My Last Grandparent

Last Thursday, my grandpa, Victor Nelson, died at the age of 90. He was my last living grandparent. He was also one of the ones I knew the best. His funeral is today and, sadly, I am not there. I feel really sad about this so I want to devote this entry to him.



Some of my earliest memories of Grandpa Nelson come from our visits to his house in Sandy Utah. He was a carpenter and a great craftsman. When we would visit, he would often give us a block of wood, a hammer, and some nails which would keep my sister and me occupied for a long time. He had a great reading voice and could captivate an audience when reading just about any book. He also had a great singing voice. He sang with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for a number of years and instilled in my mom a great appreciation of beautiful music.

He had a good sense of humor and liked to laugh but he also had a sadness that always seemed to be there under the surface. I think this was because my grandmother, who I never knew, died of cancer when my mom was about 13 years old. This was extremely difficult for him and my mom thinks that he never really fully got over it. I assume that he is now over that. What a great reunion that must have been.

When I was 19, I stayed with my Grandpa and My Step-Grandma for about a week. This was because, for some reason I can't remember, I had been officially made a missionary a week before going in to Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. When you are made an official missionary in our church, you have to obey certain rules. One of those rules was that you had to have a companion with you wherever you go (partly to keep you from getting into trouble). During that week, my Grandpa was my companion and I got to know him a lot better. He told me stories about things that had happened in WWII, things that he had learned in his life, and some stuff about my mom growing up. Spending that time with my grandpa was probably one of the best things I could have done just before embarking on my two year, trail by fire, entry in to manhood. Talking with someone who had been through a lot gave me confidence that I could make it too.

In more recent years, my Grandpa suffered from dementia and didn't really remember me. I visited him a few years ago and talked with him about his childhood. I found out that he grew up in Brigham City Utah and that his father died when he was very young. His mom had to feed the family by cleaning clothes and apparently barely scraped by with little money and little help from other people. He did not look on his childhood with fondness and I think it was really frustrating for him during his last years to not recognize anybody and not understand what exactly was going on.

I take comfort in the thought that he is with his wife Louise and that they are finally reunited after all these years of separation. The posterity he helped create, includes some incredible people and I hope he recognizes that now. Many of his children and grandchildren are some of the most faithful, talented, and resourceful people I know. I assume they are watching over my family and having a good laugh right now over all the craziness at my house.

God be with you til we meet again Grandpa,
Jayson Victor Wilkinson

Quint Olympics and Fathers Day

First, I have to write a little bit about my dad. One of the things that we have said in the past is that we feel we were greatly helped by our parents in preparing for these babies. This applies to my dad as well. One of the most important things I learned from my dad was to relax and be patient. At least, that was what he usually did. When he was here a few weeks ago, Rachelle was amazed at how he could patiently help one of the babies while there was complete chaos going on around him. One of the things noticed early on was that he looks a lot like Kyndall. This is fitting since Kyndall is usually the one who sits there calmly and waits for stuff.

When I was a kid, I remember one time when I had done something really bad (not sure what it was) and he had to spank me. I remember that he the patience to talk with me about the bad thing as well as the spanking for what seemed like hours before actually doing it. If he had just got really mad and spanked me on the spot, I probably wouldn't have thought twice about it. However, after calmly talking to me about what I had done and saying that, by the rules, the punishment had to be a spanking, it made the whole thing infinitely more memorable. So much so that I remember really not wanting to do whatever it was that I had done.

I was also always impressed that he bravely participated with my mom in a whole lot of things that he didn't have much experience in before they got married. Before getting married, his life was mostly sports. He played football and ran track in high school and then also ran track briefly in college. I also remember him once playing basketball with my friends and I during my high school years and watching him make something like 19 free throw shots in a row...and I didn't even know he liked basketball! Anyway, after getting married, he started doing stuff that my mom had always liked such as singing. He played Judah in a church-sponsored production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and even had a solo. I was always just really impressed that he was humble enough to jump right in and try new things like that without having a whole lot of experience. This is something similar to what I have been having to do myself (with these babies) and what almost all fathers do when they have kids. I am glad he was a good example in the area of bravely trying new things.

Like I mentioned earlier, my dad was into sports. On that note, we have decided that we need to start training our kids now. There is going to be some rivalry and they are going to have to work some things out between them so we thought we would start their training with some friendly competition. This episode of WQ+2 is the the first event of the Quint Olympics hosted by Riley and Kaiya. The event is Toy Wrestling and involves putting two babies in a square on the floor and having them wrestle over a toy. If they give up the toy or leave the square, they loose. We thought of this event because we noticed that Rustin just likes to take toys and some of the other babies have started to fight back:

New video coming soon...I think

A lot has happened since I last posted but none of it seemed interesting enough to actually mention. Before I mention any of it (assuming I can remember it), I need to mention that I have some great plans for some fun videos. Now that they are all crawling and also because the summer Olympics are in just a few months, we have decided it is time for the Quint Olympics.



This is where the babies compete in various events. We have noticed that some of them compete a little bit already. Rustin feels like it is his duty to take any toy that any other baby has. Often he will crawl over whatever is in his way, including the faces of other babies, to fulfil his duty. He almost always does this with a big smile on his face. I have found that they almost always have big smiles on their faces when they are doing naughty things. Many of them can't resist pulling the hair of the other babies while wearing big smiles.

Now, what else has happened? My dad spent the week with us last week which was nice. Rachelle made the comment that it is amazing that he would be willing to take a week off of work to go and babysit a bunch of babies. Here is a picture of him with them:



Riley is doing swim team right now. They compete every Saturday in a meet and I was nervous the first time I went because I hadn't actually seen Riley swim all the way accross the pool. When I saw him swim all the way accross I was so excited for him. He usually swims 5 events and I was really impressed because last week he did the butterfly which is not an easy stroke. I was in swimming in high school and I didn't ever actually swim that stroke in competition. He never comes in first...or second...or third but I am totally proud of him. My dad took some shots of him jumping off the blocks. In general, he does really well at this. At the sound of the starting buzzer, most of the kids just kind of roll off the block or else jump in feet first. Riley actually dives although he has that pesky leg that sort of sticks out underneath him:

Something else interesting that happened was that I got a facebook thing from someone that I graduated from high school with (Standley Lake High School Class of '92). I had actually known her since second grade but it was a long time. Her name is Amie Walton and I actually knew her since 2nd grade. Here is a picture of second grade:Here is a closeup of Amie and I (two of the shortest kids in the class):



She started an organization called Hope House of Colorado that helps teenage moms deal with pregnancy which I think is really admirable. It is good to hear that there are people I graduated with that are doing some good things.

Aside from that, I had my 34th birthday a few weeks ago. When I got to work, Jessica, one of my coworkers, brought me a cool badge that said birthday Jedi on it. I wore it all day.

Well, that about sums things up. I hope to be making the first of the Quint Olympics in a few days and have something by next week if I can.