We’re thankful for Noah, Kristi and their Creative Crew!

There’s never a dull moment at the San Diego Eyres’ house with four little kids under eight each with his/her exciting agenda.

When Noah picked us up from the airport he had fresh pictures on his phone of Cubby (3) and Bennett (2)’s agenda for that day. Cubby admitted that they “accidently” got into Kristi’s makeup and found the mascara.

Looks as though they had quite a lot of fun….AND if you look carefully at the next picture and see what Cubby has in his hand, you’ve got to wonder what they have in mind next. Don’t know whether to think “Dynamic Duo” or “Dukes of Hazard”! The wall, the couch and the carpet were all included in the caper and took some time to repair. Worth it just for the pictures!

 

Besides Kristi being incredibly calm and collected about these exciting events every day, and working so hard on keeping house and home going and getting kids to school and lessons, we got to see her play in her team’s final two volleyball games of the season. Why didn’t I take a picture? Kristi loved playing volleyball in high school and is one fabulous player! She and those other moms rocked it!

The kids are nice to give me hugs and welcome me but who are they are really looking for when we come? Grandfather!  He’s like having a barrel of monkeys around and is still a kid himself in many ways! He peels oranges and then makes something fun and funny out of it:

We loved being there for a few days to peek in on everyday life at the Noah and Kristi Eyres. What fun to listen in on their sweet morning devotional as they read the scriptures together. Kristi sits down to read and says, “OK, go Cubby.”  And he obediently says, “And it came to pass” and they proceed. About every few verses, without missing a beat, he responds exactly the same every time Kristi says, “Go Cubby.”  It’s the cutest thing ever! Good way to realize how frequently that little phrase is used in any given chapter!

 

For fun we happen to hit “Crazy Hair Day”  at school. McKay came up with one of his typical hilarious comments as his dad was creatively “spiking his hair”:

 

 

A McKayism: “People aren’t even going to know me! They’re going to say, ‘Where is that kid with only one cowlick?’ 

 

Kristi rose to the occasion as always and created something awesome for Lyla with her Rapunzel hair (sorry blurry):

Cubby and I walked to the school together while the kids rode so they wouldn’t spoil their hair in the rain. As you can tell that Cubby is a barrel of moneys himself!

 

We landed there (from South America) at a very exciting time! Not only was it crazy hair day but it was also doctor appointment day for Kristi and Noah who just announced to us that they were having number five baby in May. We were thrilled beyond words to have another little pizzazy little child join our crew!

Incredibly brave and stoic Kristi, who is usually miserably sick for the first 26 weeks of every pregnancy, thought she was home free after feeling pretty good for the first 10 weeks…and then it hit. She somehow carries on between “throw ups” and that constant wave of nausea! Bless her courageous heart! 

Grandfather and I watched the kids while they journeyed to the doctor and the ultrasound machine, only to find that that little kid had legs crossed and umbilical cord across the very vital place that they needed to see! Kristi drank some juice, went for a walk and the baby flipped around and gave them a pretty good view of who was in there.

A trip to the grocery store provided clues to the sex of the new baby. Note the color of the treats:

Do they look happy enough?  Especially Lyla who has been outnumbered by the boys for quite some time!

It was supposed to be a secret until Noah and Kristi came up with their usual, unusual way of announcing the arrival each new member of the family. When we got home, however, Dad/Grandfather sent out a draft of our annual Thanksgiving Card to the family before we sent it out to “the public” for everyone to check for mistakes. The biggest mistake was putting in the information that Noah and Kristi were expecting “a little gal”. 

When he realized his mistake in his office at home, he started yelling, “Oh no! Oh no! I can’t believe this!” I thought someone had died! He was so horrified that he couldn’t even get out what he had done!  Noah and Kristi in the their usual gracious manner accepted the foiling of their plans with their usual graciousness and, knowing their “Grandfather’s” enthusiasm for new additions to the family, forgave him and gave him permission to go ahead and publish the info on the Thanksgiving Card.

In addition to that little change in their lives and along with Noah going back to school for a Master’s degree at Southern Cal “on the side” while still maintaining his rock star status at work, they have also decided to move back to Orange County so that Noah can be a little more central for work and have more time with the family.

We got a chance to see the house they are looking at in Ladera Ranch but I only took one picture of the kids under an umbrella (because it was raining) in the front entry. Duh!

It’s a beautiful home in a lovely neighborhood close to where they rented when they first moved to CA!  The kids would go to the same school and be in the same church congregation so that would be helpful.

How thankful we are for this wild, rambunctious, creative, darling, up-for-adventure, extraordinary family! Somehow they will survive all that wildness in their lives with flying colors. Knowing them, it’s just inevitable!

THANKSGIVING CARD

As many of you know, we have been sending out a Thanksgiving Card instead of a Christmas Card every year since we’ve been married. Richard writes an always thought-provoking poem and we try to send a current picture or two. We used to spend days addressing, licking and stamping the envelopes to be sent by snail mail, but we’ve gotten lazy in our old age and have resorted to the ease of the digital world. Here is the card for this year:

Happy Thanksgiving Beloved Family and Friends! 
Love, Rick and Linda  (keep scrolling...some good stuff at the end)

TAKEFORGRANTED VS. THANKSGIVING
A poem in three parts
 
1.  The Glimpse and the Guilt
 
A glimpse—for just a moment, as she taught our grandkids,
I saw Linda as a Light Angel—the vision came, strong and sure,
—then it faded.
 
For that instant I knew that, as much as I always love and appreciate her—
Day to day, every day—
There is another level—one that reaches into glory.
 
At times, unbidden, other brief glimpses come—
Of earth, of family, of my own body,
Supernal little knowings, suffused with pure perspective,
And generating a flash of unspeakable gratitude and clarity.
 
These glimpses accuse and convict me of my less-aware usual state, and
Of the universal, tragic, human sin of takeforgranted—
Getting used to glory—to the point where we don’t see it anymore,
Don’t feel it.
Desensitized to the Divine.
 
Could sin be defined as what robs us of joy?
 
 

2.  A Corollary
 
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil,” said Burke,
“Is for good men to do nothing.”
A corollary:
“All that is necessary for the victory of flat, mediocre takeforgranted boredom,
Is for passion and striving and deep-feeling to drag and diminish.”
 
The numbing, car-chase super-hero movie enthralls,
With special effects and cheap thrills,
And separates us from the soul stirring nuance of a Vivaldi concerto.
 
Excess technology and endless data dumb us down from art and excellence;
Routine and plenty rob us of mind-stretching challenge;
Concrete and convenience pave over rugged, real nature,
 
Can we keep all of the new and the now,
But learn to juxtaposition it with what it threatens to replace?
 

3.  The Joy Thief
 
Gratitude, the Joy Catalyst,
Is constantly challenged by takeforgranted,
Which shoves down and submerges awareness and appreciation
Holding them under where they can’t breathe, beneath the dull weight
Of ease and entitlement.
 
At Thanksgiving, can we swim back up into consciously thankful joy?

HAPPY THANKSGIVNG
The Eyres

Below...At Grandma's Ruthie's funeral with all our grown kids in October:
(left to right)
Shawni, in Arizona with Dave and their five, 16, 15, 12, 9, and 7
Josh, in Arizona with his third grade students
Charity, in Palo Alto with her middle school students
Saydi, in Boston with Jeff and their four, 9, 7, 5, and 2
Tal, in Manhattan with Anita and 2-year old Annina
Linda, on a plane with Rick
Rick, on a plane with Linda
Noah, in Orange County with Kristi and their five, 7, 5, 3, 2, and a little gal on the way
Saren, in Ogden with Jared and their five, 13, 12, 10, 8, and 8
Jonah, in Maui with Aja and their five, 12, 9, 6, 3 and a little guy on the way
Eli, in Washington D. C. but headed for NYC with Julie and 1-year old Zara

At our family reunion at Bear Lake in July including our Bulgarian "daughter" Eva, husband Adam (far right) and their three, 11, 8 and 6. Can you tell that the wind is blowing about 50 mph? I guess that’s hard to see since there are so many of us. We look a little like an ant colony!  

Have a wonderful day of Thanksgiving!                          

Uruguay

Since it was only a one hour on an express ferry ride across the widest river in the world to a new country that we’d never visited we couldn’t resist the temptation to see what Uruguay looked like. Although you can’t judge a book by its cover what we found in the little village of Colonia on the shores of Uruguay was a delight!

We stayed at a lovely little hotel right on the water. Perfect place to unwind….

With some nice food…eggplant, mushroom and fresh mozzarella snack below with pumpkin ravioli in the background. And a little shopping.

In twenty four hours we were back on the ferry and headed straight for the Buenos Aires airport. This little piece of home, clearly visible from the freeway, bid us farewell just as it had welcomed us when we arrived…the Buenos Aries LDS Temple:

And on to a speech and some fun with our family in San Diego….and another 17 hours on several airplanes. Yeah! I can get so much done! Seriously love it!

Fascinating Stories

We always meet such fascinating people with lives that are almost unbelievable when we have the privilege of traveling to meet people all over the world. .As in every group we speak to, every person has a story. Some more spectacular than others, but certainly an interesting story. When we finish presentations, often people come up to us with their stories, some that I really want to remember. So for the record here are just a few that I heard:

A young woman in her mid-thirties sat by us at the first dinner of the conference who started her life in NYC. She came from a broken family but both parents were trying their best. Her father, a graduate of the Harvard Business School, had told her that she and her siblings would never have to work. He had scrimped and saved all his life and had apparently gone through such a hard time that he didn’t want his children to experience the same thing. That promise didn’t come to pass and although she didn’t know it at that time the family was living hand to mouth for much of her childhood.

That statement, however, took a toll on her older siblings who are still hanging dependently on their father and have no work ethic but something in her was different. She was attending a private high as a freshman in NYC when she read a book about the damage that education was doing to children…dumbing them down. Consequentially, she decided to drop out of high school at 16. She moved to her mother’s double wide mobile home in Washington state, got a job and basically hibernated. One day she was walking around the campus at the University of Puget Sound and decided she wanted to sit in on some of their classes. When she went into the office to ask about that possibility, they said there was no way she could do that without an SAT score.

But this was one determined little girl. She went to the bookstore and bought all the books she could find on taking the SAT, hunkered down for three months and did nothing but study for the test, determined to get 1600, the highest score. She came very close to that and was immediately allowed to register at the University. After two years she transferred to Stanford where they readily accepted her because of her exceptional grades and excellent progress. She finished that degree along with a master’s degree and started her own company, which she had recently sold. Still unmarried, she expressed her fond desire for a family but needed to find the right guy first. Just an amazing story!

Another story was from a young mom who said that after finding that she and her husband could not have children of their own they adopted two. Their four year old has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and their two year old has a lung disease that requires her to be on oxygen 24/7.  She of course, said that they wouldn’t give them back for anything but they had no idea that their healthy babies would develop mental and physical health issues that would require more than they had ever imagined being able to cope with (just as it is with our genetically born children). She was obviously sleep deprived after getting up several times every night to adjust oxygen levels for their youngest. But she was a strong individual and had hope that the lungs would begin to improve in about three years.

A young father approached me at one of the evening events and told a most amazing story about a friend begging he and his wife to help with a young mother who was in prison, had just given birth and desperately needed help with care for the baby just until she got released. With the mom chained to the hospital bed, they picked up the one-day-old baby and took him home to their other four young children.

Days turned to months as the mother begged them to keep him just a little longer and a little longer until she got back on her feet. Occasionally she came in and took him for a few days but when it got to hard, she brought him back. With the mom still in and out of the drug scene they were happy to take care of the little guy and had fallen in love with him.

Five years later, she decided that she was now ready to take her child back….to a very scary existence. When they saw what their beloved little charge was being exposed to (drugs, foul language and not much supervision) they tried to get custody of him but because no legal papers had been signed they were powerless. When the Dad became more adamant that she allow them to keep him her comment was, “Quit bothering me unless you want to see your wife’s body floating down the river and I know just the people who can do that.” Well they gave up on their beloved little son and even though they see him quite often and the mother comments on “what nice manners he has,” their hearts are ripped out as they see the future he faces. With five years of great training and seeing what parenting is really like, they are praying that he will become a good parent himself someday because of all their efforts. Ah life!

I loved every story that I heard and immensely enjoyed learning from people from foreign countries. Saudi Arabia is one of our favorite places to visit. Totally fascinating!  These good men from Saudi were at our table on the night of the last event in Buenos Aires.

 

One of them told the story of his Saudi Arabian father who was very wealthy and a magnanimous humanitarian who had spent millions of dollars in aid to Africa when 911 occurred. Sadly the government (maybe the UN?)  somehow labeled him as a terrorist, seized his funds and forbid him to leave the country for eleven years!  This young man had just been at a prestigious law school in the states with his father as they were reviewing the magnificent injustice of that case. They are both now back at work doing good in the world. Ah politics! 

Another had a 21-year-old brother who was ruining his life with drugs at private schools in Canada and then Ireland. No matter what they tried, they couldn’t get him to change his mind about his lifestyle. We discussed that it might have something do with entitlement.

Just look at these good faces!  They have all been educated either in the states, Canada or Australia and spoke perfect English. We have loved working with these chapters in the Middle East over the years. They get such a bad wrap (as do we Americans there ).  I love to hear their remarkable stories including their good lives with arranged marriages that work and beautiful, bright,well-behaved children.

There are so many good people in the world!

“Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”

One thing that almost everyone in the world would call to mind when they think of Argentina is the Broadway Musical/Movie Evita. As mentioned in the previous post, we finished watching it at 1 a.m. the night before we left for Argentina and it was a great refresher course. According to many Argentinians, it is also pretty accurate. 

Eva Duarte Peron was one of the the world’s most iconic personalities. Born in 1919 as the illegitimate daughter of a prestigious land owner who never claimed her, she was raised in poverty, left home and went to Buenos Aires at age 15 to wend her way to fame.

 

At age 20:

                    Here is a short history of her later life which we found very interesting:

We found her life to be fascinating!  From the square at Plaza de Mayo, the site of many political rallies throughout the years, you can see the balcony from which Eva Peron gave her famous speeches (thanks again Kathy).

Can’t you just hear Madonna singing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,” from that balcony (although I think Hollywood may have used a balcony a little closer to home).  The scope of the scene was pretty impressive!

This house is called Casa Rosada or “Pink House” and is the official residence and executive office building of the President..

Eva Peron died when she was she was approaching 33 years and was adored by most of the poor masses and hated by most of the upper class as she stood by the side of her husband, Juan Peron. It’s a stunning history!

Even though her family name (Duarte) wasn’t one of the “chosen ones” for being laid to rest in the amazing cemetery for famous people located in the heart of Buenos Aires, she somehow managed to have her Mausoleum placed there (although her husband is not beside her).

She was born in 1919 and died of cancer in 1952, which is quite incredible when you think that dynamic woman with a checkered past turned Argentina upside down, with both adoration and devastation in her short life as the wife of the President.  

 

The cemetery was quite incredible and made the wild cemetery we saw in New Orleans this year seem pretty small.

We’re sure there are fascinating stories behind everyone of these elaborate mausoleum doors! Some looked like small cathedrals. 

Here’s a peak inside one of the simple but tasteful mausoleums with someone’s ashes inside the urn below. 

And some of those doors hadn’t been opened in a very long time!

The huge event on the last night of our conference began in the extensive tunnels  and channels under the city which were originally designed in the 1800s  for people to use as a sewer system and a place to deposit their garbage in order to get it out of sight. The tunnels have been beautifully restored and the organizers borrowed posters from the Eva Peron Museum to display on the walls as we passed by (many of them seen above).

We viewed her life from childhood to the grip she held on the nation for the last seven years of her life and her loud voice was shouting in the background at a campaign rally as we progressed through the tunnels.

 

One of the most telling things was the view of Eva Peron from different people you talk to. Our guide on the bus to the event compared her short 33 years to the life of the Savior. She did do a lot for women’s rights including procuring the vote for women.  However our guide in the tunnels said that she was the worst thing that ever happened to Argentina. She apparently bankrupted the country, was often cruel to her enemies and was a total despot.

The evening ended with a spectacular dinner for 400 with spotlights on the lilies which were the centerpieces of each table. There were also two fabulous singers who represented Eva and Juan Peron who sang moving songs in Spanish, ending with “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.” 

Stellar evening!

Amazing Argentina

We have a fun job! Many months ago we were asked to come to Buenos Aires to speak for an international organization which has local chapters all over the world. They join together once a year for a “University” at some exciting spot in the world to engage with each other and learn to improve their work and their families.. We were excited to do two workshops on “Lifebalance” and “The Entitlement Trap”

We arrived here in Argentina on Wednesday morning, armed with having just watched Evita on Netflix, which we highly recommend for a pretty accurate depiction of a very important moment in Argentine history.. We also had a detailed, hand-typed series of tours we could take prepared by our wonderful and enthusiastic friend Kathy Clayton who lived in and loved Buenos Aires for several years while she was stationed here with her husband.

Upon our arrival, after a ten hour, all-night flight, we napped for a couple of hours and couldn’t wait to take off for our first tour with our detailed instructions from Kathy in hand.There was beauty along the way. Purple blossoms everywhere and trees with interesting roots.

 

We walked about 12 blocks from our hotel to our first stop at the beautiful San Martin Plaza. San Martin was sort of the George Washington of Argentina, a national hero in the fight for independence from Spain. 

Although you can’t really tell by the picture of the plaza below, the leaves everywhere are a gorgeous lime green because spring has just sprung in this part of the world and the “baby green” leaves are spectacular!  FYI we are farther south than the tip of South Africa. Quite incredible!

There are beautiful monuments of Argentine history and heroes everywhere.

Next we walked down the famous Calle Florida, a long street unequaled anywhere in leather goods, chocolate and a wide array of delights for the tourist!

We had to take a picture at Zara, in honor of Zara!

At the end of that very long and interesting street we came to the Plaza de Mayo, where the National Cathedral stands. Even though Argentina gained it’s independence in 1822, San Martin still “ lies in state” in a flag-draped coffin in the Cathedral across from the plaza, guarded by soldiers.

 

The beautiful art, including about a dozen lovely paintings of the Savior carrying the cross and a small replica of The Pietà at the Vatican.

The very Roman looking pillars that grace the entrance to the Cathedral makes this building look more like a museum than a Cathedral.

Another suggestion from Kathy was to visit the Buenos Aires Opera House, which is ranked in the top four of the world. It was very European-looking and absolutely gorgeous!

Note Dad/Rick’s fantastic outfit. I guess he likes to stand out in a crowd!

We also had fun at a Polo match. It’s the beginning of the “World Cup” of Polo matches. The horses and riders are truly amazing!

The field is over three times longer than a football field and is so huge that it’s sometimes hard to see, not only the ball but the horses.

The big guy like it!

They even had a Mercedes display just like the one at the US Open, except this car is about twice as much as it is in the US>

Our hotel, the Alvear Palace had a wonderful history from the 1800’s and was actually a private home at one time. This is what we saw when we looked over the edge of the stairway that circled down about 10 stories.

The lobby was spectacular as well.

What a magical experience!  A peek into Eva Peron’s life and the fascinating people we have met coming in the next posts.