February 17 - Tell about your first favorite TV show.

I don't remember my first favorite, so here are a few of my favorites through the kid/teenage years:

Gilligan's Island
Lassie
Donny and Marie Show
Magnum P.I.
Wonderful World of Disney (a Disney show each week)

February 16 - Tell about your first kiss.

I will tell you about my "sweet 16 birthday kiss". I was in my typing class. There was a boy that I thought was really cute and I was kind of friends with. Well, my friends thought that it would be funny to get him to give me a kiss on my 16th birthday - at school! As I was sitting in class, he was sitting behind me a couple of rows back. He started towards me and just as he was going to give me a kiss on the cheek, I heard someone come up behind me and turned my head. Yep, you guessed......he planted on on the lips. I don't think I have ever turned that shade of red....ever!

February 15 - Tell about your first date.

One of the first dates that I remember was to Homecoming my sophomore year. I had just come home from a volleyball game and my mom informed me that Brian Anderson (who was a friend of my older brother, Joel; a graduate; and one I had a crush on) had come to the house looking for me. My Mom said that he was going to ask me to the Homecoming Dance that just happened to be that night. He did come back and asked me to go. Now I had a major crush on this guy, so I wasn't about to turn him down. The problem was that I didn't have a very formal dress to wear, but I made do with what I had. What a fun night and a dream come true. I felt like Cinderella for a couple of hours.

February 14 - Tell about a special valentine you once received.

February 13 - Tell about a special valentine you once gave.

February 12 - Tell about the Valentine's Day festivities at your school.

In elementary school, the big this was making valentine's boxes and hoping that special someone would give you a special valentine. I remember it being so exciting to read the valentine's and getting the candy and seeing who gave you what. At that age, we also would take valentine cards around to our friends in the neighborhood, drop it on the porch, ring the doorbell, and run. I loved the surprise of a valentine waiting for me on the porch and whom may have given it to me.
Once I got to jr. high and high school, it was always dances. I didn't like the stomps at the jr. high and the one at the high school was always a girls choice dance. Of course, I always asked the guy that I really liked....if he didn't have a girlfriend or hadn't been asked already!

February 11 - Who was your first boyfriend?

My first boyfriend was Kris Hunter. I started dating him when I was 16 and he was 18. I think I was a junior in high school though, so I turned 17 shortly after. He was in my ward and the Bishop's son. We had a lot of fun together.....we went to a lot of musicals - mostly church musicals; the rodeo; out to ice cream; and lots of other stuff. He got his mission call and I told him that I wouldn't wait for him and we would have to see what happened when he got home. I didn't think it was fair to either of us to say I would wait. Everyone in my ward thought that we would get married when he got home, but I didn't want to because I was only 19 and not ready for that commitment. I also did the unpardonable......I dated his older brother while he was gone on his mission and I was in college. I didn't date him very much, but I sure liked him and he became one of my best friends. His brother's name was Kyle. The sad thing about that was that he was in a plane crash and died when I was 19. They were both great guys and came from a great family.

February 10 - How did you get the nickname?

I go the nicknames from my volleyball coach. She gave us all nicknames. Coach Congdon was her name. I really liked her as a coach.

February 9 - Tell a nickname given to you by friends or classmates.

When I was in high school, I had a friend that I joked with about a T.V. show called Kung Fu. We would always quote lines out of it and so I started calling him one of the characters name....which was "Grasshopper". I gave him the nickname of "Grasshopper" and that is how he always signed his name when giving me letters, etc.

I played volleyball on the jr. high and high school team and I had a coach that called me "stubby" because I was a short setter. I was also called "golden hands" because of my setting abilities. Other than that, I don't remember any other nicknames given to me.

February 8 - Did you ever hop a train? Explain

No. I never hopped a train. We didn't really have a train close to where I lived and we had cars for transportation.

February 7 - Tell about a big fib you told.

Lying is something that I want to try and forget about, because I'm sure I did it and I didn't like how I felt after doing it. After telling a fib, I would get knots in my stomach for fear I would get caught. I know I would fake being sick sometimes so I could stay home from school. I don't really remember a big one, though.

February 6 - Who was the most famous person you ever met as a child?

I don't remember. When I was in 6th grade, though, I got to go and watch them film the "Donny and Marie Show". I loved Donny Osmond and some of his brothers. I had a big crush on him! I was so excited to go and watch it being filmed. I have a Donny Osmond scrapbook...that's how much I had a crush on him. I didn't actually meet him in person, but watching him that day was close enough for me!

February 5 - What were you doing to first smash a finger?

I was probably trying to hammer something. I don't really remember smashing my fingers too much. I remember smashing my toes. I dropped a big rock on my foot once. It wasn't a pretty site.
I remember smashing Ashley's finger, though. I smashed it in the door by mistake. I felt like a terrible mother at the time. It was smashed flat, turned red and purple, and she cried hard. I still remember how bad I felt. Ashley was not even two, yet.

February 4 - What was your favorite meat as a child?

I would have to say that my favorite meat was hamburger. I loved to get hamburgers at McDonald's and Arctic Circle. I loved to get McDonald's Big Mac (Two whole beef patties, specials sauce, pickles, lettuce, cheese, onions, on a sesame seed bun). Now a days, I would never get the Big Mac....I now know how bad they are for you. Although I loved hamburgers, I often would get the Footlong Hotdog from Arctic Circle with pickle relish...yum! Apparently, I had quite the appetite!

February 3 - Do you remember the first movie you ever saw and who starred in it?

I don't remeber the first movie I ever saw, but I loved a lot of the Disney movies. Some of my favorites are: (not all of them are Disney)
Herbie the Love Bug
The Million Dollar Duck
Flubber (old version)
The Parent Trap (old version)
Where the Red Fern Grows
Bambi (Thumper was my favorite character)
The Shaggy D.A. (old version)

These are just a few that I can remeber. We went to the drive-in theater a lot. When I was in Elementary school they had a program where you could buy a package of tickets and go see a movie every Saturday at the theater next to Cottonwood Mall. That was a lot of fun. A lot of kids did it and so it was fun to have your friends there with you.

February 2 - Tell about someone you envied and why.

I envied my older brother Joel. He was funny, good-looking, athletic, and popular (in my eyes). At the time, I thought it was the most important thing to be popular and "loved" by everyone. He always had a cute girlfriend, had people to hang out with, and had lots of fun. I wish that I hadn't cared about those thins so much when I was younger. I had lots of friends, lots of fun, was athletic, and popular in my own world. I just didn't realize it then. All the things that he had then, didn't always make him happy. That is the whole point...they were just things. I should have centered my envy on drawing closer to the Lord. Not to say that Joel didn't seek after those things, too, but I could have sought after them a little more. I did look up to Joel and admire him in a lot of ways. He always looked after me and stuck up for me. He let me be a part of his athletic life even though sometimes that wasn't so cool to have a girl participate. I loved having an older brother to look up to and admire.

February 1 - What extra's did you use on your snowman - face, arms, etc.

How to dress a snowman:
*Eyes - rocks
*Nose - carrot or stick
*Mouth - not sure what we used...maybe rocks
*Hat - one of our snow hats
*Scarf - one that we could find. We didn't always have one.
*Arms - sticks or broom handles.
We, of course, always tried to build the biggest snowman we could. Lifting the head up to the top was quite a challenge when the head was so big. I loved making snowmen.

January 31 - Tell what you used to go sledding in the snow.

When I was little we used a wooden sled....you would sit on top, hold a rope, put your feet on a wooden slat and push with one foot or the other to turn the runners. Another kind was a toboggan, but we usually used the wood sled. As we got older, we used plastic sleds and car tire inner tubes. We tried to get the biggest tubes because you could bounce high off it when you hit a jump. We loved to go up the canyon and find the biggest hill to go down. We usually went to a place up Big Cottonwood Canyon. We always made trains or would see how many people we could pile on one tube and who could stay on the longest. I loved going sledding/tubing up the canyon. I remember that my dad would sometimes pull us on the tubes down the street, behind the car. The streets were rarely cleared in our neighborhood so you could pull tubes behind the car, around the block. We loved sledding/tubing and playing in the snow.

January 30 - Tell about the worst winter storm you can remember as a child.

When I was a child, it snowed hard a lot! It seemed that we always got good storms with lots of snow. I remember being able to pull each other up and down the street on sleds because the streets never got cleared. We always had enough snow to build big snow forts so that we could have snowball wars or we had enough snow to build big snowmen. I don't ever remember it snowing enough to get out of school, though. But, we do live in Utah and they don't cancel very often for snow storms.
I would have to say that the winter of 1982-83 were probably the year we got the most snow because we had major flooding in the spring that year. We were able to get out of school to go help sandbag around rivers and houses. We also had a river going down the middle of State Street (downtown)....literally. They had built up walls to hold the water in and people could canoe down State Street. It was crazy!

January 29 - What was the dumbest stunt pulled by you and a brother or sister?

January 28 - What did you and your brothers or sisters fight about the most?

I am sure that we fought over toys. I only have brothers (3 of them) and so I don't think it was always the toys. We fought over who was the boss when mom and dad were gone. Usually my brother Joel was the boss and then when our parents would leave, I would have to do everything.

January 27 - Did your mother work outside of the home?

My mom worked outside of the home, but I don't remember her being gone a lot. She helped my dad sell camping trailers; she worked at Grand Central, which is like a Shopko or Target store; she worked in the special needs classroom at Brighton High School; and when I was in high school she started driving a school bus for Jordan District in Sandy. She retired from driving just a few years ago. That is one job I will never have! I couldn't drive something that big and long!

January 26 - Relate an experience or memory of a cousin.

When I was in high school and college, I used to go and watch my younger cousins while their parents went on a trip. I loved being with my cousins and I loved watching over my younger cousins. When my uncle Kim and aunt Lisa decided to move, they were moving to Las Vegas. Their youngest child, Randy, asked his mom, "When we move to Las Vegas is my skin going to turn black like the other kids?" In his mind, he was going to turn into a little black boy because it was so hot down there. He was so cute!

January 25 - When caught being naughty, describe the consequences.

The consequences of being naughty, were telling the other person "sorry"; getting a punishment such as being "grounded"; and getting a nice long lecture. The disappointment in my parents probably was the biggest consequence or punishment for me!

January 24 - What's the naughtiest thing you ever did?

The naughtiest thing I ever did was take a pack of gum from the store. I wanted it so bad and my mom wouldn't buy it for me. I am pretty sure she made me take it back, and that was completely humiliating! I am sure that I cried for a good long time.....not only because I had to take it back, but because I couldn't have it! After that I remember being afraid of being arrested for shoplifting....my dad was a policeman and he always told us that we would be arrested if we ever shoplifted. I thought for sure they would come and get me and arrest me. Oh, the mind of a young child!

January 23 - What type of punishment did you receive?

I don't really remember the punishments that I received too much. It is probably a good thing that we don't remember the punishments as long as we learned from them. I know that I got spankings and go scolded for punishments. I also would get "grounded"....meaning I had to stay home and not play with friends or watch T.V., etc. Usually when that was handed out, my mom would forget a day or so later....so "grounding" never lasted too long at our house.

January 22 - When you needed punishment as a child, which parent corrected you?

The parent that usually correct me or gave me punishment was my mom. Only because she was the one that was home with us. For the most part, my mom was a stay-at-home mom. As I got older she went back to work. My dad worked a lot of jobs and so was gone a lot. Mom was the "heavy". :0)

January 21 - Did you ever have an imaginary friend?

I don't think that I had an imaginary friend, but I always wished I had a horse. And if I ever got that horse it would have been a "painted pinto" and his name would have been Storm Cloud. The wish of a horse was as close to an imaginary friend I ever got.

January 20 - Did any relatives ever live with you?

When I was growing up I don't remeber any relatives living with us. When Mark and I got married, my younger brother Jeff lived with us for about 6 months(?). Other than that, no.

January 19 - Tell about a favorite uncle

It is hard to pick a favorite uncle, but it would probably be uncle Joel. He is married to Aunt Joan. His name is Joel Martinez and he is Hispanic. I think that his family is from Mexico. He loved to tease me and I loved it when he teased me. He coached little league football and had me be a cheerleader for his team. I can't say that I loved doing that, but the fact that he got me on the squad was enough for me. I loved to just hang out with him and my cousins. He was funny and light hearted. I remeber one time that he came over to our house for something and when he was going home I went with him without telling my parents. Boy, did I get into trouble for not telling them where I was going! He was a witness for me at my wedding in the Salt Lake Temple. I love him very much.

January 18 - Tell about a favorite aunt

I had a couple of favorite aunts, but the one that I did the most with was Aunt Joan. She is my mom's younger sister. They lived about 10 minutes away from us and so I remember spending a lot of time over there playing with the cousins. The times I spent there were always fun. As I got older, and into college, she got me a job in her office as a secretary. I worked there for several years and then become an administrative assistant to a client of theirs. In this office we typed up documents for other people. It was a great job! I was able to spend a lot of time with my aunt....talking, laughing, working, etc. She was one of many that I looked up to in the church. She was a very strong church member until after I got married....she then became anti-mormon. But I loved spending time with her through my growing up years. She is short, about 4'10" tall, blonde, pettit gal. She is a great singer and a hard worker.

January 17 - Tell a fond memory of your grandma

My grandma Pettit used to work for ZCMI and every year for my birthday....I can't remember what age she started this at.....we would go to lunch and shopping. I loved to go with her and my grandpa. My favorite place to eat was "Leatherby's" because they had cream cheese and olive sandwiches and I could get a giant shake....usually praline's and cream. We would then go over to ZCMI and go clothes shopping. She made me feel so special on my birthday and I loved to spend the time with her. I can remember several dresses I got while shopping with my grandma. I loved those dresses! One was a maroon "Gunni Sax" dress. Gunni Sax was a popular name brand for dresses back then. It was fun!

My grandma Johnson would take us downtown every Christmas season to go find an ornament. Every year, my grandma would get us an ornament for the tree. When we were old enough to go shopping, she would take us down and we got to pick out our ornaments. I used to love that because I there were so many to choose from and I loved choosing for myself. I still have them in my Christmas decorations. I wish I could remember the store she would take us to. It was like a real "downtown" experience!

January 16 - Tell a fond memory of your grandpa.

My grandpa Pettit was very fond of horses. He had several when he was growing up and so he had the gear to go on a horse. I, too, am very fond of horses. When I was young, and I would go over to visit my Grandparents, I would look through the many horse magazines that he would get. He always gave me the old ones so that I could cut out my favorite pictures of the horses. Each time I would go and visit, I would go out to his garage and gaze at the saddle hanging on the wall. I know that I asked him many times if I could have that saddle. I knew that it would be the closest I would ever get to owning a horse. After I got married, on my 24th birthday, I got a great surprise! My grandpa Pettit gave me one of his prize possessions....he gave me his saddle that I dreamed of having for many years. I was so excited! My mom made me a sawhorse to put the saddle on. I have sat on that saddle/sawhorse many times dreaming of my horse being under it. I still dream of having a horse some day, and with my saddle I am one step closer!

My grandpa Johnson worked for P.I.E. trucking company. I used to go to work with him and look at all the trucks that he had there. He used to have little trucks in his office and I would love play with them. I didn't go that often, but loved when he would take me. It made me feel special. I obviously wasn't a girly girl. I was a true "tomboy"! My grandma Johnson didn't like that about me, but what can I say...I loved doing things that my brothers did. So going to work with my grandpa was fun to me.

January 15 - Name the childhood addresses you remember

I only lived in one home/place and that was 5099 Lori Way, Holladay, Utah. When I was in college, I lived on campus for one quarter in a place called "The Sill Center" and I had to take a class in the FACS department to go along with it. There were 12 of us girls living there. It was lots of fun.

January 14 - Name the towns/cities you lived in before you were 20

I was born and raised in Holladay/Murray, Utah. I lived in the same home until I got married at age 22. When I was growing up our area was considered Holladay, but that area has since incorporated into Murray. The address is 5099 Lori Way.

January 13 - What did/does your father do for a living?

My dad is retired now, but had many jobs/careers throughout his life. He was a police officer, security guard for Jordan School Dist., road construction worker (held the signs), had own security alarm business, own snowplow business, started with Western Airlines in baggage claim then Delta Airlines bought them and he retired from Delta (not sure which department), he was a volunteer search and rescue on the Salt Lake County team, and right now has a little online business selling security and self-defense items. He sold camping trailers, motorcycles, alarms, model airplanes, and the list goes on and on. He is someone that works hard and is brave enough to start new things/try new things.

January 12th - Tell about other nicknames in your family.

The only other nicknames I can think of are: my dad called the boys "slick" and my grandma Johnson called my dad "tinker". I don't know where the "tinker" nickname came from, but it's a name he was called all his life.

January 11 - How did you get your nickname?

My dad always called me "Jilly". No one else seem to call me that, so i guess it was his own special name for me. My great-grandpa Lingard called me "Halfpint" because according to him that is what halfpint meant in England where he was from. I always wanted to be called J.J. because those are my initials and I have no middle name. I'm a J.J. wanna be!

A Year of Memories!

Jan. 1 - What was your day and date of birth?
I was born on November 11, 1965.

Jan. 2 - Where were you born?
I was born at Holy Cross Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah

Jan. 3 - Do you know any other circumstances of your birth? (who was present, who delivered, etc.?)
I don't know too much or who delivered me. I do know that at that time they didn't let the fathers into the delivery room while a baby was being delivered. So I am guessing that it was my mom and the doctor and nurses in the room.

Jan. 4 - If you have a childhood picture of yourself, place it here. Then tell why you picked that picture.

Jan. 5 - Name your brothers and sisters and their years of birth.
Joel Lee Johnson - July 4, 1963
Jeffery Lane Johnson - August 7, 1967
Jaron Leslie Johnson - September 23, 1972
I don't have any sisters.

Jan. 6 - What was your mother's full name?
Launie Rae Pettit Johnson

Jan. 7 - What was your father's full name?
Lee Holdren Johnson

Jan. 8 - What was your mother's date and place of birth?
December 17, 1942 - Salt Lake City, Utah

Jan. 9 - What was your father's date and place of birth?
July 30, 1943 - Salt Lake City, Utah

Jan. 10 - Tell a family nickname that you had.
Jilly, Halfpint, and J.J. wanna be!