My Aunt Dianne

Aunt Dianne Hickey

This is a picture of my dad's family.  From left to right at the top: Aunt Dorothy, my dad, Irma (my grandmother), Bill Ham, Charlotte Ham
Bottom row:  Marne with Esther in his lap, Emily Snyman, Charles Snyman
and Jackie Ham

Aunt Dororthy with my grandfather. She is holding Dianne and Marne is holding Donna.

    It was a exciting, but also a little scary going to meet my Aunt Dianne.  We couldn't get in touch with her before the Jinglebell Horse Show, but I knew she would be there so we decided to go and see if we could find her.  We left Saturday morning and got there about 11:00.  After asking several people where I could find her son, Scott, who was in charge of the event, we were told where she was.  I walked up to her and said, "Hello Dianne, I am Cheryl." and she replied "I knew who you were when you walked up - you look like your mom."  Then we had a great two days together talking about the Snymans.

My Aunt Dianne

The Jinglebell horse show is an equestrian event.  The horses perform in all kinds of events.  One of them is pulling a chariot as they perform the steps.

They had people dressed in costume singing Christmas carols

My aunt Dianne, her husband Jim and myself.
She looks a lot like my Aunt Dorothy

This is one of their champion horses.  Look how long the tail is.

    Genealogy has been on our list of things to do while in San Diego.  I have four aunts who live in California where my father grew up.  I had heard about them as I grew up, but I hadn't met them in over 50 years.  Last December one of them, Esther, sent me a Christmas Card with her phone number in it.  As we were on our way to our mission in January I called her thinking she lived in southern Nevada.  I found she lived in northern Nevada in a town called Gardnerville; but, she gave me the addresses and phone numbers of the rest of her sisters.  Two of them live in southern California.  She told me Dianne would be in Del Mar sometime because her son hosted a horse show there in the winter. 
    I called Dianne in September and we decided to meet at the Jinglebell horse show in Del Mar in December.  It was perfect because we visited while Richard watched the events.

A Stall for the Horses of the Battalion

After the tour at the Mormon Battalion you go to the courtyard where there are all kinds of activities.  There is panning for gold,  building with bricks, washing on a washboard and even an old fashioned pump for getting water.  We have some horses for small Battalion members to ride and they needed a place to reside so Elder Brenchley made them a stall.  It has made the horses much easier for little hands to reach and they have been ridden around the courtyard often.  The grey one and brown and white ones on the bottom even neigh and move their heads when you press their ear.  

Thanksgiving

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Sister Evans, Sister Stallings, Sister Woodbury, Sister Johnson and I after the feast had begun.  

We decorated, baked, carved and ate.  We had all the sisters, all the senior couples and some of their family at the Battalion for Thanksgiving.

We were on duty at the Battalion - yes, we are open 365 days a year (even Thanksgiving and Christmas) so Elder Brenchley was out greeting those who came to see the presentation.  Many people added it to their activities on Thanksgiving - some brought families after they had eaten at their homes.  Some were warming up in sunny San Diego while it was cold at home.  They came from as far away as Wisconsin and China.  

The sisters enjoyed Thanksgiving together.

Carving the turkey

Some of the sisters couldn't find their keys after the celebration.  They thought they may have fallen into a garbage can so they were "dumpster diving" to make sure they hadn't been thrown away.  Later they found them in a coat pocket.