Odds and Ends

Things are lovely at the cabin. It rained for two days and we even had a fire to warm the cabin!

 Noah is home and so happy to talk all about London and music and his life. My friend Nicole, who lives on lane A, came by with 6 of her grand kids last night to play on the big swings and they loved how high the swings go.

Sweet Anne and Brooke came up for a Little Hike and sit on the beach with our feet in the river. There is nothing like an old friend who laughs loud when you are trying to be funny. We had a wonderful dinner with the Floyds at the Henniman's house. So nice to be with good friends again.

There is a 10 yard load of mulch waiting for Noah and I to spread on the septic field garden today while Roland goes into Crouch to order a chainsaw and a brush cutter! He feels like a professional logger just saying that out loud.

Tomorrow we are going to Cascade for the white water rodeo and then Chris and her grandchildren will come up and stay the night. There will lots of frog catching and a big campfire! 

I wish I could figure out how upload photos to the blog from my iPad. I am sure there is a tutorial but I would rather be outside!

And So, We Had Christmas

This was probably the nicest Christmas we have had in years. So many things went well. 

Roland would catch my eye and give me that satisfied look that said, 

"Here we all are, together."

Our house has been party central. We kicked of the season hosting a party with Roland's 

work group, 

a fine group of folks who are kind and smart and fun to be with. 

Then we hosted a Smith Family Christmas Dinner right before Noah's recital. We packed

 so many dear friends and family into our home. 

What a wonderful evening! 

 Swan, Hannah's roommate who joined us for Christmas, inspects licorice for her gingerbread house. 

Noah and Ike joined me in the ward choir for the Christmas program. It is such a treat to

 sing with your boys in the choir. And then it was Christmas Eve. 

We went to The Broadmoor for family pictures. 

We are a rambunctious group of trouble makers and got yelled at for throwing rocks on

 the frozen lake. 

 My favorite purse, Joyana the amazing photographer, and Noah. 

Christmas Eve was wonderful with the Mike Smith family. 

We ate Grandma Jennie's Christmas Tamales and green chili and re-enacted the nativity 

complete 

with our very young cousins who had something of a fall out when young 

Joseph and the Angel had a meltdown over which doll baby Jesus got to be in the manger. 

Unfortunately, 

I didn't have my camera but on my niece's camera I got a photo of both Joseph and the

 Angel in open mouthed tears while Mary stood by in complete composure. 

It was quite memorable. 

 The traditional Christmas Eve PJ opening. 

After we settled down we read the story of Christ's birth and watch a video on LDS.org of the nativity. 

It was a tender moment that quickly turned goofy and crazy as each child 

tried to outdo the next. Some things never change.

Christmas morning was snowy and bright. We slowly opened presents 

and then spent most of the day enjoying the gifts before seeing 

Les Mis 

(2 thumbs up but Gabe said there was entirely too much singing and most everyone liked The Hobbit better). 

The house is that kind of joyful post-Christmas mess that doesn't seem to bother me 

until everyone leaves. 

Swan left Wednesday, Gabe left yesterday, and Hannah and Noah leave today. 

And then the house will be quieter and cleaner. I will accidentally call Ike 

"Gabe" and "Noah" 

for a week while Ike complains about how boring our house is without the rowdy noisy siblings.

Merry Christmas!

Voice Mail

Noah leaves the best voicemail. We usually save them and listen to them over and over.
This is the voicemail Noah left on Roland's phone yesterday:

Hello dad,  

Its Noah.

I just called to see how you are doing. I wanted to update you and tell you what I am doing. 

Um, last night I played a show at a 

creperie/coffee house that is going out of business and 

I played all the accordion music I have composed 

and then um, 

today I am writing a paper on roman cults 

and also 

I’ve been, um, learning a saxophone concerto and its kinda tricky and I’ll spend,

 like one hour on two pages and I wish I didn’t have a bladder so I could just, 

you know,  

sit there, still, and not have to go to pee, ha. 

And then later tonight at 6:00 I am playing a studio class for a bunch of cellists

and I’m getting paid a little bit which will be nice and then, 

what else, 

after that I am accompanying clarinetists and then after, 

after aaalllll of that’s done 

I’m gonna go to the neighbor’s house and were gonna 

listen to gregorian chants on vinyl. 

I love you,

bye bye

Thanksgiving

We had Thanksgiving with the Phipps, Nixons, and Ovards. 

It was delicious and oh! so! fun!

 Missing Hannah

 Julie (the hostess) and Tom near one of the 3 tables set up for the meal.

 Joanne, Julie, Kelly, Claire, Me, Tori, and Laurel

Gabe, Noah and Tori

 The boys: 9 of them between ages 15-22. There wasn't a single bite of mashed potatoes left over.

 Julie, Kelly, and lots of fabulous homemade food. That turkey was ridiculously huge.

 Casey with a small portion of the soccer gear for Ethiopia.

The College Loop

3 kids

3 cities

5 days

Roland and I aren't much for being told what to do but this week we let the kids take charge. We spent one day with each child and let them plan the activities, who we would meet, where we would eat, what we would do. 

Grand Junction/Mesa State:

This is where Gabe The Babe lives. After meeting his friends, we walked around the quaint downtown and ate Indian food and gelato. He took us to Colorado Monument where we went on a little hike and admired the amazing view. We found the Kokopelli trail head and many pleasant hours were spent planning the next mountain bike trip. We also saw "Battle Los Angeles" and all agreed it was a super dud. 

Lots of hugs and kisses and we were off to:

Provo/BYU:

 This is where Hannah lives. Can you tell Ike is color blind? Does it matter? Too bad I didn't take more pictures of the funky house, she and her roommates have really made it hip and trendy and quite the hangout spot. Yes, Hannah is holding a can of hot chocolate mix I just canned at the church cannery (pretty much the best hot chocolate ever). 

After admiring a garden Hannah and her friends are building in SLC we went for a fancy vegan pizza dinner. The next morning we walked around Bridal Vail falls.

We had an early lunch with the Smith Cousins, staring Ashley and Calvin (who was indisposed when I had the camera out). Hannah also arranged a lovely dinner at Clark's family home where we were treated to delicious food and wonderful company. I was having such a nice time I forgot to take pictures. Too bad, because it was beautiful. Susan really knows how to throw a party!

Hannah gave us the tour of her BYU classes, we ran into Kallene Cutler (yay Kallene!), and got to meet Hannah's favorite professor. Then, after replenishing our BYU apparel supply we said goodbye.

IKEA:

Roland had never been to an IKEA (I know, right?) so we dragged him through there and now he is looking forward to the huge one being built in Denver.

Logan/USU:

This is where Noah lives. Noah was very excited about sharing some great restaurants with us. So we ate fancy food and awesome local food. Then we toured the music school and his dorm and met some of his friends. He is happy at USU and playing piano non-stop. We found an empty room and he played for us. I could spend hours listening to him play. 

Late that evening we headed to our hotel to lounge around and do some serious back scratching (Noah's favorite). I've been telling Roland that Noah is taller and he refused to believe it until he saw this picture. It was a victorious moment for Noah. 

Noah is 6' 6.5". That's pretty tall.

After a delicious breakfast at "Angie's, Where the Locals Eat" - we headed home only to find the road closed and white out conditions at Logan Canyon summit. After some tricky blind driving, freaking out as we bounced off snow drifts, we finally went back down to Ogden and drove through terrible storms in Wyoming - getting through them right before they closed those roads (there were miles where we only went 10 mph with our blinkers on because we couldn't see anything. Scary.). 

It was a crazy (and VERY LONG) drive home but seeing the kids in their places, eating where they eat, meeting their friends, it was worth the white knuckles.

TwentyTen Thanksgivin

My Happy Place.

 It snowed. A lot.

 The turkey - filled with popcorn.

 There was a talent show.

 Lots of hugging and kissing.

And some singing.

 The oldest ones.

 Ike was happy to tease someone besides me.

 Hot chocolate in the snow.

Sledding dare devil.

Thanksgiving 2010

Appalachian Spring

At the beginning of a Utah Winter I listened to my son play Appalachian Spring. Hannah met me at the airport and we drove to good food. You can read about that here. Then we drove up to Logan to see Noah. He showed us the teeny tiny room where he practices - supposedly 40 hours a week (wink wink) introduced us to his friends and then we got to see his freshly cleaned dorm room. After stopping by Kerren and Bruce's lovely home, which is better than any hotel, we had a nourishing dinner and, finally, it was time for the show.

Noah was performing at the Ellen Eccles Theatre with the Martha Graham Dance Company. Now, I have been to a few modern dance performances and not enjoyed them. Not one bit. They confused me and left me feeling like I'd rather been folding laundry. But not this group. Every piece they performed riveted me and left me wanting more. It was beautiful and emotional and the most professional dance performance I have ever seen. The first half of the performance was to pre-recorded music. Then there was an intermission. That was when I tried to take video of Noah in the orchestra pit warming up. A security guard told me I was forbidden to take any pictures. So I flirted and begged and he agreed to turn his back for this 34 second video:



The second half of the performance was Appalachian Spring - with a live orchestra - with my son. It is a 30 minute ballet by Martha Graham in the 1940's and the music written by Aaron Copland (who won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for music for his achievement).

It was wonderful and so exciting to hear the piano and know that was my son! Here is a link to the beginning of the1959 performance of the ballet - the lead role (the bride) is danced by Martha Graham and she is 60 years old in this performance (amazing). This is the same set and performance we saw on Saturday night. It was super cool.

College Noah

Noah called to tell me I was right. He said:

"Mom, remember when you told me I was going to be great at college? Well, you were right."

Actually I said he was going to blossom at college. He loves his anthropology class. He practices 3-4 hours a day and has 10 piano students (who are themselves college students).

This is one of the pieces he is working on:

Sleeping At The Wheel

When I took Noah to college (2 1/2 weeks ago) I told him he had to drive half the way but he mostly slept. And I was bored. So I did a little photo essay.