Elise Reagan comes to Hailey town

Elise Reagan, our oldest daughter spent the week with us. Interesting things happened while she was here:

1. There was no fighting in the Hope Home

2. There was a special cheeriness vibe going on

3. The house looked uncharacteristically cleaner than normal.

All of these things can be attributed to Elise. Being the oldest Hope child, Elise has always had very strong leadership skills to the others. Having her home again calibrated everyone's sibling compass back to default. Everyone just fell in and listened to what Elise had to say and there was no bickering!

Elise is cheerful. She has the ability to get inside someone's bubble and brighten their day. She's relentless that way. Not only vibrant to us but I've seen her at her employment in Washington where she takes care of infant children. She's so vibrant to the children and her co-workers! They absolutely adore her.

Elise is organized. I can say for sure that she did not get organizational skills from me! Elise is clean and tidy and she brought that mantra to our home for us to follow.

Elise had wonderful insights and "out of the box" ways to look at things that I appreciated a great deal. In fact, they caught me off guard they were such good insights. She was a delight to have for the week and we'll miss her!

Beautiful Girl of the Day!

The girl with the flower is my lovely daughter Elise. She came to our family back in 1985 by the "usual method." She was our first baby.

This is her sweet and kind husband.
This is what she wants every year for Christmas.

Independent, independent, independent describes Elise. Not afraid to do anything by herself and very intelligent. In fact, at times I would joke with my CATV colleagues, "Do you want my daughter Elise to come down here and solve our problem?" I can just imagine her saying to my colleagues, "Do you think the co-channel problem is a result of poor isolation from a city peg channel?" We all scratch our chins and nod slowly up and down.

Elise can do anything she wants. There are no roadblocks. If I told her right now that I need 2000 30-weight ball-bearings she'd be out the door looking for them. She would not even know what they are or where to get them. But she would get them and she'd get them quick. Not only would she return with ball-bearings she'd also bring back a "get one free" coupon for me and a bouquet of flowers for her mother.

If I told her about rack and pinion steering she'd troubleshoot potential problems with it.

Really amazing, she is.

We love, love, love our oldest daughter. She is so bright and cheerful. I conclude this mini-tribute with a pictures of items that Elise had unique names for as a little girl. We still refer to these things by the names Elise tagged them with.

Yupplane = Airplane
Pointing skyward, "Look at the yupplane!"

Gumulah = Ice cream
Pointing at the carton she would say, "I want gumulah."

Bilah = Spider
"Dad, kill the bilah!"

Dada (pronounced Dayday) = Jessica (I still use Dada because of Elise)
"Dada got gone in a twister!"

The Original Hope Family minus Bombadil

Look at these lovely women! They must look like their father! These are my three oldest daughters: Jessica, Elise and Amber. And of course everyone knows Thomas. Even though we have 4 more children that live at home with us, these girls are the reason why we sit with our head in our hands and stare at our shoelaces. Because we miss them! What stands out in this picture? I'd say Ambers Dr. Seuss Socks!


Here is the original Hope daughter with her sweet puppy. Elise is an awesome young lady and we were so happy to have her first all those years ago. Elise had the perfect demeanor for a big sister. She was strong and bossy and wouldn't let anybody get away with anything. She even beat up a kid that was picking on Brent! Tough girl. Her toughness is only surpassed by her exquisite beauty (OK, Ok, she looks like her mom, not me). Elise has always looked out for the underdog in the group. If there was someone without a friend, Elise is there to be that friend! She is an accomplished musician and with her sisters has played at every major Hope function. She married a Steve McQueen clone named Brett Reagan and he is crazy awesome. I can't say too much about him though because he works for the government as a secret agent or something like that (I think I remembered that right).