Our Family Continues to Grow

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity. Not the least of which is the return of our granddaughter Monique Mosely to our family. Monique is the daughter of Dorothy our daughter. Monique is married and has a little girl named Destiny. Destiny is one of our almost 11 great-grandchildren, as Jacuelyne - daughter of Audrey is due in a few months with another great-grandchild. We are thrilled at the growth of our family! Monique said she had been looking for us for the past 8 1/2 years, and I told her I had been looking for her for 20+ years! I didn't know the surname of the family who adopted her many years ago.

Monique Nicole (Shea)Tansmore Jefferson Mosley

Dorothy had lived many troubled years, and when Monique was very young she was forced to give Monique over to the foster care program in California. We never knew her foster parents, who eventually adopted her. And Monique has since told me she lived in a very abusive household with her adoptive parents. I was very disappointed to hear that, and she has also told me she has little/nothing to do with any of her adoptive family, which her husband has endorsed because he feels it is detrimental to their family life. She did say she is still in touch with one of her older brothers from the family.

Destiny Mosley

Now - how did Monique come back into our family you may have asked yourself. . . well, it was all thanks to Facebook! She began trying to find me on Facebook, and when she did she saw a post from me stating I was at the UCLA Institute of Religion teaching my Wednesday night religion class. Because I used the "Check in" feature on my iPhone the address and phone number of the Institute was 'clickable' - so Monique called the phone number the next day to ask for me. Sister Margaret Park who is the UCLA Institute secretary took her call and then spoke to Brother John Neeley who is the director about connecting us, so Monique had left her phone number with Margaret and she gave it to me and I called her. We had a wonderful telephone reunion and are planning a family barbecue on Memorial Day at our home in Lancaster, CA.

Monique and Gabriel Mosley

I gave Monique Dottie's phone number and she contacted her. A few days later they met at Monique's home for dinner and are now permanently connected.

We welcome Monique, Gabriel (her husband) and daughter Destiny to our family - eternally!

Our Newest Grandchild

I am so happy to announce the birth of our newest grandchild who is:

Caroline Anina Chronis
Born: May 21, 2011
Where: Lancaster, CA
To: Dan and Ramona Vargas Chronis
Time: 7:19 PM
Length: 20 3/4 in



Caroline is such a beautiful and sweet little baby girl. She was born tongue-tied and had extreme difficulty nursing. When she was about three days old Dan and Ramona took her to an EENT specialist. The specialist determined it was necessary to clip the frenulum beneath her tongue. She can now move her tongue around the inside of her mouth and is better able to drink her bottle. She still has not been able to nurse her mother, so her mom pumps out her breast milk and fills bottles to feed baby Caroline. It has been sad to see this, but I know one day Caroline will figure out how to nurse at the breast.

Grandchildren are the Best!

We came up to Lancaster last Sunday morning to watch over five of our grandchildren while Dan and Ramona are in Europe. It is now Saturday, and what a week. The children all have a whirlwind of activities to be shuttled back and forth to/from, and then there are three meals a day to prepare, and chores for everyone. Ahhh, the memories of handling a large home with six children in tow! But ALL the children have been so good and helpful that I cannot complain one iota.

Benjamin, who is 22 months old is the biggest challenge. He pretty much runs the show all the time! Ha! He snacks all day and then refuses to eat his three meals, so yesterday I refused to give him snacks all day and he finally ate his meals without difficulty. We took him with us to WalMart today and he decided since we'd bought yogurt it was time to eat it - and had a HUGE tantrum in the store, so Tony had to take him away so I could finish the shopping.

Tony bought smoothies for us and he latched onto Tony's and wouldn't give it back until we got home and gave him a yogurt for lunch. He's so funny. He's just learning to talk, so everything he says is cute right now. The other kids enjoy encouraging him to say their names, and he is fairly cooperative about it.

We bought "Avatar" and showed it to Ewa and Elias last evening and we all enjoyed it very much. I'm not real big on it's overly pro-ecological kick, but it is entertaining and exciting. Miguel latched onto our copy of the film, so we had to find and buy a new one. MIGUEL!!

We only have two more days here, then it's back home to packing and throwing stuff out for the big move. We still have to make the offer on the house up here, but I'm sure it will go smoothly and we can start moving our things in quickly. Since we are paying cash for the house escrow should be a breeze. Yay - because the escrow for our house has not been without glitches.

40th Wedding Anniversary

I cannot believe 40 years have passed since Tony and I were married. We were married at the home of my bishop, Marvin Nelson, in his living room on September 19, 1970. The Nelson's are now temple workers at the Los Angeles Temple, and we see them occasionally when we attend. The night we married Bishop Nelson told me Tony would join the church. I believed him, and a year after we were married he was baptized. A year later we were sealed in the Los Angeles Temple for time and all eternity, along with our son Miguel. At the time we were sealed I was seven months pregnant with Ramona, our youngest child, so when she was born she was born in the covenant. Our witnesses to our marriage in 1970 were Tony's sister, Margaret and her husband, Gene. After our wedding we went out for awhile, but had to go home because I had to go to work the next morning. Tony was in college and I was working to support us. We were living at Tony's parent's home at that time. In fact, Tony proposed marriage to me at dinner one night with his mother present. Since she was working at the LA County Fair she could not attend our wedding, we went ahead with our plans instead of waiting.

Many years later Tony told me he was sorry we had not had a nice church wedding, one his family could have attended.

We are having an Open House at our home on September 18, 2010 to celebrate with our friends and family.

Our New Chronis Grand Child

We welcome our newest grandchild into our family.

Benjamin Lloyd Chronis
Born at 10:14 AM on May 27, 2009
9 pounds 11 ounces - 22 inches

We are sooo proud of Ramona for all her sacrifice that brought this little boy into our family. We know she suffered not only through her labor and delivery, but also in carrying this very large child inside her. Ramona is the finest mother I know and is an example of patience, long suffering and grace. I am her mother and I know most women fit this description, but I want everyone who reads this to recognize her character as do I.



Ramona received more than 1300 text messages of congratulations in less than one hour after Benjamin's birth. She is so beloved by so many.



You gain a better perspective of Benjamin's size when seeing him in the arms of his nine year old brother, Elias.



Ewa-Solange is so happy to have her new little brother in her arms. She will be a very sweet big sister for Benjamin.

My Brother Walt Lingren

I had not seen my older brother, Walt for more than 13 years. So imagine how happy I was to get a call from him a few weeks ago. He said he and his wife Janice were coming to LA to go on a cruise and wanted to know if they could visit us for a couple of days. I was ecstatic and of course told them yes. So on the appointed day I picked them up at LAX and brought them to our home. They were so pleased to come to our home, and we were so glad to have them. You see, in all my adult lifetime Walt has NEVER been to my home. I was glad to have him see how we live and what our lives are like. He found out we are VERY busy, all the time.

I took them to a concert at USC the night they flew in. The concert was really special because Lauren (our granddaughter) was playing in the symphony orchestra. Lauren is currently second chair cellist and this is only her sophomore year at USC, which tells you what kind of skills she has.

The concert was fabulous and we went to Gladstones for ice cream afterward and Lauren got to know them better, and they got to talk quite a bit with her.

The next day I took them sight-seeing. We went to The Farmers Market at Third and Fairfax and we got to go to the shop where Percia (another of our granddaughters) works.

We stayed for lunch and then I took them to Rodeo Drive so they could see the 'beautiful' people.

Then in the afternoon I took them to visit our church and I played the organ for them. Neither one of them ever knew I play the piano and the organ, so they were extremely surprised. That tickled me so much. I was very proud to play our lovely pipe organ we have at the Wilshire Building for them.

The next morning (Saturday - sailing day) I made a huge breakfast for us all, we devoured everything and really enjoyed ourselves. We left the house a 11 AM and got to the Port of Los Angeles at noon.

We stayed until they got their luggage taken and then we left. I wish we could have gone on the cruise with them, because Tony and I adore cruising. So we made a promise we will take one together the next time.

I was able to re-connect Walt with his former high school sweetheart, Janice a few months ago and they have been inseparable ever since. Janice has always been my dear friend and although we had not seen one another in 49 years we picked up our friendship right where we left it off. This was truly such a fantastic reunion and I'm so happy they made us part of it. I can't wait to see them again.

Eli's Blessing Day

When we are young we are so busy being parents we forget to take in the blessings of family on a daily basis. I really believe that's why we're allowed to be grand parents and great-grandparents.

As I watched Tony bless and name Eli (our sixth great-grandchild) descriptive words of the moment failed me, because my heart was full to bursting.

That was November 3, 2008. Two months have passed and I've been able to put things more in perspective. At the time I was very ill and was to have had major surgery that very weekend, but because we had scheduled the blessing for that weekend I had to postpone it - not that I was excited about having the surgery either, but because that was the only day everyone in the family could come for the blessing.

The ceremony at church was beautiful and the words Tony spoke over the baby were unforgetable. The Spirit was so strong. After church we all went to our home for a post-blessing family dinner. I had prepared ham (a HUGE one), potato, macaroni and green salads. And Elisa had provided the cake, which was gorgeous. I'll try and post pictures of the food later. We had invited some very special, important people to our family and were enjoying ourselves immensely, catching up on everyone's life, when through the front door came our daughter Audrey and her daughters Jackie and Joscelyn and Jackie's two small boys (two of our great-grandchildren). You could have knocked everyone in the house over with a feather. We had not seen Audrey for 16 years. Jackie and found me on the internet via Classmates.com. She said she was looking for anyone who knew her mother in high school. I answered her back and told her I was her grandmother and had been looking for them for years. Then I told our daughter, Elisa that I had found Audrey - and she came to California from Utah to bring Lauren back to USC for the school year. Then Elisa and Lauren went out to Valencia and found Audrey and told her about the upcoming blessing and that we wanted them to come. And they did. We had a wonderful re-union and I cannot tell you how grateful I am for the internet and for Classmates.com! Hopefully we will remain connected from now on. I will never take my children for granted again. When I think that after my surgery I came close to leaving this old world then I am so dedicated to keeping my family together from now on. May God bless us all in that effort.

Family Stuff

So far this month has been uneventful, thank goodness!

Last month I was terribly ill, Miguel was a victim of his company's downsizing and became one of the many unemployed, Ramona and Dan were dealing with a severely unruly teen, Julia Ann was a lady-in-waiting and my head was spinning.

Now, Julia Ann has a darling little boy, Eli Anndrew, Miguel is teaching in a music school in Santa Monica, CA, I am still ill and am scheduled for surgery on November 7th. Thanksgiving is coming up (at Ramona's again this year) and Christmas is around the corner! Yikes! Where did the year go?

But I guess the BIG NEWS of the year will be the fact that we are back in contact with Audrey and her children and grandchildren and our great-grandchildren! Hallelujah! Forget the past I say and let's move on. Enough already. I still don't know why Audrey just walked away from the family - we didn't do a thing that I recall to precipitate her decision. At least we don't have to deal with anything like that.

We are happy to note that by the end of November we will be the proud great-grandparents of eight (8)! Yay!

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Fall to all out there in cyberland, and may you enjoy your family more in the coming months than you have for a long time. I know we will.

Four For the Price of One

Well, today I received marvelous pictures of my new, soon-to-be great-grandson, Eli Anndrew. He's just gorgeous! None of those old ultra-sound pics, he's in color and very, very real. Just take a look at him and tell me what you think. Of course I'm his gramma, so I get to say how wonderful he is. Tee Hee! He currently weighs 5.5 lbs and will be born on August 20, 2008. What a marvelous time we live in.

A New Eternal Family

I am so excited to announce that Dan and Ramona will be sealed together in the Los Angeles Temple on August 2, 2008 at 3:30 PM. Afterward they are having a reception at the Westwood Ballfield, behind the Temple. We are very excited for this event. It follows on the heels of Ewa-Solange's Birthday, which is August 1, 2008. She will be 12 years old, and that's so exciting. We are so proud of Ramona and Dan and all they have accomplished in such a short time. May Heavenly Father forever bless their union to the betterment of our Eternal Family. The Vargas Family and the Chronis Family.

Three Fun Days!

Had so much fun yesterday. After Tony got home from work we drove up to Lancaster to have dinner with Mona, Ewa and Elias. Mona made a fantastic supper of white rice, fried rice and chicken/cream chesse filled wonton, pineapple and her special wonton dipping sauce (so delish!). For dessert she had made lemon curd squares - so tart and good. Then we packed up and brought them back to L.A. to stay for a couple of days while Dan is away with his Scout Group on a camp-out. We're taking them back Wednessday night. Today we'll wing-it and decide what we want to do. Anyway Mona is sleeping in, so is Ewa. Naturally Elias is sitting in my chair playing PS3 video games. He was probably doing that since 6 AM, before Tony left for work. Ha! It's so nice to hear the children's voices in the house. This home was built for children and a large family. We're going to relish the time we have them here this week. It's so good to see my grand babies and their Mom. The missionaries are coming to supper tonight, so I need to get a menu ready. Love having them over.

Working on Genealogy

Well, here I am for a few minutes before I have to do something else. I am getting out my old, and I mean old - photos and creating albums with them. Hopefully I may have them finished in a few months. They are of my Kirkpatrick ancestors and I don't want to lose the pictures, but it's very hard work. But, onward and upward. I had to have another adjustment yesterday, today I had my massage. I feel better but my left back is bothering me again. I'm sure it's the weather. I have to win this battle! I want to go on the trek with Tony and the kids from the LA Stake. I'm adding a picture to this note to see what I'm working with, even some are tintypes. Very interesting.




James Francis "Frank" and Frances "Fannie" Ligon Kirkpatrick and Family - Early 1900's