Joan Walton:  

Life I was born in a wonderful family with Christian parents. We had 8 children, my only sister being the youngest of the 8. I have 6 super-cool brothers. (All of my brothers are great loving Christian men, sweet and smart. My brother Gerard was on the team that developed the full-body CAT scan, for example, and I am proud of each of them for different things they have done and who they are.) My sister drowned, sadly, when I was 8, when she was 1 1/2 yrs old. I realized my sins about that time, and I became a Christian myself. My father (world renowned for his underwater transducer, as well as many other inventions) taught physics in Illinois (Olivet Nazarene University) for 7 years during the school year, and worked at the UW (University of Washington) in the summer at the applied physics research lab. We drove back and forth between the 2 jobs until we settled in Shoreline just before I started 7th grade. What a wonderful life I had as a child, playing on the campus of a University! I attended Morgan Jr. High. I enjoyed being in a play, but I don't remember much else being fun there. I had to quit band (oboe) because of the levy failure, and I also wanted to do wood-working and drafting (at Shorecrest)and they wouldn't let me because I'm female. Shorecrest is a blur and I can't remember very much except a play I was in, French with Mr. Langley, Psych with Mr. Savitz, and Alg 3 & Trig (Enslin)and Math Analysis with Mr. Nemiek's (sp) funny jokes. Also I remember we had a terrible basketball record my sophomore year until Mark Wilson helped us out and we had a great team my senior year. I remember Mr. Boehme in music lab. I remember bits and pieces of smiles on friends and aquaintances. I was in cross country, and on the annual staff. In those days I was embarrassed about almost everything. God changed my outlook on life the summer after I graduated from high school, and I became a lot less shy. I went on to college at Point Loma College (now University) in San Diego, and in the middle of my junior year, transferred to the University of Washington where I eventually received a major in math and a major in physics and a teaching certificate. I taught for 3 years in an alternative high school in Longview, WA, as the head of the math and science department. During my 2nd year of teaching, my mom died of colon cancer. God carried me through the hard times and I am so thankful for a real live God who cares and meets you where you are. I married a wonderful sweet man, that I'd met at Point Loma College 7 years earlier, Edward Walton. When I got married, I had not planned on having children. However, God spoke to me through Scripture as to who was in control of my life. I talked with Ed about this and he prayed and searched the Bible as well and we chose together to give God control over our future...how many children and when they would come. My husband, an electrical engineer at Boeing, working on the B1B and the B2 bomber, decided God could use him doi...Expand for more