Hello, Romania!

 "Emilie got her call!"  The word spread like fire across our mobile phones.  Family and lots of friends assembled at the Ebert home at 8:30 p.m. on February 2, 2017, to hear where Emilie would serve her LDS mission.  "Dear Sister Ebert," the letter began.  "...You have been called to the Romania/Moldova Mission..."

Camille hung maps on her walls, pinpointing where friends and family predicted Emilie would serve. No one chose Romania!  Naomi was particularly excited, since Romania borders Bulgaria, where Naomi served her mission.  It also borders Slovakia, where Grant is serving his mission now.

 Everyone hugged Emilie and wished her well.

 The Eberts' large family room was stuffed with people, and some, like Jonny and Jenny, even Skyped in.

 Camille and Steve were proud parents.

 Jono was surrounded by cousins and buddies.

 It is a long way from Provo to Holladay, but Spencer and Naomi came.

Dave spent the evening in his Church job as stake auditor, but he arrived soon after the Opening of the Envelope.

Mike and Heidi are very loyal to their family.  Mike was also the photographer for the event, capturing a video of Emilie reading her letter that was posted on Instagram.

 Annelise is a social creature.  She loved the party, and invited her good friends.

Mia and Ezra didn't understand all the fuss and spent much of the event playing in their bedrooms. Mia emerged, though, for this picture.

Marilyn and Al Ebert were at the party, with a large contingent of their children and grandchildren, including both Steve's brother and sister.

The Year of the Rooster

Our Spendlove family is half Oriental.  I grew up in Asia, and Dave and I have visited China, Thailand, Indonesia, Burma, and Cambodia together.  Mike spent six weeks traipsing through Bhutan, Nepal and other exotic spots alone, and then took Heidi to Japan.  Camille's family has traveled together to China, Japan, and Taiwan, and Emilie and Jono have served humanitarian missions in India. Jonny and Jenny spent a summer in Delhi, Bangalore, and Bengal.  No wonder celebrating Chinese New Year is a beloved family tradition!

On January 29, 2017, we gathered to celebrate the "Year of the Rooster."  I cleared the Buddhas out of my living room for Christmas and brought them back for Chinese New Year.  We had 18 guests and 10 dishes, a Chinese proportion.

 Part of the fun of Chinese New Year, for me, is assembling the decorations. There are posters for the walls, with Chinese good luck sayings,  My long red dragon emerges from the garage and takes his place on the table.  I stuff goodie bags with fortune cookies, chopsticks, fans, Chinese yo-yos, and pencils and notepads emblazoned with the logo, "Year of the Rooster".

Almost everyone gets into the act of cooking.  Naomi and Spencer fried the eggrolls, Emilie served the mango juice, Kirsten and her friend Lauren stir-fried the beef with broccoli and chicken cashew, and Camille was the chief taste-tester, making sure all the dishes were flavored just right!

 Other family members knew it was their job to stay out of the way until dinner was served!

 Spencer pronounced the eggrolls good, indeed.

 Naomi and Heidi shared a tale or two.

Jono and Emilie made sure their Grandpa knew they loved him.

 And then it was time to eat.

 After dinner, everyone told how China had touched their lives, from "It made all my clothes" (Spencer) and "It made all my grandchildren's toys" (Dave's sister Janice) to "It was on my first trip to China that I decided I wanted to spend my life traveling" (Mike).

Love, Sweat, and Tears

We love the beauty of the desert more and more, as we spend weekends at our home in St. George. We drove to Southern Utah on Thursday evening, January 26, 2017, so we could have two full days soaking in that beauty, before returning to Salt Lake City on Sunday morning.  We did a little sweating as we hiked through the red rock hills, and shed some inner tears when it was time to go home.

On Friday, Dave and I took a five mile hike to the water tower, high above Coral Canyon, and then along the ridge encircling Coral Canyon.  We savored views past cactus to blue mountains far away.

On Friday night, we attended a recital at Dixie State University by Stephen Beus, a pianist who won the Gina Bachauer Piano Competition.  He is now a music professor at BYU, as well as touring the world giving concerts.  Beus played gorgeous music, including Bach's Chaconne, and several pieces by Liszt.  He also had a professor's skill of telling facts and stories about the music, to help us understand it better.

On Saturday, we explored the arts town of Kayenta, then drove along the "Joshua tree highway" to Mesquite, Nevada.

Everything about Kayenta is well-designed (except, maybe, the town sign).  Art galleries surround a plaza covered with chalk art, and building codes are so strict that the homes melt away into the desert.

Kayenta has a new community arts center, with auditorium and exhibit space which Kayenta hopes will attract local concerts, dance programs, and art shows.

We wandered through the galleries, filled with landscape paintings, kachina dolls, and jewelry by my own jeweler, Jeanne Fagen.

 The community center sponsored an open house, with brownies and a dance performance.

 The buildings, plants, and landscapes of Kayenta are iconic Southern Utah.

We drove into Nevada along the road which bypasses the Virgin Gorge.  We were nearly alone, as we wound past rugged cliffs, red hills, and joshua trees.

Dave had warned that we needed to hurry to make our 8:30 p.m. concert in Mesquite.  Predictably, we arrived three hours early, with an unexpected time change between Utah and Nevada.  What to do?  The best movie option was "Moana" a top-rated Disney movie.  It was great, and would have been even greater with Sam, Ezra, and Mia with us.

We had time for dinner at the Casa Blanca buffet--"seafood night."  I promised myself I would honor my diet by eating only plain seafood, fruits, and salad.  I was seduced, though, by the prime rib, breaded shrimp, and oysters casino.

We rocked along with fellow Baby Boomers at the Casa Blanca concert of the "Love, Sweat, and Tears" band.  The lead singer admitted he was 71, so we felt right at home!

The female vocalist was especially charming.  We didn't get back to St. George until after midnight, but we truly felt that we'd had a "night out" and a day of adventure.