening to books on CD, playing with friends, and playing imaginative games with her younger siblings. Lauren has struggled with learning to read, but the last few months her reading has taken off and now she is enjoying simple chapter books. 
Mother is grateful for her loving and generous spirit, especially when she directs aforementioned siblings in creative games that take hours: detective games, “cat” and “dog” games, where everyone is a kitten or puppy and she is their mother, and picnics (mother doesn’t like these quite as much, as somehow the ENTIRE encyclopedia set is needed to keep the blanket-tent in place).
Amy turned eleven at the end of the year and is now in 5th—or sort of 6th—grade. Amy is supposed to be in 5th because her birthday is in November, but she was doing so well in her studies, is so responsible, and such a wonderful reader, mother moved her up this year. So far she is handling it very well, even when having to complete two math lessons a day to finish a 6th grade math course by the end of the year. Amy is a delightful child, and we are so happy to see her growing up so well.
The most exciting thing that happened to Amy this year was SHE GOT HER EARS PIERCED. The ear piercing involved weeks of anticipation (How much will it hurt?), a squealing scene in Walmart during the actual event, and almost daily discussions afterwards regarding the timing of earring removal (Can I take them out yet? How about now? How long has it been now?), culminating with unfortunate discovery that those first earrings are really hard to get out (it took over two weeks—whew!). 
Amy’s life is filled with school work, making crafts, piano practicing, cooking, and her favorite, TEXAS CHILDREN’S CHOIR (drum roll, please). TCC is a wonderful organization, and we are glad to be associated with it. She and her big sister Carolyn will be traveling to Washington, DC for 13 days this June on a choir tour.
Carolyn, our oldest daughter, turned thirteen in November. She, like Amy, has been excitedly anticipating the TCC tour to DC for over a year now. Carolyn is growing up into such a nice young lady. She is kind, responsible, helpful, and diligent with her school work.
Carolyn is a favorite with her younger siblings, as she often takes the time to make creations for them (a cardboard “laptop” for a doll, for example, complete with different screens that change in and out behind a “screen” of plastic wrap). She has just grazed 5’10” and hasn’t grown for a few months, so it’s possible she’s reached her full height (we’ve been wondering!). She has really enjoyed being in Young Women’s this past year, and especially loved her first year at girls’ camp. Being in the Texas Children’s Choir keeps her very busy, as well as her drawing and writing activities.
She has a natural love and ability for both, and almost every night when all the other children are asleep, mother finds Carolyn’s lamp on...and Carolyn is awake doing one or the other (a natural night owl like her father, seminary when it starts will be difficult!).
We can, finally, after almost 16 years of parenting, report to our friends of much younger children that YES, THEY REALLY DO GROW UP FAST. Our oldest son, David, will be 15 in just a few weeks.
We cannot believe how strange or old this sounds. Even stranger was signing David up for driver’s ed a few weeks ago. David, however, seems to be taking it all in stride—he almost seems glad! Hey! Stop growing up!
Ninth-grader David had an interesting year. He enjoyed a forty-five mile hike this summer for high adventure through some Texas “mountains” (he counts the extra side hikes to a working outhouse). He achieved the rank of life scout. He attended his first youth conference and hit most of the stake dances. He bought a mother board, processor, case, and scavenged additional parts from the shed to create his own computer. He constantly schemed of ways to combine new and faster technology with his favorite operating system (Windows 98).
He progressed on his piano adventures to the point that he can play most themes from his favorite computer games, an accomplishment that renders him popular among other young men his age. More importantly, mother thinks, he played in Sacrament meeting this year and has far surpassed her abilities on the piano. David also started seminary this fall, something he loves but mother does not so much due to the early morning hours (she only threw up once, thank goodness). He keeps very busy with Algebra II and Biology, as well as the constant stack of books and assignments given to him by mother in a variety of other subjects (geography! public speaking! german!). As a whole, David is a delightful young man and he sets a wonderful example for his younger siblings, or a frightful stub, depending on who you ask (and Carolyn has only beaten him at chess twice).
What are the parents up to, you might ask? The first part of Steve’s 2010 was spent attending public scoping meetings for bedding down the Air Force’s F-35 training mission. This took him to many interesting places in Arizona (Surprise, El Mirage, Tucson, Thatcher, Sierra Vista, San Carlos, Bisbee, Wickenburg, Gila Bend); New Mexico (Alamogordo, Carizozo, Cloudcroft, Roswell, Carlsbad, Ruidoso, Ft. Sumner); and Idaho(!) (Boise, Meridian, Marsing, Bruneau). He met many interesting people who had a lot to say about the proposal. Steve also moved from his old job on Randolph to a new office near Lackland AFB. He’s been doing cultural and natural resource work for the last six months or so, but will be moving over to the hazardous materials management branch soon, which is, strangely enough, something akin to a promotion. The new job is interesting, but the commute is almost exactly 100 times longer than it used to be (.25 miles versus 25 miles).
Steve had a variety of “old man” pains this year, including flare-ups in his trick knee and bone spur surgery on an ankle. In spite of the injuries, he still manages to play a little basketball and has been able to run some longer distances this year, including 13 miles two days after Christmas. Steve’s surgeon was surprised but smugly self-satisfied when he heard Steve had run 5 miles about two months post op. He had a “Yeah, I’m good” look on his face; maybe Steve’ll be an OPR bullet or something.
Steve was also recently released as ward Young Men’s President, as he is facing a likely upcoming deployment, which may or may not coincide with the birth of baby number eight (we’re still waiting to hear!).
Rebecca was released in September from the Primary presidency, which was a sad time after working for over two years with such wonderful women and children, but welcome at the same time as she slid into the abyss of nausea. Rebecca currently serves as the Primary pianist, and Steve as the Priest Quorum advisor. Their combined eleven families to home and visit teach should keep them busy in their “new” spare time.
The mother of the Loertscher family kept busy this year, as usual. The first half of the year was very busy sending daddy out the door just about every other weekend on temporary duty trips (see above), and managing the family alone while he was gone. The school year ended for the family around June, although A FEW UNNAMED CHILDREN had to do school work through the summer to make up for a bit of naughtiness during the school year. June was spent completely re-organizing the house, which hadn’t been done since the last baby arrived on the scene, and changing up the kid bedroom scene with some rearranging and redecoration (IKEA!). Trying to fit five, then six, children into two bedrooms with virtually no closet space is not an easy task! In her free time, as David declined to attend the local high school this year, Rebecca researched the myriad of options for homeschooling high school on the internet, and then frustrated with the lack of affordable, quality options, decided to plan and do it herself. We all decided to take a break from this in the middle of July, when we spontaneously planned and left on the GRAND LOERTSCHER TOUR OF 2010.
After returning from our trip toward the end of August, she frantically planned, organized, and ordered home school materials for six children. Rebecca also began teaching a public speaking class to eight homeschooled teens besides her own, which has been really fun. This January, the family started attending a local home school enrichment co-op with over 100 children offered one morning a week. Everyone has really enjoyed this.
Easily the most exciting thing our family did this year, the GRAND LOERTSCHER TOUR OF 2010 included seven states, 5500 miles, nine hotels, one campground, and lasted five weeks. Rebecca thought it would be fun to do most of this herself (since we’re already out west, why not stay a while...), since Steven could get less than two weeks off work, but she found out about half way through the alone part that maybe she was a little ambitious (note to self). This was brought home to her in an unexpected way when she crossed the Hoover Dam and was asked to pull over for an extra security check because of the length of our van.
The security guard asked her to open the back of the van...and found...a giant wall of stuff (suitcases, sleeping bags, tents, a camp stove, inflatable mattresses, pillows, a double stroller, bags of dirty laundry, bags of clean laundry, towels, paper goods, cold cereal, swim suits, all hastily shoved in for the next leg of our trip). Puzzled, the security guard stood silently for a moment. Rebecca does not look like a terrorist—we’re not supposed to profile--and this conglomeration of items could be an unusual (and thoroughly ingenious!) bomb cloaking device. She finally said, somewhat embarrassed at the mess, “I’ve traveled 3500 miles with seven kids by myself for three weeks.” Quietly, the guard closed the van door (we could only open one!), and she was given permission to continue.
Actually, it sounds crazy (it was), but it went much better than could be expected, and the kids were completely awesome. The absolute hardest part was doing the laundry for eight people on the road. Why, oh why, do most hotels only have two washers and dryers?
Our trip was made a bit longer by the somewhat unexpected death of Rebecca’s grandfather at the beginning of August. Already in Tucson right before the graveside service, she decided to turn back north instead of heading home to Texas, and she and the children paid their last respects to this man who had been such a part of her and her older children’s lives. It was very nice to visit Cache Valley again and see relatives from years past.
Highlights of the trip included visiting COUSINS, of course, and hanging out on the ranch in Idaho; a visit to USU and Logan Canyon; Cherry Hill water park and campground in Layton, UT; The Church History Museum in Salt Lake (Welfare Square was a bust—the younger four were removed mid-tour by an embarrassed mother);
a visit to the BYU and the Bean Science Museum (thanks, Uncle Brad!); the Phoenix Science Museum, Mount Lemmon in Tucson, and the Grand Canyon (John: “Look, Mom, it’s a big hole!”); the many hotel pools, a trip to the Cache County fair, visiting with friends in Colorado Springs, and one of the favorite stops was “Melanie’s House” in Lewiston, UT (she has goats and chickens, a large sand box, a working Model A truck, and is an awesome cook—this explains it all). The only really bad thing that occurred was that daddy inexplicably flew home with the family camera, leaving us with virtually no record of our journeys. Sigh....
We hope you all have had a wonderful year. We miss our many friends and family left all over the country. If you have made it this far into our family newsletter, it’s unbelievable, but it was just such a fun-filled and exciting year for us we just had to share. We have been blessed in so many ways, but most especially with the gospel.
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