Fun! Fun! Fun!

We have had so much fun the past couple of weeks!

We did another segment on Mormon Times with Kathy Aiken…

Our dear friends and neighbors (former bishop and stake president) are leaving for a mission to Johannesburg South Africa and our neighborhood gave them a royal send-off….

 

Father’s Day was celebrated with this adorable Loosli family who showed up with grand cards and messages and even a cute wind sock for the GRAND father! (Isaac seems to be especially delighted?)

 

 

Charity came home (for a few hours until she left again).  First stop….The Dodo!

 

 

The reunion is rumbling!  Noah and Kristi showed up with their little crew a few days early for a wedding. We LOVED having them with us at church yesterday. For some reason these kids ADORE their grandfather!

 

 

We had several speeches over the weekend, including one in my hometown of Montpelier, Idaho at the historic Tabernacle there…where I graduated from high school, performed as “the Fiddler” at Fiddler on the Roof and have so many memories of Stake Conferences there.

 

It was truly a joy to see so many dear friends and relatives!  Shirley and Neil Harris were there as well as Shirley’s mom Marlene who is my first cousin….long history with these talented people!

 

And our lifelong friends Cub and Bonnie Wolff and Bernard and Vicki Sparks were there to support us, although they already know everything there is to know about parenting!  They are terrific!

 

 

Now we’re at Bear Lake where we are working little tails off for the second time this week to get everything (four houses and eight flower beds, boats and cars among other things) ready for the reunion. People will flood in this week and by July 6th all 39 of us will be together at our favorite spot on earth!  The excitement builds!

Green and Blue

Life is good! Busy. Complicated. But Good! 

It’s finally spring where we live. It’s so heavenly to walk out the door and not cringe with cold or step in the mud! So fabulous to see GREEN again…plus sunshine AND they’ve finally fixed the road!  For those of you have driven our development road in the past few months, this will mean a lot!

 

 

The waterfall is ready to go!

 

The path to the horse barn is finished. It is pure heaven to look out the windows in every direction!

 

 

This week we had the opportunity to take sweet Grandma and valiant Sheri to Bear Lake. They were a little BLUE because it’s hard for either of them to be away from home, but we stopped at the creamery for Aggie Ice Cream and had dinner at Cafe Sabor in Garden City so that softened the blow.

 

 

At the top of the Bear Lake overlook driving from Logan to Bear lake, they have recently placed a tribute to Grandma Ruthie’s oldest sister Mae Swenson who is a world renowed poet!  The marker has a a poem that May wrote from that very spot.  The sun was so strong that it was impossible to snap a picture of the poem straight on. I hope you can read this. It’s delightful!

 

 

It was so fascinating that the gorgeous BLUE lake and brilliant BLUE sky looked exactly as Mae described it in the poem as we stood there reading it at the overlook. 

 

Here’s the Olive-sided Flycatcher referred to in the poem which is also on the marker.

 

May Swenson:

 

After an eventful night at Bear Lake, I rushed back to be with Saren and April at their fun Power of Moms retreat at a beautiful home in Centerville. These mothers were anything but GREEN! They were bright, deliberate mothers who know how to make family life exciting and to stay centered while they’re at it. They came with gaggles of great ideas and everybody left inspired! These are a few who stayed to the very end. Sorry to whomever I cut off on the right. Darn!

 

Speaking of dynamic people, I had the fun chance to say good bye to a dear friend who is going to serve our church in Chili for the next 1-5 years.  Here are about half of the dozen or so who gathered to say farewell. They are some of the most amazing women on earth and have been true BLUE friends for more years than we wanted to count!  Aren’t they beautiful?

 

Life is truly good…most days!

Surprised by SVU, Homeless in VA, and Happy with Eli in DC

We started our weekend with the excitement of being somewhere we have never been before: a beautiful little town called Buena Vista with Southern Virginia University nestled in its arms. Though there are only about 750 students, it is indeed a University with all the advantages of small classrooms, excellent one-on-one time with professors and the joys of being a big fish in a little pond. The property is beautiful complete with a grand old mansion that was originally built to house a women's college.









We were there for a Family Conference that is directed by the incredible co-founder of SVU, Kathleen Knight, who has been doing family conferences for the past 15 years. She gathers people who are professionals in their field to present ideas at a weekend conference to help create stronger families through powerful music, inspiring art and the spoken word. She does a terrific job!






The artwork this year was a display of 30 stunning paintings that portray the magic of the seemingly mundane life of a mother. Leslie Graff, the artist, uses dress shoes to remind mothers that what they are doing is more important and even more glamorous than they may realize. When we consider what moms produce with all their daily and never ending acts of service we can see that the job of a mother can be downright heavenly even though some days it seems like the exact opposite.

(Saren, Leslie was at the POM retreat in NH). These are just pictures of paintings but you'll get the idea. I think they are truly extraordinary!
















Speaking of art, I was totally surprised to find my darling friend Dixie Schoenhals Stoddard there. Her husband is on the SVU Board of Directors and has been a very generous benefactor. She has also been my art teacher and a whole gallery of her art is displayed at the university. It was truly a joy to see her!

It really felt like home when we also saw the wonderful Scott and Annell Doxey family including their oldest daughter Rachel who lives next door with two adorable children. Sadly they moved from our neighborhood last year as Scott accepted a job with the SVU administration. It was great fun to see their newly reverted "old home" there.



They are also hosting a high school exchange student from Indonesia this year. We loved talking with her, learning that kids in Java (where she lives and where many of the furnishings in our Balinese house are from), go to school from 6 am to 4 am from Monday through Saturday. Amazing! She also prays exactly on time five times a day and she fasted during Ramadan from sunrise to sunset during the entire month of August which has about 18 hours of daylight!!! She made me remember why I loved the Muslim families we have met on our travels. That is true devotion as well as quite incredible.






From there we got in our little rental car and in about 3 hours we were at Eli and Julie's house on Capitol Hill! Julie was in CA celebrating her parents' return from their mission in Brazil? Eli stayed for work but will joining her tomorrow.

As we drove into the DC area it seemed a bit strange not to have our little home in McLean after owing it for almost forty years, even though we haven't lived there for many years. After one moment of mourning I realized how good it feels to unload! Eli led us to a fab Thai restaurant in Georgetown and then on to the newly created park near their house, right on the river. It gives "park" a whole new meaning!














The next morning while Dad got some sun therapy on the roof, Eli and covered the National Gallery including the East wing. Too much to tell about all I loved but many of you will recognize Eli's favorite place on the mall:





That night we journeyed once again to the Temple Visitor's Center where Eli made an enormous contribution to our speech. It's always so fun to bask in the spirit there and even more fun to have Eli to add the substance and the pizzazz.







What an interesting ward Eli and Julie have! There couldn't be wider diversity combined with more depth in one ward! We LOVED it!

Today Dad and I walked down the mall and dashed into museums between phone calls trying to help Charity work out her accident details. We are SO grateful that she is okay! More details on that in the next post.

We are flying across the country and back to the real...crazy and exciting world! The question is..... will be snow at Park City?


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Chicken Obituary, Ponyo RIP

Our daughter-in-law Aja is not only brilliant but also clever and forever entertaining. And she LOVES animals, particularly "designer chickens"! At our family reunion last summer our favorite (and only) pet was the beloved Ponyo hauled all the way from the Olympic Penninsula in Washington to Bear Lake, Idaho in a station wagon already stuffed with five bodies and a summer's worth of "stuff". Ponyo was included in the family picture (see above)and was always fun to have around especially because Aja could always tell us what Ponyo was thinking. Here are Aja's thoughts at her passing and even though there is so much more to know about this chicken!s life we think the most entertaining obituary you've ever read, here you go:

We are very sad to announce the passing away of dear little Ponyo the chicken. She died on the morning of June 1st of natural causes incident to being a chicken.

Although she was only of average age for a chicken, Ponyo lived a very full life and was the better for her many joys and heartbreaks. She was born at McMurrray Hatchery, Iowa, on November 15th, 2009. She arrived at the Eyre Cottage in Sequim, WA four days later with 25 "siblings". Ponyo was adopted by Aniston as her chicken, and for this reason was actually quite shy of humans for her first eight months, despite having lived in the Eyres' house through the winter.

When tragedy struck on night of July 11th, 2010, Ponyo's life changed forever as she was the sole survivor of what has been termed, "Chicken Armageddon", Ponyo rose to her new role as the family pet. Although devastated by the loss of her twin sister Tina and her true love C Head, Ponyo quickly warmed up to the humans, often walking up to her family and wanting to be picked up and carried around.

When the family left for a 2000+ mile road trip, Ponyo came along. She rode in a laundry basket in the back of the station wagon, waiting to poop until the family stopped at rest stops. Ponyo visited seven states, met an Apostle, and even made it into Success Magazine and Deseret News. Towards the end of the road trip, she took to riding on the head rests so she could watch the road.

Ponyo's fame and her mourning for C Head meant a cold welcome for the new rooster Mr. Mouth who was picked up in Boise. Two more banty hens were picked up as well and when the family arrived home in July, Ponyo still liked the humans better.

It wasn't until new chicks were born and bought in October that Ponyo learned to love again. After many months, she gave into Beetlejuice's rooster advances. The two married in April and their first chick was hatched yesterday, May 31st, through a surrogate mother. Ponyo only saw the chick once before her untimely, but peaceful death.

While Ponyo did not make it into any more print media after her Success Magazine appearance, she did touch fame once more when she won the 116th Sequim Irrigation Parade Kiddie's Parade Best Dressed Pet competition. She beat out a fabulous daschund and bike riding cat to take 1st Place.

Ponyo is survived by her human family, her adopted sisters Ponyo Junior and Ponyo Protege, and by her child Ponyojuice.

She will be buried under the rose bush.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you abstain from eating chicken for a week. Eggs are okay.

Goodbye Ponyo! We love you!